Allegations of election fraud in S'wak
Technorati tags: Politics, Sarawak Report, Election Fraud, Sarawak
Updated: Additional commentary and rants, in the full post
The knee-jerk reaction from sycophantic supporters of BN will likely be "sour grapes" on the part of Pakatan Rakyat (PR).
But if there was fraud, and if there is compelling proof that there were fraudulent acs during the 10th Sarawak state elections, then these must be brought to light. And since the Malaysian authorities may not be impartial when it comes to things BN, the next recourse would be the United Nations.
That said, what good this will bring in the end is questionable - Malaysia doesn't exactly have the best track record when it comes to adhering to universal standards.
Observers to tell UN the true Sarawak story
The blackout, she said, lasted an hour during which time the Election Commission (EC) continued counting.
“Suddenly they brought in ‘postal’ votes at an illegally late hour and SUPP was declared ‘winners’ with a slim 58-vote majority.
“The EC also announced 158 spoiled votes favouring PKR. The commission refused a recount despite the fact that there was a clear case for it,” she said.
Brown added that the Senadin incident was only one example that SR was planning to present to the UN.
(more of Walski's thoughts, in the full post)
Here’s the deal – many pro-government and pro-BN individuals have indicated that a site like Sarawak Report (the one without the trailing ‘s’) can’t be trusted, simply because one of the persons associated with it is Claire Rewcastle Brown, sister-in-law of former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
They will also frequently use this reason to claim a different kind of FDI – Foreign Direct Interference.
While doing this, however, these sycophants will not even entertain the slightest possibility that some (if not all) allegations against the BN-run state government, and in particular its Chief Minister, could very well be true.
You see, in their minds, Barisan Nasional (BN) can do no wrong, and the opposition no right. Whether they truly believe this or not is another matter, but publicly that seems to be their standard stand. Scripted, almost.
It is this sort of binary thinking that causes every single thing open to the possibility of being politicized. Quite frankly, it’s tiring. Granted, some in the opposition camp are also guilty of this kind of black/white logic, but it’s usually the BN champions that take every little issue to town.
Another annoying thing: these sycophants when unable to refute the fact that current Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud has been in office for 30 years, will often bring up the fact that Nik Aziz Nik Mat, Lim Kit Siang and Karpal Singh have been in party leadership positions for as long, if not longer. The elephant in the room that’s totally ignored: comparing elected office to political party positions as if the two were the same thing.
They almost have a point, though, with Nik Aziz who has been Chief Minister of Kelantan since 1990. But that’s still almost a decade less than Taib, who assumed office in 1981, and who doesn’t seem to even have any desire to relinquish his position, evidenced by his haste in getting himself sworn in right after the 2010 state election.
His position has undoubtedly brought him and his family immense wealth, and apparently 3 decades is not enough.
Being an incumbent doesn’t give one the right to rule indefinitely. Last Walski checked, Malaysia is still a democracy, albeit one that is far from perfect. And in a democracy, who gets to rule is subject to change. No two ways about it.
When an incumbent party resorts to election fraud, as alleged, it can only mean that said party no longer has the full support of its populace. Even if there wasn’t any fraud involved, the mere fact that BN’s popular vote decreased by 8 percentage points (from 63% previously to 55% in the recent election) is an indication that the people of Sarawak’s support for BN is waning.
The big question now is this: with these allegations having arisen, is the Election Commission going to do anything about it, or just dismiss them without investigation?
