BARU BIAN's REFLECTION: POST PRU-13

BARU BIAN's REFLECTION: POST PRU-13

6^th May 2013

Kuching

Dear Friends,

It was so difficult for me to get out of my bed this morning although I was already wide-awake, quite early in fact in spite of the late night vigil for the final outcome of PRU13. I am still trying to absorb the shocking outcome not only of Limbang Parliamentary seat but all the rural seats where PKR stood; where we lost all of them. The only seat PKR won in Sarawak is Miri (Dr. Michael Teo), which is an urban seat. I would have thought Baram and Saratok could have been won, at the very least. Nevertheless, God has kept us all safe, strong and healthy throughout the grueling campaign. The entire big Limbang team banded together and gave their best till the end. We prayed and we cried and journeyed together. May God’s name be glorified.

My human mind finds it hard to believe and accept this outcome because we had prepared the ground for about a year or so before the election. In comparison, this was the best preparation ever undertaken by an Opposition since I stood in Sarawak GE, 1991 under PBDS ticket. In the past, we were never as focused on seats or areas, and issues. In addition, at least to a reasonable degree, we had some financial support from all of you for us to organize our logistics. We had a Political Consultant that sat monthly with us to review our progress and preparation. 

All went very well, it seems at least from our perspective. Above all, we had the privilege of being prayed upon and prayed for by churches all over the nation and beyond who steadfastly stood together in oneness praying for God’s intervention in our Nation through PRU13, which coincides with our Jubilee Year Celebration. Yet we have not won a single seat in the rural area of Sarawak.  What happened? Who is at fault? What could have been done? Why did the people change last minute? What happened, God? Many questions popped up? The obvious reasons we all know.

My thoughts went back to months of preparation where expectation was high, where many of us believed that this must be The Time for all of us to start a New and Better Malaysia together. That expectation was not misplaced as it was fortified by the facts that every Malaysian from different parts of the country and even those overseas, of different race and religion, from different level of our society got united to make a final ditch to “make it happen” for ourselves and our children. Many of you who work and reside overseas chose to vote from abroad as postal voters while there are those who came and flew at their own expense to vote in Malaysia. 

Many months ago on my usual campaign trail, I met a shopkeeper in Limbang whose daughter lives in Beijing who told me that her daughter will come back to vote this time. I remember meeting an aunty in Limbang a week ago whose daughter works in Shanghai and a son who works in Singapore, both came back to vote in Limbang. I met two young men the sons of a well known bookstore owner in Limbang who were very proud to have met me; took a snap together and proudly said, they came to vote for a Change, “Ini Kali Lah!” 

I met a lady perhaps in her mid forties in Medamit who said that she has never voted in any GE before but this time came back to vote for PKR, hoping for a Change and better future for herself and her kids. I remember the conversation related to me of how two 9 years old kids whose mothers were helping us at our Medamit Operation Centre agreed after a ‘lively debate’ that both should vote for PKR! I met one of them the next day at the Centre and when asked; still agreed to vote for PKR. I recall the prayer drives around Limbang town together with some intercessors from some local churches in Limbang few months back and the final one on the eve of Polling Day for God’s intervention. 

Outwardly, the churches in Limbang and outside took time to wait before the Lord asking for the healing of our nation. The many trips and sharing I had with many of you as a group or individual or as a church where our spirit soared on high with faith to believe that God is going to answer our prayers for Malaysia. And yes, not forgetting the many prophetic utterances, dreams and visions for a spiritual transformation of our churches and society through this political process and our faith believing in their realisation. The euphoria climaxed on the final night; the eve of polling where thousands upon thousands of Malaysians all over the country showed their support for an alternative Government. And I can go on and on narrating one story after another, incidences after incidences of how hopeful we were that this must be the Time for Malaysia.

Yet when we all went in droves to the Polling Stations the outcome and results hours later did not come as we all expected. Many of us shed tears, in fact many mourned for our Nation. For me, I thought losing less than a thousand votes would be acceptable as our candidate in GE 2008 only lost by 676 votes. But not 8000+ votes! I was stunned. More shocked when finally not even one seat from the rural areas we contested won. My immediate thought was, “forget these ungrateful souls”. I felt I was betrayed, cheated and unappreciated when I had to move out of my Ba’Kelalan constituency trying to assist these natives to fight for their rights against political oppression and injustice. By about 9 pm on polling day I had a Press Conference at our party’s Media Centre, Kuching, with most of our candidates. 

From information received from these candidates, it is obvious that money politics is still very much alive and effective in the rural constituencies of Sarawak. I said to the Press, “recalling the biblical exodus, I believe “this generation” has to perish in the wilderness before the next generation ushers in the change we dream off”. Was I too harsh and condemning? What has happened to all our attempts through Radio Free Sarawak, longhouse visits, ceramahs, workshops on their land rights issues, to educate them on all these dirty tricks used by the other side; on money politics, threat to longhouse chiefs, deprivation of basic amenities, no scholarship, withdrawal of welfare & subsidies etc etc? I cannot comprehend! Will it be another 50 years? I don’t know. Only God can help us here. On another note, had we not prayed and interceded, I cannot imagine how far worse it might be.

