The results

I am finally in the mood to absorb some of the results of yesterday’s election. Some were expected, while others were less so.

The most stunning result was the devastating defeat of IAF candidates. Only six of the 22 candidates won, and with less than stellar results. Azzam Huneidi (Amman first) came in fourth, trailing behind Khalil Attieh, Ja’afar Abdullat and Hassan Safi. This district used to produce two IAF deputies as well as independent Abdulmin’im Abu Zant, who was a member of the IAF until he was dismissed from the movement after he defied the boycott decision in 1997. Mohammad Haj (Zerqa fourth) was dismissed from the movement this year after running without the IAF nomination. He beat the IAF candidate, Ja’afar Hourani in that district. No IAF candidate won in either Zerqa or Irbid.

Most of the old fixtures such as Abdulhadi Majali (Karak second), Abdelraouf Rawabdeh (Irbid second), Mamdouh Abbadi (Amman third), Sa’ad Hayil Srour (Northern Bedouins) and Abdulkarim Dughmi (Mafraq first) kept their seats. The most notable loser from this group was Hashem Dabbas (Belqa first). Thus, the more notable and heavyweight deputies will be there.

There will be seven women in the next parliament, after Falak Jama’ani (Madaba second) won the seat of that district outright. Nariman Rousan (Irbid fifth) almost won the seat for that district outright, but came short by only 14 votes. Reem Qasim (Zerqa third) won after she garnered a sympathy vote following her husband’s death a couple of weeks ago.

The election was won largely won on a tribal basis. Mustafa Hamarneh (Madaba first) attempted to break out of this mold, with an outspoken, liberal, inclusive approach. He lost to Riyad Ya’acoub. So much for polling data. Mohammad Bataineh (Irbid first) tried a similar track, with the same results. He couldn’t overcome having two competitors from the same tribe. No overt leftists seem to be represented in the next parliament.

Candidates catering and feeding grievances of Palestinian Jordanians, such as Najati Shakhshir and Tareq Khouri (Amman third) had mixed results. Shakhsir lost (after spending tons of money) and Khouri won (after spending tons of money). It is not obvious that this message resonated very much. Of course, the feeling is there.

In all, I am optimistic about the results. Only time will tell if this is misplaced or not.

Armed takeover of a voting station

Ammon news is reporting that a group of armed men have taken over a poling station in the Jiza area east of the airport. They are holding the polling officers and the candidates’ representatives hostage and they are busy filling in ballot slips.

Taking things too far, I would say.

I voted

Despite my cynical attitude towards these elections, I must keep up the optimist side in me. This is why I went and voted for somebody I trust and respect.

The organization was reasonable, and I was in and out in less than 10 minutes. My name was checked on the computer, and registered manually in a notebook. My ID card was pressed with a raised star and and the bottom left corner was snipped off. This, apparently, is to prevent multiple voting. I wrote the candidate's name on a voter slip, which was signed and stamped, and placed the slip in a clear plastic box. About 30 observers representing the candidates were in the room to monitor what happened.

Good Luck to Dr. Hazim el Naser.

George Galloway in Karak

Ammon news is reporting that George Galloway has been seen campaigning for Fawwaz Zreiqat in Karak (First district).

It will be interesting to see if it will do him any good.

Why I’m not worried about “political money”

A number of observers have been wringing their hands about vote buying. Being the way that I am, I really don’t see what the fuss is about. This is not the first election where there has been buying of votes, and money is translated to political influence all over the world. It is consistent with the trend towards market economy and privatization. Moreover, there are a number of benefits arising from this phenomenon. I will list them here.

1- Redistribution of wealth.

2- Increasing voter turnout and participation.

3- This will allow the breaking of monopolies of large tribes. There is no fundamental difference between somebody being elected because he has a large tribe that united in voting for him and somebody who buys votes. Neither is elected based on merit.

4- Deputies thus elected will be free of obligations towards constituents. By paying up front, the deputy will be able to do his job without having to compromise his position asking for favors for his constituents.

5- It will free us of the pretence of farcical political participation.

6- Rafig il misa’ad btisa’ad.

Campaign almost over

The elections are scheduled for tomorrow. I am looking forward to getting rid of all of the banners and posters filling the streets. Aside from the visual insult, they are a constant reminder of the superficiality of our discourse.

