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.
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.”
quaintly.net
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