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GE14 2018: The Day Frustrated Malaysians Made History – Part 2

(It was a war that Pakatan Harapan was not expected to win but they beat the odds – the GE14 was indeed a war that they were not expected to win but they did win in the end)

Continued from Part 1

From the offset, the odds in GE14 were stacked up against the Pakatan (PAS somehow had it easier considering their loose working relationship with BN).

Some of the key opposition politicians were charged with criminal cases or misuse of power – Rafizi with BAFIA and Lim Guan Eng with charged under Section 23 of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Act 2009, which carries a maximum jail term of 20 years and a fine of no less than five times the amount or value of the gratification, or RM10,000, whichever is higher, upon conviction.

If they are found guilty, it is likely that they will not be able to run for the next General Elections.

And then, we have the delineation by the Election Commission where non Malay voters were moved around creating some of the biggest Parliamentary constituencies in areas that the opposition had won in the previous General Elections and smaller & Malay majority constituencies for Barisan Nasional. Court cases opposing these delineation exercises failed with the courts throwing the case out. In other cases, registration of new voters (mostly Chinese voters) was objected without strong reasons and registration was not done.

Then at the last minute, Pribumi party registration was deemed invalid and was suspended temporarily until they submitted the right documents to the Registrar of Society. The registration of Pakatan Harapan as one entity had no reply from ROS despite several reminders and follow ups. And DAP was forced to hold their party elections again to avoid a possible deregistration of the party.

And as usual, there were open threats especially to the civil servants from voting for the opposition and numerous lies that BN had hoped will cause the support to Pakatan to go down drastically – one of them was that Lim Kit Siang will become the PM if Pakatan wins.

The BN politicians were so sure of another win (after all they have been winning since 1957) that they continued with their arrogant talks and took the concerns of the people very lightly. They insisted that people were happy, rich and was so distrustful of the oppositions that they will vote for BN once again.

BN however miscalculated one key element that the opposition had – Tun Dr M as the Chairman of Pakatan Harapan. The Old Man despite of supporting BN in the GE13 was on the other side of the spectrum for the GE14. He reconciled with Anwar which was a big plus point for the opposition and managed to rally the others to apply the same strategy. Almost every night, we listen to Rafizi on his lori besar and Tun M speeches at the various place in the country.

We were dead tired – not surprisingly from all the standing for almost 2 hours and all that driving in the morning

So seeing that it would be too early for any “viable” results, we went to take a short nap first but then again, the anticipation was just killing me, so I could not sleep – I keep checking my phone for every 10 minutes for any news. At the end of the day, Facebook, special GE14 apps, websites, Whatsapp and even watching the TV – you name it and we were watching all.

Although they were showing different results at the same time, it was a matter of whether you going to be optimistic then you check on the Malaysiakini website for unconfirmed results where Pakatan was leading BN comfortably or if pessimistic then you watch TV channels where BN was winning more seats than Pakatan – this is due to the slow announcement of the final results by the EC.

(Election offenses was already widely played out way before the actual polling date and yet there was little the EC did to bring them to books)

Overall the turnout by the voters in this GE14 as the time closed in for closure of voting was still “low” (EC claimed that most voters had voted in the morning) but it was not reaching the more than 80% that the opposition that was looking for. As at 3 pm (2 hours to close), the turnout was just 69% and it was a worrying trend if most of the voters had voted in the morning. And yet there were news that there were still alot of voters still queuing and had not cast their votes.

A 22-year old first-time voter named Bryan tells Malaysiakini that he had to wait more than six hours to cast his vote today.

“I arrived at my voting centre at 9am and only voted at 3.15pm. My voting stream was all young voters and first-time voters.

(Source)

It was evident that alot of voters will not get to vote by 5 pm and despite the appeal by NGOs & politicians, EC confirmed by then that they are not allowing for any extension of time. This caused BERSIH to issue this urgent statement:-

BERSIH 2.0 has told voters who have been caught in long queues to stay put and insist on voting even after 5pm.

In a statement BERSIH 2.0 said: “Those that are already in queue before 5pm at the polling station, please ensure that you are allowed to vote after 5pm.

“Do not go away even if SPR says you are too late. If you are already there and in queue before 5pm, SPR must allow you to vote and cannot ask you to leave. Stay and insist on your right to vote. It is not your fault for them being too slow.”