What also hurts is that this visual pollution didn’t come cheap. Al Jazeera has reported that 150 million dollars have been spent on the campaign. At about 1000 candidates, this works out to an average of about 100,000 dinars per candidate. Obviously, there is a lot of discrepancy, with some spending millions and some spending a few thousand. Much of the visible spending is there for all to see. Other spending, such as transportation, food and sweets for supporters, and vote buying are less visible, yet still useful for circulating money through the economy.

Given that few candidates have much of a message, it is a wonder how much can be spent to say so little. The assumption being that the more you spend, the better the visibility and the higher the chances. It shouldn’t work that way, but Jordanians say “rafig il misa’ad btisa’ad”, i.e. hang out with the fortunate and you will be fortunate. The hope is that massive spending will give people a sense of inevitability. Obviously, this is a double-edged sward.

Big name candidates such as Abdelraouf Rawabdeh (Irbid second), Abdulhadi Majali (Karak second), Sa’ad Hayil Srour (Northern Bedouins) and Abdulkarim Dughmi (Mafraq first) really don’t need to spend that much, and they didn’t. Neither did the IAF candidates. On the other hand, Mamdouh Abbadi (Amman third) is well known, and still seems to have felt the need to have his face grace every electric pole in his district.

Anyway, tomorrow is near, and we will find out how effective all of this has been. If it is true that spending more money increases your chances, one wonders whether it is worth the cost to run. Let’s hope that it is not.

Who knows the issues?

Regular readers would remember the debate over the income tax law last year, where the PM famously declared that “90% of Jordanians will be exempt from income tax”. At the time, the deputies didn’t think that was enough, raising the exemptions even higher. This led to the senate shelving the issue until now. Earlier, Adnan Badran passed an income tax law that was not particularly good, and this law was rejected by the lower house, and belatedly rejected by the senate.

I am reminding you because one of the questions posed to the parliamentary candidates in the Free Though Forum is phrased like this “In 2005, a proposal to modify the income tax law was made to unify the tax at 20%, regardless of income level. This was objected to in the senate. Do you support or object to such a law?”

Of course, the nature of the law was totally misrepresented in this question, whether it was referring to the Badran law or the subsequent draft. I went through the answers of all of the candidates on this, and none of them knew this. Not even Mamdouh Abbadi, Odeh Qawwas or Marwan Sultan (Amman Third), who were MPs at the time attempted to clarify the issue. Only Younis Jamra (Irbid first district) had a recollection of what happened.

Just so nobody gets their hopes too high.

Being cheated

Today I almost ran over a few pedestrians as I laughed and listened to Mohammad Al Wakeel as he read the morning papers. It seems that some candidates for parliament in Irbid have filed police reports on some charlatans who convinced them that they can use magic to force people to vote for them. After they took JD 50 per vote, the candidates somehow figured out that they have been cheated.

Now, it has been said that a sucker is born every minute, so it is not really surprising that such a fraud can take place. The fact that the marks want to represent people in the parliament is not surprising either. I mean, there is no evidence that high caliber people are being recruited to run for parliament in the first place. In fact, the caliber that we are seeing is mostly quite substandard.

What made me laugh the most is how these candidates have the face to show up at the police station and complain. Here is an imaginary scenario of what happened:

Candidate: Officer, I am here to lodge a complaint.

Officer: OK. What is it?

Candidate: I think that I have been defrauded.

Officer: What do you mean “you think”? Were you defrauded or not?

Candidate: I can’t tell for sure until the elections.

Officer: Why not.

Candidate: Well, these guys showed up at my headquarters and told me that if I give them money, they can cast a spell on people to get them to vote for me.

Officer: I see.

Candidate: After they took the money and walked out the door, they started laughing hysterically.

Officer: So let’s see if I understand. You wanted to use magic to deprive people of their free will to choose who they want.

Candidate: Well, yes, I suppose.

Officer: Because you didn’t think that they would vote for you if they used their own mind.

Candidate: Yes.

Officer: OK. Did you check their credentials?

Candidate: No. They did have long beards and they recited the Qur’an.

Officer: Were they other candidates?

Candidate: No.

Officer: Did they show you their ID’s? Any proof that they are licensed to cast spells on people?

Candidate: No.

Officer: Did they have any academic training in these matters?

Candidate: I don’t know.