As soon as the final results were announced sms and emails flooded in to encourage me, and perhaps others too. I say amen, to the fact that “God is sovereign over the nation in spite of the result that did not come, as we all wanted it”. Yes, “God is still God and let us be still before Him, He has the final say”. Yes, “look up to Jesus the author and perfector of our faith”. Yes, “everything works for the goods to all those who love Him…” But it doesn’t seem to jive with the situation I was in. Deep within me, I was saying, “God did not do His part of the bargain because all seems unreasonable, unacceptable and absolutely unjust”.

Then around noon today I read a short email from bro KJ John attaching therein a short note written by a Malaysian, entitled “I shed my tears too!” Thank you brother for the thought when you said that the said article “reflect only those with little political experience on the ground and those who consider that: “change is a revolution and not an evolution”. Then I began to realize that this is a struggle, a “perjuangan”, a political evolution that may takes some time. It may go even beyond my time and my generation. My wife’s immediate response, as a very practical Foochow, is ‘let’s hang up our socks and call it a day. Save the money (to feed the poor and hungry) and time. God would understand.’ Perhaps a reflection of her utter disappointment and disbelief of the outcome, like many of us. 

Nevertheless, she stuck it out with me and did her level best to assist me in every way possible. My youngest daughter’s (Emmylyn,17) response was, “for this reason I must consider going into politics!” My daughter and sons, and her generation, I believe are ready to fight on and takeover the baton from us, if need be. I was moved with confidence that our action had touched our children’s lives. My son Joshua who moved together with me for the whole two weeks campaigning period, just called from KL as I write this letter to ask how his dad is coping with the outcome in Limbang, as did my second son in Adelaide; he sms to say that he and the group of OCFers are mighty proud of me. I am touched. Many young people are very concerned of the state of affairs in our beloved country, came to vote and even volunteered as PACABA. FOS organised a team to Limbang, and I say, “thank you, Cynthia and gang”. I am sure their experiences in PRU13 will strengthen their resolve to continue this perjuangan.

This afternoon, brother Bob Teoh called, and encouraged me to see the positive aspects of the so-called “lost”: Firstly, the ghost of May 13 had finally been buried. Secondly, the issue of Hudud law has clearly been neutralized. Thirdly, the religious extremists like Ibrahim Ali and Zulkifli Nordin have been rejected by Malaysians. Fourthly, the issue of Sabah autonomy was rejected by the Sabahans and finally, the dual coalition system is here to stay. Then I received a sms from Pastor Patrick in Limbang who said that many of the Sunday school kids cried upon hearing the news that I lost Limbang. Then I realised, our Children Bible “Alkitab Kanak-Kanak” gifts must have touched these young lives and I believe many others in all the priority seats where PKR stood! Then I thought, “if this is the only gain I had contributed to Limbang lost, then my standing in Limbang was not in vain!”

Then, there are those 4,698 voters who voted for me in Limbang and the many others in the other constituencies where our candidates stood and voted for us too.  So there is evidence of stirring of sort but not enough to bring in the victory. I also recalled Baram, which we lost by a whisker of just 194 votes. The independent candidate got 300+ votes. Nationally, PR has gained 7 seats in Parliament from 82 in 2008 to 89 in this GE, in spite of a widely reported fraud throughout the country. In fact, Sarawak has gained 5 more parliamentary seats this GE. And finally, the increase in popular votes for Pakatan throughout the whole country surged to 51%. 

Close to 50,000 AKK and transistor radios were distributed far and wide in the interior of Sarawak, and through this mean our message for Change had impacted and touched some rural folks as shown in the increased of support in the rural seats. Many thanks to the Radio Free Sarawak (RFS) team. So friends, brothers and sisters, I finally come to accept the fact that change has come, but not to a level we all expected if not for the uneven playing field, the changing of goal posts and the corrupt and bias referee, the EC. Or perhaps as one of you responded, “Maybe God wants us to pray for five more years!”

But remember, Sarawak will have her State GE in 2016 or may be sooner. I urge you to continue to pray for Sarawak. I am very convinced now that the abject poverty of our natives’ folks placed them in a very vulnerable situation allowing money politics to remain supreme in GE. Rights, idealism and even spiritual principles take a back seat. In my area, Limbang for example, voters were paid RM20, RM30, RM100, RM150, and RM300 depending on the strength of support. Other constituencies were paid RM100 as first payment and RM500 can be claimed after winning the GE. This is not surprising as this had been the norm every GE. We did explain and emphasised the fact that this is not right and that it is not BN moneys etc., but to no avail. There is only one solution; spiritual inward renewal and economic empowerment. The church therefore must help to bring in a very strong teaching in this area of political responsibility and awareness.

