The letter Malaysian voters should know produced an adrenalin rush and I immediately checked my wallet to make sure that my MyKad was intact. The letter provoked a sense of empowerment which had strangely been missing over the last 30 years. So I needed the assurance of my MyKad being intact for the next elections.

According to the writer if we are unhappy with the BN government, then we must:

'State our stand clearly' in the next elections;

Accept, that if the BN is re-elected, then 'we are not just stupid ourselves, but are, in fact, pushing our responsibility away from us';

Recognise that 'the BN came to power legally through winning at elections';

Admit that we ourselves are to blame for all the questionable policies eg, NEP, OSA, ISA, crime, corruption, etc;

Acknowledge that 'it is you, me, us - the voters to blame' (for re-electing the BN); and

Realise that 'the BN did not stop anyone from becoming voters - so if the government we voted in is corrupt, inefficient or lousy, who is to blame?'.

The letter also asserts 'that nothing is perfect. But by working together and exercising our voting rights, we can make a difference. The synergy of our votes becomes a nuclear force'.

Everything the writer said is true, but voting and electing a government is not a one-dimensional issue. It also involves, for example, construction of election boundaries for constituencies. Taking this factor alone, in our (Malaysian) situation, people like the writer, me and many other like-minded Malaysians have as much chance of creating a 'nuclear force' as a snowball in hell.

To understand this, we have to finger the Election Commission. The 'nuclear force' can only be created if every Malaysian's vote carries the same (or nearly the same) weightage. If (for example) 20,000 votes in one place elects a member of parliament and you need 65,000 in another place, the weightage is at an disadvantage for the second constituency.

Next, there are phantom voters who frequently negate the wishes of the voters in many constituencies. The exercise of postal voting is also highly controversial in spite of what the Election Commission says.

To discerning citizens, the Election Commission operates out of a huge black hole and it should be apparent to anyone interested that this is actually where the 'nuclear force' (alluded to by the above letter) operates and from where we get the 'legally elected' BN government.

It would be instructive to study the tenure of officials holding key appointments in the Election Commission. One knows that an official holds a key appointment when he, with a straight face, is able to say that our elections are free and fair.

Please do not hold you breath to figure out who the next chairman of the commission will be when the present one retires. If age catches up, there is nothing to out giving contractual employment.

Finally, I will hazard that in some future election, the BN will retain its two-thirds majority with 46% of the popular vote. Watch this space.