Why so angry? Just let them spoil their votes

Who knew disappearing for an entire month to mend your shattered soul would mean coming back to your home country in a huge political mess? I thought my mental state was bad, but obviously it is no match for Malaysian politics. But that is comparing apples to oranges.

As I slowly start to switch on my social media sites again, the discussion on spoiling votes in the upcoming general election is gaining momentum.

"Gosh, finally," I thought to myself.

I was beginning to wonder if it would ever take off. It is not a new concept. It has been around for years. But this is probably the first time the idea has been propagated on a large scale.

Mind you, it's not even that large. Just larger than what we're used to. But finally, oh finally, some fresh ideas in our dull politics.

And the life it gives to the GE14 discourse - which political-analyst-wannabe wouldn't want to see this?

Until recently, the conversations have just been stuck in the many disappointments served by the opposition, so much so that the BN-Harapan feud is no longer worth caring. It's like watching a really bad badminton game where the player you're rooting for keeps giving free points to the opponent; it gets boring real quick.

Why so angry?

I have written before about how I became a proponent of spoilt-voting in situations where democracy is dire or non-existent. But what I really don't understand is the anger for the #UndiRosak camp.

Spoilt votes (or undi rosak) are so statistically insignificant, it is simply irrational to call them "dumb traitors" to the country. We are really talking about an approximate number of 300,000 spoilt votes thereabouts (1-2 percent of voters), compared to the millions of eligible voters who either did not register to vote or simply did not turn up to vote at all. Why be angry at the few "rebels" but not work on the millions of potential voters?

There is so much anger for the #UndiRosak campaign that those who are for the movement are called all sorts of names, "traitors" being one of the favourites after "stupid" and "selfish", just because people believe that one spoilt vote means a vote for BN.

Well, here's news. If allowing BN to win in elections means national treachery, that would mean a lot of people have been selling out their country for the past six decades. Why now are we so disproportionately angry at the spoilt-vote campaigners?

And, as I've said in my aforementioned article, if #UndiRosak is so impractical, what is so practical about voting in an opposition that doesn't listen? How many times have the youths expressed that they want younger faces in politics? Did they take that seriously?

From the appointment of a 92-year-old former prime minister whose detrimental policies still affect youths today, whose party's race-based policies goes against everything the previous opposition coalition stood for, the answer is obvious.

After all that, one begins to wonder if another five years of BN really is the worst that could happen.

Changes nothing

"But if you don't vote, you don't get to complain ah!" I hear this snarky comment every other day.

This comment has never gotten to me, because it's just ridiculous.

Any politically conscious citizen would know that not voting does not equate any loss in civic responsibility. One does not simply lose the right to voice opinions just because one does not vote.

Your rights as a citizen never diminishes just because you do not tick a small box every five years. If that were true, then any citizen before the age of 21, or anyone who doesn't get to vote for many external reasons, has no right to say anything.

Like the #BlackUiTM students who protested the rigged campus elections five years ago, people are starting to become aware that the act of voting in the same political culture over and over again changes nothing.

Democracy as a system has come such a long way that voting, by itself, is no longer a revolutionary act. And no, in the context of Malaysia, nobody ever died to fight for our right to vote.

We must realise by now that elections deserve the least of our headspace, as voting in today's world is the weakest form of democratic expression. If democracy were to be meaningful, as it should be, it takes a lot more than electoral politics to address the problems in our society.

Besides, have we not heard the famous saying? "If voting changes anything, it would have been illegal."

See you at the forum* tonight.

*“Undi Rosak: Kau Nak Apa Sebenarnya?” will be held at the Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall (KLSCAH) on Thursday, Jan 25 at 8:30pm. It is open to the public.

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MARYAM LEE is a writer with a chronic tendency to get into trouble. What she lacks in spelling when writing in English is made up for with her many writings in Bahasa Malaysia. She believes in conversations as the most valuable yet underrated cause of social change. She wants people to recognise silences and give them a voice, as she tries to bring people together through words.- Mkini