Robbers dressed up as men of God

ARCHIVES 2010

By MT Webmaster On May 19, 2010

By UK standards and according to UK laws, the Malaysian elections would have been declared null and void and the government declared illegitimate. In other words, Barisan Nasional would not be considered as having won the elections. It would be considered as having stolen the elections.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

The Sibu by-election has just ended. Earlier, we saw the Hulu Selangor by-election. Since the March 2008 general election we have seen close to a dozen by-elections. And what was the main complaint of all these by-elections and the many general elections since Merdeka? Well, there are many complaints, but top of the list is the complaint of postal votes — or rather the cheating in the postal voting system.

The UK held its general elections earlier this month. And in the UK there were many complaints as well. The polling stations opened from 8.00am till 10.00pm but many could not vote because there were just too many voters and there was not enough time to clear the long queues.

Actually this problem cropped up because most people went to vote after office hours so there was a crush after 6.00pm. In the morning/afternoon the polling stations were quite deserted and it took you only about five minutes to vote. After 6.00pm many queued for more than four hours and still could not vote when, by law, they closed the polling stations at 10.00pm.

Then there was the problem of postal votes. Many did not receive their ballot papers so they could not vote. However, the problem in the UK is not because the postal votes are being manipulated but because those voting by postal votes did not follow up when they did not receive the ballot papers in time. You can read the piece by The Guardian below to get an idea on what happened.

In the UK you can choose whether you wish to vote by post. You need not go to the poling station on Polling Day to vote. You can vote from home. And people feel safe voting by post because they know there is no cheating. And your right to vote is covered by UK’s Human Rights Act.

Yes, that’s right. UK has a Human Rights Act that guarantees you your right to vote. Therefore, if you are denied your right to vote, like what happens to hundreds of thousands of people in Malaysia, then you can take the government to court.

Can you imagine Malaysia also having a Human Rights Act like in the UK? Instead, we have an Internal Security Act that allows for detention without trial, a Sedition Act that forbids you from saying nasty things about those who walk in the corridors of power, a Publication and Printing Presses Act that forbids you from publishing anything without government permission, a University and University Colleges Act that forbids students from wearing an opposition party badge on their chest (unless you are an Umno Club member – students are allowed to wear an Umno badge), a Police Act that forbids you and four other friends from standing side-by-side on a street corner, an Official Secrets Act that forbids you from revealing the corrupt practices of those who walk in the corridors of power, and so on and so forth.

Compare Britain to Malaysia. Can you see the glaring difference? In Britain you have freedom of speech. In Malaysia you also have freedom of speech. It is freedom after speech that you do not have.

Thou shalt not steal, says the Good Book, all the Good Books. But Malaysians of Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, etc., persuasion, steal like crazy. They steal the elections. They steal the government. They are robbing Malaysians of their right to a legitimately elected government.

This Friday, look at those Muslims marching to the mosques. This Sunday, look at those Christians going to church. Study their faces. Look into their eyes. Then ask yourself: how many of these people pretending to do piety are actually robbers who steal from us — steal our right to a fair election and a legitimately elected government?

They may look pious. They may appear like they are going to the church, mosque or temple to worship God. But these are not God’s people. These are people who break God’s Commandment: thou shalt not steal.

God has given these people a name. These people are called munafiqs or hypocrites. You find these munafiqs in the Election Commission. You find them in the Royal Malaysian Police. You find them in Barisan Nasional. These are people who bribe, lie, cheat and steal to win the elections. And these are people condemned by God. And these are people whom we must also condemn because God has condemned them.

And if you know of any church that has received a bribe during the election then boycott that church. That is not a House of God. That is a House of Sin. That church is built on dirty money. Stay home this Sunday and do not defile your religion by going to a church that was built on corrupt money.

If you know of a mosque or temple that also received bribes during the election then boycott those mosques and temples as well. Those are not Houses of God. These buildings were built on dirty money. So these are dirty buildings. You will not find God in these places. The devil has made its home in these places.

Woe to Malaysians when mosques, churches and temples can be bribed. Woe to Malaysians when the so-called Houses of God are built on corrupt money. And those trustees, imams, priests and others who condone corruption are not men of God. They only pretend to be men of God. They are actually disciples of the devil. You must not follow these people because these people will lead you to hell.

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UK Human Rights Act

On 2 October 2000, the Human Rights Act (passed in Westminster in 1998) became enforceable and made the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) part of the law of Northern Ireland (and of the rest of the UK). The relationship between you, your fellow citizens and government is different from that date. A human rights culture for all us has been introduced.

