The “Anwar Rally”

What I found surprising about the Bersih 3 rally last year is that the crowd consisted of about 60% young people. Some maybe not even old enough to vote. But there they were, bangsa Malaysia. All 3 races fighting for a good cause, united in purpose.

It was the same at Kelana Jaya stadium last month. The crowd was huge but the unity was simply amazing. Old Chinese men lining up at the PAS booths to buy and then to wear Tshirts that said Hudud with a facebook styled “like” symbol. Young Chinese and Indian youth making head bands and capes out of PAS flags, young Malay guys waving DAP flags. It’s amazing the way the young have completely judged UMNO’s institutionalised racism as outdated and made a sincere effort to showcase it last night.

When Mat Sabu, Sivarasa, Tian Chua, Fauziah Salleh, Dr Michael Jeyakumar and all the other leaders of the Pakatan pact took the mike and after they said their short address, the crowd roared in approval.

When Lim Kit Siang took the mike, the roar of the crowd shook the air. I kid you not! I thought that was the best 50,000 humans could do. That is, until Anwar took the mike. I don’t think a popular rock star could enjoy such a high approval.

Look of guilt on Najib's face

Anyway, the reason I’m writing this is to share what I learnt that night. Barisan National’s victories in 30 parliamentary seats are in question. Most of the stories we heard about blackouts are not true. But what actually happened that night is that the polling agents in the various stations were sending their numbers to the Pakatan operations center, who were then tallying up the numbers to determine the winner for each seat. Bu 11pm, the Pakatan portals were announcing that they had won.

But Bernama, Astro Awani and all the other TV stations were still reporting 40BN, 30DAP, PKR and PAS 2 each. This alone was an attempt at inciting some problem.

Something I’ll never forget is the look of guilt on Najib’s face when he took the mike after the EC’s Wan Ahmad announced that BN had obtained 112 seats. The look on the PM’s face and on those around him told us everything. They knew even at that time that all of Malaysia and the entire world would know that they cheated. Not one of them had the guts to look the camera in the eye. I suppose the thoughts running through their heads must have been images of Tunisia, Egypt, Thailand and all the other Govts that were recently overthrown after they cheated at the elections.

You could almost smell the gloom and heart break in the air all over the nation on the morning of the 6th of May. We expected BN to win and could only dream of a Pakatan victory. But as we watched the numbers come in, the joy was building up within. WE HAD WON!!! Tyranny was defeated by the people of Malaysia!!! Then, along comes Wan Ahmad.

Too much evidence to ignore

Many videos evidencing electoral fraud have been posted on Face Book and YouTube that stone walling and ignoring the outcry in the hope that it will go away is just too arrogant and is simply not going to work. I’ve seen videos of people being paid cash after voting, one of voters lining up to demand their pay after casting their vote, one of “phantoms” being escorted by Police to cast their vote after the crowd chased them away, and I’ve also seen one with EC officials picking up 2 ballot boxes from the road side while driving to the main counting center. And THIS, folks, is probably why the numbers counted at the polling center and numbers during the recount differ.

Does Najib really realise how much he has hurt us? Badawi had the same problem as Najib. Both PMs realised that the cheating, fraud, corruption, rent seeking, racism and the bullying of minorities had to end. And they asked the electorate for the mandate to make those changes. But both were unable to stop the rot. In fact the corruption and theft of public resources have gotten much worse under Najib. Creating MASSIVE fraud and then going to the people and humbly saying “Sorry lah, kami memang korup,” and then saying “Hey, heres $500.... Oh, and heres another $100 for books.” Didn’t work the way it was intended. Does Najib realise exactly why we were so very disappointed when they stole this election result from us?

Did we get our hopes up when he promised a lot of transform and reform? Were we shocked at how shallow his promises were when the corruption cases kept coming in? Were we surprised when the Pakatan MP’s periodically revealed more evidence of phantom voters in their constituencies? I admit though, that I was very happy when the EC finally agreed to implement the indelible ink to prevent people from voting more than once. But we know how that went. It’s not been 7 days, but I haven’t seen anyone with the ink still on. What I did see though is that 2 of the foreign banglas working at my place had the indelible ink on their indexes the next day. Even after bersih 2 and 3 under Najib’s watch, NOTHING changed!

Another 5 years of the same BN 'shit' (pardon the language!)

So what made us sad is waking up on the 6th of March to the realisation that BN is here to stay. Another 5 years of being inundated with stories about Anwar Ibrahim’s sexual escapades. Of young men visiting Mekah to swear stuff. Another 5 years of pointless propaganda in the mainstream media, and producers of pornography in full gear.

Are we looking at another 5 years of stupid issues like some rectums going around trying to copyright the name of God? Will the churches be attacked and burned? will bibles be seized and desecrated ? Will new cases of multi billion ringgit corruption involving the Barisan National be reported every week in the alternative media? Will foreign media produce movies about the high level of corruption in Malaysia while the Govt locally makes promises after promises to “ACT?” Will we see another 1,500 suspects of crime dying while in custody? Will the Federal debt continue to skyrocket? In the 4 years under Najib, the Federal debt has doubled. Is he going to double it again? Will ALL the money stolen from the people of Malaysia ever be returned? Will BN leaders be allowed to perform acts of bitter provocation while young students be handcuffed and charged in court for stepping on pictures. Will we have to endure more incidents of political violence by young men?

Is Malaysia’s Bumiputra population going to double with more and more foreigners being given bumi citizenships? Will the illegal/illicit outflow of funds exceed 300 billion ringgit this year? Are we still going to remain the most corrupt nation on the face of the planet?

We rejected all of these when we cast our votes but we were outdone by electoral fraud. We have to stand behind Anwar Ibrahim this time and support his efforts to right this fraudulent electoral result. In the course of demanding re-elections in the 30 constituencies in question, some may fall back to BN and some may fall to PR while some judges may just throw them out.

Although Pakatan Rakyat’s chances of actually taking over the Govt is slim, we must by all means demand that the electoral rolls be cleaned up, or deleted and replaced with a new one, requiring every Malaysian to re register.

Wouldn’t that be a good place to start?

MAILBAG