SIDE VIEWS Najib’s General Election laundering aka match fixing – Ravinder Singh

Money laundering or processing black (or illegally obtained) money into white is illegal, but according to Najib GE laundering, or turning illegally obtained victory into legal victory is not.

Hence Najib’s intellectual discourse on the “first past the post” system of general elections, wherein he likened BN’s win of a majority of seats despite getting a lower number of votes than the opposition, to a badminton match, was amusing.

What a pity that Najib was never chosen to play the Thomas Cup. Had he done so, on a court designed by the Malaysian Elections Commission, the Thomas Cup (which was initiated in 1949) would never have left the shores of Malaysia after it was first brought home to Malaya in 1949, then in 1952 and again in 1955. 

As philosophically argued by Najib, the elections BN has been winning for the past half century were like badminton matches. “Let me put it in an analogy. Najib versus Anwar (Ibrahim) in a badminton match. In the first set Najib wins 21-15 and loses in the second set, 5-21. However Najib wins in the decider set 21-16.

“Going by the rules, Najib wins but Anwar objects because his total score is 52 to Najib’s 47. That is not right. We decide the winner based on the number of sets,” he said. He went on to lament “they (the opposition) don’t want to accept the first past-the-post system that has been in practice since 1959”.

What Najib pretended not to know was that the BN was playing on courts prepared by the Elections Commission that is under the control and direction of the Prime Minister and charged with the duty to ensure BN victory election after election, at any cost, honest or dishonest, fair or devious, etc. You see, the Election Commission, till today, has to prepare the plan of the court, show it to and get the PM’s approval, before any match is played on it.

This, when seen another way, or put in other terms, is match fixing.  When football matches are fixed, there is such hullabaloo. In fact, match fixing is illegal. So why is General election fixing not illegal?

A badminton court is 20 x 44 feet. The net across the centre divides it into two equal parts of 20 x 22 feet. The lines on both halfs are mirror images. The court itself is built on perfectly level ground. Thus both players play an equal game with neither having an advantage over the other, except one’s physical height. 

But Najib’s badminton is played on a court with dimensions of the side on which the incumbent plays changed for each match to ensure that the incumbent is kept at an advantage. This has been openly acknowledged by the former EC chief himself, who was the designer of the courts for several elections. It saw the courts’ boundaries of the incumbent’s side in many matches shrinking and taking odd shapes. For example, the 20 x 22 foot area not only became smaller and smaller, it also took odd shapes – a smaller rectangle say 16 x 20, a square of 15 x 15, a T or an L shape, with lesser and lesser area compared to the 440-foot area on each side for a doubles match.

Not only was the running area on the incumbent’s side reduced, to as low as a mere 40 square feet or so for some matches, but the EC also built the court on a turnstile so that when the players changed sides, the court could be lifted and turned around 180 degrees to keep the incumbent on the tiny space. This the EC must have learnt from the railway yard in Brickfields where there used to be a turnstile to lift steam locomotives and turn them around for the return journey, as they could not be driven from either end as in the case of diesel or electric locomotives.

Of course sane and fair minded people can never understand the legality of the EC’s ‘match fixing’. Seen from any angle, such match-fixing is haram just like football match fixing.
It is Najib who must swallow his false pride and accept that the BN’s victory was achieved through ‘match fixing’, for that is what gerrymandering is. What pride is there in victories achieved through match-fixing? Oh yes, the winners cannot afford to feel shame as then by Mahathir’s standards they would have to hara-kiri themselves.

Is “shame” not a moral value that school children are taught in moral and religious education classes? So it is only for children and not politicians? Are politicians above moral values taught by their own religions?