Patriotism or money-wasting?

I'm 28 and I've voted twice in the UK but not even once in this country. So, excuse me if I am a lil' excited about the forthcoming 21st of March. However, I've noticed a different trend here compared to the UK. I've seen 2 'bilik gerakan' in my neighbourhood and boy, they really know how to decorate!

I really wonder...
1. What is the actual purpose for 'wrapping' the places with layers after layers of posters?
2. Where do the money come from? (well, both you and I know the answer to that one!)
3. Who is responsible for cleaning up (the posters) once the election is over?

When I was a kid, I somehow got involved with this so-called poster war. They paid some unemployed boys to go around putting up these election posters in the middle of the night(and sometimes tearing up the oppositions'). These boys made some pocket money, got endless supply of cigarettes and drinks and get to stay out late. It was actually illegal for me to join them (I know!) but at 10 years old, it was really hard to resist being surrounded by good-looking boys! ;P

Almost 20 years have passed and I thought we are now mature enough to move on from the poster war. I guess I was wrong. New batch of candidates, new generations but same old tactics (and same old posters too!)

Now...A couple of possible answers to my first question:
a)to remind us that the election is coming
b)to remind us how BN/PAS/Adil symbols look like...

which brings to my fourth question:
Do they really think we're stupid??

I hate to compare Malaysia and UK (for the fear people calling me ungrateful) but we really can learn a thing or two from them. One thing for sure, they don't litter their streets (and street lamps) with unnecessary election posters. What happen over there is that the local candidates actually send out their own manifesto to our home addresses so that we (the voters) can actually read them at our own leisure so that we know who and what we're voting for. Sometimes their manifesto are simple ones such as ways to reduce the traffic load in the neighbourhood but these are the ones that really matters to us, the common people. Here in Ampang Jaya, the road conditions are really bad that you can find roadholes almost every 50 meters you traveled (I'm not exaggerating). These holes have been there for donkey years but do our MPs really care? I doubt they even noticed it... how many times do they actually come over to visit? And when they do come (to officiate some functions or something), these roads get repaired hastily beforehand only to get damaged again a couple of weeks later since they were badly done.

Now, come to think of it...will I still be excited to practise my rights come the big day? Probably not anymore... I will probably become disillusion with the whole poster saga and prefer to be under the hot sun in Sepang to see some real actions. If I can get free tickets again this year that is!