Had a (sweet) talk with my blogging mate, notable blogger Susan Loone, and we agreed (in the face of overwhelming evidence) that the election was fair and free after all.
Do we all then owe the chairperson of the EC, Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman, an apology?
We also discussed where the monkey tricks may probably arise, but let's wait and see.
;-)
thats premature to conclude that PUR 12 is fair and free. Lets wait and see.
ReplyDeleteThere was nothing fair in the elections. What's fair to you?
ReplyDeleteFair means equal right to TV adverts, newspapers, right to rebuttal of propaganda, character assasination which Lim Kit and Anwar have suffered immensely. It means the opposition having a say in EC formation.
To winners hope they keep their promise and rule with justice. They must remember it's the people that put them up and not become too arrogant
ReplyDeleteI've seen how elections are conducted in more democratic countries. This was absolutely NOT a free and fair election.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened was a great many people had got absolutely fed up with the policies and actions and inaction of the BN government.
SO,
in spite of the Gerrymandering,
in spite of the absolute control of the MSM to spread lies about the opposition
in spite of the abuse of Taxpayer-paid Government machinery for BN political purposes
in spite of the last minute threats by MIC, MCA, Bedol, people voted courageously to say a big NO to BN.
The results came out in spite of all the Odds, not in any way because it was a free and fair elections.
To the victors:
ReplyDeleteGovern well. Do not become arrogant or you will be no better than the people you have unseated.
We the rakyat are watching you.
-- A Malaysian
Yes, to DAP in Penang - welcome to tough and thankless job of government.
ReplyDeleteYour work starts tomorrow morning.
We don't know what can come out from the rabbit's hat in the last minute!
ReplyDeleteLets wait & see!
Ktemoc, I'm sorry, the man you hated most is the most credited today. He has rallied the opposition, united them, campaigned for them in a punishig schedule and his party wiped out MIC from exsistence and also won an impressive record by being the only party which made the most of the giant killers apart from DAP which killed Penang Chief Minister. Be polite and leave your hatred and look forward.
ReplyDeleteall said and heard (including gerrymandering which unfortunately has been a disgraceful fact of our polical scene, and the last minute withdrawal of the use of indelible ink to mark those who had voted), but the point has been that the balloting and counting were fair, or we wouldn't have witnessed such an amazing change.
ReplyDeletein my post last year http://ktemoc.blogspot.com/2007/05/50-posts-to-independence-no26.html I wrote:
"Democracy – definitely far from being practiced at 100%, indeed very much far from that aspired state.
Yet ........ yes, yet in the well-known obscenity of the pork barrelling and dodgy government tactics in various recent by-elections, I detect in these underhanded conduct, through corrupt pecuniary influence, the desire to win an election via the ballot box.
Leaving the unfair conduct aside for a sec, I see the ballot box still a sacred cow where only the campaigning had been bull-poo-ish-ly dodgy. And if the pork barreling had been over the top, it demonstrated in a perverse way the ruling party had been scared of the ballot box and therefore worried of losing.
On that I dare say, with a ballot box still respected, we haven’t yet deteriorated into an Idi Amin-ish state.
Pork barrelling per se is quite common in western democracies as well – currently Australian PM John Howard has been doing the porky rounds except that in western democracies, they pretend it’s finely developed policies. Additionally they are of course less crude, but then in Malaysia, refined subtle pork barrelling may escape the target recipients' notice. It's a function of voters’ preference, so suck on that if you want to win – via the ballot box of course and not through another Memali.
But what I have been annoyed with has been the unfair obstructions placed in the way of the opposition and the mainstream press’ obedient and obsequious toeing of the party line.
But I say we still have hope for democracy."
Haven't we realised the hope last night? ;-)
I would say the elections were not fair..Fact that opposition won doesnt detract from the fact it was not fair. leading into the elections, all the bias media, etc. plus the tricks during the elections process itself.. will go to indicate it was not fair. The good thing is that the swing to opposition was so huge, no dirty tricks could change the results. The BN didnt have the wherewhital to counter this huge swing. look at the majorities of the win. No amount of postal votes or whatever phantom votes can counter this.
ReplyDeletecommon, can you believe Najib could win with 26k votes majority?? maybe all the army votes went to him.