PUCHONG, 6 Jan: World history proves that governments in the world that practices ruling with iron fists by practicing ‘half-cooked’ democracy against the people, always ‘wind big’ every time an election is held.
However, the victory obtained is through fraud and manipulation of all machinery, including organisations that manage the election in their respective countries.
The Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) de facto leader, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, said that among the example of countries that practice this include Iraq, under President Saddam Hussein and Indonesia, during President Soeharto’s era.
“During the election in Soeharto’s era, 99 percent supported him. The same goes for Iraq when it was under Saddam Hussein. There was a true story about a youth who vited for the opposition because he did not agree with the president.
“When he went home, the parents of the youth scolded him for not supporting Saddam, which will cause the lives of the family to be in danger,” he said when delivering a speech at the People’s Independence Course which was held at the Centre for Democratic Reforms and Social Initiative yesterday.
Anwar said that the youth was forced by his parents to return to the polling centre to correct the vote casted before for the safety of the family.
“The youth told the election officer that there was a misunderstanding when marking the ballot which needed to be corrected because he supported the government. But the officer said that it was alright and that his vote had been corrected,” he said.
Previously, the Election Commission (EC) which handled the election in Malaysia also faced the crisis of voters’ trust because of various actions and statement that benefitted Barisan Nasional (BN) in the election.
Among the actions is to hold a re-delineation of areas under the power of BN and the refusal to take action against phantom voters who received citizenship easily to vote for BN.
Although in the 13th General Election (GE), Pakatan Rakyat still managed to defend Selangor, Penang and Kelantan. Many believe that the results would be different if the process was carried out transparently and fairly to all contesting parties.
