Let the people decide future, not EC or Umno

comments     Yoursay     Published     Updated

YOURSAY 'A regime with weak support will face revolt from the majority.'

Unfair redelineation may backfire, says don

Anonymous_4031: Yes, Bridget Welch. Unfair delineation will backfire; and the government will lose its legitimacy. Look at Thailand today.

The opposition feels that the government has given unfair advantage to itself; and disadvantaged the opposition. Thus, it refuses to take part in the polls; and is now protesting.

Similarly, rigging an election will not do. Look what happened to former president Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines. Even the armed forces, his main backer, revolted against him; and he had to flee the country and stay in Hawaii until his death. Also in Indonesia, a president had to step down. The army told him to go.

Once the people perceive that BN is cheating, that is the end of BN. So, be fair. The Election Commission (EC) must be careful. Once the people turn against you, you are a dead duck.

Bamboo: Men propose, God disposes. No matter how the EC does the delineation hoping to help BN stays in power, changes in electoral awareness mean this will not be a fool-proof method to ensure a BN win. In fact as we are aware of, fraudulent elections allowed BN to cling on to power.

DontPlayGod: The present delineation is already lopsided where a constituency can have a voter population of 150,000 and a rural constituency can have a voter population of 40,000. Umno is not happy with this, of course.

In Sabah and Sarawak, they would want to increase the constituencies such that 40 percent of the seats will come from these two states, or constituencies with only a voter population of only 20,000 or less.

Then Pakatan can shout themselves hoarse and can never ever hope to win. Yet, East Malaysian leaders still do not understand why they can't win. Then Umno needs only win less than 30 rural seats in peninsular Malaysia to win easily.

Pahatian: Sometimes some people think they are very smart. They do things to their liking and advantage. But in the end they found themselves at the losing end. So it's better to be fair and square and let the people in general decide the future and not the goons of the EC nor Umno.

JBond: When your race is divided, no matter how you juggle, you will end up the loser! It's not only about the number of seats but the number of voters. A regime with weak support from the masses will face revolt from the majority.

Fair&Just: That's why BN-Umno are using religious and racial issues to fool the Malays to vote for them.

Swipenter: At this juncture, gerrymandering is still potent tool to cheat and win in any election in Bolehland. Umno Baru can be seen after the 13th general election (GE13), embarking on a relentless campaign to use race and religion to divide and rule the country.

Supplement and complement that with gerrymandering, the chances of winning are increased substantially, especially in rural Bolehland where they derive much of their support. Rural folk are much easier to fool and buy over than their urban brothers and sisters.

Senior: Backlash? That will happen in the future. Umno Baru will take what they can now.

Taib can be Sarawak governor for life

 

Mushiro: Sarawak CM Abdul Taib Mahmud's greed for power and by extension illegal wealth knows no limits. He is no more in a state to be able to make rational decisions. To Taib, all his decisions favouring his personal self are fair. The Sarawakians and the state are doomed to ruin. This is where Najib has to step in ‑ but Najib is too weak.

 

Bernard Phillips: This all too much for me to absorb on a weekend. Here we have a CM who has so many allegations of gross corruption against him, who is being now put forward as the governor of the state. Even while the MACC is investigating him!

 

And there were similar allegations levelled against his uncle Rahman Yackob before he moved to the istana. Who says abuses and corruption does not pay?

These fellows including Dr Mahathir Mohamad join former Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe as modern day villains who were able to subvert entire populations to their will. And other national and international leaders could do nothing about them. And we call this democracy.

 

Onyourtoes: Writer Ram Anand, where did this come from: “While there is no precedence for the governor in using his powers to dissolve the assembly or to sack the chief minister in the state, the governor is well within his right to do so”?

 

For goodness sake, you too are now following the skewed (or is it screwed) interpretation of Westminster conventions. Who told you the governor can sack the chief minister of the state? Who told you the governor has absolute discretion to dissolve or not to dissolve the state assembly?

 

When a CM loses confidence in the assembly, he has two choices: i) to resign (not be sacked) and advise the governor to appoint another person as the CM or, ii) to advise the governor to dissolve the assembly in order for him or her to seek a new mandate from the people.

 

The governor must follow the CM's advice. The governor has no discretion except to perform his duty as advised. If the CM chooses to resign, the governor will appoint another person who enjoys the confidence of the majority in the assembly (not based on his discretion, please get this right) as the next CM.

If the CM refuses to resign, the governor must dissolve the assembly as advised to seek a new mandate. This is the essence of democracy and people’s power.

 

Any other interpretation would constitute subversion of democracy and a usurp of the people’s power. Please knock this into your head, any conferment of absolute/discretionary power on an unelected institution or office is an abrogation of democracy.

 

Not Convinced: Onyourtoes is not quite right. The governor has in one infamous occasion sacked the PM under the Westminster system. This was what happened in Australia in the 70s (the governor in Australia is a representative of the British Queen ‑ quite bizarre).

 

I presume Abdul Aziz Bari should know what he's talking about.

 

Apache: Sarawak CM Abdul Taib Mahmud will continue to rule Sarawak in his afterlife whilst he is in hell serving the sins he had accumulated during his lifetime on earth. He will be incarnated as the next CM thereafter. Umno will never penetrate the Sarawak fortress.

 

CiViC: As far as I am concerned, Taib can be in jail for life. And nowhere else.


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