The “comical” yet almost “disastrous” antics of Dr. Tan Yee Kew, the Pakatan Harapan candidate for Wangsa Maju, somehow help put the “gloss” on the Election Commission. Image-wise, that is, as far as public perception of the EC’s biasness is concerned.
So too when the EC allowed PH to replace its candidate for the state seat of Bukit Melawati following the rejection of Sivamalar Ganaathy’s nomination papers.
The constituency is in Selangor but Sivamalar’s address in her identity card read Raub, Pahang. Under the EC’s rules, this is a no go for contesting state seats as the candidate’s address and the constituency to be contested must be within the same state.
So EC “waited” for all the relevant documents of Sivamalar’s replacement to be faxed “just in time” and Juwairiya Zulkifli was accepted to replace her.
Tan, as we know, forgot to bring her IC to the nomination centre but managed in the nick of time to produce it to the Returning Officer. Thus seeing her nomination accepted by the EC despite protest by the BN and Pas candidate who claimed the IC was submitted after nomination closed. The protest was thrown out.
Hence the EC can if it wants go round telling all and sundry that they are fair and not BN biased.
The general perception is the EC acts in favour of BN. That has always been the perception for years. But for GE14 quite a substantial number of Malaysians are saying things have taken a turn for the worse. To them it’s no more a perception. It’s real.
And the thing is the EC somehow seems to be trying very hard to prove that the allegations against them are right with the things it says and does.
Like “rules” popping up every now and then on the display of images of opposition leaders, on opposition ceramah, flags and campaign material, the works.
In short, rules that make life difficult for the opposition but the same rules do not apply to BN. At least that’s how it appears.
For example, while restrictions have been placed or were intended to be placed on pictures of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad on PakatanHarapan’s banners and buntings, “preferring” only the image of the PKR president because the PKR logo is the common logo for the opposition, the EC has no qualms about huge bill boards of Tengku Adnan Mansor despite him being only the BN secretary general, not the BN chairman.
And remember the uncertainty about the eligibility of non-PKR members in Pakatan Harapan to contest under the PKR logo ? There was many an anxious moment as to whether the EC’s prior permission must be obtained.
The matter was finally “resolved” but not before rounds of confusion.
And of course there’s the redelineation exercise seen by many as giving BN an advantage.
Also picking Wednesday as polling day ( never mind it was later declared a public holiday). The general consensus is polling on a weekday is one way to ensure a low voter turnout, said to be “good” for the BN, rightly or wrongly.
What happened to PKR vice president Tian Chua for the Batu constituency on nomination day must take the cake, at least, for now.
No elaboration needed as we all know what happened or what did not happen. Suffice to say it looks like the Returning Officer can overturn a court ruling. Well that’s the impression at least.
Obviously Tian Chua was not the only opposition candidate to have had his nomination turned down. There were others.
Agreed, they “flouted” certain regulations, albeit “minor” ones, but a veteran journalist is most perplexed over the “strict interpretation of procedures over nominations”.
As he sees it, “the overall consideration should rightly be to allow people to contest and not to try to find mistakes, especially minor ones, to disqualify anyone from contesting.”
By “minor” he could very well be referring to “offences” like not wearing an EC tag when entering nomination centres which had prevented one potential candidate from contesting.
And the function of returning officers, says the journalist, “should be to assist people who want to contest rather than disqualifying them over minor mistakes”.
Taking that into consideration, the EC’s action on nomination day for GE 14 can be viewed as “deliberate obstruction”, rightly or wrongly, of course.
Oh, yes. The EC has also deemed it fit not to allow Suhakam to be observers for GE 14 citing as its reason that the commission has already invited foreign observers . Anyway, I just need to put in this - observing polls in Malaysia ought to be done long before nomination day, not only observing voting on election day itself.
Hence the negative perception on the EC and for that matter other agencies or bodies as well, like the police, theRoS and the so-called mainstream media .The list goes on.
I need to bring in law lecturer Azmi Sharom in this discussion. In his column in Sin Chew Daily, Azmi wrote : “Yet despite all this they are still trying to make it even harder for the opposition to win”.
And he went on to ask “just why are they so frightened?”