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Saturday, 03-Apr-2004 8:56 PM X-Files: Unexplained mysteries in Malaysia’s worst ever election The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) has joined the chorus of outraged Malaysian individuals, political parties and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in condemning Malaysia’s 21 March 2004 General Election, the 11th since Malaysia gained independence from Britain in 1957. “The allegations by the opposition of fraud in the 21st March general election has tarnished the country's image,” said Suhakam, a government body set up through act of Parliament. “The allegations tarnish the whole election process. It does not look good for Malaysia,” said Professor Hamdan Adnan, a Suhakam councillor and renowned local activist. He added that the allegations were serious and required investigation by Suhakam. To demonstrate the extent of this outrage, the National Justice Party (keADILan) president, Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, the solitary keADILan Member of Parliament, showed Suhakam the stacks of protest notes received from Malaysians from all walks of life. In another development, Azmin Ali, keADILan’s Director of Elections and a party Vice President, said the Election Commission (EC) documents showed that his dead father had turned up to cast his vote. “Many voters who had died came to vote, including my late father. Sad, I was unable to meet him,” quipped Azmin. Critics accuse Malaysia of denying its citizens their rights. However, the reverse is in fact true. Even people who have died are not denied their right to vote, and if they are not able to return from the dead to vote, then the government will arrange for someone else to vote in their place. A Malaysian lady married to a foreigner, Hajjah Noor Ibrahim, who has been living outside the country all these years, said she was surprised to find her name registered as a voter. She said, out of curiosity, she keyed in her identity card number, 510707-05-5292, into the EC website search section and found that she was registered as a voter. “All I know is I have never registered as a voter and have never voted in my life,” said Hajjah Noor. “I have been living outside Malaysia all these years.” “I then went to the Malaysian Embassy in my country to enquire how to vote,” Hajjah Noor went on to say. “I thought, since I am now a registered voter, I might as well vote to prevent someone else voting in my place.” “To my surprise, however, I was told by the embassy official that they have no postal voting system for Malaysians living in my country. They told me if I wanted to vote I would have to fly back to Malaysia to do so.” “I cannot understand why I cannot vote through the postal voting system when I live halfway around the world whereas police officers and army personnel who live within walking distance from the polling centres are obligated to vote through the postal voting system.” Hajjah Noor has asked for help to check whether she had ‘voted’ in the recent election at the Jalan Gurney polling centre where she has been registered as a voter. Chances are she did, though how she managed to do so when she was thousands of miles away will remain an unexplained mystery, as will the mystery of how Azmin Ali’s late father managed to return from the grave to vote. The issue of ‘phantom’ voters is not new to Malaysia. This has been prevalent since elections were first introduced to Malaysia, only now it is more rampant and open than before. And the recent election takes the top prize. For example, in many constituencies, the number of voters who turned out to vote in the Parliamentary constituencies exceeded those who turned out to vote in the State constituencies. Considering that each voter is issued two ballot papers, one for the Parliament constituency and another for State, would mean the ballot papers must tally. Yet in many constituencies all over Malaysia the ballot papers do not tally. Then there were cases where women voted using the identity cards of men. In one such case in Putrajaya, an opposition election worker raised a protest and asked that the EC establish the voter was merely a cross-dresser or transvestite and not a real woman. However, no one dared volunteer to undertake the task of doing the fondling so the she-man was allowed to vote on the basis that he probably did have a male organ between his legs. The bottom-line is, somewhere in Putrajaya there lives a man masquerading as a woman, or a woman who masqueraded as a male voter. But then, when it has a Member of Parliament who is masquerading as a prince, is this any surprise? And what about the many cases of toddlers, who are still breastfeeding, voting? Granted that many men past their prime still have a penchant for breastfeeding and this is not a yardstick of one’s age. But these toddlers were ‘officially’ born four years ago and yet somehow they were registered to vote and did vote. The strange thing is, no one saw any four-year olds walking into the polling stations to vote so if they did vote then when did it happen? Could it be they voted ‘behind the scenes’? A day after the election, stacks of identity cards were found abandoned at some of the polling stations. How did these identity cards find their way to the polling stations and why were they so well hidden that whoever hid them forgot all about them or could not find them later. Equally perplexing were the envelopes and sacks with the EC seals found in the dustbins outside the polling stations. Inside these envelopes and sacks were ballot papers, already marked in favour of the ruling party, with a list of names of these ‘voters’. Why had they been abandoned? Was it because whoever was in possession of them failed to stuff them into the ballot boxes due to the vigil by the opposition election workers and since having ballot papers on your person is a crime so whoever was in possession of them chose to discard them? Yes, many unexplained mysteries occurred in the recent general election, which throws doubts on the legitimacy of the election.
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