Officer: OK. To recap; these guys showed up, promised to perform miracles, had no credentials and you trusted them. Don’t you think that this is odd?

Candidate: Well, this is what I have been asking people to do for me for the last month.

Officer: OK. We will prosecute the frauds after the elections.

Will the government cheat?

The head of the IAF, Zaki Bani Irshaid, is suggesting that the government is planning on cheating in the upcoming elections. His allegations are based on the refusal of the government to turn over lists of registered voters to the candidates. There is evidence that large scale voter transfers between districts have been allowed in order to help specific candidates. The voter lists have been previously posted and the deadline for objections on specific voters has passed. The government seems to want this question to go away.

There are also technical issues with the electronic linking between polling stations. These links are meant to allow voters to cast their ballot at any station in the district they choose, and to prevent them from voting at more than one station. The Islamists are concerned about the integrity of these connections, and that they may be manipulated to in fact allow multiple voting.

Added to this, the government seems to be reluctant to allow full scale monitoring by outside (local) observers. Today interested civil society organizations threatened to boycott the observation process, saying that the government will only allow them to observe from outside the stations, rather than from within the polling and counting places. They want the same treatment given in more democratic countries, such as Egypt and Yemen.

Now, the setup seems to be in place to rig the vote. It seems odd that despite the king’s insistence that the vote should be free and fair, the government has kept so many doors open for allegations of cheating.

Now, even if no cheating occurs, losers in the election will cite these questions to undermine the credibility of the results. But why would the government cheat? The IAF is only running 22 candidates, out of 110 members. Even if all of them win, which is unlikely, they will not form a significant block in the parliament (even if they collect 10 extra seats from ideological allies not on the IAF slate). The premise that the government will intervene against the IAF does not seem to make much sense (although the same could have been said of the municipal elections).

My hunch is that the government is planning to intervene on behalf of the IAF. The IAF slate was selected by top party officers and chosen as a message to government that they are not in search of a political takeover of the country. The relative moderates chosen were selected despite not being nominated by the rank and file of the party, many of whom are angry because of this, and are threatening to work against the slate. The government has an interest in the likes of Abdullatif Arabiyat (Belqa first district) and Irhail Gharaibeh (Amman third district) not be humiliated, as they still hope to keep a domesticated Islamist movement as their theatrical opposition. Their loss would again shift the face of the party to the more radical side.

So, there it is. If the IAF loses, they will claim that the government cheated, and if they win I will claim that they cheated. The best solution is to publish the list of registered voters, fix the polling locations and forget about the electronic link gambit and allow monitors to see what happens. In short, stop trying to act like a third rate banana republic.

A response from Professor Sari Nasser

I received this kind reply from Dr. Nasser, and as I promised I am posting it here.

I was surprised to learn that your impression of the Riz Khan interview was that I condone honor killing. All through my teaching years I have always stressed to my students that killing women in the name of honor is inhumane and despicable.
My former students could testify to this including Rana Husseini who has become a champion in the fight against this horrid activity.

In the Riz Khan interview I tried to show that this phenomenon could not be targeted by the enactment of laws alone. The problem lies in customs and traditions that seem to be stronger than the law. The way to eliminate this horrid practice is through teaching, raising people's awareness and through stronger penalties.

I really didn’t think that Dr. Nasser condoned honor killings, nor did I try to imply that. I simply thought that he could have mentioned “tougher penalties” in the interview as he has in this reply.

Best wishes to Professor Nasser and to all thoughtful and enlightened candidates.

Thoughts on the elections

There have been a lot of complaints on the level of discourse of the elections, and the quality of the candidates. Much of the complaints stem from the lack of participation of political parties (except for the IAF), with people blaming the “one vote” voting law for this situation.

Now the current law is pretty stupid, allowing people to win by receiving less than 5% of the vote. But, despite protestations to the contrary, this is not why there is little intelligent discourse related to this election. The reason is that there is little intelligent discourse period.

I have been complaining almost since I started writing this blog over two years ago that there is no alternative to the Islamists or the government that they oppose. Neither the leftists nor the centrists could not get their act together, organizationally or ideologically during the last few years. The only serious effort to discuss real political/economic/social alternatives to the currently prevailing paradigms was offered by Nahid Hattar. But despite his best efforts, his cries have fallen on indifferent ears. This is our loss, not his.

