Malaysia - Where Honour, Integrity and Human Rights are Bad for Your Health- Part 2 of 3

Next is the 11/12 handing of memorandum to the Parliament.

Let me explain the points of contention here and why Bersih decided it was necessary to hand over the memorandum on 11/12. (I know some of you already know, but I noticed there are so many out there still in the dark. Information is power, I have decided to empower them.)

Tan Sri Abdul Rashid
This man is the EC (Election Commission) Chairman. He heads the most important commission in Malaysia. This commission is one of the main vertebrae to the back bone of democracy. Other vertebraes include freedom of expression.

I would like to stress again and again how important the Election Commission is for everybody's well being in this country. This was taken from their website:

In the discharge of it's responsibilities, the Election Commission, is being an independent authority, is not subject in any way to the direction as to how the elections ought to be conducted. The main functions of Election Commission are:

1)Review and delimit Parliamentary and State Consituencies at intervals of not less than eight years; following the date og completion go the last review;
2) Carry out registration of electors and revision of electoral rolls; and
3) Conduct general elections to the House of Representatives and State Legislative Assemblies, and undertake by-elections arising out of casual vacancies.

Why?
Now, why did Bersih decide to have a gathering at Parliament? To hand over a memorandum protesting against the extension of Tan Sri Abdul Rashid's tenure as EC Chairman.

But like the Bar Council, Bersih decided to cancel the gathering for the people's safety (against police and FRU brutality). Ladies and gentlemen, it was cancelled. No gathering at parliament. Though many were disappointed with this, we complied as we figured we made our point on 10 November 2007, so there's no need to enforce that point again.

Before we go into the events of the day, let me explain the memorandum.

First, answer this quesion, if you had an employee with a proven track record of either incompetence or selling your shares secretly, wouldn't you fire him?

Same thing here. Few actually realize that the Election Commission, like the Prime Minister, work for the people. They are our employees. If this employee hasn't been doing his job, or has been selling your shares secretly, wouldn't you get rid of him? Ok, even if you don't get rid of him, would you actually extend his retirement age for him to do more damage to your company?

Any sane businessman wouldn't.

How he screwed up.
Before you blame me for being biased against Rashid, here are some details of his incompetence or unfair conduct or biased-ness. However you want to look at it.

1. The electoral rolls is contaminated with the names of the dead, non-citizens, multiple registrations and the under-aged, allowing election outcomes to be determined by phantoms rather than citizens.

If you haven't heard, dead people actually raised up from their graves to vote on election day. You can either take this superstitiously or suspiciously, it's up to you. But it's definitely unacceptable. How do the dead know who to vote for? Do they get the NST or Star in their graves? Do NST and Star have these spiritual subscriptions? If yes, how much is it to advertise?

2. As a result to this discrepancy, in 2001, Justice Datuk Muhammad Kamil Awang nullified the election result of Likas state constituency in Sabah on the grounds that the 1998 state electoral roll was illegal as phantom voters, including non-citizens, had cast their votes on polling day. This is one of the discrepancies that we know of. God knows what the EC has gotten away with so far.

3. The governments response? Well they decided that they couldn't have judges nullifying the election results that they have worked so hard for (calling them up from graves takes a lot of effort, they like to rest in peace)

So they changed the law, the Election Act to be precise. They changed it so that the Election Commission is above the law (eh, did i hear someone say 'no one is above the law?') The Election Commission cannot be challenged now. They have immunity. Isn't this contradictory?

If the EC is supposed to be the commission which is accountable for the errors within the election, why is there a law that says they cannot be held accountable? There is a term for this, its called hypocrisy. I believe that any commission or body which is answerable to the people, cannot be above the law.

I would like to note, at this point, Rashid then grew some balls and attacked Justice Muhammad Kamil for nullifying the Likas election results. He said that Muhammad Kamil took it out on the government because he was 'frustrated with certain things'.

4. Have you ever tried to vote, only to be told that your constituency has been transfered? If you were a General in a battle and your left battalion seems weak while your right battalion is very strong. Wouldn't you deploy some of your soldiers from the right battalion to assist the battalion on the left?

In our political landscape (as many of you know) there are strong BN constituencies and there are strong Opposition constituencies. If the EC suddenly changes your constituency to another, without informing you, without you changing your address, isn't it questionable? Also, isn't it called incompetency?

5. Next point of contention is the Ijok issue. Let me list the points for you:
-Over 50 dead voters were still on the electoral roll and 12 of them, all of them Malays from the Jaya Setia polling district, rose up from their graves to cast their votes on polling day.
-Three Chinese voters at Pekan Ijok had their votes stolen by impostors, who had turned up earlier at the polling station.
-As many as 23 voters were registered without national identity cards.
-As many as 32 voters aged between 100 and 132 years old were still listed on the electoral rolls.

Draw your own conclusions.

6. This gets even more interesting when in 2004 there were 3 different versions of the electoral roll. This happened in at least 17 constituencies in Selangor and 3 from Kuala Lumpur. Then EC sesuka hati extended the polling for 2 extra hours. This is illegal.

No one has been held accountable for this. They just decided to ignore it. I guess it's standard modus operandi.

What do we do when there's a problem, sir?
You ignore it, you civil servant! Didn't you read the manuals?

7. Next, in Kuala Terengganu (KT) 98% of registered voters collected the parliamentary ballots. 10,254 of these voters did not return their ballots (missing votes). Rashid explained that KT voters had the hobby of collecting ballot papers. (What a funny little man. I guess the ballot papers are becoming a collectors item)

The story doesn't end here, my friends, after that the Gazette officially reported that the turnout was 84% instead of 98% and there were 240 missing votes and not 10,254. Wow.. talk about major discrepancies.. don't these guys know how to be subtle? Well, no explanations have been offered. So maybe its an 'official secret'. Geez.

