My friends at the Election Commission are laughing their heads off and rolling on the floor at the DAP's idea of "election transparency". There will be a lot of pisang and other offerings over Friday prayers today, for sure. For years now, the politicians in DAP, Pakatan and the NGO Bersih have made the EC their punching bag, accusing them of all sorts of inept in conducting the country's elections. It's a modus operandi of the Opposition - discredit the Government by discrediting the EC and the electoral process. Anwar Ibrahim and Ambiga S. have traveled far and wide to tell foreign governments about how "dirty" Malaysia's national elections were.
So the incredible screw-up at the DAP's party polls, which conveniently saw the "election" of a solitary Malay, came as a great New Year's gift to my EC friends. The DAP can claim to be transparent, naked, holier than thou, whatever ... as long as they bow down and admit they are so inept at organizing their own elections.
Not many believe it was an honest, stupid mistake, though. Spreadsheet error, my foot! They suspect something more sinister.
And can you blame them? Obviously, the fact that the DAP's recent election rejected outright all 8 Malay candidates for the highest committee had hurt the party's image big time. Despite the claim by Zairil Khir Johari that it was "no big deal", the absence of an elected Malay rep in DAP's highest committee is a mighty blow to the party's multiracial claim. (Zairil, incidentally, is the solitary Malay who benefited from the botched polls - he's now, officially, the 20th "elected" member of the CEC, a jump from his actual 39th spot at the original polls. He also happens to be Lim Guan Eng's understudy).
With general election just around the corner, something had to be done, right? Desperate people resort to desperate measures, they say.
Me, I believe shit happens. When shit happens, you may blame it on some computer sheet or human error, but go clean up all the same. Like my EC friend says, the DAP can claim that it was honest, transparent or plain stupid, it doesn't matter to him as long as people remember and the DAP leaders realize that they can't claim to even know what a "bersih" electoral process is.
So before they accuse others, they'd better take a look at themselves ...
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