EC chief Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman obviously has a very low opinion of his countrymen's intelligence when he wants them to believe that there was no ulterior motive in the EC's attempt to hire Puteri Umno members in commission's work.

He said this although there have been many allegations of vote rigging (for example, the untransparent postal votes, and the ballot boxes which were brought in at the last minute to swing the votes in favour of the ruling party candidates in Shah Alam, Pantai, Gombak, just to name a few), the obviously lack of independence of the judiciary to make the deliberately-excessively- high expenditure incurred in any formal complaints worthwhile, obviously unfair election practices like the unabashed abuse of public information facilities like TV and radio to campaign (year-round) for the ruling party, whilst denying access of the same to competing political parties, even during official campaign periods, restriction of the right of the people to a free press (unlike our more prosperous neighbours like Korea and Japan, as well as Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines), etc.

They say the people deserve the government they elect, but surely it only refers to a people who has been given a reasonably fair amount of truthful information on the choices before them, and if the election process itself is fair and fully transparent. The Malaysian people, alas, has been denied that right.

I grieve for my country, which could be much more prosperous and developed than it is today, and its people not burdened by as much hardship and poverty, if not for the massive corruption, through abuse of power for financial gains, by the ruling party, its political leaders and associates, and massive wasteful spending of national wealth on Pharoenic projects, over the last 15 years or so.

May God bless Malaysia with an effective political check-and-balance as in a people-oriented democracy.