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More postal votes were cast than allowed in Pengkalen Pasir

MORE POSTAL VOTES WERE cast in the Pengkalen Pasir state byelection than allowed. The Election Commission not only accepts this as normal, it is aggressively defends it. PAS is consulting its legal advisers. The National Front, and UMNO, has stopped crowing about their 'success' and gone into hibernation, its propaganda repeating the untruth but its officials are concerned. If a fresh byelection is not called, Malaysia will follow the dictatorships which produce 99 per cent victories. This byelection is flawed. A fresh byelection should be called. But the chairman of the Election Commission, Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman, is sure the byelection went well, but did it go well because the National Front won, or because all the Election Commission staff were in the constituency? How can Malaysia say it is a democracy, when it cannot conduct a byelection properly in an insignificant state constituency? The National Front tried too hard to win, and brought in more people to vote than allowed. It does not matter it happened in postal votes. The fact is it happened. The Election Commission is wrong, should have declared the byelection invalid and ordered fresh byelections. The National Front had to win, because the political future of the UMNO Youth deputy leader, Mr Khairy Jamaluddin, was at stake. It was dubbed "Khairy's election". He set the National Front aim: A victory by 700 and less than 500 votes for the former UMNO leader turned independent, Datuk Ibrahim Ali. A re-byelection in Pengkalen Pasir could go to PAS, and that will be worse for him than having lost to PAS first time. But the Election Commission will see to it it does not happen.

The independent Election Commission is around to ensure the continued dominance of Malay power, not to oversee free elections. Tan Sri Abdul Rashid, said so when he met Keadilan party officials about four years ago. He said in effect that his organisation is around to see that Malays will hold power until kingdom come, and his job is to see that happen. In the Malay Dominance that even Malays deny exists, the role of the Election Commission is to see that UMNO will always be in power. It has taken the current UMNO thinking that Malay=Islam=UMNO Malay. In the 2004 UMNO Youth assembly, a resolution said anyone who left UMNO is a 'traitor to UMNO and a traitor to the Malay race. The resolution was meant to affect Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, but also included in it were the founding father of UMNO, who died a Party Negara leader, Dato' Sir Onn Jaffar; his son, Tun Hussein Onn, who was Malaysia's third prime miniser and father of the UMNO Youth leader; and Tengku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia's first prime minister. This was pointed out and hastily withdrawn. Otherwise, UMNO would also have been forced to remove their portraits from its headquarters.

The Election Commission has castigated other parties for not accepting this as their political philosophy. The opposition parties believe the Election Commission should be free, but like the Malay government servant, it has a hidden agenda that conflicts with its legal duties. That is why Tan Sri Abdul Rashid was so arrogant about the results, in which the postal votes were more than allowed. He will see to it that UMNO will forever rule. The opposition parties are a nuisance to this hidden rule, and will be treated as such. To ensure this, he has taken to be mediator between the prime minister, and UMNO President, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, so that UMNO will have a free run. He had two dinners with the Pasir Mas warlord, formerly of UMNO but now an independent, at the Crown Princess in Kuala Lumpur. He wanted Dato' Ibrahim to not contest the byelection, showing his charts and graphs which indicated he will get 400 votes. (This was why Datuk Khairy confidently predicted Dato' Ibrahim would get less than 500 votes.)

Dato' Ibrahim asked for two conditions for withdrawal: he be reinstated as Pasir Mas UMNO divisional chief, to which he had been elected, and Pak Lah had removed him; and Dato' Annuar Musa be removed as UMNO chief for Kelantan. He went off for his daughter's graduation in Australian, and on his return, met Tan Sri Rashid, who in the meanwhile had presented Dato' Ibrahim's conditions to Pak Lah, who was not agreeable to Dato' Ibrahim being Pasir Mas UMNO chief but agreed to sack Dato' Annuar Musa as UMNO chief in Kelantan. Dato' Ibrahim Ali stood as a candidate in Pengkalen Pasir, and got what was predicted for him by the Election Commission. The Election Commission was in full force in Pengkalen Pasir to see that he also did not get more, besides seeing that PAS did not win the seat. PAS had won the seat before the postal votes were counted but the Postal Votes edged UMNO in, but after more votes than allowed were counted.

But the postal votes remained an insurmountable obstacle to overcome by the opposition parties. PAS's Dato' Mustapha Ali, and Keadilan's Dato' Azmin Ali had hit a brickwall when discussing electoral matters with the Election Commission. The postal votes, they pointed out, was started, so that those in the jungle could vote. Now, all soldiers, policemen and their families vote, often in circumstances in why they cannot vote whom they prefer. They accepted the postal vote in principle, but not how it is now. The familes should not be allowed to vote by postal ballot. Many could vote normally, since only a fraction of them are on duty. Those on duty could be given time off to vote. Other measures could be made to get them to vote. But Tan Sri Abdul Rashid was unbending. He did not want to change in the postal voting rules, because the Malay - UMNO - would no longer be in power. And he was not appointed the chairman of the Election Commission to let that happen. But in making sure Ketuanan Melayu is the hidden agenda in which UMNO remains in power, the Elections Commission will make mistakes like in Pengkalen Pasir.

In elections to come, the Election Commission will be more on the defensive. UMNO will wash its hands off the Election Commission then "since it is an independent body, and it does its duties independent of UMNO". But this will not come, as more Malays do not accept Ketuanan Melayu as their reason for political power. That will be a long time yet, but not before the free elections the world will be proud of is anything but. Those who follow Ketuanan Melayu as their hidden policy will make mistakes, as secrets about it come out for frequently in often anonymous calls, and the government or its agencies do not counter it. Malaysia has had 50 years of elections in which one party - the Alliance, which was renamed the National Front as more political parties joined it - is dominant, and the other parties remain neutered so its leaders can be in power and they care not a whit for those they represent. These non-Malay political party leaders have not found out that they are drumbeaters in this episode. They are afraid to lose their jobs, so they keep quiet. But their people have moved away from their parties and form alliances, but separate from the National Front. MCA is proud of having got out the Chinese to vote in Pengkalen Pasir to vote for the UMNO candidate, oblivious of their own role in the equation of Ketuanan Melayu, which has gained in strength as theirs have declined. But the Ketuanan Melayu view is not held universally now. The Election Commission must work harder to see it through, and make mistakes like in the postal votes in Pengkalen Pasir.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com