Malaysia's Elections 2008 (Before, During & After)

[Adrian Wong]

Here's an opinion piece by Aliran's President. For those who have yet to make up their minds!!

Fellow Malaysians,

This is an opportune time to bring about change. You may not get another opportunity such as this. Let us not lose on this opportunity.

There are calls along communal lines claiming that if MCA, Gerakan and MIC candidates were elected they would then have a greater voice to speak up for their community and protect their community’s rights. It is claimed if they do not receive this support, then the community would lose out.

Don’t you believe that!

What rights are they talking about? How are they going to protect those rights? Can they really speak up? Would they have the guts to stand up and take a stand on behalf of their community?

Let me just refresh your memories with a simple sample of their commitment to your rights. In January 2007, nine non-Malay Ministers wanted to submit a memorandum to the Prime Minister calling for a review of laws affecting the rights of non-Malays.

Umno reacted so strongly and vociferously causing a furore of protest claiming that these Ministers were challenging the PM and demanded that they must withdraw their memorandum to the PM.

As a consequence of this pressure exerted on them, five out of the nine ministers who had signed the memorandum met the PM, and after that they withdrew the memorandum.

The five ministers were MCA President Datuk Seri Ong Ka Ting, MIC President Datuk Seri S Samy Vellu, Gerakan President Datuk Seri Lim Keng Yaik, Minister of Transport Datuk Seri Chan Kong Choy and Minister of Health Datuk Chua Soi Lek.

The point that we are making is that if these ministers do not even have the right to submit a memorandum, what protection of rights of the community are they speaking about? Whether the PM entertains their memorandum or chooses to throw it into the waste paper basket is another matter. But they were not allowed to submit the grievances of the community to the PM. What a pathetic turn of events!

And yet we are told that these leaders will speak up and protect our rights.

Our response is, “Tell it to the marines!”

Vote for democracy! Vote for a stronger opposition!

P Ramakrishnan

President

7 March 2008

- ALIRAN

[Adrian Wong]

If you want to see the kind of people Badawi has chosen to represent us, the Rakyat, there is no better example than this arrogant slob in this video - YouTube - Greenvoters-election 2008-Dato Zein(BN) Dialogue

The sheer arrogance of these UMNO candidates is just astounding, especially since this is an election. They no longer even bother to PRETEND that they would serve the people.

For context, read about it here - KDCF - Election 2008

Friemds of Kota Damansara has made it a point to find out the stand of the individual election candidates with regard to the KD forest. The 2 parliamentment candidates as well as the state candidate was invited to have a dialogue with us. The summary of the dialogue iis provided in this article.

Please note that FoKD is apolitical and will not be endorsing any candidate. We merely want to understand what is the stand of the various candidates on environmental issues that are of concern to us.

The followings are a summary of the feedback from the four(4) candidates:-

1. Murugesan (BN-MIC Parliament)

Murugesan is not aware of the RTPJ2 plan where the Sg. Buloh Forest Reserve has been earmarked for strata development. However, after being briefed about the history of the Forest and its impact on environment e.g. flood, increased temperature,etc, he has expressed his personal stand in principal against development of green lung.

He agreed that he will meet up with the relevant departments with MBPJ and study through the issues before meeting with the respective residents grouping.

He will only sign the pledge after he checks with his party’s on election law/by-law that may restrict him from signing such a pledge. Also, Murugesan has requested to amend the wording on “ Immediately” to “ Working towards” in the second paragraph of the Pledge.


2. Dato’ Zein (BN-UMNO State)

Dato’ Zein’s assistant distributed his bio-data sheet to all attendee. When presented with the two(2) questions, he declined to comment on the issues claiming that he was not aware of those issues despite our efforts to explain to him though our powerpoint presentations prepared for that purpose.

Dato’ Zein kept emphasizing that he is to act for the party he represents (BN) and acts according to party’s instructions. When questioned as to why as a Wakil Raryat, he is not representing his people, he then emphasized that it is up to the residents to decide whether to vote for or against him and party. Either way, he accepts it. At this juncture, he challenged all the attendees to prove that we are registered voters in Kota Damansara constituency.

When asked again on the issues faced by the residents, he said he would think about it later. He then left hurriedly without any conclusive comments.


3. Sivarasa (PKR-Parliament)

Sivarasa is fully aware of the RTPJ2 plan particularly on the strata development planned on the Forest Reserve and its negative impacts on the community and the surrounding ecological system (e.g. foods etc)

These proposals under the RTPJ2 on the Forest need to be stopped and revert back to its original purpose of gazetting it for public use being recreational or educational. As a result of certain action/decision by those in authority, residents suffer in a form of “Hotter KD, Flooded KD, Congested KD and ultimately a Dangerous KD”.

Sivarasa emphasized the importance of democracy in election campaigning process where election candidates should jointly participate in the dialogues.

Sivarasa suggested a subsequent meeting with the residents at the Forest on 05.03.2008 (Wednesday) at 6:00pm. Sivarasa later signed the Pledge without amending any wording on it.


4. Dr.Nasir (PKR-State)

Dr Nasir has a passion for green environment. He suggested that we should expose those parties behind the strata development since the de-gazettement process can be proved with evidences to be illegal.

