Elections round-up
"At least we still have the Opposition to provide a check and balance," a friend said.
"What check and balance? Only 16 Opposition MPs compared to 195 Barisan Nasional (National Front) MPs! How can 16 people provide an effective check and balance?" I replied.
"Well, it's better than nothing..."
"I guess so," I dubiously acknowledged.
So BN obviously obtained far more than the two-thirds majority it needs to form a government. Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has already been sworn in as the Prime Minister at a ceremony at 4pm today.
Everybody's talking about the ruling coalition's landslide victory. As far as states go, they made a clean sweep of Sabah, took back Terengganu from the Opposition but narrowly missed Kelantan (20 seats compared to the Opposition's 23). So they now control 12 of 13 states. Sabahans are getting a state public holiday tomorrow to celebrate. Someone told me that Terengganu also had a public holiday today, but I couldn't find any news reports to verify this.
It's a relief to see PAS, the Islamic opposition party, trounced so badly although this also contributes to the lack of "check and balance" in Parliament. They obtained only six Parliamentary seats compared to 26 in the previous term, and party president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang lost his! The Democratic Action Party, a secular opposition party, still has 10 seats (not necessarily the same ones, though).
Elections were peaceful, but not exactly smooth in one Pahang state seat, misprinted ballot papers caused the Election Commission to announce fresh polls, to be held on March 28. While some Malaysian bloggers had an easy time of it, others found polling officers noting down voters' registration numbers on the ballot slips, meaning the votes were no longer secret or confidential. Yet others had messy experiences, which by the sound of it, were pretty widespread. That also explains why, at the last minute, the Election Commission decided to extend voting till 7pm in several "affected areas".
There is quite a lot of outrage at all the glitches: I saw observations that the Commission may not be truly impartial, and a call for a Royal Commission to review the Election Commission. In another post, the latter blogger, Lone, quotes the Commission chairman as having admitted that the Commission "is not a fully independent Commission," adding that the Commission's ability to be free and fair depends on the "tolerance" of the ruling party; and, "in Malaysia, we have not yet come to that level"!
Finally, Lone also points out that, last night, one of the opposition candidates was said to have lost her Parliamentary seat by a narrow margin of 36 votes, yet after the recount today, she was found to have retained it by a 590 majority. How is this even possible? As Lone says, "Those counting obviously cannot count." But it makes one wonder how many other results would change drastically given a recount.
Many thanks to those international readers who have kept us in your prayers :)