Democratic Fervor

In Malaysia, voting during the General Elections is NOT something that is mandatory. Hence as an extension of this then it makes sense that automatic registration of voters is also not ON.

Shouldn’t it though?

It is one thing to be registered, and another to actually vote. For one, you have to be - theoretically, at least, what’s with allegations of Hantu voters popping up every time the election comes – physically present to do the latter.

Apparently, there is an estimated 3.6 million people who are still unregistered as voters.

Huge concern thus. HUGE.

Thus, looking at the response so far from the Barisan Nasional, urm, fellas (EC deputy chairman Wan Ahmad Wan Omar, excluded, of course) to the Selangor State government’s “SelangorkuBersih” campaign, you’d be forgiven to scratch your head and go: Huh?

The campaign aims to verify the voters listed and, can along the way help to persuade those who haven't registered to do so.

After all, why wouldn’t the Selangor State Government want to help out in registering the still unregistered 600k or so other Selangorians?

If these 600K non registered ones want to, that is.

Since neither voting nor registering as a voter is mandatory, it is really their choice, no?

But if they do wish to do so; and just don’t have neither the opportunity nor the means or the time to put pen to registration papers, then the “Selangorku Bersih” campaign is just plain haven sent.

 As Selangor has the highest number of unregistered voters, surely the EC will relish all the help it can get, shouldn’t it?

Saves the EC to concentrate its efforts on the other 3 million unregistered ones.

Out of curiosity, how does the EC verify the voters’ particulars and voting constituencies?

Take me, for instance.

I registered God knows how long ago as a voter in the Pandan Parliamentary constituency and except for the 2004 General Election, I have not had the opportunity to vote due to work and locality constraints.

Was I ever, urm, verified throughout the three General Elections including those in 1999 and 2008?

Until but recently when I changed my voting particulars, I was still very much a voter in Pandan.

It does seem that the verification of a voter's particulars is very much up to the individual voter’s own efforts, with the EC, urm, facilitating the data entry.

So, how would the EC verify something like this highlighted instance in suspicion arousing duplicating facts?

After all, outside of the particular locality's locals, how will one know who’s who? Asking for someone’s identity papers is just plain criminal for anyone other than  the authorities.

It could well be a sheer stroke of pure coincidence of which the door to door, house to house, “Selangorku Bersih” campaign could help prove and, without a doubt, VERIFY.

Or not, since the voters – any voter for that matter - could also say: “No, I will not allow myself to be verified”.

Something which the “SelangorkuBersih” campaign detractors seem to be pushing for.

Or not. Perhaps it’s nothing more than the fervor of DEMOCRATIC IDEALS.

Yep. That’s probably IT. 

Viciousness Escalated

Bersih 3.0 came and went; and yet the slanging match continues unabated.

The event unfolded quite dramatically over the social networks last Saturday.

Quite a few of my friends who was at the Sit Down and Protest provided minute to minute or so updates through their FB account.

Unfortunately, these same postings were sometime subjected to vile replies which grew vicious.

While many from both faction exercised restrain at what proved to be a highly charged event, others where callous.


One so-called former press-compatriot “friend” posted that the police should have used LIVE BULLETS instead of rubber bullets against the protestors.

Sick.

Dude, there are friends of ours in the crowd who are only voicing out their dismay over the slacks in our electoral system.

And you want them dead? WTF?!!!

Remember those much hated Yahudis who posted downright demeaning remarks on the death of Palestinians children during a bus accident?

Not much different aren’t we?

The words babi, bodoh, yahudi etc were flying around the FB (and Twitter) postings like nobody’s business.

Agreeing to disagree is really an alien concept it seems for many on May 28.

More importantly, what now?

Brick bats, videos (edited and unedited) exchanged, threats, statements and hospital visitations notwithstanding, what about the crux of why people took to the street last Saturday: the electoral system?

In an age where data can travel across continents in less than a blink, it is downright funny ha ha that we can’t clean up our electoral roll, cannot make adjustments to our Parliamentary demarcation boundaries so that 1 vote here is approximately 1 vote everywhere, cannot make automatic voter registration when they reached voting age, cannot update people who is obviously lived beyond what is considered manically platinum age, cannot distinguish non citizens from citizens so on so forth.

Let’s see f anything changes in the next few weeks.

Won’t bet on it, though.

PS: The proliferation of videos mostly unedited via the FB gave some good overall picture of what happened so that bullshits from either side could be minimized.

God knows there’s too much being thrown about.

Clearly Loud

Electoral Fairness and Impartiality.

One Person One Vote.

Or is a proportional system the answer?

Any which, surely they can hear the LOUD voice for changes.

But listening?

On To Something

A Minggu BERSIH, huh?

I, for one, sure like this suggestion by Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin following our Prime Minister’s backtracking on the whole 9th July get together.

Imagine a sea of yellow and a fluttering of the word BERSIH everywhere. Of course, there will be an intermittent of the colour… - urmm, what is exactly the colour of dirt aka KOTOR? – as this is, as far as we can tell anyway, a relatively, ahem, free country.

For the BERSIH steering committee fellas, a week (or even a weekend) should be enough to push the message through, doesn’t it?

There’s no need to even have firebrand rallies at the stadium if this BERSIH Week or Weekend plan comes afoot.

Ibrahim Ali’s Perkasa and Khairy Jamaluddin’s Umno Youth can have the same week or weekend so that their supporters can fly their Anti-BERSIH flags and what not.

Better yet, there’s also no need for Mahaguru Omardin to control his 50,000 silatists' emotions then. Huge relief there.

And please, for one, leave the “It’s all to divert attention from Anwar's case” bollocks.

Yeah, yeah, we know all about it and you know what, I dare say that he no longer matters that much.

Remember the “Who can that be?” question posted by Umno wayward blogger SakMongkol47? One his frequent reader / postee / commentator / follower Walla answered definitely: “They must obey the clean-and-fair governance demands of the enlightened rakyat.”

Pure and simple, isn’t it?

There are whole load thesis written on the electoral systems the democratic world over, and how the current First-past-the-post voting system we’re using currently is, well, unfair as votes are not proportionally counted.

Instances include a constituency of say, 28K voters returns one rep as would one of 280K (usually urban) and, as such, garnering a 60% popular vote would not equate 60% in representation.

Unfair, ain’t it? Couple that with the mainstream news papers and television networks providing negligible coverage for other than, say, Umno politicians, and you could say it was a surprise that the Opposition Coalition (we were told to use that word the last time around) won the state that they did.

I remember the dreaded apprehension at the Perak MB’s residence the night of the 2008 General Election results.

Had Edgar Allan Poe been alive and present there, he would have be able to write a sequel to his “Tell-Tale Heart” tale of torrid, terrifying terror.

The former MB stayed indoors throughout the countdown as Perak went to the Opposition (until, that is, the defection of the trio of duplicitous creeps. I never did agree with Anwar’s defection game and this one must have hurt him bad, surely).

Anyway, back to Minggu BERSIH.

Even the title alone doesn’t provoke, does it? BERSIH is a clean (pun intended fully) word made dirty by a host of provocative campaigning against it.

You can certainly say the whole thrust of BERSIH 2.0 – for a fair elections – was indeed hijacked by politicians from all three sides (Ibrahim Ali being the third cog in the Pakatan vs Barisan equation) of the Malaysian political divide.

Dr Asri is on to something there, don’t you think?

So how now?