Random thoughts on election

The much anticipated and hyped-up election has finally come to pass. It feels weird, now that the election fever has slowly dwindled down. All eyes are now fixed on the nomination of cabinet members, chief ministers and the delivering of the promises made. Having followed the news/blogs, listening to ceramahs and discussing with friends and families, here are just some random thoughts I have gathered on the election.

1. The ‘rakyat’ have spoken! The message to the ruling coalition party was clear. The people wanted change. Almost all the hot seats have been grabbed by the oppositions. Even some rookies like Tony Pua, Nurul Izzah Anwar, P.Ramasamy beat giants like Chew Mei Fun, Sharizat and Koh Tsu Koon. This is akin to the famous story of David defeating Goliath. I think this election is more of a retaliation against Barisan National, rather a vote for the oppositions. It doesn’t really matter who you field as the candidate, as long as s(he) wears the right badge, s(he) is almost certain to win.

2. The oppositions really have to work hard (extra hard) this time as all eyes are on them do deliver the promises made in their respective manifestos especially in the five states won (Kelantan, Kedah, Penang, Perak and Selangor). BN is definitely not going to give them an easy time. What they do in this next 4-5 years will determine if they will be re-elected in the next general election. The pressure and onus is on them now. The drastic swing of voters to the oppositions has caught many by surprise. Candidates who contested, expecting only to be an extra voice in the opposition, suddenly find themselves having to govern the states; some with little or no experience at all in this whole area of governing. Hence, we as responsible citizens who have voted for them should give them whatever support we could and not immediately point fingers when they fall.

3. Malaysians have shown a high level of maturity in this election. Candidates who lost have conceded defeat in a very honourable way (except maybe for Uncle Sam who is still living in denial and being so adamant to stay in MIC to make ‘changes’ despite having lost his relevance and support). Leaders of the winning parties also urged its supporters to go home and not have any public celebrations. Everyone, especially those who are old enough to live through May 13, can still remember vividly the bloodshed that occurred back in 1969.

4. The swing in votes was especially evident amongst educated, urbanized people who now have access to alternative medias. For instance, the oppositions won 10/11 of the parliamentary seats in the federal territory and 17/22 of the seats in Selangor. This is a stark contrast compared to the older generations who are very much influenced by the mainstream media (ie NST, The Star, Utusan) which are very biased towards the government. It irks me sometimes to read of the news in the NST as they are so many watered-down stories and cover-ups. I strongly believe that what people read will influence how they think. With the emergence of e-media like blogs, youtube and other online news, people can and should access to these information in order to make a more informed decision. The government should be more transparent with the people and restrictive laws like the Official Secrets Act (OSA) should be abolished. I am glad to hear that the new Selangor MB, Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim, is actually making the proposal to remove OSA from the State legislation.

5. Although BN is only short of 8 seats to having a 2/3 majority, the gap between the number of parliamentary seats held by the government and the opposition (140 to 82) is in fact much smaller if we were to discount East Malaysia (Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan), making it 85 to 80. If we look at it this way, the simple majority held by BN is really very simple indeed. The strong support for the government in Sabah and Sarawak is most likely due to the large population of rural citizens who are less educated and have less access to alternative media, thus being stuck still in the old way of thinking. If these people could rise up to the occasion and break the old mindsets and habits, today we would probably witness a change in government.

6. “Undi itu rahsia”, which is translated to mean “Our vote is a secret” has been resonating throughout the election period especially amongst the older generations. I wonder why they don’t dare to speak up for the party that they vote for. Why did they have to support the party in secret? In fact, I think if we support a certain party, we should even campaign for them, formally or informally, and influence others to do the same. Maybe they are still traumatized by the May 13 incident, or maybe they fear that some of their privileges will be revoked (especially the government servants) should they support the oppositions.

7. Many have questioned the credibility of the oldest candidate, 89 year old Maimun Yusuf who contested in the Kuala Terengganu seat. Did she really think she could win the election? The only votes she could get are probably sympathy votes from friends and relatives. Why would she be so stupid to dump RM10, 000 to a course that is bound to fail? Does she even have that much savings in the first place to start with? Hence, here comes the conspiracy theory that she was paid by certain party to pull away some votes. Interestingly, as I observe the results, she probably have served that purpose. BN won PAS by 648 votes. Maimun Yusof managed to garner 685 votes for herself. If all her votes were to go to PAS, BN would have lost that seat.

