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Helping BN and UMNO win elections the EC way

THERE IS MO MISTAKE ABOUT THE Election Commission's impartiality. It is as impartial as the United States' promise of a fair trial for Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein if and when they are caught. The EC will deal only with UMNO, not even the National Front (BN), certainly not the non-BN parties. The Opposition parties are there to tell the world Malaysia is democratic and, incidentally, provide post-retirement sinecures for the EC commissioners. In practice it is anything but. Its chairman, Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman, is clear on this: the Constitution does not require neither him nor the EC to be impartial. He is appointed not by the government of the day but by the Yang Dipertuan Agung. It gives him and the EC immunity from mindless attacks from politicians as he goes about ensuring an electoral system the world can be proud of. He cannot be removed from office except by an involved procedure. That is so he could do his duties without fair or favour. He does not believe in that. He has decided, against the weight of constitutional opinion, that he is to serve UMNO. When he defines his role in these contested terms, the gloves are drawn, and he and his commission is fair game for an opposition assault. As now.

Queries are brushed aside. The EC builds a steel wall around it, into which an opposition politician, certainly not a voter, could penetrate. If he does somehow, he is brushed aside. It could do this on the arrogant assumption that evidence of its perfidy are not available. Not any more. The PAS MP, Mr Mahfuz Omar, produced letters in Parliament in which the EC instructed its state branches, except in Sabah and Sarawak, to employ Puteri UMNO members as part-time administrative assistants to prepare for the coming General Election. The EC denied it, so it could not be raised in the June session of Parliament. In the current session, Mr Mahfuz produced the Puteri UMNO chief's letter with handwritten instructions from Tan Sri Abdul Rashid and the EC secretary, annotations requesting that it be acted on expeditiously, and the letter from the Election Commission ordering its Peninsular officers to comply. He released the letters to the Press. Remarkably, she attached a list of unemployed Puteri UMNO members worth of the EC's consideration.

When the Puteri UMNO chief, Ms Azalina Said, was asked about it, she said she had asked the EC for jobs for her unemployed members. A lawyer, she forgot or ignored or sidestepped the constitutional impropriety of her request. Neither did the EC, who took that as a request not to be denied. Tan Sri Abdul Rashin said he has ordered it stopped, and no Puteri UMNO member has been hired. But he has not withdrawn that incriminating letter to the state election commission offices. Tan Sri Rashid's denial makes no sense without withdrawing the letter. And raises the possibility that Puteri UMNO members would be appointed after the furore dies down.

Why did the EC not send that letter to Sarawak and Sabah? Is it as it mistrusts the EC local office in Kota Kinabalu, viewed as unsupportive of UMNO and BN? Or the normal Peninsular arrogance that unemployed Puteri UMNO members in Sabah can beg for a living but those in the Peninsular cannot and should not? Or is it the EC's view that those in Sabah and Sarawak can and should be treated as dirt? Or is it a deliberate EC ploy to shortchange the Opposition at every turn. Since Puteri UMNO is aggressive in getting votes for UMNO and BN candidates, it could as well cause major damage from within. Why was that letter not sent to Sarawak? Because Puteri UMNO does not exist yet in Sarawak? Or is it the same belief that those from Sabah and Sarawak can be kicked around? How does this fare with Tan Sri Abdul Rashid's threat to impose national unity through elections at any cost?

The government is embarrassed beyond belief. So it shuts up and hopes the issue would go away. It would not. Not after Tan Sri Rashid's remarkable interview in the Internet newspaper, malaysiakini (www.malaysiakini.com), in which he reveals what the Opposition had searched in vain for years: proof of the EC's electoral perfidies. It is proof of its partiality that the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, said as many as a third of the Malaysian electoral rolls - or 2.8 million - are phantoms. How could there be so many phantoms if the EC had done its task, and did not surround itself in bureaucratic minutae when complaints are made? Tan Sri Rashid says the good doctor is misinformed. There are only 20-30,000, he avers. But he did not correct it at the time and revealed it only in the interview. Why? Especially when on matters like this, Dr Mahathir would have consulted the EC. Or is Tan Sri Rashid telling us the Prime Minister is so fed up with the EC that he resorts to other sources?

The 20-30,000 Thai voters he refers to live in southern Thailand who have been issued with identity cards and are registered to vote. These are genuine identity cards, as the nearly 2.8 million are in Sarawak, Sabah and the Peninsular. One would rather take the Prime Minister's word for its accuracy than Tan Sri Rashid's. As usual, several questions beg to be asked. How did the Thais get them? How did the EC know of them? What has it not acted against them yet? How could the EC weed out voters with genuine ICs? But make no mistake, he would do his duty: "We have to weed them out ... they stay in Thailand ... they do not have any connexion at all with the country, yet they come on polling day." If he knew that, why did he wait until four years and on the eve of general election to now weed them out? Neither could he do anything about the phantom voters in Sabah and Sarawak. They all have genuine ICs issued by the Malaysian government. There are no ifs and buts to it.

Tan Sri Rashid is caught out. He is beholden to the Prime Minister, who allowed him his Sekolah Agama Rakyat (SAR) in Langkawi when every other was ordered closed. He realises which side his bread is buttered. And proved it without due care and intent. He is caught in his tracks now for reasons he would not recognise: the near fatal rift within the Malay community. He cannot trust the Malay civil servants and clerks in his commission, as the Prime Minister cannot in his own department. He should have known of the violent split that make this certain. Instead he acted as if all was well, and is caught out. There is no option, after this fiasco, but to quit. Would he? Certainly not. He would not desert the Prime Minister and UMNO in their hour of need. He is in short an unguided missile more likely to damage UMNO and BN than the Opposition. On second thought, he ought to stay. It would at least ensure, in the current idiom, an even playing field or that absurdity, a win-win solution. No doubt UMNO leaders would cringe in terror each time Tan Sri Rashid comes out to help them.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my