proposal - TimesofOman.com: The Election Experience

This is the article I have submitted to the TimesofOman.com website editor for publication of. I am hoping that it would .. get published, that is.

In the event it should, then I will post the link to it in another different post for your reading pleasure.

Let me know what you think of this proposal, though.

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The Election Experience

History was being set in this moment; a chance to make a decision in the country's overall decisions was slowly being opened up to the Omani population. That day was the day that had introduced one of the first steps towards a democratic process of selecting a candidate of a certain district or Wilaya in the Sultanate of Oman.

Many were the years we dreamt that this day would finally come and show itself, and we all know that it would take the Omani population time and effort also to understand the responsibilities and the burdens that would lie upon such an important decision-making process. It's not enough to know your know your candidate and entrust him with your loyalty and candidacy, but it was also important to understand the role that this candidate would play for people such as us in the Shura Council in raising awareness of issues that concern the public, the general state and the country in general, too.

The overall process was very easy, even though with a very high margin of people going to cast their votes for their likely candidates, holding only their National IDs in their hands and their loyalty in their hears (and a possible bottle of water in the other hand, too). People were turning up from all over the country to cast their vote at the centres, with the authorities on standby for any assistance should the need arise.

In it's entirety, it did not take more than five minutes whereby you stood in a line to wait your turn to cast a vote, where in between you were asked for your ID card; you are marked by your finger that you had indeed visited the voting centre; and you cast your vote on a nicely printed colored piece of paper where it includes the pictures, names and lined-up numbers of the candidates themselves, to which you cast your vote into a large box and leave.

I for one had imagined the process to be a bit more complicated from seeing similar voting and registration lines being formed up on the television. But I guess that is the difference between TV and Oman; it's more realistic when you get into it.

It's something I am proud of doing for the overall benefit of my country...