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Thursday, October 1, 2020

Covid 19 - deaths, people reaction, games ~ elections in Romania !!

                                 Ion Aliman victory  as   mayor,   in Romania's local elections, is indeed unique ! This election is being viewed as an indicator of how an upcoming General Election in December might unfold for the country's minority government, currently led by the National Liberal Party.

It is 30 years since Romania ousted communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu in a revolution that ended decades of communist rule in the country. The dictator and his wife were killed by a firing squad on December 25, 1989, after days of a bloody national uprising. The Communist regime in Romania, a totalitarian system from its establishment until its collapse, was one based on the constant violation of human rights, on the supremacy of a hostile ideology to open society, on the monopoly of power exercised by a small group of individuals, on repression, intimidation and corruption," says a report.  

Some 19 million registered voters across Romania are choosing local officials, council presidents and mayors to fill more than 43,000 positions across the EU member state. The most closely-watched race will be for the next mayor of the capital, Bucharest, a race between the National Liberal Party challenger Nicusor Dan and Social Democrats' incumbent Gabriela Firea. Other candidates include former Romanian president Traian Băsescu and former Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu, now leader of the Alliance of Democrats and Liberals (ALDE). The election is expected to reveal the strength of the NLP which has led the government since the Social Democratic Party (PSD) fell from power late last year.

Moving away, in UK, over  six months of the coronavirus crisis, community relations have been strained to the point that one concerned retiree in the south-west told the Guardian: “It’s like the English civil war.” Now, with control measures ramping up once more and fears that a second wave is here, mediators who work to resolve disputes through the ceiling or over the garden fence say they are seeing a surge in requests for help – and expect a lockdown in winter to push tensions to a new high.

On January 11, the first coronavirus death was officially recorded in China. Eight months after the identification of the disease that appeared in Wuhan in December 2019, the world has recorded over one million deaths. On a global scale, the deadliest week was April 13 to 19 when more than 7,460 coronavirus deaths were officially reported every day. By then the total number of deaths worldwide had risen to nearly 170,000, or double the level reported on March 31. Since the start of June, the average number of deaths per day has hovered around 5,000.  In June, the epicentre of the pandemic shifted to Latin America and the Caribbean. From July 15 to August 15, recorded deaths in the region did not drop below an average of 2,500 per day.

Brazil became the country with the most deaths in total after the United States (more than 140,000). Taking into account the size of their populations, Peru (975 deaths per one million inhabitants) and Bolivia (671), are among the worst-affected countries worldwide, alongside European countries like Belgium (861) and Spain (668).

Amidst all the melee, games are on – Test Cricket was first played in England between the home team and visiting West Indies, then Pakistan and Australia and now IPL is on at UAE.  Meantime,  Organisers for   Tokyo 2020 Olympics have proposed more than 50 measures to make the games "fit for a post-corona world," including ways to reduce staff and cut costs. The measures were proposed by the IOC Coordination Commission at a virtual news conference Friday between the International Olympic Committee and Tokyo 2020 officials.

Initial measures to be taken in an effort to reduce the number of people at the games include hosting pre-games meetings virtually, streamlining transportation services, adjusting spectator activities at competition venues and limiting stakeholder personnel attending the games. Additional measures include reducing invitations for the opening and closing ceremonies, not holding team welcoming ceremonies at the Olympic village, shortening the opening time of training venues and permitting fewer officials access to official bus services.  "The unique task of reorganizing an Olympic Games has called for the Olympic Movement to be stronger together – this milestone illustrates our collective commitment," he continued. "The 'Tokyo Model' will not only deliver a games fit for a post-corona world, it will become a blueprint that will benefit future organizing committees for many years to come."

The Tokyo Games were originally scheduled for July 2020, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they were postponed until July 2021. Japan has more than 81,000 cases of the coronavirus, with more than 24,850 cases in Tokyo. More than 1,540 people have died across the country. 

Now getting back to Romanian elections at the start -  after  handing Ion Aliman victory in the election for their local mayor, residents of a small village in southern Romania went to his grave to light candles for him.  Aliman was reelected in a landslide for an unprecedented third term as mayor of the village of Deveselu despite having died from COVID-19 complications 10 days prior to the country’s municipal elections. His death came too late to remove his name from Sunday’s ballot, but the news of his passing spread fast through the village, home to just over 3,000 people. The popular incumbent would have celebrated his 57th birthday on election day.

                                           To honor the man they admired, hundreds of Deveselu villagers went to the polling stations Sunday and voted for Aliman anyway. After preliminary election results showed late Sunday that Aliman had won 1,057 out of the 1,600 votes cast in Deveselu, a large group of villagers visited his grave to light candles and pay their respects.   The election victory in Deveselu was a bit of sweet news, but only a little comfort for the PSD as partial preliminary results showed Monday that they had lost the most closely watched contest — the one for the mayor of the capital, Bucharest.  

Interesting ! 

With regards – S. Sampathkumar
28/09/2020

 

 

 

 

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