So, what does this mean? Well, it may mean two things. Either that people are fundamentally happy with the way things are going or that they are too frustrated or cynical to believe that anything can change. If asked, people will say they are cynical, but do they really want change to begin with?

I find it hard to believe that the 1000+ candidates running for parliament do not contain any candidates that can inspire people’s imagination. Not one of the 1000! Why is that? Is it truly because they are all mediocre thinkers and/or orators? All of them? Or, is it as I suspect that people really are not interested in fundamentally changing the status quo, and politicians understand this.

It is hard to tell. I will get angry comments on this post, but I really don’t see any real anger out there. Feigned frustration, yes, but true anger is not out there. If it were, one of the 1000 candidates would be tapping in on it right now.

Duplicate names

One of the (dirty) tricks played in elections here is the running of candidates with similar names. Typically, one of these candidates is paid to run in order to bleed off votes from a legitimate candidate. If you are in Irbid’s second district, voting for Husni Shiyyab will result in disqualifying your vote, because there are two candidates with the same name. Husni Ahmad Shiyyab is a political scientist and was a leftist deputy from 1989 to 1993; while his namesake Husni Fandi Shiyyab is a physician and a political novice.

In Ajloun's first district, you might vote for Mohammad Tu’meh Al Qudah. In this case, you will also waste your vote unless you differentiate between Mohammad Tu’meh Suleiman Al Qudah and Mohammad Tu’meh Oqleh Al Qudah, who are both running. One of them is an IAF candidate, but I won’t tell you which.

Cute, right?

Sari Nasser

One interesting candidate in Amman’s third district is Professor Sari Nasser. Many graduates of the University of Jordan over a number of decades have taken his course, where he encouraged them to do community service as part of the course requirements. It is probably a safe bet to assume that if a significant percentage of his ex-students vote for him, then he would easily win.

Professor Nasser is interesting because he is a capable, urbane and enlightened sociologist.There are a number of professors running for parliament, but most of them are relatively young and have decided that being university lecturers is beneath their ambitions. If my estimates are right, Dr. Sari has reached the age of retirement (70 years) before starting his political career, and thus he is of a more altruistic breed.

I have been trying to figure out some of his views by surfing the web. I found this interview which somewhat troubled me.



Now, I have no problem with his characterization of the issue of so-called honor killings. What concerns me is the lack of any apparent moral indignation. His attitude is somewhat of a shrug of the shoulder and assurances that the problem will go away eventually by itself.

To be sure, the interview is not part of a political campaign. But still, there is no suggestion that laws allowing lenient sentences for murderers should be tightened as a part of the package of societal change. I would like to have heard that from him. The interview was conducted in May 2007, so running for parliament must have been on his mind back then.

Then there is this, where he complains about western influence on the structure of family in the Arab world, assigning many societal ills to this influence. I am not sure what the implications of these views would be for an MP, but is does strike me as being too conservative for my taste. However, I wish I could get a copy of his election manifesto. If anybody can get it for me, I would be grateful.

I hope that people would ask candidates point blank what they think about legislations related to “honor” killing. If anybody can clarify Nasser’s positions for me, I will gladly display them prominently. I would so much like to be wrong about my impressions.

Hattar not running

Nahid Hattar, with support for a group called the “Jordanian Social Left”, has been considering running for the Christian seat in the third district of Amman. He is one of the few candidates who have coherent opposition ideas about issues related to wealth distribution, the role of the state, privatization and other economic and social priorities. I reviewed his book a while back. In it he expounded on his themes.

In an announcement issued by the JSL, it was announced that Hattar would actually not run, and complained that vote buying, transfer of votes for the benefit of specific candidates, political and logistical support for specific candidates as well as manipulation of electoral alliances for the benefit of specific candidates had poisoned his chance to win.

It was always hard to imagine Hattar winning in the third district. His message is not really designed for the compradors and petty bourgeois who dominate the district. And while he may have some tribal base there, he has pointedly rejected using that card as a matter of principle (although he would have been happy to ally himself with the Islamists, had they agreed).

Hattar would have had a better chance in a working-class district. The Christian seat in the first district in Zerqa would have probably been a better bet. Bassam Haddadin won that seat in 2003 with a mere 3065 votes (4.6% of the votes cast). The competition on the seat this year is meager as well.