In conclusion, I want to record my thanks and appreciation to all of you who stood with us (PR), my family and I, through this political episode and undertook to remain faithful to pray for us and support me in my future political endeavor. Many of you gave sacrificially to purchase the thousands of radios, petrol, PACABA training, operation centres, and for the logistics before and during the campaigning period of two weeks. I say on behalf of all my colleagues and party members and supporters in Sarawak; a BIG THANK YOU and may God bless you and your family in all your future undertakings. I must confess, it’s so tempting to surrender, to give up, to ‘throw in the towel’ as it were, but now I hear the voices of many of you who chose to walk this same road with me urging me to move on and not to lose heart but together we will carry on to realise our Malaysian Dream.

And now, O Lord I ask for your forgiveness for my lack of faith in your sovereignty and wisdom. I want to be still before you for you are still God over Malaysia and her people. Amen.

My friend Balang Sigar from Miri reminded me of one of our favorite songs from Bill Geither’s Homecoming collection, that God is still God in every circumstance:

GOD ON THE MOUNTAIN

Life is easy, when you’re on the mountain

And you’ve got peace of mind

Like you’ve never known

But things change, when you’re down in the valley

Don’t lose faith, for you’re never alone

        For the God on the mountain

        Is still God in the valley

        When things go wrong

        He’ll make them right

        And the God of the good times

        Is still God in the bad times

        The God of the day

        Is still God in the night

You talk of faith, when you’re up on the mountain

But talks come so easy, when life is at its best

Now it’s down in the valley, of trials and temptation

That’s where your faith is, really put to the test

Then I saw Aimee Liew’s sharing on whatsApp from an unknown author that warmed my heart, which gives me back my smile and a resolve to focus on the future. May this encourage you too, to carry on.

Today Malaysia woke up and many hearts were broken.

We mourn our nation not because we lost, but because we were cheated.

We lost not to a better party, but we lost to injustice.

We lost not to a better system, but we lost to the lack of integrity.

We lost not to a better count, but we lost to the failure in upholding civil rights.

We lost not to a better leader, but we lost to corruption.

We lost not to a better policy, but we lost to deceit.

But we will, and must not lose heart.

We may feel sad, but we must not give in to despair.

We may feel angry, but we must not lose our righteous ways.

We may feel cheated, but we must fight on.

We may feel like leaving, but we must stay together.

We may feel like giving up, but we must now let the dream carry us.

We may feel like nothing will change, but we must now become that change.

We will rally.

We will fight on.

We will not give up.

We will become a Better Malaysia.

Esther Ng eventually came in with an appropriate meditation from Psalm 30:5, “Your sadness may last for a night, but joy will come in the morning.” I pray that the night may not be too long.

May God’s favour be upon each one of you and your family members, without which this political journey could be a very lonely affair.

Let us all be the Agent of Change.

BARU BIAN

KUCHING

malaysiakini: Mathematically, it's not a Chinese tsunami.... by Dr Hsu Dar Ren

Mathematically, it's not a Chinese tsunami

Dr Hsu Dar Ren 1:19PM May 7, 2013

Many people are disappointed with the results of GE13.

Even though Pakatan Rakyat won 51% of the popular votes, it has only 89 seats against 133 seats of BN.

This is of course because of the gerrymandering that gives rural seats much more say in determining which party would prevail in a general election.

Immediately after the election results were known, I wrote on my facebook:

"The results showed more of a urban-rural divide. Lim Kit Siang's margin showed that he won not only Chinese votes, but from other races as well. Tian Chua would not have won Batu, a mixed seats with Malay majority, without Malay support... 

To prove my point and that PM's assertion about a Chinese tsunami is wrong, we should resort to scientific methods, and do this mathematically."

There are 13.3 million voters for GE13, out of which 29.68% or 3.94 million are Chinese Malaysian voters.

Assuming the turnout of the Chinese voters are the same as the general population which is 80%, the number of Chinese casting votes would be 3.15 million.

Assuming that 90% of the Chinese voted for Pakatan (this is actually improbable), that would be 2.83 million votes.

But Pakatan received more than 5.62 millions votes, which means that even if 90% of the Chinese voted for Pakatan, they comprise of only 50% of the support that Pakatan receives.

At a more realistic 80% Chinese support for the Opposition, Pakatan would get 2.5 million votes from the Chinese ethnic group only.

The fact that it received more than 5.62 million total votes means that more than 3.1 millions votes were from non-Chinese Malaysians.

The tsunami against BN is more an urban tsunami than putting the blame on any particular ethnic group.

This is clearly reflected that in two of the most urbanised states, Selangor and Penang, BN lost more ground than before.

If not for Sabah and Sarawak, and to a lesser extent Johor and the gerrymandering, BN would have lost this GE13.

