PUTRAJAYA: The Election Commission (EC) today fixed May 25 as polling day for the Bukit Gelugor parliamentary seat by-election, while nomination for the contest would be on May 12. Early polling is set for May 21.
In announcing this today, EC chairman Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof said the dates were decided following a meeting at the EC headquarters this morning.
Aziz Yusof said Dewan Sri Pinang will be used as the nomination centre and as the counting centre.
A total of 21 polling centres will be opened for voting purposes, of which 17 to be used during the normal voting day while four voting centres are set for early voters. The voting centres are all in schools.
The Bukit Gelugor parliament seat fell vacant following the death of incumbent parliamentarian Karpal Singh of DAP on April 17 in a car accident near Kampar, Perak.
Karpal won by a majority of 41,778 votes against Barisan Nasional candidate Teh Beng Yeam in the 2013 general election.
According to EC data in 2013, P51 Bukit Gelugor comprise of 14.48 percent or 11,880 Malay voters, 61,112 or 74.49 percent Chinese voters, 8,660 or 10.56 Indian voters and 0.48 per cent or 390 other race voters.
Almost RM2 million allocated
Aziz Yusof also said the EC would be spending RM1,979,480 million for this by-election, with 1,095 EC staff deployed.
For this by-election, one returning officer and five assistant returning officers have been appointed to oversee the election process.
Penang Water Department director Capt (Ret) Anuar Yahya has been named as the returning officer.
“The reason for choosing May 25 is to avoid time conflict with PKR party assembly, Workers’ and Wesak day public holidays.
“Not only that, from May 19 to 23, Penang will be hosting its state assembly meeting,” said Aziz Yusof in explaining the reason for picking May 25 as the polling date.
DAP is expected to finalise its candidate during a party meeting early next week. The frontrunner is either Ramkarpal or his sister, Sangeet Kaur, both Karpal’s children.
Source: FMT
Promoting Thinking Minds Via Rational Rationale
Showing posts with label Elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elections. Show all posts
Thursday, 24 April 2014
Thursday, 27 March 2014
Use the Ballot Box to Silence Fundamentalism
An Indonesian Professor speaks...
SUBANG JAYA: Voters can use their collective strength to combat fundamentalism by voting out people who incite racial or religious sentiments for political gains.
An Indonesian professor on politics said this would put pressure on political parties to stop using racial and religious issues in their campaigns.
Such a trend of using voter power to fight fundamentalism was already apparent in the Indonesian landscape, said Professor Ramlan Surbakti of Indonesia's Airlangga University.
"Indonesians tend to dislike political parties that are very fundamentalistic in terms of religion or too radical in terms of ideologies," he told theantdaily in an interview. Ramlan was in Malaysia as a panel member of the Bersih 2.0 "People's Tribunal" on the 13th general election.
He defined fundamentalism as a religious movement or point of view characterised by a return to fundamental principles by rigid adherence to those principles and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism.
"There are four or five Islamist parties that will be contesting in the upcoming elections but public support is geared more towards nationalistic parties,”
said Ramlan, a former deputy chairman of Indonesia's Election Commission.
According to statistics from the Indonesian Public Selection Commission, there are 185,822,507 registered voters eligible to cast their ballots at 546,278 polling stations for the 560 seats in the national House of Representatives.
Ramlan noted that Muslims made up an overwhelming majority of the electorate, consistent with Indonesia's status as the world's largest Muslim nation.
He said the trend of moving away from fundamentalism could be seen in the preparations of Islamist parties for the upcoming polls.
"The Parti Keadilan Sejahtera (PKS) is like the Ikhwanul Muslimin of Indonesia but its current members now include non-Muslims," said Ramlan, in referring to the Egyptian Islamist group whose 529 members were sentenced to death on March 25 for supporting ousted president Mohamed Morsi.
It was reported in Indonesian media that PKS had since 2008 relaxed its stance to allow for non-Muslim members and also recently identified several Christian candidates to contest in seats across Eastern Indonesia where there is a significant presence of Christian voters.
In practice the party had to alter its usually hardline stance to a more amenable position to appease the more moderate electorate.
In terms of cooperation between Islamist and nationalist parties, Ramlan said Indonesia's House of Representatives currently comprises legislators from nine political parties and it is sometimes "difficult to make a distinction" between their respective stands.
"The parties shared similar views in a lot of issues (debated) except for a major exception (in 2008) when the House passed an anti-pornography law," he explained.
Based on his observation of Malaysia's political landscape, Ramlan said that PAS as the only Islamist party is also seen as becoming more open in its stand.
"I can see that Malays in urban areas have already opened their minds (to reject fundamentalist views) and I believe that political parties will follow the people," he said.
