The Election That Made Everything Expensive—Except Promises

  

In the Utopian Republic, food, fuel and rent reached historic heights. Fortunately, political promises remained available at wholesale prices.

 

By Newszako

In the Utopian Republic, the cost-of-living crisis began behaving like a successful businessman.

It expanded into every neighbourhood, opened branches inside every household and employed hunger as its national sales representative.

The price of bread rose on Monday, rested on Tuesday and climbed again on Wednesday after discovering that citizens were still eating.

Cooking oil became so expensive that families stopped pouring it. They introduced it to the frying pan from a respectful distance.

“This is oil,” mothers told the pan. “Use your imagination.”

Landlords increased rent because the buildings had developed “international ambitions.” Bus fares rose because fuel had become emotionally unavailable. School fees increased because education was preparing children for a future expensive enough to require advance payment.

Only salaries remained faithful to tradition.

They did not move.

Some had been standing in the same place for so long that the government wanted to declare them historical monuments.

Then election season arrived.

Suddenly, the same politicians who had spent five years explaining why prices could not come down began competing to explain how easily they would bring them down.

The Electoral Commission approved twelve presidential candidates, although six appeared to be the same man wearing different party colours.

Every candidate promised affordable food, cheap fuel, free healthcare, free education, free housing, free electricity and employment for everyone—including citizens who had not yet been born.

The campaign became known as the National Festival of Economical Promises.

Promises were the only products whose prices fell as demand increased.

The President of Immediate Tomorrow

Hon. Bin Taabani launched his campaign at Freedom Square beneath a banner reading:

LOWER PRICES! HIGHER LIVES! IMMEDIATE TOMORROW!

Nobody understood the last phrase, but it sounded expensive enough to be official.

“My government will reduce the price of bread by fifty per cent,” he announced.

The crowd cheered.

“We shall reduce fuel prices by sixty per cent!”

The crowd screamed.

“We shall reduce unemployment by one hundred and twenty per cent!”

Even the unemployed became suspicious.

A journalist raised her hand.

“Honourable candidate, how will you reduce something by more than one hundred per cent?”

Bin Taabani smiled with the calmness of a man whose mathematics travelled with security officers.

“My sister, do not bring colonial arithmetic into an African solution.”

The crowd applauded. Nobody wanted to appear colonised by subtraction.

Bin Taabani then promised to create seven million jobs during his first seven days in office. On the eighth day, he said, the nation would rest and update its LinkedIn profile.

When asked what kinds of jobs these would be, he mentioned “digital agriculture, agricultural digitisation, youth empowerment facilitation and advanced national opportunity coordination.”

These were jobs nobody could describe, but thousands of young people immediately became assistant coordinators of waiting.

Sifagio Enters Political Consulting

Sifagio attended the rally as a neutral citizen but left as Director of Strategic Applause.

His responsibility was to clap whenever a promise appeared weak.

“If the people hesitate,” he explained, “I clap until the promise becomes true.”

Within three days, he had established the Utopian Institute of Manifesto Engineering, Campaign Prophecy and Post-Election Forgetfulness.

The institute offered a two-hour certificate titled:

HOW TO PROMISE EVERYTHING WITHOUT ACCIDENTALLY EXPLAINING ANYTHING

All twelve presidential candidates enrolled.

Sifagio taught them three essential rules.

First, never say “problem” when “challenge” can delay panic.

Second, never say “failure” when “ongoing implementation” can survive another election.

Third, when asked where the money will come from, say, “We shall seal all loopholes.”

“Which loopholes?” one candidate asked.

“All of them,” Sifagio replied. “Specific loopholes are dangerous. They may know important people.”

His consultancy became so successful that he began charging candidates per promise. Small promises cost Ut$500. National promises cost Ut$5,000. Promises involving free university education, universal healthcare or heaven on earth attracted a “miracle handling fee.”

He gave a discount to candidates buying lies in bulk.

The Supermarket Manifesto

Professor Kimeu Mana, chief economic adviser to three rival candidates, unveiled the National Price Reduction Master Plan inside Prospera’s largest supermarket.

Television cameras followed him through the aisles as he touched products citizens could no longer afford.

“This government understands your pain,” he said, holding a packet of maize flour like a recently rescued hostage.

Mama Fatilia, who was comparing the prices of two equally unaffordable cooking oils, approached him.

“Professor, last year this flour cost Ut$110. Today it costs Ut$240. What happened?”

Kimeu adjusted his tie.

“Global economic headwinds.”

“What are those?”

“External inflationary pressures.”

“Who invited them?”

“The previous administration.”

“But you advised the previous administration.”

“I advised them not to become previous.”

Mama Fatilia stared at him.

“So how will you lower prices?”

“We shall establish a Presidential Task Force on the Urgent Identification of Reasons Why Prices Have Refused to Respect Citizens.”

“Will the task force reduce prices?”

“No,” Kimeu admitted, “but its members will receive allowances, increasing household income.”

Unfortunately, the households belonged to task-force members.

The supermarket manager then announced that the price of flour had risen by another Ut$10 during the interview because the packet had appeared on national television and was now famous.

