EC, the ‘democracy killer’

The EC is BN's greatest weapon, not the police with their batons, water cannons and tear gas nor the judiciary with its flawed judgments.

COMMENT

Our vote is very important and there’s no measure of its worth. To illustrate this point further, here is how in 1969 MCA’s late Tan Siew Sin campaigned for votes in the parliamentary seat of Bangsar by saying that there was no point whatsoever in voting for the Opposition (DAP’s Goh Hock Guan).

“The ordinary voter should remember that while a bigger opposition is all right in theory, in practice it means that those voters represented by opposition members will suffer, and suffer hideously, merely to enjoy the luxury of having someone there in Parliament scolding the government on their behalf,” he said.

The above quotation is taken from the bestseller by Dr Kua Kia Soong entitled “May 13” which was published in 2007.

Knowing how precious each vote is, it is therefore not surprising that in order to win every general election, Barisan Nasional goes about soliciting votes by fair means or foul.

Thus, it is of utmost importance to ensure that all the 10 recommendations proposed by the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) for electoral reform are implemented before the 13th general election takes place. Otherwise, the PSC is just a sham to con the public.

However, these 10 proposals do not quite resemble Bersih 2.0′s demands except for the proposal to use indelible ink and the proposal to clean up the electoral rolls. As for the postal ballot, now it will be called “Advance Voting” but the essence is still the same, it is only the terminology that differs.

Listed below are Bersih 2.0′s eight demands:

1. Clean-up of the electoral roll
2. Use of indelible ink
3. Reform the postal ballot
4. Minimum of 21 days campaign period
5. Free and fair access to the media
6. Strengthen public institutions
7. Stop corruption
8. Stop dirty politics

BN’s greatest weapon

What is more important is that Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak is silent on whether the polls will be held before the electoral reforms are implemented. This means that the polls can be called before

the reforms take place. The prime minister is known to have lied before and he must not be allowed to dupe the public as he has so often done so in the past.

The prime minister is one slippery character and those members of the public who have wised up to his tricks must watch him like a hawk to ensure that he does not employ any dubious tricks to pull the wool over the eyes of those who are gullible.

DAP’s Rasah MP Anthony Loke has highlighted cases of army voters in Negri Sembilan who have the same name and date of birth but using two different forms of identification (MyKad as well as the army registration number) in the voter roll.

This will enable the said army man to vote twice in two different polling centres and thus he has two votes. Those undetected cases could be massive and this blatant abuse of the voting process by the armed forces personnel is tantamount to the destruction of democracy.

Another suspicious account of hanky-panky in the Election Commission (EC) is in Lembah Pantai, the parliamentary seat of PKR’s Nurul Izzah.

On Sept 26, 2011, there were 149 registered postal voters but on Nov 2, 2011, the figure shot up to 2,180 postal voters (an increase of 1,363%)! Not only that but in Kampung Haji Abdullah Hukum where all the residents have moved out and the kampung is no longer in existence, the number of voters have increased from 3,204 to 3,300. Amazing indeed!

There are many names in Nurul’s constituency without address and these no doubt are phantom voters. Who is creating the names and MyKad numbers out of the blue? What is going on?

In addition, there are unconfirmed reports that at least 200,000 dubious voters have been added to the voter rolls (at least 70,000 in Selangor and more than 50,000 in Penang)! If so, then not only will Pakatan Rakyat lose badly, Pakatan will be wiped out for sure!

The EC must be taken to task on this terrible state of affairs. The EC has passed the buck to the political parties to do the checking and to raise issues of doubtful voters, but this is just the government’s dirty tactic of hindering the opposition knowing full well that Pakatan is hampered by lack of resources.

The EC is not impartial at all as it has taken on the role of a BN subsidiary company and is firmly in BN’s grasp.

Thus, the EC is BN’s greatest weapon, not the police with their batons, water cannons and tear gas nor the judiciary with is flawed judgments. It is the EC, silent and sinister, that goes about its task of weeding out or transferring out perfectly eligible voters and replacing them with dubious voters that is going to be the killer of democracy.

If not for the EC’s shenanigans in 2008, the opposition would have taken over Putrajaya. It is the norm that when a BN candidate is lagging behind in the vote count, boxes of postal votes would emerge out of the blue to assist the BN candidate. BN tried to pull this trick in Lembah Pantai with the postal votes but the support for Nurul was too overwhelming and so she defeated Sharizat Abdul Jalil.

In 2008, postal votes were being sent here and there to rescue BN candidates and there were a number of cases where PAS lost very narrowly to Umno under suspicious circumstances.

Pakatan faces uphill battle

The BN federal government always gave the excuse that the elections are free and fair, saying: “If not, how can the opposition win five states?” That line is just to con the rakyat because if the elections were truly free and fair, the BN would be the opposition now.

As it is, vote-buying is the most deadly weapon employed by BN to gain the votes of the rural folks and those in Sabah and Sarawak. Thus, item No 7 (stop corruption) in Bersih 2.0′s demands is of absolute importance.

Therefore, it would be fair to say that as BN practises money politics, it is in its interest to create two groups of people:

the mega-rich and the BN cronies who will vote BN forever in exchange for mega-projects; and,

the hardcore poor whom BN can enslave forever in order to gain their votes.

Thus, BN has all its bases covered via the use of corruption and this is why Bersih 2.0 wants it to be eradicated in order for elections to be free and fair.

This is a clear indicator that the BN federal government is evil, nefarious in its schemes and corrupted to the core. It is unprincipled and only takes care of its own interests and those of its cronies as it makes a mockery of democracy.

With the EC firmly in BN’s grasp, Pakatan certainly faces an uphill battle in the coming 13th general election, which will be the dirtiest in the history of Malaysian general elections.

With Najib saying that BN will defend Putrajaya at all costs, no one can be sure to what extent will BN go in order to win, but one thing is for sure: Malaysia will go downhill if BN continues to be the federal government.

We must have free and fair elections so that the road sweeper, the armed forces corporal and the wealthy tycoon all have only one vote each.

Selena Tay believes in Pakatan Rakyat will be better at governing the nation. She is an FMT columist.