It is too bad that Hattar will not be in the next parliament. He has refreshing if somewhat controversial ideas.

The pollsters

Two men who made their names conducting opinion polls are running for the upcoming parliamentary elections. Mustafa Hamarneh of the Strategic Studies Center at the University of Jordan is running in the first district of Madaba and Musa Shtaiwi of the Jordan Social Research Center is running in the first district in Balqa (Salt).

Unfortunately, no opinion polls have ever been conducted to attempt to determine winners in parliamentary elections. Hence, most people are usually surprised by the some of the results. However, these candidates should have a better idea about their chances of winning, being pollsters and all.

Or do they?

The women's quota

In order to ensure participation of women in the parliament, the election law has set aside six seats for the women who, countrywide, receive the highest percentage of votes in their districts. If a woman wins outright, her seat is not considered to be part of the quota. The choice of giving the women with the highest percentage of votes rather than the highest absolute number of votes is to ensure fairness between districts of different numbers of voters. While on paper this looks fine, in the last election it led to the election of women with as few as 365 votes. Worse, most of these ladies have attitudes towards women's rights ranging from ambivalent to hostile, much the same as their male colleagues.

Smaller tribes who have little hope of mustering enough votes for an outright victory have taken to nominating women, in the hope that the lower number of votes needed will give them a better chance. Clearly, as in the last election, their chances will be better in smaller districts where they can get a higher percentage of the vote. In any case, hope springs eternal, and there are a large number of ladies running this year, which in itself is a good development.

It is ironic to remember, however, that the first woman to win a parliament seat in Jordan did so without this quota system. Toujan Faisal won a seat in the third district of Amman in 1993 designated for Circassians and Chechens. She turned out to be too much of a maverick for the government's taste, and in 1997 they mustered enough votes to oust her by heavy support towards a hence after unheard of candidate named Nayef Moola. In 2003, they moved the Circassian/Chechen seat to the sixth district, so that the politicized electorate of the third district couldn't vote for her again. There have been rumors that Toujan might run in the fifth district, but it is not clear if her application for candidacy will be allowed. She was convicted in 2002 of slandering the prime minister, Ali Abu Ragheb, accusing him of using his position to raise insurance premiums for mandatory automobile policies. Abu Ragheb had major stakes in a number of insurance companies. Anyway, she was released by a special pardon by the king, possibly making her ineligible to run again.

So there you are. Popular women with a real base of support are eliminated from running, while conservative women with little to contribute are shoehorned in. It must be nice to be able to make your own rules.

The IAF slate

After weeks of speculation, the IAF yesterday announced it's list of candidates for the upcoming election. It seems that the MB actually had the final word in naming the candidates, choosing 22 to run in 18 districts. The slate is dominated by the moderate wing of the party, including old timers such as Abdullatif Arabiyat (Salt) and Hamzeh Mansour (Amman second). Most analyses see the modest number of contestants and their moderate nature as a message to the state: the moderates are in control and they don't want to be perceived as a threat. A more reasonable analysis by Jamil Nimri is that this number of candidates has a better chance of winning. Some reports have suggested that the prime minister challenged the moderated during a recent meeting by dismissing their clout in the party. This challenge seems to have had an effect.

The head of the IAF, Zaki Bani Irshaid is not happy about this. He is perceived to be a hawk and has been sidelined in the selection processes. He was even hoping to run himself, but was rebuffed. Bani Irshaid was not in attendance when the IAF slate was announced. There are reports that hawks in the party are planning to work towards the failure of some of the more moderate candidates on the slate.

So, while the moderates have won the latest round, there seems to be more of a struggle on the way.

Professional wrestling, anyone?

Why elections are boring

It has been said that all politics are local. In Jordan, this adage takes on even greater meanings, as most races for parliament are fought for and determined by local politics rather than by any grand political battles.

It starts with the election law.In the current law, the candidates who win the highest number of votes win the seats for that district. In 2003, this meant that candidates with less than 5% of the votes cast could gain a seat in the parliament. For example, Khalil Habarneh won a seat representing the first district by clinching 3419 out of 69324 votes cast (4.9%). Similarly, Marwan Sultan gained a seat in the coveted third district by collecting 3717 out of 66094 total votes cast (5.6%). In most districts, the total votes collected by all the winners did not come near the 50% mark. It is no wonder that almost everybody thinks that they can collect a couple of thousand votes and win a seat. It is true.

