Malaysians Say The Darndest Things!

Stopping Anwar Ibrahim In Permatang Pauh: #1: Elections Commission Inconveniences Voters

August 16, 2008

In this part, we will look at how even before the nomination and polling days, the Elections Commission is already throwing a spanner into Anwar’s bid to re-enter Parliament.

The Elections Commission, which is supposed to be an independent body, is known to be friendly to the present administration, and you would expect the EC to find ways to help Dollah Badawi’s gang.

By announcing the polling date to be August 26th 2008, which is a Tuesday, this has been widely seen as an attempt to reduce PKR’s winning majority of 13,000+ voters from the previous election. Announcing polling day on a weekday is at best an arbitrary decision that makes no sense, as there is no problem if they wanted to hold it on the 23rd, 24th, or the 30th of August. Why not the weekends? No one can answer except for the people inside the Elections Commission making these decisions (probably with ’suggestions’ from their BN friends).

Everyone can see that this is a blatant attempt to inconvenience the voters, most of whom are probably blue and white collar workers. Now they will have to face a choice: Take a precious half-day leave and vote, or save the precious leave day, thinking that Anwar will win anyway. This is an extremely dangerous choice because it will reduce the voter turnout, and will lead people into complacency into thinking Anwar is a sure win, thus not bothering to vote out of arrogance.

The Pakatan Rakyat-led Penang government has mulled over declaring that day a public holiday to increase voter turnout, but good sense prevailed when they decided against it. Don’t want people to accuse you of misuse of power after all, right?

So will complacency and arrogance derail Anwar’s bid? I have no idea, but looks like the Elections Commission is hoping it will. Do the right thing, Permatang Pauh!

Other parts of the series

Introduction

#1: Elections Commission Inconveniences Voters (Current)

#2: The Saiful Bukhari Factor

#3: The BN Goodie Bag

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• Stopping Anwar Ibrahim In Permatang Pauh: Introduction
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