Comedic Political Soup

Technorati tags: Humor, Politics, Elections, Media Bias

Laughing stock - that all too essential base ingredient in a tasty soup called political comedy. And that's exactly what EC chairman Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahim said that the election would become if the media were biased.

Say what? Does that mean our election process has been one big political comedy all these years? Duhh... The Tan Sri suffering from a momentary lapse of reason, or what? Or has guilt finally caught up with the man?

Ha, ha... Walski's innards are aching with uncontrollable laughter. Or is it just sheer disgust? Dunno... hard to tell the difference these days.

Yes, folks - the comedic event we get every 4 or 5 years - the General Elections. It's no big secret that the media is indeed biased towards BN. In particular, the electronic broadcast media. The TV channels are either government owned, or owned by one media conglomerate - Media Prima. And no prizes for guessing whose interests Media Prima serves. You know, in more civilized places, monopolies such as this wouldn't be allowed to exist.

Then again, this is Malaysia.
(soupy political comedy, and more, in the full post)

But Walski digresses... we were talking about comedic political soup. Enriched with laughing stock... and a liberal dash of petty political melodrama, just to get the flavor right. Served cold, for maximum effect.

Sunday was nomination day for the 12th General Elections. Blogger buddy KTemoc, touching on Malaysiakini's report, did a commentary on the funny antics of the prospective candidates on nomination day. Walski won't repeat all of what Kaytee had to comment... suffice it to say that the objections put up against nominations were pretty petty.

Like KJ not having a "bin" (son of) in his full name on the nomination form... Since KJ's identity card, too, is bin-less, the EC officer at the nomination station had no choice but to bin the objection... he throws... swisshh... he scores...

Apparently, RTM, the state-owned propaganda machine (that gets annexed by BN every time there's an election for their own glorification) has been running opposition bashing materials. Since Walski doesn't watch the piece of crap RTM 1 (or 2), what he understands is that the programs accused the opposition of promoting the culture of street demonstrations, depicting the violence that ensued during the recent rallies... as if we didn't know who the real perpetrators of violence were.

RTM ran a couple of pieces, subsequently posted on YouTube, about them planning to retract the programs, including snippets of PAS handing a memorandum of protest. But the last word comes from none other than the Minister of Propaganda and MisInformation, Zainuddin "Call me Joe" Maidin or ZAM, as he's popularly known.

Part 2 is particularly showing of just how lopsided RTM's reporting is.

The Bernama version of the second RTM clip, has ZAMbie dismissing any media bias (hat-tip to The Malaysian - emphasis by myAsylum).

Information Minister Datuk Seri Zainuddin Maidin has dismissed opposition parties' claim of one-sided media reports and says that they too use the media as a channel to promote themselves.

This scenario proved that they had confidence in the media although at the same time they alleged that the media did not give equal opportunities and do justice to them, he said.

Will the real Joseph Goebbels please stand up... Really, ZAM? You mean the opposition parties get to air their views freely on RTM uneditorialized? Exactly which media are you talking about? But wait.. more ZAMbie-ism:

"PAS is scared of the truth because the video clip shows the identity of PKR leaders is different from theirs to the extent that they now feel guilty for making friends with the PKR," Zainuddin said.

He said they protested because they were shocked with the PKR identity and had to protect the party's dignity.

"The PAS-PKR pact in the election proves damaging. That is why they protested," he said.

Thinking Malaysians en masse will buy this schpiel must mean that we are considered by ZAMbie just as walking brain-dead as Zambie is...

Well, there you have it... an EC that has just admitted they are really just poll paper pushers with no real power, and broadcast media which once again has proven that they are great producers of laughing stock.

The same laughing stock that forms the bulk of the Comedic Political Soup we've come to know as the General Elections...