What is Gerrymandering?
8. Lastly, according to the memorandum, mal-apportionment and gerrymandering of constituencies have gone from bad to worse with the 2002 constituency re-delineation exercise.

Ok, I'm pretty sure there are many of you who do not know what gerrymandering means. Let me explain it.

As many of you know, the main idea of voting according to constituencies is for our representatives to get seats in the parliament and become MPs. Gerrymandering means to manipulate constituency borders so that the party in power receives more votes and remains in power.

For example:

Say we have 2 constituencies. Constituency A and Constituency B. The sizes of the 2 constituencies are not the same.

Let's say you stay in Constituency A where the division of power between opposition and ruling party is 60% opposition-40% ruling party. Then suddenly the boundary of your constituency changes and your vote is transfered to Constituency B where the division of power between the opposition and ruling coalition is 90% opposition-10% ruling party.

This makes the opposition party lose votes from Constituency A and gives it excess votes (which it doesn't need) in Constituency B.

So instead of winning 2 seats in parliament, the opposition only wins 1 seat.

Imagine if the opposition is supposed to win 100 seats, but instead wins 20. That's how unfair 'gerrymandering' is. Evidence of this is usually seen when the ruling party wins by a very small margin in many constituencies and the opposition party wins by a huge margin in very few constituencies.

I know it's confusing. But this tried and tested method basically ensures that the ruling coalition wins in as many constituencies as possible even if its by a very slim margin. So it really doesn't matter if there is a 60-40 power ratio because ultimately the ruling coalition will win the most number of seats.

Therefore you have 90% ruling party representatives in parliament even though 40% of the people voted for the opposition. Any Bills or Amendments that they want to make will be approved as they own more votes in parliament.

Here are more notes for you (if you want to bother):

There are three techniques used to gerrymander districts. All involve creating districts that have a goal of encompassing a certain percentage of voters from one political party.

The first method is called the "excess vote." It is an attempt to concentrate the voting power of the opposition into just a few districts, to dilute the power of the opposition party outside of those districts that contain an overwhelming majority of the opposition's voters.

The second method is know as the "wasted vote." This method of gerrymandering involves diluting the voting power of the opposition across many districts, preventing the opposition from having a majority vote in as many districts as possible.

Finally, the "stacked" method involves drawing bizarre boundaries to concentrate the power of the majority party by linking distant areas into specific, party-in-power districts. (taken from this site)

Ok. Once you have digested and understood the term "gerrymandering", I can move on to my point.

In 2004, BN won 91% of the seats in parliament. But they actually only got only 64% votes from the people. This effectively means that the value of the BN vote is worth more than votes from any other party.

1 BN vote = 3 DAP votes = 8 PAS votes = 25 KeAdilan votes

It's like currency. The USD against the RM and Rupiah.

Like the memorandum says, Tan Sri Abdul Rashid has made a mockery of the “one person, one vote” principle.

This is how it should be:

1 BN vote = 1 DAP votes = 1 PAS vote = 1 KeAdilan vote

because each person's vote should not be worth more than the next guy. We should all be equal.

Rashid's explanations.
Rashid's explanations on these crime against Malaysians are so lame. Really now, Rashid. Do you think that we are all that stupid? Obviously yes. I do take offence to that.

Reasons such as weaknesses in the postal voting registration or 'clerical error' is unforgivable. Knowing about these problems, he should have fixed them immediately and not wait till Bersih highlighted it.

You're not doing your job, Rashid. What are we paying you for? Were you hoping the people wouldn't find out? Were you even aware of the problems before Bersih and the Bar Council highlighted it to you? Even when they highlighted it to you, you implied that there is nothing you can do about it and suggested that we send a memorandum to the King. It was your idea.

Like the memorandum to parliament said:
Tan Sri Abdul Rashid has failed to end this phenomenon so damaging to the credibility of the EC and electoral process.

You failed, man. You failed to uphold the integrity of the Election Commission. You failed your duties where the Bar Council managed to uphold theirs. Yet the Bar Council is being punished for it. Hmph.

Dear readers, in my opinion (and I believe I speak for many other Malaysians), in this day and age we cannot tolerate a biased judiciary. We cannot tolerate a Judge in the Court of Appeal who clearly was a legal advisor of a political party, any political party. His loyalty in this sense, is questionable. Like Melayu Lama said,

"It's ok to jump from judiciary to politics. But it's NOT ok to jump from politics to the judiciary. It doesn't work that way. It brings doubt to the integrity of the institution."

Likewise for the Election Commission. We should not tolerate biased-ness in this commission which is supposed to be impartial. We cannot tolerate the chairman of the Election Commission saying that he supports the ruling coalition.

If I was the Election Commission Chairman and all this atrocities happened while I was in charge... If I had any honor and integrity, I would resign voluntarily. I wouldn't buat muka tak malu and remain in a job I have failed to do.

On December 8, 2007, Rashid was reported to say that the ruling coalition is the only regime capable of running the country.

Does this sound impartial to you?

Like the memorandum said:

Ultimately, Tan Sri Abdul Rashid is unfit to chair the EC for he lacks the most fundamental quality: the moral courage and the commitment to act independently, guided only by the Constitution and the best interest of Malaysia’s democracy.

I would like to add 'incompetence' to that. How else can you explain it?
If he says it's the EC's clerical error, it's incompetence in his part.
If he says there is nothing wrong, he's a lying, cheating SOB.

I guess clerical error will have to do.

I am not against the ruling coalition per se. But the fact that they are condoning this sort of thing pisses me off. I believe there should be honor, integrity and accountability in everything we do.

If they need to be trained to have these values, they are unfit to lead or represent Malaysians.

We need a shadow government. If only to keep an eye on them, make sure they're not screwing us around.