Global Voices: Malaysia: Outrage Over Election Outcome.... by Teresa Houghton

Malaysia: Outrage Over Election Outcome

Posted 6 May 2013 18:40 GMT

Written byTessa Houghton

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Malaysians from all walks of life are currently in a state of outrage following the outcome of the nation's 13th General Election, which has been marred with what appears to be widespread and massive electoral fraud and gerrymandering. Many social media users are blacking out their Facebook and Twitter avatars and walking silently in malls dressed in black to protest what is being described as the ‘death of democracy’ in Malaysia. Both the opposition coalition, Pakatan Rakyat (PR/'The People's Pact'), and Bersih (‘Clean'), the national movement for free and fair elections, are refusing to accept the official result, which has resulted inBarisan Nasional (BN/'The National Front'), the coalition which has governed the country for 56 years, being sworn into power for their 13th term running.

Despite gaining 53.5% of the popular vote in an election which saw over 84% voter turnout (the highest in Malaysia's history), PR only managed to secure 89 of 222 parliamentary seats, with BN taking 133 seats (with only 46.5% of the popular vote) to form the government.

The image below, which is being shared widely on Facebook, highlights the alleged offenses:

An image being shared amongst Malaysian Facebookers outlining the various acts of electoral fraud

Beyond the structural issues above, and other factors such as BN's political-economic control of Malaysia's offline media, the ‘indelible ink’ used to mark voters’ fingers was able to be cleaned off with very little effort, and was applied prior to marking the ballot paper, likely contributing to the huge numbers of ‘spoilt’ or rejected votes.

Malaysian citizens around Kuala Lumpur reported numerous instances of foreigners with suspect ID Kads trying to vote, with some coming back and trying to vote with up to four different ID Kads despite being chased away, with evidence leaked by the Sarawak Report linking the Prime Minister's Office to planeloads of suspect voters flown in to Selangor from East Malaysia.

As votes were being tallied on the evening of the 5th, scuffles ensued in Bangsar, one of the suburbs encompassed by the hotly-contested Lembah Pantai seat, as citizens supporting Calon(candidate) Nurul Izzah Anwar, daughter of the the much-persecuted opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, fought to prevent vehicles trying to take suspect ballot boxes into the tallying station. They were threatened with tear-gas by the Federal Reserve Unit who were called in to intervene, but were successful in not allowing the ballot boxes, which were marked with another electorate's ID code, into the tallying station. The following image is one of many circulating on Facebook documenting the incident:

“Ballot boxes marked 120 found in EC car boot trying to enter 121 Lembah Pantai polling station. Blocked by public. Welcome to Malaysia elections.”

From roughly 8.30pm to after midnight, results are alleged to have been held back by recounts demanded by the government following opposition victories in various electorates. This period saw the occurrence of several electricity blackouts around the country, following which, vote recounts revealed that government candidates had in fact won the seats. It is alleged that extra votes were smuggled in under the cover of the temporary darkness, with the phrase ‘Magic Blackout’ being used by many disbelieving and angry Malaysians. One polling agent recounts the eveninghere:

Yesterday, by adding up all the ‘scores’ – it seemed like PR has won, and won big. But no announcements were made. At the EC's main counting centres, recounts were requested on seats that BN lost in (even after all the different saluran had already confirmed the count), blackouts happened, mystery boxes appear – and then suddenly – BN candidates are winning. And then and only then, The EC comes out with official result statements: BN has won this seat, BN has won this other seat. Too dodgy.

PoliTweet, an organisation mapping political social networking activity in Malaysia, logged the surge of tweets/minute containing the word ‘blackout’ during this period:

“Election-related Tweets-per-minute with keyword ‘blackout’ during election night, May 5th 2013.
Highest peak was 210 tweets at 1.01 AM on election night. But mentions of blackouts started as early as 8.48 PM.”

The threshold of 112 seats to form the governments was finally officially announced as having been met by BN at approximately 1.05am 6th May, with Twitter and Facebook exploding as people grappled with the news following the long information blackout. Caretaker/Returned Prime Minister Najib Razak announced his party's success on national television shortly after and stating that the swing towards the opposition was due to a ‘Chinese Tsunami’ – a rising swell of support for the opposition from ethnically Chinese Malaysians, who have been disenfranchised by BN's New Economic Policy, an affirmative action policy instantiated in the 1970s which grants special privileges to ethnic Malays (known as Bumiputras, or ‘princes of the soil'), and its descendent, theNational Development Policy. His statements have been much criticised, with many countering that the ‘tsunami’ is more accurately described as coming from the Malaysian multi-ethnic urban/middle-class, who increasingly reject BN's race-based policies, and who view the party as arrogant and corrupt.

There is widespread uncertainty in Malaysia over what the next few weeks will bring, as there is a period of 21 days in which the results may be contested. Bersih and PR are vowing to continue to demand accountability from BN and the Election Commission, with PR's Anwar Ibrahim calling for Malaysians to “join hands and express our rejection and disgust at the unprecedented electoral frauds committed by Najib and the EC”. He has announced a rally on the evening of May 8th, when he will address Malaysians for the first time since the polls. A Change.org petition calling for international intervention has already garnered 180,000 signatures, and continues to swell.

