Pakatan should welcome growth In registered voters
Tan Chai Ho
When Pakatan Rakyat elected representatives representing Parliament or state seats in Selangor surprisingly bemoaned the growth in registered voters in their constituencies e.g. 35% spike in Subang, 29.5% in Kota Raja or 25% in Puchong, they conveniently neglected informing that even Barisan Nasional strongholds recorded an increase in registered voters.
Malaysiakini (3 Apr 2012) reports that Putrajaya saw a whopping 81% mount, while registered voters in Pekan soared 31.8%. In Tebrau, the number of registered voters exceeded 31% and Gua Musang’s figures went up by 28.5%.
As of October 2011 and having registered 32.5% of the new 169,838 voters registered between January to June last year, DAP comes up tops among all political parties be it BN or Pakatan components in voter registration exercises.
Thus for DAP and other Pakatan wakil rakyats to voice suspicion or displeasure against the rise in eligible voters in Pakatan-held electorates while omitting to reveal that such surges were similarly recorded in BN seats shows their hypocrisy and double standards.
No reason to distrust Malaysians practising democracy
There is no reason for DAP to sound the alarm bells over the climb in registered voters. On the contrary, they should be elated that more and more Malaysians who have reached the age of 21 years and above want to exercise their democratic right in selecting political parties irrespective of ideological affiliation to represent their interests and welfare.
Rather than being scornful, DAP and Pakatan should be encouraged that in this age of new media, social networking, citizen journalism, more and more Malaysians are no longer ignoramus and can gauge for their own selves the performance of elected lawmakers. Thus, the failures of the much hyped Pakatan-led state governments to fulfill their 2008 election manifestos do not escape notice.
Why does DAP hold preference over who votes?
Perhaps, there is a sinister reason as to why DAP shows disgruntlement against people registering to ballot. As evidenced by Teo Nie Ching’s twitter message during the Sarawak state election on 11 April 2011 where she tweeted “Meradong in danger!Iban incr n Chinese reduce Pls come back and vote 4 us!!SOS”, DAP desires only to attract Chinese votes in their typical sword play of pitting the Chinese against the Chinese.
Sadly for Malaysia and the ideals of democracy, the Rocket does not want all eligible Malaysians to exercise their democratic right of turning up on polling day to cast their ballots.
Register your vote
According to latest figures from the Election Commission, 3,088,540 out of 15,683,808 Malaysians above the age of 21 have yet to sign up as balloters. I urge all Malaysians who qualify to register your vote and make your presence known in terms of national and state-level policy making.
