What a letdown - only 0.89% Malaysians living abroad can vote!

After all the brouhaha to get Malaysians living abroad the right to vote, only a dismal 6,268 out of over 700,000 have registered as postal voters.



IT'S disappointing, especially after all the brouhaha over giving all Malaysians living abroad the right to vote.

It has now been reported that only a dismal 6,268 Malaysians out of over 700,000 living abroad have registered as postal voters. There are some who think there could be as many as a million Malaysians abroad.

The Elections Commission (EC) had estimated that there would be at least 100,000 or even 200,000 overseas Malaysians who would register.

The criteria are fairly simple they have to be registered as voters first and have been in Malaysia not less than 30 days in the last five years before the dissolution of Parliament.

Objectively, no one can say that not enough time has been given. The worst excuse I have heard is that the Elections Commission website broke down last week and this made many who are overseas unable to register as postal voters.

This was reported in the pro-opposition Malaysiakini news portal. Surely, if you are seriously concerned with the developments in this country, you would have taken the trouble to register yourself much earlier.

It does not matter if you are overseas or in Malaysia. If one feels so strongly about what is taking place in Malaysia and wants to change the government, the obvious thing would be to ensure the change takes place via the ballot box.

Since the 2008 general election, it has been a long drawn campaign by both sides. Never has political awareness been so high.

That probably explains why there are 2.9 million new voters all first-timers and mostly below 40 years old out of the country's 13 million electorate. That's one out of five voters taking part in this general election.

It does not matter whether these new voters want to throw out this government or keep the status quo. The most important point is that they believe they can make a difference. They believe passionately that talk is cheap and that they will let their votes do the walking.

The call to allow overseas Malaysians to vote was on the agenda of Bersih, and two platforms MyOverseasVote and Bersih Global were set up to facilitate overseas Malaysians to register as postal voters.

Early this year, the EC announced that Malaysians residing overseas, except in Singapore, southern Thailand, Kalimantan and Brunei, would be allowed to apply to vote by post provided that they have been in Malaysia for at least 30 days in total during the last five years.

We have heard the arguments before there are those who claim that those who have been abroad too long do not understand what is taking place in Malaysia while many overseas Malaysians have ridiculed such arguments, saying that they follow events back home closely via the Internet.

Others suggest that the large number of overseas Malaysians are mostly non-Malays who are critical of Barisan Nasional and are likely to vote for the opposition.

They include many who have migrated because of their unhappiness over the affirmative action programmes that favour the bumiputras.

This argument does not hold water because the reality is that even if Pakatan Rakyat wins, the same affirmative actions will continue. Not even the DAP has dared to ask for these special rights to be removed.

While we do not know if the low number of overseas Malaysians registered to vote as postal voters is due to their indifference or because they still find the procedure cumbersome, the EC must continue to improve its mechanism to ensure a bigger turnout.

The reality is that more and more Malaysians, especially the young, will work overseas because travelling has now become cheaper, faster and easier.

Many Malaysians work in Jakarta, Hong Kong, Beijing, Guangzhou or Bangkok while they keep their Malaysian permanent address.

Many companies have also become more global in their set-up and send talented Malaysians to work in their regional hubs.

Unlike the older Malaysians who packed off with their families for a new life abroad, most young Malaysians are often single and live jet-setting lives.

They are not necessarily the grumbling and whining types who run down Malaysia. They may enjoy life overseas but deep in their hearts, they miss the many good things in this country.

These younger and more mobile Malaysians keep their minds open and while they are critical, they also make better evaluation of the issues.

This will be the new overseas Malaysians in the coming years. Make it easier for them to cast their votes in the coming general elections.

■ For more election stories, please visit The Star's GE13 site

On the Beat by WONG CHUN WAI

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PAS-led govt cheques to schools dishonoured!

ALOR SETAR: The PAS-led government made a major blunder when it handed out RM229,000 in allocations to 58 Tamil schools in the state four days ago.

Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Azizan Abdul Bakar gave out the cheques to the Parent-Teacher Association representatives of the schools. However, the cheques could not be cashed.

The cheques, dated Dec 31, 2012, had a three-month validity period until March 31, but were only distributed on April 2.

Many of the PTA representatives were shocked by the timing of the handover and left wondering if it was an attempt to ensure Indians' support for Pakatan Rakyat.

Kedah DAP committee member S. Neelamekan described it as an “an unwanted embarrassment” to the government.

“The state government should have been more careful and avoid being ridiculed by Barisan (Nasional),” he said. “The cheques must be replaced as soon as possible.”

State executive councillor S. Manikumar has since apologised to the schools for the mistake.

“The cheques were prepared last December and were rendered invalid because they did not bear the signature of the State Financial Officer,” he said.  “We apologise for the technical error.

“However, we have already asked the school PTAs to exchange the cheques with new ones from the state finance office,” he added.

Manikumar said the contribution was for school activities and programmes, adding that the schools received between RM3,000 and RM10,000 each, depending on the size of the enrolment.

MIC Baling division Youth chief M.A. Ramasamy said this bungle clearly showed weaknesses in the Kedah state administration.

He said each of the schools was given RM10,000 during the previous rule under Barisan.

By SIRA HABIBU  sira@thestar.com.my

Funding a foreign agenda

IN the midst of all the talk about integrity and democracy in Malaysia, a practice which is of tremendous significance to both has not received the attention it deserves. This is the funding of political parties.

