Imagine the EC pro-actively vet winners of election to clear them of irregularities!

Another installment of electoral imagination: imagine this time that the Election Commission pro-actively vet winners of the elections to clear them of irregularities and frauds in Malaysia! The Thai’s EC do it regularly and in one past election the powerful and dutiful Thai EC nullified 40 out of 500 winners in a national poll(8%)! If the EC here does its job well may be we would see more than 8% of our candidates rejected!Imagine that as a deterrent against the candidates who now violate the laws with impunity!!!!!

Thai poll body gives go-ahead for parliament to sit

July 27, 2011

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Imagine an election where there is no posters, no Opposition…

The Election Commission is reportedly proposing, among 30 ideas, to do away with poster wars during elections! It may means that voters may not see any posters -including the Opposition posters that remind the voters of their presence. Without the posters and without publicity in the mainstream paper, TVs and radios the Opposition’s presence will merely be felt in the alternative media-limiting its coverage to only half of the voters-and actually only those who are willing to turn to Opposition’s blogs and web sites! How did the EC come out with such an idea?

There are actually precedence to such poster-less elections. In the university campuses the students council elections have been done without free postering. Every poster have to follow a standard size and colour scheme. Each copy need to be stamped by the university administration. If it has been done in the campuses for years-and never met any poud opposition, why not expand the idea to the wider society? On the face of it it may even claim to help save some trees -including the ones used to print dollar notes! However given the little access of the Opposition to the mainstream media it may mean that the opposition may well disappear from most of the public spaces!

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