The recently concluded campus elections have been alleged to be biased towards 'pro-government' candidates.
by a coalition of student, youth and rights organisations (Jerit) include gifts of money and mobile phones to candidates and the bias of campus authorities including a deputy vice-chancellor.
The education minister when questioned, dismissed the allegations with the comment that the elections were not the general election and that it should not be politicised. I am very disappointed with this attitude as any allegation of unfair practices should be investigated thoroughly and if true, there should be a re-election.
In fact, the Education Ministry should have made sure the elections were fairly carried out, considering the expected involvement of political parties.
The present crop of university students will be our future leaders. Unhealthy and unfair practices, both before and during elections, will only produce so-called leaders who are used to strong-arm tactics.
Our present education minister is not a politician and he does not have to be accountable to the electorate. So for every problem that surfaced, he will make a simplistic statement and go back to his ivory tower.
The fact that the allegations have been simply dismissed without further action would give the impression that the 'pro-government' candidates did have the support of the establishment as alleged.
The allegations include the following, which I find very serious indeed:
1) In UKM and UUM, voting forms and names were recorded, which meant that how a student voted would be known;
2) In UPM, the ballots were counted by computer, which the complainants claimed to be not transparent;
3) In UM, first-year students were required to reveal if they are 'pro-opposition' or 'pro-government';
4) In UiTM, the authorities closed nominations before the election was announced! This accounted for the 100 percent success rate of 'pro-government' candidates, in this year's as well as previous year's elections.
I am highlighting this in the hope that the authorities concerned can dispel or counter the allegations made. The mainstream media, as usual, would rather not disrupt their good relationship with the government.