He also suggested that the election candidates should be given a written pledge to be signed as an evidenve of their commitment towards fulfilling their promises to the people/community before and after being elected.

He later realized that there was already a Pledge prepared for him and he immediately signed it without hesitation.

--------------------

The candidates chosen should have the concern for our environment (i.e. sustainable development) and those pressing issues faced by the community (e.g. security, traffic etc). People should be concerned about the impact of environment and its protection and more importantly for our future generation.

To ensure this progress does not come to a halt, the public should elect representatives who they believe will continue fighting for this cause. Although the government is doing its part to certain extent, there has to be a greater sense of urgency among the public as well. It is time the public took a step back and realized that being “lukewarm” about the environment can have grave consequences.

The dialogue meeting concluded with a second meeting planned on 05.03.2008 (Wednesday) at 6:00pm at the Shelter near the Forest Reserve at Sect-9. We strongly urge all residents to attend this meeting and get to know your candidates before casting your most important vote for our future leaders.

Make sure you take a look at the kind of bashing the audience gave him after his arrogant statements! Man, this video is a keeper!!!!

[bslee]

Originally Posted by Adrian Wong

Tell everyone.. vote for either PKR, DAP or PAS. Vote for the Opposition. This is your best chance to DENY BN the 2/3 majority!!!!

I'm spreading the word around my area, especially previous fence sitters and those who voted for BN before. We NEED to SEND EVERY OPPOSITION WAKIL (DAP, PAS, PKR) to Parliament. Believe and trust they ARE THE VOICE (not BN component parties with HANDS TIED, as seen before) against UM** led arrogance and the WHIP system.
They have to be stopped in their tracks before they destroy and ruin the country further. Peace unto all and have a safe journey home to vote!.
LOVE MALAYSIA before yourself this time!.

[Adrian Wong]

Originally Posted by bslee

I'm spreading the word around my area, especially previous fence sitters and those who voted for BN before. We NEED to SEND EVERY OPPOSITION WAKIL (DAP, PAS, PKR) to Parliament. Believe and trust they ARE THE VOICE (not BN component parties with HANDS TIED, as seen before) against UM** led arrogance and the WHIP system.
They have to be stopped in their tracks before they destroy and ruin the country further. Peace unto all and have a safe journey home to vote!.
LOVE MALAYSIA before yourself this time!.

Me too!! I've been spending all my free time promoting left and right. Not because I'm a Rocketman... or a PASboy or PKRian. I'm just an ordinary Malaysian who still believes in doing the right thing. And this is the BEST time to do it!!!

I will be doing another round of SMS messages to my friends and relatives soon. It's never too late to help them see the truth!

[Adrian Wong]

Alright! Finished this round of tests... I'm off to Penang!

Happy voting, everyone!!

[Dashken]

For those who are voting for the first time, it's best to check your details here and print it out a copy and bring it along to the voting station to avoid some people saying that your details are not with them and you are not registered. This has happened before...

Better be safe than sorry...

UNDI.INFO

[jasperchc]

Just casted my vote, 3 way battle for my area, BN-DAP-PKR. Dont know why PKR wanna contest here, will only split the opposition votes, they really shouldnt have done that

[Dashken]

Well, it's known that they couldn't come to a conclusion on the seats at Sabah and Sarawak. So, both states are concidered safe for BN unlike Peninsular.

Casted my votes as well.. both 'X's placed nicely within each box. Now everything will depend on the ghosts. It's raining heavily here at Bukit Mertajam.

When I went to Jit Sin school, there were quite a lot of cars at around 1pm+. But at the voting stations... not much people, actually no people at the 1st 5 streams, I was at the 6th, got a line of 5 people.

I took a picture of my votes as well. Go rocket!

[Dashken]

I was asked whether there were markings on my slips. I see no visible ones except for the serial numbers on the left. At first I thought there would be no serial numbers. Apparently there is for them to see/know how many votes are casted.

ZuePhok ah... you should have come back and do your part ma...

[Dashken]

Damn...

A man in his 50s was nabbed in Bagan Jemal, Penang, this morning for attempting to sell his ballot paper.

At about 9am, the unemployed Malay man approached DAP volunteers at its Bagan Jemal operations centre and offered to sell them his ballot papers.

He told them that he was jobless and wanted money for the ballot paper from the SK Jalan Manjung polling station.

polling day 080308 voter ballot box 01The man was detained by police 30 minutes later. Selling ballot papers is an offence under the Section 3 (1)(e) of the Election Offences Act 1954.

The Bagan Jemal state seat sees a straight fight between MCA’s Ooi Chuan Aik and DAP’s Lim Hock Seng. Ooi won the seat in 2004 with a 3,337-vote majority.

Meanwhile, DAP candidate Lim discovered to his chagrin that his wife won't be voting for him.

The Bagan Jemal state seat hopeful said he found out two weeks ago that his wife, who shares the same MyKad address as him, was placed under the Bagan Dalam constituency.

According to Lim, his wife had previously voted in the Bagan Jemal constituency.

Bagan Dalam is being contested by DAP's Tanasekharan Audherapady and MIC's PK Subbaiyah.

Both the state seats fall under the Bagan parliamentary seat, contested by DAP secretary-general Lin Guan Eng.

Jobless man caught selling ballot paper