Ramlan also noted that Indonesia's progress had started in 1999 when the republic held its first democratic elections after the downfall of former president Soeharto and his New Order autocratic regime.
"I think religion, ethnic sentiment and race have never been a problem in Indonesia ... Such sentiments are not an issue, at least in the contest for seats at legislative levels.
"Things may be slightly different in the provincial elections but now we already have two vice-governors who are of Chinese descent so this shows a move beyond ethnic sentiments," he said.
Asked on the influence of fundamentalist or right-wing NGOs in local politics, similar to Muslim-Malay groups in Malaysia, Ramlan said they represented a minority voice whose "extreme" views are up against the two largest Muslim bodies in Indonesia -- the Nahdatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah.
"Mainstream Muslims in Indonesia are very tolerant and democratic even though we have small groups of 'terrorists'," he added.
Support for both NU and Muhammadiyah, Ramlan said, is also translated into votes for two political parties -- the Parti Kebangkitan Bangsa (PKB) and Parti Amanat Nasional (PAN).
This shows how political support and ballot for moderate parties can silence the fundamentalist factions as their desire for popular support will require them to change or be sidelined.
Source: The Ant Daily
SUBANG JAYA: Voters can use their collective strength to combat fundamentalism by voting out people who incite racial or religious sentiments for political gains.
An Indonesian professor on politics said this would put pressure on political parties to stop using racial and religious issues in their campaigns.
Such a trend of using voter power to fight fundamentalism was already apparent in the Indonesian landscape, said Professor Ramlan Surbakti of Indonesia's Airlangga University.
"Indonesians tend to dislike political parties that are very fundamentalistic in terms of religion or too radical in terms of ideologies," he told theantdaily in an interview. Ramlan was in Malaysia as a panel member of the Bersih 2.0 "People's Tribunal" on the 13th general election.
He defined fundamentalism as a religious movement or point of view characterised by a return to fundamental principles by rigid adherence to those principles and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism.
"There are four or five Islamist parties that will be contesting in the upcoming elections but public support is geared more towards nationalistic parties,”
said Ramlan, a former deputy chairman of Indonesia's Election Commission.
According to statistics from the Indonesian Public Selection Commission, there are 185,822,507 registered voters eligible to cast their ballots at 546,278 polling stations for the 560 seats in the national House of Representatives.
Ramlan noted that Muslims made up an overwhelming majority of the electorate, consistent with Indonesia's status as the world's largest Muslim nation.
He said the trend of moving away from fundamentalism could be seen in the preparations of Islamist parties for the upcoming polls.
"The Parti Keadilan Sejahtera (PKS) is like the Ikhwanul Muslimin of Indonesia but its current members now include non-Muslims," said Ramlan, in referring to the Egyptian Islamist group whose 529 members were sentenced to death on March 25 for supporting ousted president Mohamed Morsi.
It was reported in Indonesian media that PKS had since 2008 relaxed its stance to allow for non-Muslim members and also recently identified several Christian candidates to contest in seats across Eastern Indonesia where there is a significant presence of Christian voters.
In practice the party had to alter its usually hardline stance to a more amenable position to appease the more moderate electorate.
In terms of cooperation between Islamist and nationalist parties, Ramlan said Indonesia's House of Representatives currently comprises legislators from nine political parties and it is sometimes "difficult to make a distinction" between their respective stands.
"The parties shared similar views in a lot of issues (debated) except for a major exception (in 2008) when the House passed an anti-pornography law," he explained.
Based on his observation of Malaysia's political landscape, Ramlan said that PAS as the only Islamist party is also seen as becoming more open in its stand.
"I can see that Malays in urban areas have already opened their minds (to reject fundamentalist views) and I believe that political parties will follow the people," he said.
Ramlan also noted that Indonesia's progress had started in 1999 when the republic held its first democratic elections after the downfall of former president Soeharto and his New Order autocratic regime.
"I think religion, ethnic sentiment and race have never been a problem in Indonesia ... Such sentiments are not an issue, at least in the contest for seats at legislative levels.
"Things may be slightly different in the provincial elections but now we already have two vice-governors who are of Chinese descent so this shows a move beyond ethnic sentiments," he said.
Asked on the influence of fundamentalist or right-wing NGOs in local politics, similar to Muslim-Malay groups in Malaysia, Ramlan said they represented a minority voice whose "extreme" views are up against the two largest Muslim bodies in Indonesia -- the Nahdatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah.
"Mainstream Muslims in Indonesia are very tolerant and democratic even though we have small groups of 'terrorists'," he added.