Many citizens are still in a state of shock, but with a simmering undercurrent of outrage not likely to dissipate any time soon, and with over half the population feeling a clear sense of being cheated of both their democratic rights as citizens and of the government they wanted, Malaysia faces a real crisis of governmental legitimacy.

Written by Tessa Houghton 

malaysiakini: Disturbing questions surrounding GE13 polling... by Bridget Welsh

Disturbing questions surrounding GE13 polling

malaysiakini:

Bridget Welsh 12:05PM May 7, 2013

GE13 SPECIAL The GE13 results are in and the BN has managed to hold on to power, winning by a 22-seat majority. This result is the worst performance for BN in Malaysia's history.

For the first time, the incumbent government has lost the popular vote nationally (in 2008, it was only in the peninsula). The BN coalition has still managed to hold on to power. This piece, in a series analysing the election results, looks at the concerns raised regarding the electoral process and the potential impact these issues may have had on the final results.

In analysing the fairness of any polls, one asks whether the irregularities in the process could have affected the final outcome. Were the problems enough to change which coalition would have formed government? These issues will be debated and assessed in the days and weeks ahead. Let me share some preliminary observations that suggest that in this election, some things appear not to be quite right.

Integrity of electoral roll

This was the longest wait for an election, and both sides were extremely active in registering new voters, especially in the urban areas where the party machinery was well honed.

Even factoring in the more robust voter registration efforts, changes in electoral procedures to register people where they live rather than where they are from, population demographics, and possible housing developments in different seats, the increased numbers in the electoral roll are significantly not in line with historical patterns of voter registration. This out-of-line pattern is in every state, except Negri Sembilan.

The figure that stands out in voter increase occurred from 2004 to 2008 in Sabah. The questions about the electoral roll in Sabah have been long standing, and are the subject of the ongoing royal commission of inquiry into immigrants.

These increases from 2004 through 2008 are by any measure - huge - in places such as Liburan, where caretaker Chief Minister Musa Aman's state seat is located, in Semporna, the seat of Shafie Apdal and in Ranau currently held by Ewok Ebin.

Yet, after 2008, while the numbers have dropped, there is still on average 21% new voters in Sabah seats, a high number not in line with demographic trends. Migration appears to continue be a factor shaping voter numbers in Sabah in this GE13, despite calls to tighten the flows.

We also find that new voters have flooded states like Selangor, Pahang, Terengganu and Johor in GE13. The average increase in voters nationally between 2004 and 2008 was 8.2%. In the run-up to GE13, the voters registered doubled to 19.4%. The national and statewide averages however obscure the differences among different seats within states. It is clear that some seats have been special recipients of new voters.

Much has been made of the 28% of new voters in Lembah Pantai. This seat is actually on the low side compared to others. Consider the whopping 61.5% increase in Tapah, recently re-won by BN, or Subang with 52% new voters, won by Pakatan with a larger majority this election but shaped heavily by Pakatan's registration of new voters.

A total of 90 seats, or 41% of all parliamentary seats, have more than 25% new voters. Many of these were in races with tight contests in 2008, and continued to have tight contests in GE13. The new voters have advantaged the opposition in urban areas, but benefitted the BN in rural and semi-rural areas or in states where the machinery of the opposition is comparatively weak, such as Johor.

Such races also won by BN that had large number of voters include Cameron Highlands (20%), Pasir Gudang (39%) and Tebrau (45%) in Johor. While some of the increase in the latter two seats might be explained in part by development, bizarrely there are sharp increases in voting populations in the remote interior state of Pensiangan (33%) and remote coastal seat of Kota Marudu (32%) in Sabah. These abnormal high increases raise questions.

The placement of new voters is even more intriguing when studying the actual polling stations results. Many new voters are concentrated in more less populated areas within constituencies, often in rural and semi-rural seats.

This is where the questions over the large number of unexplained voters grouped in bunches in places like Bachok (21% new voters and won by PAS with less than 1% margin) and Bukit Gantang (29% of new voters and won by PAS with 2% margin) come in.

It appears that the localised remote placements of new voters may have had an impact. For example, the placement of 3,600 new voters in a remote Felda scheme occurred in Segamat, which was won by the BN with a 1,217 majority. The voting in this Felda scheme was over 90%, with one stream at 99%. In 2004, the voter turnout in this area was much lower.
This spike pattern of voter turnout in particular polling stations was found in Terengganu in 2004, when the BN wrested back the state, and questions were raised at that time as well.
Spike patterns out of line
This GE13 spike in voter turnout at the local level is being witnessed in specific places across the country. With the national level of turnout at 85%, the spike patterns that are well out of line with historic patterns of voting behaviour raise questions, even accounting for the overall rise in participation and voter turnout.

