The Election Commission throws constitutional responsibility to the winds to be the electoral poodle of the Barisan Nasional (BN) government. It made no bones about it when it delineated parliamentary and state constituencies as it must after every second general elections.
Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad wants Putrajaya as a parliamentary constituency. It has only 85 registered voters. The EC bends over backwards to make it one. Even St Kitts, the Caribbean island, with less than 10,000 voters, would baulk at such a shocking gerrymandering. Not in Malaysia.
No doubt in time it would increase to tens of thousands, but electoral constituencies are delineated to a formula not to a prime ministerial desire. With 85 voters, Putrajaya does not qualify as a parliamentary constituency; it would not as a seat in a local council if elections were held for that.
This is a scandal. The BN government is embarrassed, the EC is not, the newspapers, all controlled or owned by the BN, ignores this electoral abberation. This is to ensure the BN would not be challenged in its traditional heartland. It believes that if it controls Johor, Sarawak and Sabah, and with its support elsewhere in the country, it could governing comfortably.
Johor was once too powerful an Umno monolithic that non-Johor prime ministers after the first, Tunku Abdul Rahman, saw it as a threat to their hold on Umno and the country.
Umno near shambles
Now with Umno in near shambles in the Malay heartland of Kelantan, Trengganu, Kedah and Parlis, it must depend on Johor, Sabah and Sarawak to see it through. Once, Sarawak and Sabah was not given its due seats under the Malaysia agreement; now BN and Umno rush to give it more than its due, and hope that will keep it in office. If that is not enough, the 85 votes would at least give it an additional constituency. So, in this delineation exercise, most go to the three states.
In this, it is not BN but Umno that matters. If Umno loses out to PAS or other Malay grouping, the BN edifice would fall. The EC is aware of this, for it is now yet another desperate arsenal in this Umno battle for the Malay cultural heartland. So its puts impediments into questions it cannot answer without giving the game away.
But anticipating questions it cannot answer, it surrounds itself with new rules and regulations that prevents Malaysians and a residency qualification in a state before he can stand for that state assembly. If a voter registered in Lembah Pantai can stand in Pasar Salak, why should he not be allowed to raise questions about the electoral rolls in Kubang Pasu or Miri?
Since all Malaysians have a vested interest in ensuring the sanctity and accuracy of the electoral rolls, why are they prevented from exercising their democratic right? A political party, for instance, wants to make sure electoral rolls are an accurate representation of what it claims to be. Why is it not allowed then to exercise its democratic right?
If the EC wants to restrict complaints, why did it not take the corollary to it, that candidates could only stand in the constituency they are registered as voters? But it could not. Few BN MPs and state assemblymen are registered voters in the constituencies they represent. So that is out.
So why does the EC restrict the checking of the electoral rolls to those registered in the area where the check is made? All it does is to raise the rumbles amongst voters who are ignored as a matter of course after an election.
When you come down to it, democracy is not about elections. A country which scrupulously conducts elections as the constitution demands does not make it democratic. It is not the frequency of elections that matters, but the openness of debate and free speech that gives it meaning. When the body constitutionally mandated to hold free elections would not allow that, and sue those who challenge it, and restrict those who could approach it about the accuracy of the electoral rolls, then the one casualty is democratic space.
A suggestion of panic
The NGO, Suaram, makes the valid point that "the cause for concern is with the election system in the country that the EC is mandated to run — to ensure that the principles enshrined in the Constitution, the common law, the rule of law and democracy are adhered to." EC conducts elections not so that it would not criticised but that the public will is reflected in free elections.
To then say it would sue any who disturbs its equanamity suggests not confidence in its ability to conduct elections, but panic.
Given the consistent complaints about phantom voters, many long-term residents of the country's cemeteries, the BN organising busload of voters to rush in to vote under circumstances that raise more questions than answers, the EC's impotence in preventing it, all ensures flawed elections.
What gives the EC cause to worry is that the opposition now challenges it at every step, backed with facts and figures, and an understanding of the electoral laws.
BN and Umno now are shocked to discover that whilst its political opponents remain as fractured as ever, the Malay political parties, notably PAS, challenge it with confidence and panache.
The Pendang and Anak Bukit by-elections last month is evidence of a virtual civil war between Umno and PAS, in which no quarter is given or taken. Umno wakes up to the horrifying reality that it could lost Kedah to PAS in the coming general election, and Mahathir could well find it tough to retain his Kubang Pasu if, as it is now likely, he would remain in office until he decides it's time to leave.
Malaysia is declared an Islamic state without debate or consensus for no reason than to fight PAS at its own theocratic formula. The BN gathers its forces for that epic battle to come between the forces of brute power and strength and the forces of the Word. It is in this context that the current delineation exercise must be viewed.
MGG PILLAI is a freelance columnist. He also runs the Sangkancil discussion group.
