After Machap by-election

There was a by-election in Machap, Melaka recently. I went there for a 10-day-election campaign.

It is a rural constituency which is the stronghold of ruling party BN. In the last ten days, We campaigned to tell people all kinds of problems within the government including the lack of transparency, no accountability, bad governance , suppression of freedom etc.

From the beginning, we actually knew that it is not easy to win, so we put our objective on gainning more votes. On the polling day, I saw vote-buying with my own eyes, I was sad because our voters sold their dignity for money, when opposition parties and civil societies are asserting hard for people's rights and better livelihood, I found that there are still a lot of people who do not care. Perhaps, they do not know.

Vote-buying is so disgusting that I suddenly realized we are still standing at the starting point of the "progressive development" , which is only pursuing high economic growth that measured by GDP , but showing no concerns and no action in the face of inequal social development and environmental degradation.

We went to lodge police report, their attitudes made me lost confidence, I doubt that our police force or election commission will take action on it.

When the results came out, I was stunned, we have only increased 167 votes compared to general election in 2004.

I actually see electoral democracy as a very primitive practice in the process towards a more democractic society. When politics is all about contesting with money, the true meaning of election have been distorted as a kind of human activities which is wasting limited resources.

Look at the leaflets, buntings, banners, flags, petrol for transportation, all kinds of natural resources being wasted. Just because the government are not doing their job properly, just because they are some people who want to stay in power to protect their own interest, so elections are held in such senseless way in a relative democratic society.

Being opposition party, we are financially constraint and even need to raise our campaign funding from the public. But the ruling party? they can give almost everything to every household during election.

For the voters, I still do not want to believe that voters only care about themselves, but it is irksome to know that when the government gave goodies such as basic infrastructures like street lamps, allocation for schools, temples, recreation parks etc. during election, they are sastified.

National issues such as racial inequality policies, undemocratic system, inequal opportunity in education etc,were raised in our campaign, but seems not convincing to voters.

Public forums were overhelmingly held every night, again, it is proven wrong if we take it as an indicator that the voters are giving out their votes as well.

Under the name of "development", we lost, slightly slashed their great majority votes. What kind of politics is this if our opponents are allowed to use the entire country's machinery, people's treasury to campaign?