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Who must be blamed for Malaysia's not-so-phantom voters?

THE PRIME MINISTER, DATO' SERI MAHATHIR Mohamed, threw a cat amongst the pigeons the other day: Almost a third of Malaysian voters - 2.8 million - were phantoms. He lamented at it, how it frustrated democracy and its traditions, and otherwise railed against it. He did not mean it. Crocodile tears are easy for him. But he had a point: phantom voters are good for one or two elections. Only that they are not phantom voters. They were given genuine identity cards and registered to vote in this elaborate electoral scam. They take a life of their own now, and vote according to their conscience, putting UMNO in a lurch. The National Front faces that dilemma in Sabah, Sarawak and Peninsular Malaysia. It is the first time anyone in authority has even put a figure on a problem the Opposition were impotently unaware for more than three decades.

To blame the Opposition is implicit in these revelations. But it does not stick. The threat to invoke the Official Secrets Act comes after embarrassing disclosures of official perfidy in Parliament and elsewhere. The prevailing view is that Budget secrets were leaked before it was announced. But this happens every year. Business men and others, especially the cronies of the Establishment, openly talk of top secret cabinet decisions after they are taken. If one puts one's mind to it, one could get all the secrets one wants from these sources. Besides, everything has a price. Even budget secrets. The government is caught flat-footed by the accuracy of Opposition revelations. So the threat. But where it matters, no action is taken.

What happened to the series of police reports the jailed former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, made and which contains official secrets which he should not have under any circumstance reveal? So is this threat meant for the Opposition and their supporters? The Opposition, though not blameless, is to be blamed. But blame should be laid on the BN government to govern, the BN politician available to the highest bidder, the civil servant more interested in ill-gotten gains than what his job requires. Unfortunately, government secrets are availble to any one prepared to pay for them.

The Election Commission is livid at this prime ministerial disclosure. The Prime Minister is mistaken, cries its chairman, Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman. If Dr Mahathir's formula is used, it should be not 2.8 but 3.5 million. It raises more questions than answers. Where did the good doctor get his figures from? That should normally come from the Election Commission. Did it provide that? Not, it appears. Why? Does he not trust the Election Commission to conduct unfair elections? If the Prime Minister has no faith in the Election Commission - one must charitably assume that - should the Malaysian voter?

Tan Sri Rashid, in a remarkable interview which the internet newspaper, malaysiakini (www.malaysiakini.com) carried, shot himself in the foot so firmly he has no option but to quit. The Election Commission, in his view, is under no constitutional compulsion to be impartial. He implied it exists for one purpose - so UMNO, not necessarily BN, is returned to power by hook or crook. His interview revealed another facet: his insistence on a racially balanced electorate. He did not recommend more state seats to Kedah, Kelantan and Trengganu because the Malays have an imbalance of seats, and it would not be fair on the non-Malays. He is wrong, of course. The BN did not have the two-thirds majority in the three states to push that crucial constitutional amendment through. And he did not want more state assembly constituencies in these states which would benefit the Opposition.

More important than racial parity - the battle for that was lost three decades ago when in the aftermath of the 1969 racial riots, UMNO ensured it with no protest from the shell-shocked and frightened MCA and MIC - are the not-so-phantom voters. The Prime Minister knows what he talks about. Actions taken to overcome a local difficulty can often in the end cause havoc. That is why the BN and UMNO rushes hither and thither to turn, to use the local idiom, the now level playing field into an uneven one. The opposition parties barked up the wrong tree when it railed against the phantom voters from amongst the Indonesians and Filipinos in Sabah and Sarawak. Though none would see it then, they were wrong in one important point: the identity cards these illegal immigrants held were originals, and added to the electoral register in an elaborate scam that involved UMNO and several agencies of the government.

This was hatched in the early 1990s, when UMNO moved into Sabah. Dr Mahathir's then political secretary and now deputy education minister, Dato' Aziz Shamsuddin, headed the task force. The federal secretary in Sabah at the time, Tan Sri Shamsuddin Osman, now the Chief Secretary, was in the thick of it. So were the then head of Malaysia's CIA or MI6 - Malaysian External Intelligence Organisation, MEIO or ME Ten in local parlance - Tan Sri Yusof Ahmad or more popularly Bung Ahmad, and Tan Sri Abdul Rashid, then EC secretary. The National Registration Department was represented as were other intelligence agencies. It decided to issue identity cards to the Filipinos and Indonesians amongst the illegal immigrants in the state, Later this was extended to Sarawak and the peninsular, and has, since 1999, given 20-30,000 Thais in southern Thailand with identity cards and their names entered into the polls register. Why is not difficult to discern. They would vote for UMNO in Kelantan, Trengganu, Perlis and Kedah so the BN would be returned to office in the next general election.

How are the ICs distributed? Key UMNO divisional and branch officers and chosen retired civil servants and intelligence officers were sold the rights to recruit up to 500 illegals to be given ICs at RM500 each. They sold those rights at RM1,000. Some of these men were earning RM25,000 a month out of this. This financial incentive and the promise of absolute security and official protection was enough to let the scam continue. The EC cannot deny it was unaware of this. Its officers added these instant citizens into the register in stealth and secrecy. Is it then a surprise that the EC secretary now, Dato' Wan Ahmad Wan Omar, is from ME10.

Tan Sri Rashid talks nonsense when he threatens to weed out the Thais. How could he do it if the ICs are genuine and their names are in the official list of voters? The last the EC wants is to prove in open court why a citizen's name is removed from the polls register without cause. The split within the Malay community is worsened by a deliberate shift away from UMNO. Many are angry enough to release into the public domain embarrassing decisions the EC takes and which proves the EC exists to ensure an UMNO victory, not to conduct an impartial poll. The Opposition slept through this exercise. What saves it now is UMNO's disorientation amidst a change of leaders. Would it help the Opposition? That is another matter.

[This column appeared in the latest issue of Seruan Keadilan, the official organ of Parti Keadilan Nasional, and out today, 23 September 2003]

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