Another BN illection

Despite strenuous official efforts to bill the forthcoming March 8 polls as a genuine election, there’s no way it promises to be anything but a sick travesty of the real thing.

Like last year’s contests in Machap and Ijok, it’s liable to be nothing like free and fair, but just another cynical Barisan Nasional (BN) exercise in freebies and fear.

The freebies are ostensibly out of the goodness and generosity of the incumbent government, but actually crony-enriching, non-competitively awarded projects and outright bribery, all funded with money plundered from the public purse.

And fear induced by endlessly repeated threats of a repeat of the May 13, 1969 massacre of non-Malays if the voters dare deny BN its overwhelming parliamentary majority.

Political parties and coalitions in democracies are satisfied with winning or retaining a simple working majority of seats. But Malaysia’s pseudo-democratic incumbent regime will settle for nothing less than the two-thirds it needs to continually amend and bend the constitution to its advantage.

It did so most recently by extending the mandatory retirement age of its tame Electoral Commission head Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman.

Abdul Rashid, as you’ll readily recall, is so far from impartial in the conduct of his duties that he not long ago publicly stated the opinion that “there is only one regime in this country that is capable of running” the nation, and that Malaysia would be “in trouble” if he was in disagreement with BN politicians in terms of what the country needs.

And he’s apparently happy to deliver everything BN needs for an illection, as distinct from an election, including a ludicrous degree of gerrymandering, notoriously compromised electoral rolls and blatant infringement of campaign regulations by coalition parties.

At one stage, admittedly, he paid lip-service to the need for reform, agreeing to the marking of thumbs with indelible ink to stamp-out repeat voting, and approving the adoption of transparent ballot boxes.

The see-through ballot boxes have been acquired, though there appeared to be as little transparency in their purchase and pricing as in most other BN government transactions.

But the finger-inking system has apparently yet to be instituted, despite the religious authorities having duly considered the question of digital dermal defilement and determined it to be safely halal.

Still running scared

However ready an EC may be to get its hands dirty, however, it can’t be expected to guarantee BN an illection win entirely on its own.

In fact an even more powerful force in pressing the inky-fingered populace to vote BN back into power yet again is that metaphorically ink-stained fraternity, the so-called journalists of Malaysia’s mainstream media.

Of all the agents of BN Inc, these to me are the most despicable, betraying both their profession and their fellow Malaysians by working hand-in-glove with the government to keep as many of the people as possible in some kind of idiotic LahLah land, thus depriving them of their right to exercise informed choice.

Until recently one newspaper, theSun, stood out as an exception in this abysmal crowd, but now that it has fallen under the control of a prominent crony of the incumbent government it’s bound to turn as traitorous to its readers and journalistic principles as its erstwhile competitors.

Despite all the support the government has bought and suborned, however, everywhere from the EC and the media to key members of the police, the judiciary and the compliant if not corrupt Anti-Corruption Agency, I’m delighted to see that it’s still running scared.

Staging a general illection a year and a half early is hardly an act of self-confidence. And the caretaker premier’s assertion that the timing is entirely coincidental with the near-expiration of Anwar Ibrahim’s ban from elected office is as empty as his claim that he has completely “forgotten” Anwar.

Then there are all those looming disasters, none the less real for having been downplayed by the media, like the long-anticipated verdict in the endless Altantuya trial, the ongoing Lingam circus, too many un-investigated financial scandals to name, plus the prospect of a US-led global recession.

Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s desperate plea for another “mandate” after four years presiding over a rampant rise in crime, corruption and the cost of living - while he swanned around the world in the jet he did or didn’t buy, cruised aboard the yacht he did or didn’t have built for him in Turkey, and holidayed in the mansion he does or doesn’t own in Perth - is more of a national joke than a campaign theme.

And his claim that BN will field only those candidates vetted to be clean is rendered laughable by the candidacies of every tired old suspect from ‘AP Queen’ Rafidah Aziz to ‘Kiss my Keris’ Hishammuddin Hussein and ‘Submarines and Sorkois’ Najib Abdul Razak.

And no doubt he’s even contemplating pushing his luck even further by choosing Malaysia’s most detested son-in-law, Khairy Jamaluddin as a candidate for some sure-fire seat, having dropped Zaid Ibrahim, one of the few sitting Umno members that many Malaysians respect.

But on the positive side, he could be losing some major embarrassments. Thanks to Hindraf highlighting his abysmal record in ripping-off his Indian constituents via Maika rather than representing their interests as leader of the MIC, S Samy Vellu is on his last leg of ‘service’. Senior MCA officials, too, seem to be falling over one another in their rush to resign.

So, as sick and sordid an illection as this promises to be, it’s certainly going to be interesting. And if enough Malaysians have taken to getting their news from the Net instead of the mendacious mainstream media, and if the opposition parties can focus their energies on one-on-one instead of three-way contests, maybe we’ll see some results that’ll make it look for all the world like an honest-to-goodness election.