Another pattern in the placement of new voters beyond tight races involves prominent leaders getting large shares of new voters, such as Najib Razak's own seat Pekan with 38% new voters, or Rompin represented by Jamaluddin Jarjis at 29% new voters. It remains unclear why these largely rural constituencies would have such large voter increases.
Generally out-migration areas such as Perak and Pahang receiving large numbers of new voters does not conform with population patterns. Why are places with people leaving to work outside get sharp increases in voters?
The lack of clear transparent explanations on why voters are registered in some areas in such high numbers this election, compared to past patterns in these areas, understandably raises questions.

Many seats that were lost by the opposition or were in tight races have large number of new voters, including, including Tanah Merah (24%) and Balik Pulau (25%), although in some cases the opposition picked up or retained seats with large voter increases in these seats, such as Kota Raja (47%) and Kuala Nerus (25%), among others.

This issue of voter registration and voter turnout levels needs further study, with more information on who are these new voters and their pattern of voting. The fact is that the polling station results will show the spikes at the local level and careful study will tell us statistically the impact of these new voters on electoral outcomes.

The Electoral Commission (EC) and electoral administration as a whole are facing a real trust deficit. A reliable electoral roll is essential for any fair elections. Repeatedly questions have been raised about the veracity of many new voters.

Election watchdog Merap and others have time and again drawn attention to the questions of electoral roll integrity. Before the polls, these matters were essentially ignored or dismissed. To date, the scope of phantom voters and questionable placement is not fully known. Now the results themselves will show the impact at the local level.

This is why the sharing of all results through the Borang 14 is essential in order to make a systematic and thorough assessment. Preliminary reviews of results are already raising red flags as they have shaped the outcomes at both the parliamentary and state levels.

Early and postal voting 
Queries about the early and postal voting have also emerged. Here the question is about double voting, with individuals having the opportunity to vote twice. Postal voting numbers increased in this election. Historically, there have always been questions about the veracity of postal voting, with reports questioning that this voting is secret and others arguing over the accuracy of the results.

There have been improvements in recent years over postal voting involving polling agent access to this process in many locations. Yet, even with these improvements, questions about whether postal voting is fair and accurate remain.

In this election, further questions emerged over the numbers and placement of these postal voters in different constituencies. Many tight races, such as Sibu, had increases in postal voters. In some cases, the list of names of new postal voters were reportedly not provided openly.

Early voting, an estimated 240,000 people, is also a new addition for this election and being queried. Early voting includes many Malaysians within Malaysia, such as the wives of army officers and journalists who can vote before polls.
There was not a clear distribution of the list of early voters provided nationally, and in some cases even individual candidates were not able to access the names of who were the postal and early voters.
No clear explanation was given to why some constituencies received early voters and others did not. Importantly, this information was not properly shared so that it could be verified. Furthermore, there were unexplained instances when the numbers of early and postal voters increased. In Lembai Pantai, for example, the number stated was 200, but 600 showed up. How did this happen?

Given the reality that the indelible ink was in many cases not indelible, the possibility of double voting exists. On voting day there are numerous reports of individuals finding out that someone had voted fraudulently using their name, leading to concerns also about electoral disenfranchisement.

There were also reports of non-Malaysians being transported to the polling stations by buses and even flown in, some of these believed to be phantom voters. The scale and impact of these on the results is not yet clear, but given the combination of a non-transparent early and postal voting process in various locations and non-indelible ink issues on election day, and sightings of non-Malaysians in contentious seats, troubling questions are being raised.

The close results make these issues and questions more salient. A total of 72 of seats (or 32%) were won by less than 10% margins of turnout. Twenty percent of seats, 44 seats, were won with less than a 5% margin. The closeness of these races could easily have come down to a few voters. These razor-thin margin seats were won by both sides, but given the questions raised about the process of voting in these close seats, they need to be carefully reviewed.

To date, the total number of seats affected by either non-transparent new voter increases and early voting allocations and unexplained incidents of disenfranchisement appears to be more than the actual margin of victory for the BN. These reports need to be properly vetted and verified, but fundamental questions remained.

A spoilt-vote victory

Finally, this brings up the questions on the election night itself. There are queries surrounding the recounts and spoilt votes. How many recounts which overturned the results at the last moment were there? In Perak, for example, three state seats - three is a famous number in Perak - Alor Pongsu, Manjoi and Pangkor results were overturned at the last minute. Questions were also raised at Kamunting as well.

The need for transparency at the final count is essential for a fair election. When the EC asks people to leave and there are new ballot boxes seen outside of a polling station, as was reported in Lembah Pantai, there are questions. It is not fully clear what exactly happened with the recounts in Perak and elsewhere - as there were numerous recounts nationally this election - but the climate of distrust that has permeated the assessment of the election process raises doubts.

In the days ahead, a better sense of the numbers and recounts will emerge. With reports of sudden changes in the voting results such as Bentong and Labis, questions are being raised. Many people cannot understand how a result that was statistically a large margin ahead could be overturned. These need to be clarified, particularly in Bentong where the margin was larger.

