Croatian parliamentary elections are only a couple of days away. I do not watch television, but local newspapers are teeming with mindless ads, mostly in support of one or the other of the two main parties. Television must be unwatchable by now, I am quite sure. Almost everyone in Motovun is fed up with the threadbare spectacle already, but emotions still flare up from time to time. Words fly. Hands flail. Eyes glare. For everyone knows exactly where everyone else stands, anyhow. And why, I must add. “Only wait for the next local elections,” a friend leans over and whispers to me in one of the few watering holes left open this late in the season. Emotions will be flaring up left and right, it is more than clear long in advance. Once in every four years, politics will be coming to the surface, as if for air.

Addendum (November 24, 2007)

I was quite a sight last night. Having gotten hold of a postcard promoting the leading party in Istria, which has been in power for more than a decade, I printed out this innocent piece, pasted it on the back of the card, and addressed it to the governor of Istria, who is a leading member of the party in question. It would be on its way only after the elections, but this was of little interest to me. It would get to the governor sooner or later. And then I danced to the strains of traditional Turkish music in my livingroom. I let the music soar, too. Feeling kind of victorious, I wheeled and wheeled, as though my postcard could have any effect on the local elections more than a year from now. At any rate, annoying the poor governor was apparently quite enough for me last night, no matter what would happen in the parliamentary elections. As well as the upcoming local elections, for that matter.