KPC polls

At last the press club elections are over and so are the vigorous campaigns that started a week ago.

No doubt daily visit to newspaper offices by contestants demanding votes despite disturbing the work atmosphere is a healthy trend. But the volley of text messages asking for votes sent to almost every club member was not appreciated much.

It started off with an average of a few messages everyday on behalf of contesting panels, but the practice somehow gained momentum and during the last couple of days every individual candidate took advantage of cheap or free packages being offered by mobile phone service providers. The text messages being run were: appeal to all members to cast their valuable vote to elect their panel; this group is being supported by mister so and so; this team will serve you all; we promise you the best future and development of housing scheme; please support me as an MGB candidate (member governing body).

Such messages were not limited to mobile phones as they bombarded even inboxes of some journalists. On the polling day, there were half a dozen messages every couple of hours, reminding club members of their duty to cast vote and of course for one or the other group of contestants. The learned contestants were successful, for yours truly rushed to the press club to cast vote in a bid to get rid of the nuisance at the earliest. But unfortunately it was not the case for the messages continued until the polling ended.

With the fast-growing media and technological sophistication, I fear the future election campaigns may not involve video-conferencing to convince voters.—HA