Elections - a general view around the world - Jim Murty’s TravelTravelTravel

Ireland has a proud record as a democracy, one of the oldest in Europe with its first elected MP, Constance Markiewicz.

And this weekend Ireland goes to the polls although whichever parties form the next government they will have to do it without me.

Because I’ll be back in Scotland… anything happen in the 13 years since I’ve been gone?

I always vote.

Not just because it’s hard to keep me quiet but because of the struggles my forebears and others have endured for this privilege.

I heard first hand from the black South Africans in the Eastern Cape how they queued overnight in the Voting Line in 1995.

Any visit to South Africa will bring you nose up to the glass of Apartheid history. www.southafrica.net

And where better to start than in Nelson Mandela’s home province of the Eastern Cape… What’s new pussycat?

Where you can learn the unique Xhosa clicking language… https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KZlp-croVYw.

Of course democracy is a fragile way of life.

And it is eerie to think that you can see Saddam Hussain propaganda in peaceful Jordan… The water of life, Petra, and the sands of time.

I had also been around four years previously with la famille.

For a New York Halloween www.nycvb.com where they were carving Obama’s face into pumpkins.

And visited the Austrian Tirol on the day of their election. And Gamisch-Partenkirchen in Bavaria where Hitler held the 1936 Winter Olympics.

With Topflightforschools… www.topflightforschools.

But this on German National Day where it was as quiet as a monastery.

MEET YOU IN THE BOOTH

Elections – a general view around the world