i’m sure many people are already in the know of the many shrewd ways our government cheats and cons their way to a victory, but i just thought i’d compile a simple list for the benefit of my peers who aren’t aware of the foul play and deception that goes on during the elections :)
yes yes i’m biting my lip as i write this post, trying not to SCREAM at the unfairness of it all. it is for good reason that activists and the Human Rights Watch say that this will be Malaysia’s ‘dirtiest election ever’.
so! how our elections are rigged to unfairly benefit the government:
1. GERRYMANDERING
in our last election in 2004, Barisan Nasional won only 60% of the total votes cast, but had a whopping 91% representation in Parliament. that’s 198 out of 219 Parliamentary seats, with only 21 seats going to the Opposition despite them having an extremely significant 40% of the popular vote. heck, that’s almost half of the total votes given to the Opposition, but somehow in some weird way that only garners 9% of the seats in parliament.
so how is this done? the Elections Commission (EC) manipulates the borders of each constituency. let me make this elementary - say you have Taman A that is traditionally a BN stronghold. Taman B next to it may potentially fall to the Opposition because during the last election, the victory margin was very very small. you’re scared of losing Taman B, so what do you do?
you take voters from Taman A, and tell them they are now part of Taman B and have to vote there now. basically you’re spreading your surplus over to your weak side. in the end? Barisan Nasional has strong wins for both Taman A and Taman B. sweet.
and of course, they lump all the strong Opposition constituencies together to make sure the Opposition has less seats. in the eyes of the government, 1 Lim Kit Siang in Parliament is better than 5; so if the EC can help it, and of course they can, they gerrymander opposition strongholds as well. ah. it used to be in the constitution that the total voters of each constituency cannot differ by more than 15%. well surprise surprise, this has since been abolished :) wonder why.
here’s an example of gerrymandering. in 2004 elections, the Jerai constituency in Kedah had 21,600 new voters shifted in from neighboring constituencies. the result? BN won by a 10,000 margin - a victory they would not have had without gerrymandering - and that racist, sexist Badruddin got to retain his Jerai seat in Parliament. btw this is the douchebag who single-handedly immortalized the statement, “this is a Malay country; if you don’t like it, get out!”.
2. BUYING OUT OPPONENTS
if you’ve been reading the newspapers during the week of nomination, you would have read all the happy stories of how Barisan Nasional has won several state and parliamentary seats ‘uncontested’. my brother went, ‘wahhh! Opposition scared to fight BN ah!’
at first i didn’t understand what that meant; why would the Opposition allow seats to go uncontested? just throw in somebody to make sure people like Azalina ‘i am watching you’ Othman don’t win their seats uncontested again, right!!!
but then i came across this story. what it reports is that two PKR candidates have come forward to say they have been propositioned with money to withdraw from the elections.
“”They have been chasing me since nomination day. At first, they went around my kampung seeking the would-be candidate, proposer and seconder. Now they go one step further - offering me RM300,000 cash to withdraw,” Idil said over breakfast near PKR headquarters in Matang, Kuching. … “I have been telling them RM300,000 is too little … not enough to go around, and jokingly said they should offer me RM3 million. They took it seriously and said they would discuss the matter with their superiors,” Idil quipped.
(Source: Malaysiakini.com)
yeah now you know what happens when Barisan Nasional wins seats ‘uncontested’. this is where all your hard-earned tax money goes to - buying out opponents so that a corrupt government can stay in power.
3. BRIBING VOTERS
so these people go around to poor rural villages, and give people money to ensure they vote for BN. i hear rumours like this all the time, but i’ve never actually heard of an actual case where someone reported this bribery. but the other day Kezanne just told me that her schoolmate’s family back in Perlis has been offered RM 1,000 to vote government. they are poor and RM 1,000 is a lot of money to them. Kezanne’s schoolmate is a JPA scholar; more reason to feel compelled to vote government.
