It is amusing to note that entries like
Kampung Baru and a police station at Kampung Kerinchi are registered
voters on the electoral rolls.
By Kee Thuan Chye
We often hear of electoral fraud and unfair election practices but
what do they really mean? What forms does electoral fraud usually take?
What constitute unfair practices and how have they surfaced?
Beyond that, what are the measures that need to be taken to ensure
that Malaysian elections are free and fair so that this vital aspect of
our democracy is truly well-served and our vote for the candidate or
party we support is not made a mockery of?
A new book called ‘Democracy at Stake?: Examining 16 By-elections in
Malaysia, 2008-2011′, published by Strategic Information and Research
Development Centre, answers our questions and collates our concerns into
a handy and comprehensive compact.
Edited by Wong Chin Huat and Soon Li Tsin, it analyses the 16
by-elections that have been held since the 12th general election
according to such relevant categories as how free, fair and clean they
were; the freedom and quality of the campaigning; the political parties’
access to media; corrupt practices that were perpetrated; how impartial
or otherwise the public institutions were; the amount of campaign money
spent; the electoral roll; and the polling process.
Wong, who is in my opinion one of the sharpest political analysts we
have, sets the standard for the conduct of elections in his introductory
article.
Well-researched and replete with references from many documented
sources, it explains why electoral fraud is wrong (“Even if one person
is disenfranchised … even if one vote is rigged, democracy is damaged
because political equality is compromised to favour the ones who play
foul”) and explains what we as citizens should expect of a free and fair
election.
The most fundamental of expectations are that we “must be able to
register as voters with minimal cost and trouble” and be able to vote
“without much difficulty”, and our votes “must be counted with
integrity”. By that token, we must also expect that the electoral roll
“includes all citizens who are eligible to vote” and “nobody else”.
Wong, however, declares that the electoral rolls in Malaysia “fail on
both accounts”. This is partly because as of March 2012, three million
eligible citizens are still not registered voters. But what we may find
more disturbing is his revelation that the electoral rolls “include many
names who [sic] should not be there in the first place, such as
illegally enfranchised foreigners, deceased voters, multiply-registered
voters, voluntarily and involuntarily transferred voters who are
non-residents in the constituency”.
It is amusing to note that entries like Kampung Baru and a police
station at Kampung Kerinchi are registered voters on the electoral
rolls.
Wong proposes synchronising the electorate database maintained by the
Election Commission (EC) with the citizenry database of the National
Registration Department (NRD) to minimise errors and allow for
corrections to be made continually.
Although he does not say so explicitly, it would also facilitate
automatic voter registration, one of the eight demands of Bersih, the
Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections of which Wong is a steering
committee member. The synchronisation of databases would alert the EC to
instances of citizens turning 21 and attaining eligibility for voting.
EC must be neutral
Another disturbing point Wong raises concerns the legal impediments
to transparency in the procedure for correction of errors. Section 9A of
the Election Act 1958 prevents the electoral rolls from being
challenged in court, and Regulation 25 of the Elections (Registration of
Voters) Regulations gives “unchecked power” to the EC to “correct any
errors free from any public scrutiny”.
This point is particularly pertinent in regard to the Malaysian EC
because the public has lost much confidence in the commission’s ability
and inclination to be independent and neutral in the conduct of its
duty. One important measure that the public needs to take, therefore, is
to lobby for the EC to be truly independent and neutral.
If this were achieved, we can be better assured that other conditions necessary for free and fair elections will be facilitated.
These would include what Wong describes as allowing citizens to make
“informed decisions after deliberation” from the “availability of
information from all perspectives”.
As such, there should be campaign freedom – a reasonable period for
campaigning once an election is called; free airtime for all contesting
parties on state-owned broadcast media like RTM and unbiased coverage in
Bernama as well as private-owned media, like Utusan Malaysia, The Star,
Sin Chew, Media Prima’s TV stations, etc; and no restrictions like
those imposed in three by-elections at which the Home Ministry banned
campaigners from “mentioning (a) Altantuya Shaariibuu, the Mongolian
model cum interpreter whose murder was linked to Prime Minister (PM)
Najib Razak and his wife Rosmah Mansor, and (b) the role of the Perak
Palace in the state’s constitutional crisis”.
The impartiality of public institutions should also be upheld. This
includes no abuse of government machinery by the ruling party, such as
using official cars and helicopters for party campaigning or, worse,
announcing development projects like in the Hulu Selangor “buy-election”
when BN offered about RM136 million in projects, payments and
compensations while the Pakatan Rakyat Selangor state government offered
about RM27.6 million’s worth.
And of course there should also be no pork barrelling at the
hustings, the most famous example being the “I help you, you help me”
offer of RM5 million for flood mitigation that Najib made to the Rejang
Park voters in the Sibu by-election in return for their support of the
BN candidate.
Nor should there be outright vote-buying, as in the alleged giving
out of RM100 cash to each Chinese voter at a polling station during the
Merlimau by-election.
It is the duty of the EC to report such transgressions but, unfortunately, it has not been fulfilling that duty.
By and large, the individual analyses of the 16 by-elections in the
book, contributed by about a dozen observers ranging from journalists to
researchers to political scientists, reveal how inept the EC has been,
especially in not attending to electoral roll irregularities and
preventing abuse of public institutions and corrupt practices.
Outlook is far from rosy
In the Permatang Pauh by-election, for example, a voter was turned
away from the polling station because on the electoral roll, he was said
to be dead.
Furthermore, 949 voters were discovered to have disappeared from the constituency’s electoral roll.
As the media reported the issue and the EC’s deputy chairman could
not explain the disappearance, Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin
called on the EC to investigate it. However, “no finding was revealed to
the public”.
In Bukit Selambau, election watchdog Malaysians for Free and Fair
Elections (MAFREL) backed the opposition’s claim that more than 60% of
the voters in a housing estate were phantom voters, but the EC merely
dismissed it.
In fact, the picture that emerges from the 16 analyses is that many
of the complaints and allegations made during the by-elections were not
resolved afterwards.
On the whole, as the editors sum up in the final chapter, “the
integrity of the electoral rolls in Malaysia is highly questionable”.
Citing extensively from research done by political scientist Ong Kian
Ming, they elaborate on unexplained deletions of names; unaccounted-for
additions; high number of voters registered under the same address;
unusually high increase of military/police voters (most markedly in
Lembah Pantai, currently a Pakatan Rakyat seat held by Nurul Izzah
Anwar, which has seen a 1,024% growth of such voters); and other
manifestations.
EC Chairman Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof has declared that Malaysia has “the
cleanest electoral rolls in the world”, with problematic registrations
amounting to only 42,051 names, but according to Ong’s research
findings, the number is closer to three million.
Whomever you choose to believe, the outlook is far from rosy. The
editors believe the irregularities are caused by deliberate fraud rather
than administrative or clerical errors. They consider the state we’re
in an “Orwellian absurdity”.
On our part, we the public should be pressing for accountability from
the EC and other related authorities. Although Democracy at Stake? does
not suggest how we could go about doing this, it focuses attention on a
serious issue of our political life.
It’s up to us now to protect our democratic right. Taking to the
streets through the Bersih rallies has been done and resulted in some
headway, but this is unlikely the way to achieve the ultimate goal.
We need to think of other ways to shake the powers that be to get the real democracy we deserve.
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