Support for both NU and Muhammadiyah, Ramlan said, is also translated into votes for two political parties -- the Parti Kebangkitan Bangsa (PKB) and Parti Amanat Nasional (PAN).
This shows how political support and ballot for moderate parties can silence the fundamentalist factions as their desire for popular support will require them to change or be sidelined.
Source: The Ant Daily
Saturday, 1 February 2014
The Superman of Malaysian Politics
The MP of Permatang Pauh, PKR leader, Pakatan Rakyat leader, the candidate for Kajang by-election, and possibly the next Menteri Besar of Selangor – Anwar Ibrahim, regards himself as the Superman of Malaysian politics.
However ‘Awtar Man’ (*awtar is a colloquial expression for baloney) is a more appropriate moniker for this once-upon-a-time over-glorified political icon who has broken all barriers in a super human act to save himself by pretending to save Selangor or Pakatan or whatever, whoever he can pretend to save.
While he preens his own feathers and gathers his many broken crowns of glory before a dwindling number of supporters, the rest of the world gasps shock for just the day before, DSAI had denied speculations that he is to replace the current Selangor Menteri Besar, Abdul Khalid Ibrahim.
Anwar even dared to betray Mahathir during the 1998 financial crisis by turning Umno against Mahathir with the aim of toppling him with accusations of nepotism and cronyism only to be outwitted and the rest is a bitter pill of failure, which Anwar still refuses to swallow until today!
That is Anwar for you, the Awtar Man of the Malaysian political sphere – the only politician who has been consistently inconsistent:
1 Nothing happened with his so-called declaration that 31 BN MPs would cross over to PR on September 16th 2008.
2 His claim that 40,000 illegals were brought in to vote was followed by an innocent denial of ‘No, I did not say that’ publicised months later despite the earlier statement reported worldwide.
3 After the infamous run-in at Narita Airport where he had to leave Japan for not following procedures, he accused the Malaysian Foreign Ministry for having a hand in it and later denied making the accusation.
4 In 1999, he claimed he was poisoned which some believe was a political ploy ahead of upcoming general elections then.
5 Then there is his infamous back pain claim where the German specialist from Munich, Dr Thomas Hoogland was called as witness in his sodomy II trial to ‘confirm’ that Anwar could not have sodomised his aide, Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, as he had back pains.
6 Who can forget Anwar’s claims that people are out to kill him?
Today, we see a fatigued, disillusioned Anwar, fallen, bruised, hurt, indignantly believing his quest to Putrajaya is unstoppable. We see an ailing and aged Anwar who has shown his lack of scruples through decades. We see Anwar in a frenzy powered by sheer desperation and power-crazed mania, grabbing every available opportunity as long as it matches his covert motives.
This faux pas of contesting in the Kajang by-election will be his undoing for now, all and sundry can see his scheming, manipulative, opportunistic cum hypocritical chess moves in a game of charades by once again, masquerading as a saviour, simultaneously stirring dissenting and divisive sentiments to disastrous levels of disunity.
Beyond that repulsive notion of Anwar, clutching at any straw through which he can barely breathe would be the silent outraged cries of Kajang voters who went to the polls and elected Lee Chin Cheh, believing he would keep to his promises to serve them.
Alas, they have been betrayed and played out by the chameleon. To Anwar, they are but mere worthless pawns in a chessboard where he is the Queen of the chessboard, with the irrevocable entitlement to do whatever his heart desires whenever and wherever…till eternity.
Malaysians are about to have this superman hijack democracy just so he can have his own selfish way in Selangor. Think about it, Malaysians. Are you really willing and ready to put your trust in this man who has never failed to disappoint you repeatedly with his incredulous inconsistencies?
Kajang voters must stand together and bantah Lee Chin Cheh’s resignation and demand explanations. Are you willing to put your trust in DSAI after his record of accomplishment shows how it is Anwar’s second nature to play to the gallery to make Statement A to one group and then Statement B to another group without batting an eyelid?
Now, Anwar is downgrading himself to MB since he cannot be PM. Besides, he is already wearing so many hats, do you think he can take on another position when he cannot even handle what he has on his plate?
Clearly, Anwar wants to take control of Selangor and from there, malevolently stir the cauldron of hatred until he can realise his dream of becoming PM of Malaysia. Do not be deceived, Malaysians! He is the last person on this planet who should be Selangor MB.
Kajang voters, vote Anwar at your own peril. Make a better choice!
Anyone (capable and responsible) but Anwar!
Written by:
Datuk Huan Cheng Guan
President,
Centre for Political Awareness
Written by:
Datuk Huan Cheng Guan
President,
Centre for Political Awareness
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