Jumaat, 15 April 2011

“Ikut Perintah” – Postal voting and army votes

The armed forces, especially the army, has been used to prop up sagging support for BN candidates in the past. In 2004, Najib Abdul Razak’s fate was decided by postal vote. Otherwise he would have lost the Pekan constituency.
The Bagan Pinang by-election on Oct 11, 2009 was another classic example of postal voting. The garrison commander of Port Dickson earned his second star because of this. It was a favour returned for his tacit support in ensuring 5,000 extra votes for the Umno has-been, Isa Samad.

The method is simple.
Voting in the army involves personnel crossing ballot papers in a hall and then depositing them in mail bags placed in front of the hall.
The bags are then sealed and taken away by Election Commission (EC) officers.

Counting is done centrally at the approved centre after voting day.
Whether the mailing bags surrendered are the right bags or not is a million-dollar question. Anything can happen when the bags are stored at the EC office.
With the police and military personnel being issued with MyKads, vote-rigging will happen in a big way.
Police and military personnel will be deployed to areas where support for BN and the Opposition is 50:50.
The heavy presence of security personnel with MyKads will favour the BN candidate.
This is legalised rigging by Najib and his cabinet.  His mentor was former Prime minister Mahathir Mohamed, the cause of all our woes.
During GE 1995, one army commander was told to look the other way when Nafisah canvassed in his camp.
By right, no campaigning should be allowed in army camps, as the army is supposed to be apolitical.
However, when the directive comes from Mindef, there is little that the ground commanders can do.
“IKUT PERINTAH” is the famous phrase in the army.
Despite what Najib and the EC say about free, fair and clean elections, the rakyat knows otherwise. Most people are aware that army personnel do not get promoted out of the blue just like that, or for some mundane reason.
Soldiers are aware of the goings-on but most choose to ignore these, as it doesn't concern them.
The typical non-committal stance that is taken is: “Pangkah aje lah. Apa kita kisah”.
This is the attitude of most of the army personnel.
If only they were more disciplined with their voting rights as they are with fighting for the country.

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