The Opposition Promises the Past

Uongo Mingi, leader of the Grand Coalition for New Beginnings Again, rejected the government’s promises as unrealistic.

He offered more realistic ones.

“If elected,” he declared, “I shall return prices to where they were twenty years ago.”

A citizen shouted, “Will you also return our salaries to where they should be today?”

Uongo pretended to receive an urgent phone call from the ancestors.

His manifesto promised free houses for every family. It did not explain whether the houses would have walls, roofs or geographical locations.

He promised farmers guaranteed markets, traders guaranteed profits, workers guaranteed wages and employers guaranteed workers who did not request wages.

He promised to reduce taxes without reducing government spending. He would increase spending without borrowing. He would repay debt without using money.

Economists asked how.

“Political will,” he answered.

In the Utopian Republic, political will was a mysterious national resource used whenever mathematics refused to cooperate.

Uongo also promised to cut the price of fuel by removing all taxes from petroleum products.

One of his advisers whispered that fuel taxes financed roads.

“Then we shall remove potholes,” Uongo announced.

“How?”

“By officially reclassifying them as underground roundabouts.”

The Presidential Debate

The national debate was held at the Prospera International Conference Centre under the theme:

WHO CAN PROMISE FASTER?

Each candidate received two minutes to explain how they would solve the cost-of-living crisis.

The first blamed global markets.

The second blamed the first.

The third blamed climate change.

The fourth blamed citizens for eating imported habits.

The fifth promised to appoint a commission to determine whom to blame.

When Bin Taabani was asked why food prices had doubled under his leadership, he corrected the moderator.

“They have not doubled. They have achieved one hundred per cent growth.”

The audience fell silent.

“You see suffering,” he continued. “I see economic activity.”

A mother in the audience held up an empty shopping basket.

“What can I buy with Ut$500?” she asked.

Bin Taabani smiled.

“Hope.”

“Can I cook it?”

“With patience.”

Sifagio, seated near the stage, began clapping violently to prevent democracy from hearing itself.

Election Day Arrives

On election morning, citizens queued before sunrise.

Some came to choose a president. Others came because they heard polling stations might provide tea.

Grandma Nawadeys arrived carrying a small stool and thirty years of political disappointment.

A campaign agent approached her.

“Grandmother, our candidate will reduce the cost of living.”

She looked at him carefully.

“My son, your candidate has been in government for ten years.”

“He needed time to understand the problem.”

“And now?”

“Now he understands that it is an election.”

Another agent offered her a packet of salt in exchange for political affection.

Grandma examined it.

“Last election, you gave us flour.”

“The economy is difficult.”

“So even election bribery has experienced inflation?”

By noon, allegations of vote-buying spread across Prospera. Some candidates offered cash. Others distributed sugar, soap and miniature packets of cooking oil.

One candidate gave each voter a photograph of bread.

His campaign called it a digital food-security pilot.

Sifagio distributed empty envelopes marked CONFIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT BENEFIT. When voters complained, he explained that the money would be inserted after victory.

“We are giving you the envelope of opportunity,” he said. “You must elect the contents.”

The Winner Explains Reality

Bin Taabani was declared the winner after receiving more votes than the number of citizens who admitted voting for him.

At his inauguration, he repeated his promise to reduce prices immediately.

The next morning, fuel prices rose.

The government explained that “immediately” was not a date but a national aspiration.

A week later, electricity charges increased. Bread became thinner. Cooking oil entered the luxury-goods category. Landlords began accepting kidneys as security deposits.

Citizens demanded answers.

The new administration organised a press conference.

Professor Kimeu Mana announced that campaign promises had been made under “pre-victory economic conditions” and could not be applied to the more complex post-election environment.

“What changed?” a reporter asked.

“We won.”

Hon. Bin Taabani then unveiled the Government Household Resilience Programme.

Under the programme, citizens were advised to skip one meal every Tuesday, share transport with neighbours travelling in approximately the same direction and switch off unused electrical appliances—including refrigerators containing no food.

Sifagio was appointed Cabinet Secretary for Public Patience.

His first official statement asked citizens to give the government time.

“How much time?” Mama Fatilia asked.

“Until the next campaign,” he replied.

The Price of Believing

Months passed.

The price of food remained high. Fuel became a family discussion. Rent began arriving with bodyguards. Unemployment queues grew so long that vendors started businesses selling snacks to job seekers, creating the only employment programme that actually worked.

Yet political promises remained cheap.

They required no factories, no farmers, no delivery trucks and no accountability. They could be manufactured at rallies, distributed through microphones and abandoned after elections without environmental penalties.

Grandma Nawadeys sat outside her house one evening, listening to the president announce another national plan.

Sifagio appeared on television behind him, clapping professionally.

A child asked her, “Grandmother, why do politicians keep making promises they cannot fulfil?”

She shook her head.

“They can fulfil them, child. They simply fulfil the wrong promise.”

“Which one?”

“The promise to become powerful.”

In the Utopian Republic, citizens had spent years asking why everything had become expensive.

Perhaps they needed to ask a more dangerous question:

 

When promises are the cheapest things in an election, why do citizens keep paying such a terrible price for believing them?