Then there are the voters. The electorate has come to view MP’s as their wasta to getting a job, university seat, their road fixed or for asking for the hand of a bride. Thus, from a functional point of view, it makes sense to vote for one of your relatives or friends. Not only do you get a wasta, but you also get bragging rights over your friends from other tribes. More entrepreneurial voters are simply selling their votes (capitalism coming full circle). Tribes are now conducting internal votes (primaries?) to see who will be their candidate. Most have a pretty good idea how many votes they will get because it is the same as the number of their tribe in the district. Governments cynically grant favors to deputies and their favorite constituents so that they can pressure them whenever they want a controversial law passed.

What about political inclinations? Well, these play little into the results. Unless you want to vote for an Islamist, then for the most part you have to choose between centrists who are more interested in the perks of the job than in making any resounding political statement.

And then there are the candidates. Few of them are overly politically interesting. They are either bored self important businessmen, ex-government officials looking for a way back into the limelight or retired ex-officers who have suddenly found lots of extra time on their hands. Political parties run few candidates, and even their candidates play by the rules of tribalism and patronage.

I am hoping something different might happen this time. So far, it looks like the same old same old.

Leftists and the upcoming elections

Parliamentary elections are scheduled for next November. So, to get people into the spirit, I hope to outline some of the important things to look for as the picture evolves. I will outline the major trends and choose a few races that I think are interesting.

Needless to say, most people don’t expect these elections to change anything. However, it is important to point out that people, not elections, are responsible for change. Therefore, it is easier to complain than to actually do something.

One of the most poorly explored aspects of Jordanian politics is the best mechanism to break the duopoly between the conservative tribal network and the conservative religious movement as expressed by the Muslim Brotherhood and their IAF. The seeming rivalry between these two poles leaves little room for the development of more progressive political expressions in the country.

This has not been helped by the leaders of Leftist and pan-Arabist parties, who for too long have had little to do with local political problems in Jordan, resulting in a bizarre fetishization of all things dark and dictatorial in our Arab surroundings.

Nahid Hattar discusses the place of Islamists in relation to the other opposition forces in his article today, with sharp criticism of the rise of economic liberalism as the dominant economic paradigm that has gone unchallenged by the Islamists. He sees this as being mostly due to Islamists’ belief in this paradigm and because they benefit greatly from it. He screws up in the end where he practically begs the Islamists to change their beliefs and team up with leftist movements for the upcoming parliamentary elections. It seems that there is a push towards announcing a joint slate of candidates between the IAF and the leftists. So, while social consciousness and political inclusion need to find credible voices in the country’s political mix, would be leftists are more interested in creating alliances that would bring them short term benefits than actually making a noticeable change in the political discourse here. Despite this, his call for the return of effectively right wing socialist policies of the 1970’s and 1980’s is both unique and thought provoking.

Two years ago, the National Agenda Committee was supposed to outline the best course for political, social and economic reform in the country. At the time, I was skeptical about how reform can be imposed outside the parameters of the agreed upon constitutional system. Sure enough, attempts to do this failed, and we are where we are. The “reformers” have been sidelined, and we are now dealing with politicians with vested interest in keeping the status quo. This is perpetuated by using the politics of fear and exclusion. Leftists are the obvious escape from this situation, if they can live up to their role.

So, is there a possibility that this can change? I believe that progressive politicians need to find a coherent and unified voice. They need to discuss people’s problems, explore realistic solutions and generally embrace a tough confrontation with both branches of the political right. If they look for a few crumbs from the Islamists’ table, as Hattar wants, then they will continue their marginalization for another four years. The leftists and pan-Arabists did reasonably well in the municipal elections. It is their opportunity and duty to build on that.

Elections this year

King Abdullah today announced that municipal and parliamentary elections will be held on schedule this year. He called on parliament to move forward with laws affecting the political development of the country. Judging by the current behavior of parliament with regard to the press law, substantial changes in legislation on the election, political parties’ or the public assembly laws are probably not going to happen. Of course, outside pressures may induce them to change their minds.

Five months ago, when the press created the “election delay” issue, I predicted that the elections will not be delayed. I pledged that I would change the header on the blog if they were. Actually, I was looking forward for a chance to change it. It is kind of pretentious, don’t you think?

Well, maybe next time.