Political parties are not keen on detailed scrutiny of their funding since it does not serve their interests.

Politically inclined NGOs have also not championed this cause partly because many of them are aligned to either the Government or the opposition.

And yet this is one area where there is an imperative need for greater accountability, transparency and honesty.

In this regard, the Malaysian parliament took an important step forward in April 2012 by accepting the proposal from a parliamentary select committee to allocate funds to political parties based on the quantum of seats secured by a party in the general election.

If political parties draw their funds from an independent public institution directly responsible to parliament and the state assemblies, the scope for electoral corruption may be reduced.

Wealthy individuals and corporations may not be in a position to influence elections and politics.

However, public funding of party and electoral politics need not preclude private financing of political party activities provided it is governed by strict rules of accountability and disclosure.

To ensure accountability, it may be necessary to register political parties under a separate law.

At the moment, they are governed by the Societies Act which covers a whole spectrum of civil society entities.

A law that is specific to political parties will also help to define their roles and responsibilities – including how they are funded – in a more transparent manner.

This has become even more urgent today because the forces that shape the role of a political party and its electoral performance are no longer confined to the domestic arena.

There are actors beyond our shores who have no qualms about sticking their noses into our politics.

Sometimes their local clients invite them to interfere in our affairs.

I had a taste of this in 1999 when I was deputy president of an opposition party, Parti Keadilan Nasional, now Parti Keadilan Rakyat.

A few weeks before the 1999 general election an emissary of the currency speculator, George Soros, came to see me in my office in Petaling Jaya about an alleged request from the de facto leader of Keadilan for funding for the party in the elections.

Apparently, the de facto leader’s trusted aide had got in touch with media mogul, Rupert Murdoch, on his boss’ behalf, about financial assistance for the party.

Murdoch in turn had passed on the request to his friend, Soros, who had sent the emissary on his behalf.

I told the emissary that Keadilan will not accept funds from foreign sources and there was no question of Soros or anyone else funding the party’s election campaign.

That evening I informed the party president about what had transpired at my meeting with Soros’s emissary and requested her to find out from the de facto leader, her husband (who was then in prison), whether there was any truth in what the emissary had conveyed to me.

According to the party president, the de facto leader had denied any knowledge of a request to Murdoch for funding and Soros’ involvement. I believed him and let the matter rest.

However, since 1999 a lot of evidence has emerged of funds from Soros’ outfits being channelled to organisations affiliated to, and associated with, the de facto leader and Keadilan.

A former Keadilan Youth leader has even sworn in the National Mosque that the party has received foreign funds.

In July 2011, a leader of Bersih, the coalition for clean and fair elections, admitted that her organisation had received money from Soros’ Open Society Institute (OSI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) which is funded by the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

There is no need to emphasise here that Soros and the NED have been hyperactive in numerous countries in almost every continent, in the pretext of promoting human rights and democracy when their real goal is the furtherance of the US foreign policy agenda.

 The NED for instance established in 1983 which operates in more than 90 countries has been rightly described by William Blum, a former US State Department official and author of Rogue State and Killing Hope as a “Trojan Horse.”

He observes that the NED does “overtly what the CIA had been doing covertly for decades, and thus, hopefully, eliminate the stigma associated with CIA covert activities.”

The NED “meddles in the internal affairs of foreign countries by supplying funds, technical know-how, training, educational materials, computers, fax machines, copiers, automobiles and so on, to selected political groups, civic organisations, labour unions, dissident movements, student groups, book publishers, newspapers, other media, etc.”

In the last 10 years or so the NED has carried out many of these activities in collaboration with the type of groups mentioned by Blum here in Malaysia.

Why is the NED which is funded entirely by the US government playing this game in Malaysia when the Malaysian Government, especially in the last few years, has gone out of its way to foster closer ties with the US?

In spite of the increasingly warm relations, there are elements in our foreign policy which do not blend with US interests.

On the question of Israel and the struggle of the Palestinian people, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak continues to adhere to the principled policy of his predecessors.

He is not prepared to express concern for Israel’s “security,” unlike the leader of the Opposition who knows that “security” is the code-word that the Israeli elite and their supporters in the US and the West look for in assessing a leader’s attitude to Israel.

Neither has Najib shown any inclination to endorse the US agenda of containing China which in the context of East Asia is undoubtedly the US’ central preoccupation.

As the US projects itself as the pivot of the Asia-Pacific and, in the process, attempts to curb Chinese influence in the region, it wants to be absolutely certain that it has allies and not just friends in Asean.

And who can be a better ally than someone who not only sits on panels funded by the NED and Soros outfits but has also, over the years, developed strong ties with powerful personalities and lobbies at the very core of the ‘deep state’ in the US – the deep state that actually determines the direction of US foreign policy, regardless of who lives in the White House?

These are some of the fundamental issues that Malaysians should try to understand as they attempt to make sense of the Malaysian political landscape on the eve of the 13th general election.

For in the ultimate analysis what is at stake is our dignity as an independent and sovereign nation.
Protecting that dignity is part of the mission of Yayasan 1Malaysia.

DR CHANDRA MUZAFFAR Chairman, Board of Trustees
Yayasan 1Malaysia

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