Stories about how certain candidates from both sides of the great divide had carried out game plans to promote their ‘manape’ at the expense of their party colleagues are galore these days.
Perhaps the most interesting story comes from Wayamba from where the former strongman entered the fray as the Betel leaf party’s prime ministerial hopeful.
The ‘hero’ of this story was a candidate who headed the ‘Manape’ List of the Betel leaf party at a different poll in the recent past. He knew that if he were to increase his ‘manape’ vote, he had to market himself as a follower of the former strongman, but he should not promote the latter in the process. The wise guy hit upon a canny game plan. He brought out a poster carrying a picture of smiling former strongman and his own ‘manape’ number prominently displayed below it. The trick backfired on the man when it dawned on the party supporters that he had purposely failed to display on the poster the ‘manape’ number of the former strongman while exploiting the latter’s picture for political mileage.
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