Rigging Elections is In The Genes of Malaysian Politics
It is ironic though that people who allegedly cheat in their respective party elections slam the others for manipulation.
Karamjit Gill
“Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad was criticized for his dictatorial-style leadership and accused of allowing gerrymandering in previous redelineations during his 22 years in power”
-The Straits Times, Singapore-
Not long ago in 2012 when Mahathir was on the other side of the fence, he said, “Since the days of the British, the urban areas tend to dominate politics and to be better served by the government. To balance this, the poorly serviced rural areas have to be given higher representation in the legislature.” He added that gerrymandering is not new, and claimed such practices happens even in USA, where states like New Jersey with less than 5 million residents have the same number of senators as California, a state with more than 40 million people.
Gerrymandering, malapportionment, and the misuse of institutional tools are all methods used to manipulate an electoral process. Any form of manipulation is an insult to the mere essence of an election, whether it is at the level of the government or an organisation. Renonwed Italian politician, Niccolo Machiavelli, once said that politics have no relation to morals.
Those in power would stoop to any extent to hold on to power. After all, political dominance is the epitome to being powerful.
The BN-led federal government has always been ridiculed for ‘gerrymandering’.
On the opposite spectrum, DAP members often voice disgust to alleged manipulation of the CEC elections alleging that Lim Kit Siang and Lim Guan Eng are the brains behind the exploitation.
Pribumi members on the other hand cried foul when Datuk Seri Mukhriz Mahathir was elevated to deputy president without an election.
It is ironic though that people who allegedly cheat in their respective party elections slam the others for manipulation.
If everything is fair in love and war, judging from the alleged misconduct of the opposition, they would perhaps do the exact same thing if they were the federal Government. As Mahathir once said, “Abuse of government authority is not confined only to the ruling party. The opposition is also bent on abusing government authority.”
A paper published on statistical analysis of the 1999 Malaysian general election explained how Mahathir relied on gerrymandering to be victorious in the polls. In fact, Mahathir even gerrymandered the party elections when he faced stiff competition from Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and Musa Hitam.
Since the opposition today claim that they were wrong about Mahathir and he was a good leader, how is gerrymandering under Najib’s governance wrong when the same with Mahathir is forgivable today?
Hence, the Mahathir we see today who is constantly contradicting himself is no different from the Mahathir of yesterday. Mahathir himself has admitted that the opposition parties are socialist in nature and have implied that Pakatan’s unrealistic promises are meant to be broken.
So, is this a changed man or he is a man pretending to change in order to oust Prime Minister Najib Razak?