4. PHANTOM VOTERS
this means unidentified voters contributing votes to the elections. a big accusation of phantom voting was when PKR stopped two buses of what were allegedly BN phantom voters in the recent Ijok by-election, which BN won.
there have been evidence of dead people (or really young children) registered on the electoral rolls for numerous elections and by-elections.
and there are people who find themselves miraculously registered at two different constituencies (there was a KL-based woman who reported this to Malaysiakini; i cant find the report now. anyone have the URL?).
and then there are voters registered to an address where they do not live. read this to see how Teratai state seat candidate Jenice Lee found 26 voters registered at her house. those people have never even lived there nor does she know who they are. the EC has dismissed her report as ‘a small matter’.
and then there are voters registered to abandoned sites. read this, a report of 500 voters registered to an abandoned army camp in Penang. ooooh Penang ;) looks like a certain coalition feels threatened!
5. CONTROLLING THE MEDIA
just about every newspaper, tv station and radio station you can think of is owned by the government and its comprising political parties. The Star, Sin Chew and China Press are owned by MCA. The New Straits Times, The Malay Mail, NTV7, 8TV, TV3, Hot FM, Fly FM and all other Media Prima subsidiaries are UMNO-owned. RTM 1 and RTM 2 are state-owned.
this means that everything you read in the newspapers and watch on TV is government propaganda. any voice of the opposition is totally blacked out. not only do they not give the opposition a voice, they also trump up all the Opposition’s flaws. simply because they can. simply because you and i and everyone else keep buying their papers and keep tuning into channels.
i have a friend who works with one of the Media Prima TV stations. so far they’ve been allowed to give the Opposition candidates a liiiiiittle bit of airtime every now and then… but yesterday a memo was released saying that no more coverage is to be given to the Opposition AT ALL. how nice eh :) like the indelible ink, this is another pushing of the panic button by BN.
when i was young (and always encouraged by my school and my government), i read the papers quite diligently. at the time, it was always beyond me how anyone would ever vote Opposition, when our Barisan Nasional was such a gleaming, glorious, corruption-free, caring alliance who sincerely wanted our country to prosper!!!!! Barisan Nasional had UMNO, MCA and MIC… that means they’re taking care of all the races!!! so why would ANYBODY vote DAP who only cares about the Chinese, or PAS, this kolot party who comes up with all sorts of archaic rules like boy-girl separation and condones such radical Islamization!!!
and if i had a huge problem i needed help with? i would go to Michael Chong of MCA right away, obviously. because he’s always helping people some way or other. rape cases, money woes, the handicapped, snatch theft… Michael Chong is always there to save the day. MCA truly cares. the newspapers never directly say it, but it’s all i ever freaking read about. the Opposition were mudslingers and liars in comparison.
but now that i’m older and i know more stuff and i have the internet at my fingertips… the one question i have is, how do these reporters sleep at night, knowing that they are contributing to this cruel and tyrannical blacking out of knowledge and information among Malaysians both young and old?
6. HOLDING PEOPLE AT RANSOM
when people like UMNO’s Azalina Othman tell bloggers that they are ‘being watched’, and people like MCA’s Chew Mei Fun tell people to vote for BN otherwise ‘May 13 will happen again’, and people like Hishamuddin wave the keris at non-Malays, how can you not feel like you are being threatened in a country that is supposed to be your own? (Mell, this is why i don’t agree with that BN ad on how people are allowed to be themselves here in Malaysia.)
i know many bloggers who refrain from putting the slightest iota of politics in their blogs because they’re afraid of being ISAed or Sedition Acted.
i know many people who vote government because they’re afraid the votes can somehow be traced back to their identities and this may compromise their businesses or their jobs or even their LIVES.
i know many JPA and BNM scholars who are practically muzzled when it comes to politics for fear of losing their scholarships.
i know many people who vote government because they’re afraid May 13 will happen again.
i’m very sad and angry that these things happen. we should NEVER EVER allow our government - an entity that is supposed to PROTECT us - to put us through this kind of fear.
