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Sunday, 21-Mar-2004 1:00 AM Is the Putrajaya police an Umno Division? It is now past midnight. Today is Polling Day so all campaigning must now come to an end. Since 10.00pm we have been under siege at our operations centre at Precinct 16 in Putrajaya. We still have many leaflets to distribute to the slightly over 5,000 voters in Putrajaya. But we cannot do so. We sent a team to Precinct 9 to distribute the leaflets. They came back an hour later with the mission unaccomplished. As soon as they reached Precinct 9 they were completely surrounded by the Umno Gerak Gempur who outnumbered them ten to one. We have only six workers. They have an army of sixty dressed in Umno vests. Our two cars were blocked front, rear and side by eight to ten expensive four-wheel drives. They were stuck there and could not move. An hour later the Umno cars allowed them to pass but only to leave the area and return to base. I phoned the police. I spoke to ASP Ibrahim. He passed the phone to the OCPD. He promised to send some men. Our team went out again. Yet, again, they were surrounded and returned to base. I phoned ASP Ibrahim again. We argued. I asked him why the Putrajaya police is not able to curtail the Umno army? Why, after a week of being surrounded and prevented from distributing our campaign material, the police still take no action against the Umno version of Hitler’s Brown Shirts? We still have tons of campaign material -- leaflets, flags and posters -- which we cannot distribute. They all sit on the floor in our operations centre when instead they should be in the hands of our voters. I questioned ASP Ibrahim. Why when we have any gatherings or meet-the-people sessions the police appear, immediately, out of nowhere, to order us to stop? This is an election. We should be allowed to meet and talk to the voters. Yet we are prevented from doing so. If we want to talk to the voters we are told we must do it inside a hall. We cannot do it on the streets. “Is this the law?” I ask. It is for Putrajaya, I am told. Putrajaya is a beautiful city. It is built for the tourists. So no ‘messy’ gatherings can be allowed on the streets of Putrajaya. Putrajaya has many community centres and halls meant for gatherings and functions. So we must do it in one of the halls. We book a hall. But we still cannot hold our meet-the-people session. We now need a police permit as well. The police want to know who will be attending. Who will be talking? What is their identity card number? What will they be talking about? The permit is given. They have no choice. This is an election. Ten police officers wait in front of the hall with cameras and video recorders. Everyone who walks into the hall is photographed and videotaped. Many walk away in fear. We still get a crowd of more than 500. This is still impressive under the circumstances we are in. But it could easily have been a crowd of 1,000. And with a voter population of 5,000 this is no small feat. One week in Putrajaya is a short time. But I only need one week to understand what I should have understood before I walked into Putrajaya. Putrajaya belongs to Umno. No ‘outsiders’ will be tolerated. We will not be allowed to move freely. We will not be allowed to talk to the people. We will not be allowed to hold gatherings. We will not be allowed to distribute campaign material. We will not be allowed to put up flags. The police will use the Police Act. When the Police Act cannot be used the Umno Gerak Gempur will ‘police’ us. The police are in uniform. The Umno Gerak Gempur are in uniform. Both work as a team. One goes in to stop us. If he cannot, then the other does. When the Umno Gerak Gempur move in the police disappear. Are they maybe the same in two different uniforms? It is now past midnight. All campaigning must now come to an end. But we did not campaign. Not many met us. Not many heard us. Many probably do not even know we exist. In seven hours the Putrajaya voters will be coming out to vote. Abdul Rahman Othman, the Parti Keadilan Nasional candidate, managed to meet some of them. He managed to talk to a few. Some even read our campaign material. Adnan Mansor, the Barisan Nasional candidate, the man who gave himself a royal title and now calls himself ‘Tengku’, has met all the voters. He did not have to go house-to-house. He went office-to-office. He was allowed to summon all the Putrajaya civil servants in their offices to talk to them. The Putrajaya voters have been delivered a very important message. They are civil servants. They should be grateful to the government for their jobs. They must thank the government for the government quarters they live in. The government quarters do not belong to them. They belong to the government. If they had no government quarters to live in, but instead had to buy their own homes somewhere far away, they would face problems commuting to work. A whispering campaign is launched. Your votes are not secret. The government will know whom you voted for. You risk getting kicked out of your government quarters. This is not true of course. Your votes are secret. They are locked and sealed in the ballot box. The sealing is witnessed and signed by the candidate’s representative. Six months later the box is opened. But the seal is first inspected by the candidate’s representative to ensure it has not been tampered with. Then the ballot papers are burnt. In seven hours the Putrajaya voters go to the polls. Will the intimidation they have been subjected to these last seven days have an affect? Will the intimidation they have been subjected to these last seven days antagonise them? Will the intimidation they have been subjected to these last seven days make them rise in anger? Will this anger result in them rejecting the ruling party candidate? In 20 hours or so we will know. Let us hope, though we have been prevented from meeting the Putrajaya voters, though we have been prevented from putting up our flags, though we have been prevented from distributing our campaign material, though the Putrajaya voters have been cowed, they will still chose us over the Barisan Nasional candidate.
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