This is the first of a series of weekly posts that will summarize the highlights of the past week, and point out important announcements that can be expected in the upcoming weeks.In terms of the sheer number of rumours, counter-rumours, and announcements, the public holidays news of the past week were clearly dominated, in a two-way tie, by Brazil and the Philippines.
- The Philippines achieved top ranking this week through a clever mix of its usual chaotic tradition of declaring public holidays at the last minute (May 14 mid-term elections holiday) and of having government officials feed contradictory rumours for as long as possible (April 30 bridge holiday), all the while keeping everyone as confused as possible, by having official announcements and laws painstakingly differentiate between "regular holidays", "special days", "non-working days" and "nationwide special days", without ever defining these terms. The masterstroke was that, in a Machiavellian prelude to the events of this week, the Philippines had announced in January 2007 that, henceforth, it would announce all one-off holidays once and for all at the beginning of the year, and make no further changes. Of course, no one believed it, making the final decision on the status of April 30 even more stunning to all concerned.
- While the Philippines used sheer technique, with a few strategically released choice news morsels, Brazil used a strategy based on overwhelming numerical superiority, with multiple, contradictory announcements, everyday, and often on the same day, to occupy the center stage of public holidays news. The main story, all week, was the status to be given to May 11, 2007, the day when Pope Benedict XVI will come to Brazil to canonize Frei Galvão, the first Brazilian to ever achieve sainthood. Brazil began, quite cleverly, by making an unambiguous announcement on March 28 that May 11, 2007, would be a national public holiday, full stop. But then, a series of contradictory announcements, began to chip at the once clear-cut decision (see our recent summary). This saturation of the news was truly a team effort, with a cast composed of right-wing senators, leftist assemblymen, and even a bishop going against the position expected of him. Meanwhile, as a background drumbeat to carry the main story forward, we had the issue of what to do about Monday April 30. There, Brazil was immensely helped by its highly federal structure, which meant that it could occupy the forefront of the news, everyday, with a different state announcing a ponto facultativo for April 30. To break up the rhythm, many municipalities also took the time to announce a ponto facultativo for April 30, even in some cases when the state where they were located had already done the same.
- In Latin America, most countries that observe Labour Day on May 1st, chose to keep that date as the date of observance. However, due to the uncertainty in the general population, many countries (Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua, ...) felt it necessary to officially re-iterate that Labour Day was to be held on May 1st. Some countries, will be celebrating Labour Day on April 30, such as the Dominican Republic, but this change had been announced in December of 2006, and in the case of Peru, where an additional public holiday was declared for April 30, the announcement dated from September 2006, hardly a surprise.
- An interesting trend, particularly in Eastern Europe, is to declare Monday or Friday public holidays, whenever the Tuesday or Thursday is a public holiday, but to require workers to work a Saturday as compensation. As a result of that mechanism, April 30, 2007, will be a public holiday in Bulgaria, El Salvador, Hungary, Latvia and the Ukraine.
- Only Romania declared April 30 as an additional public holiday while keeping May 1st as a holiday, and without asking its workers to work another day as compensation.
Outlook For The Next Few Weeks
Sri Lanka is playing against Australia, in the finals of the ICC Cricket World Cup on Saturday, April 28. If Australia wins, it is unlikely that it will declare a public holiday to mark the occasion. However, if Sri Lanka wins, we may very well see a public holiday being announced (it happened in 1996, the last time Sri Lanka won the ICC Cricket World Cup). As there are already 2 public holidays in Sri Lanka, next week, one could even imagine the government declaring a 3-day public holiday and hence giving the remainder of the week off.
France is holding the second round of its presidential elections, next weekend, on Sunday, May 6, 2007. For the moment the race is somewhat close, although the center-right candidate, Mr. Sarkozy, has a current lead over Mrs. Royal, the socialist candidate, supported as well by all the parties of the extreme left, and who started this week assiduously courting the center-left candidate who was eliminated in the first round elections last Sunday. One of the promises of France's socialists, for this election, was to re-instate Whit Monday as a public holiday. In principle, this would only affect 2008's Whit Monday, as this year it occurs on May 28, which is before the legislative elections of June 10 and 17 (a vote of parliament would be required to change the status of Whit Monday, and currently the parliamentary majority is center-right). One can, however, assume that if Mrs. Royal wins the presidential elections, one will see enough chaos on the streets on Whit Monday 2007, to make it a non-working day for all intents and purposes.
The United Kingdom should soon announce the date for the proposed one off public holiday to commemorate the 60th wedding anniversary of Queen Elisabeth II with Prince Philip. Currently, the date announced for this public holiday is Tuesday August 28, 2007, the day after the Summer Bank Holiday. The problem is that the Summer Bank Holiday is not a public holiday in Scotland, which would leave Scots with a standalone Tuesday public holiday.
Liberia: On Friday, April 27, 2007, the United Nations lifted the 2001 ban against Liberian exports of diamonds (BBC News). This is a strong vote of confidence in Liberia's President, Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf, who took office in January 2006, and was the first woman to be elected president of an African country. This is also a potential saving measure for Liberia's economy which suffers from 85% unemployment. It is conceivable that a one-time public holiday will be declared in the coming days or weeks to mark the occasion.
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