7. HAVING THE ELECTIONS COMMISSION UNDER THEIR INFLUENCE
so the latest elections fracas is about the indelible ink that cost RM 2.4 million that will now no longer be used in the elections, because, oh!, the Elections Commission terdengar some desas-desus about how certain parties have evil plans to mark their opponents’ supporters’ fingers with ink even before they get to register.
Dear Elections Commission,
first of all, why dont you expose whatever evidence you have of these rumours, instead of keeping it to yourself, and allow the people of Malaysia to judge for themselves? we don’t even know if you’re making up these stories or if these featherweight stories warrant such a huge regression. don’t punish an entire nation for some silly rumours that you heard through the grapevine.
second of all, SHOW US all these jars of ink that you supposedly already imported from India for 2.4 million of OUR MONEY.
thirdly, if this rumoured evil plan of these certain parties can cause such a big reversal in decision, surely then there is a problem with your education of using indelible ink in the first place. you have not done your job of educating people well enough on the electoral process if they can be tricked into applying the ink before they even vote.
fourthly, instead of taking this totally moronic step of not using indelible ink when Bersih and other people who CARE have fought SO HARD to have this ink finally used in our elections, why don’t you go out there and teach people how to use indelible ink!!!! be pro-active and combat the problem, for goodness’ sake, instead of this knee-jerk reaction of removing the indelible ink altogether. if the rumour is true, surely the small number of unsuspectingly-painted people can be contained by the almighty EC, since you all have such a great track record of weeding out phantom voters by none other than the amazing Identity Card teamed with the equally amazing Electoral Roll -____-
i really didn’t think it was possible to think any lower of the EC, but whaddya know, we learn something new every day.
DAP’s Lim Guan Eng put it quite nicely; “The Election Commission is working hand in hand with the Barisan Nasional to cheat in the elections.”
this is a very interesting interview with the current EC chairman Abdul Rashid, conducted 4 years ago :) read read.
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a good government thinks for its people, instead of stubbornly refusing to move from power. they think about what their people want and need, and concede, instead of doggedly taking measures to ensure that they will always remain in their corrupt rule, even though the people no longer want them.
last week, Martian and i went back to Hong Kong together :) when Martian told me he’d be heading back there for work again, i was so excited and totally jumped at the chance to go!! it’s been almost 8 months since Martian left HK, and i really really miss it so much. the last time he was back in HK, he went without me :( so bad. throw cha siew bao at him :(
we were there for about 4 days, effectively 3 since i flew out early on the last day, so we didn’t get to do very much. no Kowloon this time, unfortunately! BUT i did get to spend a lot of time walking around Causeway Bay and Central / Mid Levels on my own whilst the boyfriend did his working thing… and i took many pictures :)
so i’d like to share this little slice of Hong Kong with you all :) also gonna give you a bit of story to the things i used to see in this city that was almost like my second home last year.
#1 the crowd at Causeway Bay. i spent a whole day poking around the bowels of Causeway Bay this trip, something i never got to do much. loads of little boutiques and eateries tucked away in each street! the best tau foo far in the world can be found at Causeway Bay :)
#2 Mister Softee ice cream! Martian and i went to a carnival some time last year, and i was making a lot of noise cos i wanted to eat Mister Softee ice cream, but Martian say not nice T___T i didn’t believe him, so i begged and begged until he went with me to buy a cone. turns out that the ice cream really does suck T_____T i hate how he is right all the time.
#3 a girl buying pearl milk tea and kai tan zhai (egg balls) which are these yummy doughy bally things that you find sold on streets all over HK.
#4 VITASOY!!!!!!!! <3 how i have missed you!!!