Part of the problem is that in some cases, the number of spoilt votes exceeded the actual majority in places where recounts took place. Here are some of the seats at the parliamentary level where this happened: Kuala Selangor, Cameron Highlands, Bachok, Bentong, Sungai Besar, Kota Merudu and Baram won by the BN and Sepang and Kuala Nerus won by the opposition. Another seat with high spoilt votes is Segamat, at 950.

What distinguishes these close recounts from the famous cases of Lim Kit Siang and Karpal Singh losing in 1999 with more spoilt votes than the majority, is the process of the administration of the indelible ink in this election - before marking the ballot paper - thus staining the papers and contributing to higher spoilt votes.

This pattern of higher spoilt votes than actual margins of victory was also replicated at the state level as well in many areas, where only a few seats mattered for who should win state power. The process of administering the ink appears to have had an impact on the results in some areas.

It is important to be careful when reviewing the election results and not rush to judgement about what happened and why. It is also important to see the election holistically. The focus here has not touched on the use of money in the campaign, which was rampant, labelled ‘bombing' in Sabah, or the mainstream media reporting.

The aim has been to raise the preliminary questions revealed in the results and the impact actual numbers of voters associated with the election. As the evaluation of the election moves forward, the call to answer these questions will only increase and intensify. Further study and analysis is essential.

Nevertheless, from the non-indelible ink and spikes in voter turnout to being not allowed to vote, concerns with the electoral process itself are not sitting right with many in the public, and this is not just supporters on one side or another. Transparent and truthful answers are both needed and welcomed.

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DR BRIDGET WELSH is associate professor of political science at Singapore Management University. She is travelling around Malaysia to provide her GE13 analyses exclusively to Malaysiakini. Bridget can be reached at bwelsh@smu.edu.sg. 

New Mandala: Malaysia’s election: An Indonesian comparison... BY EDWARD ASPINALL

Malaysia’s election: An Indonesian comparison

BY

EDWARD ASPINALL, GUEST CONTRIBUTOR

 – 6 MAY 2013POSTED IN: INDONESIA, MALAYSIA

For the two weeks of Malaysia’s election campaign, I was one of a group of researchers from the University of Malaya and various overseas institutions that toured through every one of Malaysia’s 13 states, witnessing the night time election rallies (ceramah), speaking to campaign workers and candidates, and generally trying to take the political pulse of this highly varied country. It was an exhausting trip, but also a great introduction to Malaysia for someone like me who has spent many years researching Indonesian politics. Indonesia and Malaysia are neighbouring countries, sharing a similar national language and (in part) a Malay heritage, but their politics are very different. Here are a couple of simple comparisons, drawn from the experience of this research trip.

1. Malaysian elections are less free.

Anyone who doubts the depth of Indonesian democracy should pay a visit to a Malaysian election campaign and compare the climate to what one finds in an Indonesian poll. Obviously, Malaysia is not a police state: we don’t feel the sense of constant surveillance that was a feature of Indonesia during the Suharto period, nor is there a particularly obvious security force presence. But in at least two ways, the authoritarian features of Malaysia’s politics are obvious.

First, and most blatant, is control of the media. For someone used to the cacophonous and sometimes highly irreverent print and electronic media of Indonesia, it was a shock to daily read the monotonous and biased fare dished up by Malaysian newspapers. Through the campaign period, both English and Malay language newspapers churned out a torrent of laudatory reports on the government and highly critical – sometimes laughably hysterical – reports on the opposition. Readers were repeatedly warned that the opposition coalition was a shambles, that it was irredeemably divided internally and that chaos would ensue if it won. No surprise there for anyone who knows a minimum about Malaysian politics, but I have to admit I was taken aback by the brazenness of the partisanship. Even in the late Suharto years, the Indonesian press was never this bad.

However, as almost everyone – from both government and opposition – told us, such media control is becoming less effective as a growing proportion of the population, especially young people,  turn to social media and online news sources for information. Even in remote rural electorates in Sabah, candidates employed cyber-troopers – young people whose job it was to promote their candidate and cast aspersions on the opposition. But while social media is extending its reach, it still affects mostly a younger, educated and more urban population: a fact borne out in the sharp urban-rural divide in the results.

Second, there is a fusion of state and party that has no equivalent in contemporary Indonesia. To be sure, we know from many reports of pilkada(local executive government heads) that incumbent local government leaders in regional Indonesia make use of the government apparatus to try to get re-elected – for example, by leaning on village heads to mobilize their communities or by directing their staff to channel development projects to political sympathisers. But such leaders do this in ways that are surreptitious, because they know that public servants are prohibited from engaging in politics. This prohibition was a major plank of the “de-Golkar-isation” that occurred as part of Indonesia’s post-Suharto reforms. In Malaysia, the boundary between the government apparatus and the ruling BN coalition is sometimes so thin as to be invisible, and everyone knows it.

