Fighting Against The Odds

Once upon a time, perhaps it was during the 1990 election, I remember my parents driving me through some pro-Opposition areas in Penang. DAP's rocket posters were densely papered here and I would look at them almost guiltily because they were advertising for the "enemy."

Eighteen years on, I have to admit, I've begun to admire the long-time DAP leaders more and more. People like Lim Kit Siang and Karpal Singh have been constantly vilified by the BN as noisemakers, even troublemakers, out to spread fear and discontent among the public. With BN's father-knows-best mentality, disobedient children like the Opposition are trivialized, embarrassed, and outcast. After 30 years of this, most children would have tolerated it no more, packed their bags and moved out of the house. Yet, here are these old folks, hanging tough, and fighting on. Their indomitable spirit is astounding to me. It's gratifying now to see them showing up at ceramah after ceramah, cheered on by thousands of their fellow citizens.

I admire their fighting spirit, because mine is fledgling in light of all the discouraging news coming out this last week before the election. At the top of the list of course, is the EC backtracking on their promise to use indelible ink to mark voters who have cast their vote. The EC agreed in June of 2007 to use the ink. They had all these months to investigate potential problems that have cropped up in the various countries that have used it over the years. They certainly had more than enough time to realize they could not make it compulsory for all voters to be marked. Do your research, people! But they chose to spend the RM2 million first and brag about being "clean" and "transparent". The sweet promises turned out to be empty ones, which also happens to be BN's trademark.

The EC also has the nerve to pooh-pooh the discrepancies in the electoral roll. Five hundred non-existent residents in an abandoned markas in Penang? Ala... people move, they don't tell us, so it's not our fault. Nine thousand voters over 100 years old? Those people are still alive, what! Even if they're dead, the National Registry didn't tell us, so it's not our fault. Talk about passing the buck. If it's not the EC's responsibility to maintain the electoral roll, whose is it??

And how about all those "new" voters cropping up? Did 14,000 adults, all conveniently registered to vote, move into Permatang Pauh in the last 4 years? Of those, 6,000 are postal voters which are perhaps 90% for the BN. If the same number of people vote for Wan Azizah and PKR as they did in 2004, when she won by 590 votes, then BN will win this one by a "thumping majority" come Saturday. This funnelling of thousands of votes into an opposition area is not new. In 1999, PAS captured Terengganu. In 2004, 9300 fewer people voted for PAS, a decline of 5.2%, but 93,000 more voted for BN, a mind-boggling increase of 72%. It's as good as BN saying, yes, we're cheating you, everyone knows it, but no one can do a damn thing about it.

Then there are the infamous postal votes. Civic-minded students overseas have spent loads of time and money trying to get their hands on a postal ballot. They put up with embassy and consulate workers ignorant of voting procedures and the rights of Malaysian citizens. One embassy representative even let it slip that she thought only government-sponsored students were allowed to vote from overseas. One student called up his embassy twice to verify the day to cast his postal ballot, only to find out after he made the trip that voting had been carried out the day before. Sorry, try again next year.

Honestly, how do we keep our spirits alive with all the odds against us? To fight on, you need hope and the government has done a terrific job of taking the hope for a true democracy away from us.

So to Kit Siang and Karpal, we need you. Keep on fighting. Salud.