A vote spoilt is a vote wasted

Who most stands to benefit from a well-organised, well-exposed campaign aimed at young, urban voters, who are overwhelmingly anti-establishment, to spoil their votes.

Chew Jian Li, Free Malaysia Today

This will be my final letter to Hafidz and the #UndiRosak campaign. I will be busy over the coming weeks with writing up my project paper and finishing university.

I have whitewashed the wrongs and evils of Mahathir in my previous articles, not out of ignorance, but due to lack of space and to push forward my other points. I am very aware of the corruption, embezzlement and scandals perpetrated by Mahathir, all of which you have stated and laid bare. I am very aware that the current state of Malaysia was due to in no small part to this man.

But, I am also aware of this:

Mahathir is the best person to obtain the rural Malay vote that has so eluded PH. Mahathir, the devil of the past, is the best person to take down Najib, the devil of the present. Mahathir is the man who so frightens Najib that Najib rushed through the lopsided redelineation report, deregistered PPBM and held polling day on a Wednesday to depress turnout. All this shows me that despite the bravado and confidence BN exudes, they are truly terrified of losing power.

I had, and still have, no love for Mahathir. However, the fact that the opposition which hated him has rallied behind him and named Mahathir as its Prime Minister-designate, which in your eyes is the ultimate hypocrisy, is the recognition of the ultimate fact that there are no permanent friends and enemies in politics.

If you find it distasteful that opposition leaders are standing with Mahathir, just imagine how they must have felt, people who suffered decades of harassment, humiliation and even imprisonment under the Internal Security Act.

I have read that it took Anwar’s family months to accept Mahathir’s role in PH and the leadership of the coalition, and if they can accept him, I can too. Seeing Mahathir swallow his pride, stand against the coalition which he led and controlled and risk everything instead of enjoying his retirement in comfort and silence, I have developed a grudging respect for him.

Hafidz has said that the #UndiRosak campaign favours nobody, and that it is sending a message to BN, PH and PAS.

I disagree that the campaign favours nobody as encouraging people to spoil their vote or to not turn up is an effective way for campaigns to nullify key voting blocks, as it is easier to convince voters dead-set against you to not vote rather than swing them towards your side.

Therefore, Trump’s victory and Brexit were the result of disillusioned young voters refusing to vote for either side, who now are forced to live with the consequences of their actions. The reason that PH supporters are so hostile to #UndiRosak is that they know who most stands to benefit from a well-organised, well-exposed campaign aimed at young, urban voters, who are overwhelmingly anti-establishment, to spoil their votes.

They also know that it is a key strategy of Cambridge Analytica, who were employed by the Trump campaign as well as BN in the last general election.

For Hafidz to think that #UndiRosak will send a message to all parties is naïve. BN does not and will not care what you tell them as long as they win their seats and stay in power, enjoying all the perks and easy money that come with it.

PH already has difficulty accessing key voting blocks, namely FELDA settlements, rural areas and the urban poor and will not focus on the message #undiRosak wants to send over them.

PAS is a dead man standing. Hafidz’s point on UMNO and MCA wrangling over Wangsa Maju proving the effectiveness of spoiling votes is flawed, as this is BN infighting over who will run in the election which does not involve the wider electorate.

I believe that overall public support for #UndiRosak is low, a view supported by INVOKE Malaysia’s big data analysis, but we will see on 10 May how effective the campaign is.

Hafidz’s point that PH is led by a 93-year old man ignores the fact that Mahathir has agreed to step down in favour of Anwar, and that PH contains many young, dynamic leaders who have been honed over the last ten years that will lead the coalition into the future, certainly far more than a BN led almost entirely by old and aging men.

The fact that the population is unable to choose the leaders of state assemblies and the prime minister is due to Malaysia having a Westminster parliamentary system, and to change this will require the Constitution to be amended, nay, completely rewritten.

It can be part of the structural reforms you so desperately want under PH, but I can guarantee 100% that BN will not do so.

Hafidz, I cannot wait another five years for PH to reach the lofty standards you hold them to. I cannot wait for BN to continue embezzling this nation’s wealth, push division and hate, pass more laws that restrict our freedoms and rights and to vindicate a Prime Minister who has been guilty of perpetrating one of the greatest financial scandals of all time.

While you take issue with PH’s economic manifesto, the Selangor and Penang governments have a track record of being well-managed, transparent, financially sustainable and with many people-oriented programmes. Both governments were voted in despite having unrealistic manifestos and lacking experience as the electorate were well and truly sick of BN.

If voters in 2008 spoilt their votes or didn’t turn up because they were unsure of the unproven and untested opposition, Malaysia would not have had the last ten years of rapid political development, and we would still be living under a near-invincible BN government.

To anyone thinking of spoiling their vote or not voting, we are on the edge of a new Malaysia. Our current path is unsustainable, and though PH isn’t going to give you all the change and structural reform you want, some change is better than no change at all.

You will never have a perfect party, perfect leaders with perfect manifestos and perfect visions to support, and rather than wait in vain for that to arise, vote for the system you want.

Vote for a two-party system, a politically mature environment where both parties are held in check by strong, independent institutions, where political debate is driven by ideology rather than identity politics, and where elections are free and fair.

This is the best chance we have and may ever have, and we cannot wait for another five years. Your spoilt vote will be lost amidst the millions of other votes. You will send no message at all. Ultimately, you will only contribute to maintaining and supporting our current, broken regime.