This is obvious most of all in the various cash transfer schemes and other populist schemes that the government ran as a major part of its re-election bid. Throughout the country, BN campaigners agree that policies such as the BR1M (Bantuan Rakyat 1 Malaysia – One Malaysia People’s Aid) program, in which households earning less than 3000 ringgit per month were made payments of 500 ringgit, were a critical part of its re-election program. But it was also clear that party and state were all but indistinguishable in the delivery of these payments: we collected many reports of people being required to register for BR1M payments at UMNO or BN offices, or of local BN leaders being appointed as coordinators of the BR1M program. Throughout the election period the country’s roadside and media was drenched in advertising promoting the “1 Malaysia” assistance programs, of which BR1M was only one small part.

Similar partisanship in government largesse is visible in the Constitutency Development Fund program, in which federal parliamentarians are allocated 1 million ringgit each to spend on development programs in their electorates. But such funds are made available only to BN MPs, not those from the opposition. As one former BN MP explained, this targeting is to stop opposition MPs “taking credit” for government development spending.

This sort fusion of state and party in development programming was a hallmark of the Suharto period in Indonesia, when Golkar was basically the electoral expression of the government  bureaucracy. Today, there is still plenty of manipulation of government programs for partisan political advantage in Indonesia, but when it happens it has to take place much more covertly. In Malaysia, the state and ruling party are all but fused.

2. But elections matter more, and so do parties.

Yet for all this, it is hard to avoid the strong impression that elections are much more meaningful, consequential and competitive political events in Malaysia than in Indonesia. Or at least, that’s how people view them. Of course, elections are the central institution of Indonesia’s new democratic politics, and nobody could deny they are important. But at least since the first post-Suharto polls of 1999, there is never much of a sense that the whole fate of the nation hangs in the balance as the result of a particular poll, as was definitely the case in these 2013 Malaysian elections. Sometimes, supporters of a particular candidate will get very fired up in Indonesia, but rarely are whole communities galvanised.

In Malaysia, nobody attending election events could doubt that this was an election that really mattered: party leaders and campaigners, the press, and ordinary citizens repeatedly stated that the future of the country was at stake. Passions were particularly high, of course, because of the opposition gains in 2008, and because an opposition victory seemed a real possibility. Another important factor is that the country’s parliamentary form of government acts to strengthen party identity: it is the parliamentary elections that have the power to create and destroy governments (unlike in Indonesia where the president is directly elected and coalitions within parliament tend to be issue-based and ever-changing rather than permanent and institutionalised).

Accordingly, parties are more distinctive from one another than they are in Indonesia. They appeal to different ethnic and other social constituencies, and they are also much more programatic. In Indonesia, individual candidates might use local languages and cultural symbols to spice up their campaigning, but there is no party that targets a particular ethnic community and campaigns primarily in that community’s language as in Malaysia. To be sure, the opposition Pakatan Rakyat has made great strides in coalition-building, but  witnessing DAP and other party ceramah using the various Chinese dialects drives home just how segmented Malaysia’s electorate is. So does watching the mix of party flags hung along the roadsides altering dramatically as we moved between states.

It was also striking how policy-focused the elections were. In Indonesian elections, campaigners often say it is “figur” — the individual candidate’s personality or charisma — that counts. Most of the election events I witnessed in Malaysia were relentlessly policy-focused. To be sure, campaigners spent a lot of time mocking their opponents’ personal records or characters, but they also dwelled on the government’s achievements or failings, and on their future policy promises. PR campaigners we followed as they went house to house through poor kampung in Sarawak, for example, emphasised policies such as free education and a new pension scheme.

BN used a slick and obviously highly centralised advertising campaign that placed Prime Minister Najib at the centre and used various soft-focus, feel good messages of the sort that will be familiar to most people who have lived through a recent election campaign in a developed democracy. But the content of BN campaigns was also focused on attacking the opposition, and on promoting the government’s development achievements (janji ditepati – promises delivered – was the major catch-cry of the national advertising campaign) and the BR1M and various other benefit schemes.

Overall, however, especially once the results began to trickle in on Sunday night, I couldn’t help being left with a sense of irony. In Indonesia, elections are more free and therefore much more amenable to being used to bring about real change of government. In Malaysia, the cards are so stacked against the opposition that it now seems hard to imagine a change in national government taking place through an election. The rural gerrymander alone is enough to keep BN in power with a much smaller fraction of the popular vote than it won this weekend. And yet, it’s in Malaysia that we find still find an excitement about electioneering that Indonesia’s experience of democratic government has dulled. But how long will elections seem truly consequential for Malaysians if the national government can never be changed by them?

Edward Aspinall is a Professor of Southeast Asian Politics in the Department of Political and Social Change at the ANU. He wishes to thank Terence Gomez, Surinderpal Kaur and Meredith Weiss for their company, guidance and insight during his recent trip through Malaysia.