YOURSAY ‘Instead of vigorously pursuing the matter, the Ideas chief suggests acceptance of election results. Perhaps he should be the Idle chief.'

Accept GE13 result despite flaws, says Ideas chief

LittleGiant: Can Ramon Navaratnam, the Centre for Public Policy Studies (CPPS) president, explain what kind of monitoring of GE13 was carried out by CPPS in order for him to conclusively declare "we cannot find any proof of fraud."

How many people did CPPS engage to observe the entire electoral process? How many constituencies did they visit and how much time was spent by them in those constituencies to make the assessment that fraudulent acts did not take place there?

How many voters were interviewed by CPPS? Did the CPPS personnel have access to the vote counting centres? If they had access, how many counting centres were visited and monitored continuously until official announcement of the results?

Did they get first-hand reports from candidates, especially the ones who lost by narrow margins and investigated to find out if there was any fraud that denied victory for these candidates?

In short, was the monitoring carried out professionally or was it done just to please the Election Commission (EC) and the BN politicians?

Anonymous#007: The rakyat is mature and intelligent enough to accept flaws, but not blatant gerrymandering, vote-buying, and an EC that has repeatedly refused to address the shortcomings in Malaysia's election process and has proven to be incompetent in its job, e.g. not ensuring the indelible ink is indeed indelible.

Calling these flaws now is akin to a compulsive robber defending himself in court by asking the judge to overlook his actions as a flaw.

The task of the EC is to ensure a free and fair election, which means it has a responsibility to ensure all voters are valid. It is not simply there for administrative reasons to facilitate the election process.

This also means it is obliged to take the National Registration Department (NRD) to task when presented with numerous proofs of dodgy citizenship.

Maplesyrup: Is Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas) CEO Wan Saiful Wan Jan running out of ideas?

Wan Saiful, if you are "too afraid to say if the flaws affected the results", it seems to me you too have doubts over the legitimacy of the results. If you helm a think-tank, we expect better leadership than that.

May: Wan Saiful, when you are robbed of all that matters to you, do you sit back and say, "I'll just have to accept my losses."

If you had a chance to run after the guy who just pick-pocketed you, are you going to just shrug and say the same thing? If you recognise the perpetrators, aren't you going to make a police report?

Hey, if any Malaysian is going to be a pushover like you, we will all be dead. No thanks, my friend, I prefer to take responsibility for my own destiny. No one is going to ride roughshod over me.

NoNoNo: We will not accept the result caused by fraud in GE13. Yes, we are not going anywhere until all complaints of fraud have been clarified.

You might as well ask yourself, what is the point of having elections (and spend millions of ringgit) if the results are predetermined. What is the point of citizens going out to cast votes if it is just a show?

Amateur: Instead of vigorously pursuing the matter, the Ideas chief suggests acceptance of election results. Perhaps he should be the Idle chief.

Cantabrigian: The CEO of Ideas is out of idea on how to justify the EC's dismal performance during GE13.

I am sure there are some good EC officers out there who have been just and fair to all, but there are some who have been specifically instructed to do whatever is necessary to ensure a BN victory, even through illegal means.

CEO of Ideas, are you sure you are promoting democracy or condoning tyranny?

Wise guy: It seems that if you make a report to the police station that your house is robbed, the police will tell you to accept it and buy more padlocks to enhance your security or move to another house.

My five-year-old son can do much better with his ideas. I have another idea, why don't you resign?

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