#5 this is Times Square. never really liked it much :\
#6 this dessert place is everywhere in HK! half the menu has some form of mango in it. very nice stuff, but not the best. the best is Honeymoon Dessert in Central :) eh baby we forgot to go back there!!! durian vanilla cream :(
#7 AND THEN THERE WAS THIS HUGE CORN COB walking around Causeway Bay giving out flyers. hahahahahaha it looked so funny that i couldnt stop laughing when i saw it. flyers are quite popular in HK (promoters thrust them at your chest every 5 steps you take) so a lot of the time you see very eye-catching promoters on the streets. like this corn cob :P
#8 curry fishballs :) popular HK street food. next to this stall is a steamboat stall, where people crowd around and dip skewered stuff into soup and sauces. exactly like our lok lok! yum.
#9 i later saw that the corn cob was joined by a steak. hahahaha it was a girl steak cos it had eyelashes and lipstick.
#10 shopping with Martian :D because as usual, he didnt bring any clothes for work so we had to go buy some. sheesh.
#11 this is Martian’s friend Eugene. his picture is here because i told him i’d put it on my blog. hahaha he’s so funny. very interested in Malaysian blogs. no i’m not telling you whose blog he reads T_____T make me emo only
#12 i went to Mid Levels just to take this picture of Martian’s apartment :) i just had to. sigh. so many sweet memories.
#13 the DVD rental shop on Robinson Road, where we used to walk down to (it’s really near the apartment) to rent movies. there was one time we rented Season 2 of Grey’s Anatomy and watched a few episodes together <3 i love my boyfriend <3 even if he fell asleep midway through the 2nd episode.
#14 this is The Phoenix, just off the Mid Levels escalator. it used to have a sign saying ‘we are the last bar on the mid levels escalator’ and EVERY SINGLE TIME we go past it, Martian will say, “baby let me show you the last bar on the mid levels escalator”. -_____- EVERY SINGLE TIME.
#15 Chicken On The Run is this deli from which Martian used to tapau his dinner like, all the time. and we used to buy fruits from the stall on the right. when we were fighting one time and i stormed out to cool off, i went to this stall and bought a… pear back for him as a peace offering. hahahaha damn stupid right, i know.
#16 AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
#17 Martian never went back to Chicken On The Run (Ayam Larian wtf) after he discovered Eat Right. it’s this super healthy organic place that counts your calories for you. and because he subscribed to one of the plans at Eat Right, for the longest time Martian had to have ALL HIS MEALS from Eat Right. breakfast, lunch, dinner from Mondays to Fridays. zomg can die i tell you. luckily when i visited on weekends, we didn’t have to go there. Eat Right is too healthy for me :P
#18 Hollywood Road, where you can find lots of antique shops, art galleries and lots of interesting knick knacks.
#19 it’s a common sight to see people sleeping in random places in HK. i actually have a small collection of pictures of these sleeping people :P maybe one day i will put them up.
#20 Pottinger Street, a little street in Central where you can find all sorts of costumes and party wear. this is where i bought my angel wings for RM30! :D
#21 an old tailor on Pottinger Street. so many quaint little businesses like these in HK. such an amazing culture :) remember how our Pudu used to be like that?
#22 a small ribbon stall, where i bought LOTS AND LOTS of cheap but gorgeous ribbon for my crafts the first few times i came to HK
#23 view of the Bank of China and some other buildings from a little park near Pacific Place. sigh i only wish i took more skyline pictures this time around.
#24 a small part of the hip and happening Lan Kwai Fong, but my FAVOURITE part because Ben & Jerry’s is here!!!
#25 on my last night, i just had to go back and take a picture with the corn cob. hahaha. you see! he did a peace sign too!
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sigh i really have missed Hong Kong so much. it is such a vibrant, bustling and quirky city; i absolutely love it. am already pining for it even though i just came home a few days ago. ah. Hong Kong will always be Martian’s and my city :)
there are a few things about the upcoming elections that have been weighing on my mind lately. quite disturbing things, actually. i’m glad to finally have the time to sit down and blog about them. so here goes.