8. The Barisan Alternative consisting of DAP, PKR and PAS has a lot to iron out in order to form a successful coalition. These three parties have very different ideologies; and until and unless a common ground is agreed upon, they will only head towards destruction. Can they do it? I seriously hope they could. I also wonder...if BN were to propose an Islamic law in the parliament, would PAS support it? After all, it is the goal of PAS to establish a conservative Islamic country. If it does, it will only nullify the 1/3 majority that the oppositions have won.

They are many thoughts lingering still in my mind. But maybe this will do for the mean time. May God continue to bless our country and the newly appointed government.

Catch-22

The term ‘catch-22’ has been quoted by many to indicate a ‘no-win’ situation. To be more precise, this term illustrates a self-contradictory circular logic or a paradoxical situation. This term dates back to 1961, based on the title of a novel written by Joseph Heller. The novel is set in the later stages of World War II and it depicts several bureaucratic catches that involves illogical reasoning. Particularly, ‘Catch-22’ is a military rule that is used to prevent anyone from avoiding combat mission. The paragraph below is extracted from the novel to illustrate the point:

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

The best way to understand this term is to look at a few more examples.

1. Recently I watched a movie called ‘A Civil Action’, starring John Travolta. He was a personal injury attorney that got himself entangled in a legal battle. In order to win this lawsuit, he has to fork out a hefty sum of money even at the expense of his personal savings, career and reputation. The only way for him to recover his losses is to win the suit, but how can he win unless he has the money?

2. Many fresh graduates find it frustrating during job applications because a lot of companies require them to have experience first. How could they have experience unless they are given a chance to start somewhere?

3. “NOTHING IS ABSOLUTE”. Is this true? Now this phrase is bias in nature. The only logical answer is a ‘no’, that is to say that something must be absolute. If we answer ‘yes’ and agree to the fact that nothing is absolute, then the next question to ask is ‘Is this phrase absolutely true?’ In order for ‘NOTHING IS ABSOLUTE’ to be true, the phrase ‘NOTHING IS ABSOLUTE’ has to be absolutely true, thus indicating that one thing has to be absolute (that is the phrase itself) even if everything else is not absolute….think again!

I guess by now you should have gotten the drift on what catch-22 mean. Lets take a look at the electoral system in Malaysia. How come the coalition party (Barisan National) can sustain a 50-year ruling while the oppositions (combined together) fail to win even a one third majority? Countries like America, Australia and even Japan have seen a change of government. One would question whether BN is really doing so well in keeping its citizens satisfied when we have recently witnessed the Hindraf demonstration. If not, are we practicing real democracy? Is there something really wrong with our current electoral system? Are we stuck in a Catch-22 situation?

I have recently been introduced to two interesting terms called “mal-apportionment” and “gerrymandering” from reading my brother’s blog. He pointed out that our electoral system is inherently flawed, such that the voting always favours the BN party. I do not profess to be an expert in these areas, but from the little that I understand; “mal-apportionment” means the unequal allocation of seats to the various constituencies. By right, the number of seats allocated to each constituency should be proportional to its population size; instead the government has under-represented the number of seats in the opposition-dominated areas while over-represented the number of seats in the BN strongholds. For instance, Chin Huat posted in his blog that in the 2004 election, Putrajaya returned a parliamentary seat with only 5079 voters while Kapar (about 100km away) did so with 104,185 voters. “Gerrymandering”, on the other hand means redrawing the boundaries of a constituency so that the new constituency favours a particular party or candidate, typically the one in power. For more details, you can refer to this article.

Because of these systemic flaws, it is no wonder that opposition party leader (DAP), Lim Kit Siang kept emphasizing the need to destroy political hegemony in this coming general election. The phrase ‘makkal sakti’ has been coined to emphasize that the country’s ruling should be based on people’s power, not by the manipulation of the democratic system to gain majority votes. Unless these flaws are rectified, our voting will always be skewed towards the BN party, making it a lot harder for the oppositions to win over.

Are we in a catch-22 situation? You decide for yourself.