The changes are positive and welcome. For the first time considering every citizen’s human rights has become a central part of our law. Specific rights belonging to all of us have to be respected, protected and promoted by government and others. These rights include what you may say, what you believe in, how you are educated, how you lead your private life and even your mental and physical health. And, crucially, you are able to go to a court in Northern Ireland to enforce these rights if necessary.

The Human Rights Act (HRA) brought the UK into line with almost every other European state and many other countries worldwide, by having our fundamental rights defined and guaranteed in writing and by law. This is part of modern democracy’s concept of citizenship. We, the citizens, need to develop a sense of human rights and the balance they provide between the interests of each individual and the common good of society.

Awareness of human rights has another virtue: it encourages us to participate in our democratic society, to debate and discuss the way that government “for the people” should be going. And because the this law ensures that our rights are considered before decisions are made, we can have more confidence in the quality of those decisions and the reasoning of those who make them. The Human Rights Act should help the citizen and the government get on better together. The documents in this section explain why. (http://www.nihrc.org/index.php)

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What are my postal voting rights?

Corinna Ferguson, The Guardian, UK

This year I decided to register for postal voting. The ballot papers for my local elections duly arrived on time and I was able to vote and send them back. However, the ballot papers for the general election never arrived. I decided to wait until 5 May (the day before the election) to see if they had been delayed in the post. Alas, they did not arrive on that day either. I then phoned my council to ask what had happened to them, only to be told that there was nothing they could do and that they had probably been lost in the post. As a result of this I was unable to vote. I feel angered and frustrated about this – and wondered what my rights were. — Mousumi

Mousumi is not alone. The shameful polling fiasco we all witnessed a couple of weeks ago meant that hundreds of people were unable to exercise their right to vote in this historic election. Liberty is currently investigating what went wrong by inviting anyone affected to complete our monitoring form, and we will be applying whatever pressure we can to the relevant authorities to make sure this never happens again.

While the problem of enormous queues at understaffed polling stations may be a new one in this country, the postal voting system has often come under fire on the basis that it is open to fraud or administrative failure.

Applications for postal votes can be made up to 11 working days before polling day, and regulation 71 of the Representation of the People (England and Wales) Regulations 2001 says that postal ballot papers must not be issued before then. There is no deadline by which they must be issued, but the Electoral Commission guidance says:

Postal ballot packs should be issued to all who have applied as soon as practicable after the deadline for new applications for postal votes and for changes to be made to existing postal votes, 11 working days before polling day. This will in part depend on how quickly the ballot papers can be produced, particularly as production cannot commence until nominations close at 4pm, 11 working days before polling day.

The aim of the (acting) returning officer should be to allow postal voters as much time as possible to complete and return their votes.

Under regulation 76, returning officers may use royal mail, commercial postal services or they can deliver ballot packs by hand. The court of appeal found in a case in 2004 that the returning officer’s obligations are discharged by handing the ballots to the royal mail or other carrier, and that he or she cannot be held liable for delays in the postal system. This was partly because regulation 78 provides a safety net for when the ballot papers are not received.

Under regulation 78, any postal voter who has not received a ballot pack by the fourth day before the poll can apply for a replacement. If the application is received before 5pm on polling day and the returning officer is satisfied as to the voter’s identity and has no reason to doubt that the original ballot pack was lost, the returning officer must issue another ballot pack. This can be done either by delivering it again by hand or by post, or if the voter makes the application in person by handing it to them. If the application is received after 5pm on polling day a replacement ballot paper can only be given to the voter in person.

So Mousumi might have been able to vote if he/she had contacted the council three days earlier. The council was wrong to say there was nothing it could do the day before the poll, but depending how far away Mousumi was from the constituency, the options were probably limited. There is no absolute obligation on returning officers to ensure that those registered for postal votes are able to vote by post. The court of appeal case confirmed that they must act reasonably, but that would probably not extend to delivering a ballot pack to someone who lives in another part of the country the day before polling day.

Where there has been a breach of the electoral rules, it is possible to challenge the outcome of an election, but the election will not be declared void if it was “conducted as to be substantially in accordance with the law as to elections” and “the act or omission did not affect its result”. This is obviously a high threshold and depends heavily on the size of the winning majority.

But if Mousumi’s inability to vote was the fault of the returning officer or the council (for giving incorrect information), there may have been a breach of article 3 of the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights which requires the UK to hold:

… free elections at reasonable intervals by secret ballot, under conditions which will ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people in the choice of the legislature.

This right is incorporated into UK law by the Human Rights Act and therefore public authorities are required to act compatibly with it. No one has yet brought a claim under the Human Rights Act alleging a breach of article 3 of the first protocol on the grounds that they were eligible and wished to vote but were unable to do so due to failings of the authorities. But because of the massive and apparently systemic problems that occurred in this election, Liberty intends to bring such a case. Watch this space.