1. Indifferent Young Malaysians
i recently read a blog post about the elections, centered around the racist politics of BN. many of the responding comments on this post were along the lines of, ‘we can’t change things, so migrate only lah!’, and ’sigh politics sucks. i don’t want to get involved’, and these were coming from teenagers my age or younger. the most unsettling comment was from a young girl who said ‘i hate this controversy and i’m glad i’m too young to vote’.
comments like that one disturb me. what kind of education are we putting our young people through if they can say things like they’re glad to not be able to vote? i remember one particular comment in this post i wrote, also by a young girl, who pretty much said that i shouldn’t have written that post because the world is already so full of anger. so… what does that mean? if injustices happen, we’re supposed to ignore them in the name of harmony? i am reminded of all the paragraphs in my Sejarah and Moral textbooks where rakyat bukan Melayu tidak harus menyoalkan hak istimewa kaum Melayu supaya tidak menimbulkan perasaan tidak selesa antara kaum. (non-Malays should not question the special rights of Malays in order to maintain harmony between races)
i am reminded of how our Sejarah teachers make us memorize this tripe and never once tell us that we shouldn’t subscribe to this sort of doctrine if we want to progress as a people and a nation. i am reminded of how before each exam, i’d be cramming sentences like these into my head, and then writing them out in essays during the exam, always accepting such statements, only caring about whether i’ll get 10/10 for the essay, never really thinking about the meaning behind what i’m writing. that’s the problem with us young Malaysians. we never think. either because we’re lazy, or we’re trained from the start to think that speaking up for what’s right, and ‘controversy’ (hah), is bad and will contribute to bloody events like … jengjengjeng … May 13. please lah okay. read up on the history of May 13 and decide for yourself what it means, before you allow your Sejarah textbook to tell you what to think.
don’t be afraid just because MPs like BN’s Chew Mei Fun can say ridiculous things like - May 13 will happen again if BN is given insufficient representation. how dare she hold people at ransom like that. how dare she. people of PJ Utara, i urge you to remember the audacity of her threat when you are casting your vote on the 8th of March.
and how can young malaysians say that they are glad not to vote. this is completely beyond me and i am so disappointed in my fellow young malaysians. why are we being yes-men, and playing into the hands of this regime who are out to exploit the hell out of us?
you know what else is completely beyond me? i hate how people complain and complain and complain about the government and status quo, but then when you ask them if they’re registered to vote, they say no they’re not. why? lazy lah… one vote doesnt matter lah… no time lah… BN will win anyway lah… want to boycott electoral system lah… i give up on local politics lah.. and many more other incredulous statements. aiyo don’t be like that lah okay. the word hypocrite comes to mind. if you want change, be part of the change. don’t sit around and be an empty vessel full of hot air.
2. Khairy Jamaluddin vs Chegubard in Rembau
someone i know wrote a blogpost about how she’d vote for BN’s Khairy Jamaluddin over PKR’s Badrul H Shaharin (aka Chegubard) any day. she’s apparently part of Khairy’s campaign trail over in Rembau (where he’s contesting for the parliamentary seat), and her post was about her first hand account of how hardworking and articulate and smart Khairy is compared to Chegubard. and that Chegubard’s team played dirty like tearing down posters etc. for these reasons, she said she would vote for Khairy and that she has lost respect for PKR.
this is beyond shocking okay. things like tearing down posters and smear campaigns are so common during elections, but if dirty pool is supposed to be the tipping point in a person’s voting decision, then i daresay BN plays harder and dirtier than the opposition ever has. they practically control the entire elections machinery, and that is the BIGGEST form of dirty pool one can point out. remember Ijok, Machap? phantom voters? 100+ year old voters and 8 year old voters on the electoral roll? people finding out after some checking that they’ve supposedly voted in different constituencies? amendment of constitution to ensure the corrupt EC chairman retains his position? reckless gerrymandering (dividing voting districts unfairly) to ensure BN victories?
all these and more handicap the opposition parties. they cant even voice out their messages through mainstream media because all the broadcasting stations and newspapers are BN-controlled. and now BN is encroaching on the internet as well, taking out expensive ads on MSN and Yahoo. and with the tagline Vote for Malaysia? are you KIDDING me ah? what an insult to our intelligence.
yet in light of all this unfairness, PKR is condemned for tearing down a bunch of posters and the Rembau Menanti Anda campaign. no, it’s not the cleanest thing to do, but it’s fighting fire with fire and the only way to gain some traction in this BN-controlled system.
and so what if Khairy is hardworking articulate blablabla. EVERYONE is hardworking during elections. everyone gives false promises, empty rhetoric… Khairy’s father-in-law aka our Prime Minister Pak Lah is a fine example. combating corruption was his manifesto in 2004, but what improvement do you see so far? how ironic that we now find out that the Anti Corruption Agency is perhaps the most corrupt body in our government. and now 4 years later, Pak Lah says he needs more time to carry out this promise. what is that but a flimsy packaging for ‘I failed, but please give me your votes once again’?
Khairy is no angel lah. yes yes articulate… yes yes Oxford graduate.. but that means shit if you are a blatant racist and a nepotist. remember how he played to the UMNO gallery by saying that ‘UMNO must be strong otherwise the Malaysian Chinese will take advantage’? what the hell is ‘taking advantage’?!?! he later goes on to give examples of how this means that the Chinese will assert demands to benefit the Chinese community if UMNO is weak. hello? do you really want to vote in this character who believes that the Chinese community should not be given benefits and cannot even VOICE these demands? do you really want to vote into parliament this conniving racist who thinks that only Malays and UMNO have the right to be happy in this country? do you really want to vote in someone who thinks that a community asking for fairness is ‘taking advantage’ of a supposedly more ’superior’ race?
let’s not forget that infamous ECM Libra Ave incident where Khairy was SO PROUD to say that he would sell his shares worth RM 10 million ONLY to a Malay-owned company. racist racist racist and such obvious fanning of Malay semangat. so what if you are well-read and eloquent? you’re still greedy, corrupt and perpetuating the biggest problem Malaysia faces. the rest of Malaysia does not buy your empty election-time rhetoric. OF COURSE Khairy is going to be hardworking… getting into Parliament is just another step to take over the premiership reigns from dear ol FIL. this election is a boat that he cannot afford to miss. so it’s hardly impressive that he’s staying out till late at night to berceramah to the people.
i would NEVER ever vote for Khairy if he stood in my constituency. even if he’s a nice and sweet individual or whatever, i would never vote for someone who subscribed to the policies of UMNO Youth. yes, in Malaysia it is so unavoidable to vote along party lines. it is the only way to cleanse the system. so, one state assemblyman or MP may be more experienced or kinder looking than the other .. but at the end of the day he is still a part of a corrupt and insecure regime; a corrupt and insecure regime that you are putting into Cabinet and Parliament with your vote. what is MCA but castrated. what is MIC but helpless.
and what is UMNO? by the words of Chief Minister of Melaka - UMNO is unsinkable and even God cannot sink it. LOL. this is the party you are voting in if you vote Khairy into Parliament. i once saw the book titled - Khairy Jamaluddin, Bakal PM?. god forbid, ok? are our BN representatives so pathetic that people are enamored the moment they see a candidate who can speak good english and is articulate? articulate and hardworking people are a dime a dozen lah… but they are all studying and working abroad because MALAYSIA DROVE THEM AWAY.
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only these 2 issues for now. i’ve got another 3 more to go but have no time, sigh :( meanwhile, would love to hear any comments that you guys have on these two issues.
8th of march 8th of march 8th of march. i’m really, really, really excited.
Pinkpau is Su Ann. 19, Malaysia. Hostile when hungry. Sometimes a shapeshifter, always an optimist with a penchant for pessimism and shoe-shopping. More?
Contact at : pinkpau[at]gmail[dot]com
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