BERSIH 2.0 added that if the queues are still very long at 5pm, voters should take photos of the queues and the time and write down the names of the Ketua Tempat Mengundi or any SPR officers who refuse voters that are already queuing before 5pm to vote.

(Source)

And in Port Dickson, we even had this nonsense – which was caught by the public red-handed:-

Police have confirmed receiving a report about a small commotion at Sekolah Kebangsaan Port Dickson here this morning.

It was learnt that the commotion involved supporters from Barisan Nasional and PKR following to the discovery of fake ballot papers allegedly distributed by a 14-year-old OKU female teenager outside the polling centre.

When contacted, state police chief Datuk Noor Azam Jamaludin confirmed that the police had received the report lodged by a representative from PKR at about 10.30am this morning.

“We are still investigating the matter and it is still unknown whether the OKU girl, who allegedly distributed the fake ballot papers was hired by any individual or party.

(Source)

And there were other types of boo-boo:-

Voters at Balai Mesyuarat Taman Bukit Serdang in Section 5 here have been placing their ballots in the wrong boxes since doors opened after 8am Wednesday. The ballot papers – orange for parliament and yellow for state seats – were placed in boxes with labels that did not match the ballot papers.

An agent went on to check all 10 streams (saluran) in the polling station and found two with stickers not matching ballots. Stickers are placed at the front of the box, away from the view of voters when they insert their ballots.

(Source)

Results started to trickling down from 8 pm onward and just like the voting line in the morning, the results were announced at almost a snail place.

The time showed 12.00 am and no clear GE14 results was announced especially from Sabah and as the time continues to fly-by, we started to hear rumours of the PM meeting up with the National Security Council and they were planning to announce an emergency – a plan that was thwarted by the Sultans and the King. Such rumours did not help to lessen the tension of everyone at home watching the outcome at home.

My brother in law even did not have his bath ended up drinking alcohol more due to the stress!

There were a number of upsets – no thanks to the PAS back-stabbers – they took away key opposition votes that would have made Pakatan easy winner of the seats. One of the obvious upset was Liew Chin Tong who lost to MCA’s Wee Ka Siong by merely 303 votes (PAS took away 4,975 votes from the opposition!).

The good news was that in this GE14 Pakatan had won a lot of the key seats that were traditionally belonged to BN early into the voting count and moving forward, the remaining results would be on the traditionally strong Pakatan seats.

As expected MCA, MIC and Gerakan was wiped out (kept 1 seat each by sheer luck) and also surprisingly some UMNO key politicians – this was a clear indicators that race based political party is not going to an accepted trend.

Penang and Selangor would remain under Pakatan with a very good margin – thank God and now even other states started to fall to Pakatan – namely Johore, Malacca, Negeri Sembilan, Perak, Kedah and Sabah. Things was looking good and if all goes well and no hanky-panky, no phantom votes, no serious breach of the protocols (especially on signing off the Form 14), Pakatan may just able to pull off one of the greatest record in history of the country.

The final GE14 tally showed overwhelming support for Pakatan Harapan:-

  • Johor – PH (29 out of 56 seats)
  • Kedah – PH (18 out of 36 seats); PAS (15 seats); BN (3 seats)
  • Kelantan – PAS (28 out of 45 seats)
  • Melaka – PH (15 out of 28 seats)
  • Negeri Sembilan – PH (20 out of 36 seats)
  • Pahang – BN (22 out of 42 seats)
  • Perak – PH (29 out of 59 seats); BN (27 seats); PAS (3 seats)
  • Perlis – BN (10 out of 15 seats)
  • Penang – PH (25 out of 40 seats)
  • Sabah – BN (29 out of 60 seats); Warisan (29 seats)
  • Selangor – PH (29 seats out of 56 seats)
  • Terengganu – PAS (18 out of 32 seats)

(The all important press conference – it is clear that everyone is tired and frustrated on the slow count of the votes but the win was firmly in the hands of Pakatan Harapan)

Then at 5 am something, Tun Dr M held a press conference and informed that Pakatan had gained the simple majority required in GE14 and will be forming the next Federal Government. That was great but there was no news of concede from the now ex-PM, DS Najib and that was getting scary. What was he up to?

I know that the moment he lost control of the Federal Government, he is going to be hounded for the various corruption charges and mismanagement of funds, something he will not take that easily. I had a bad feeling that he is going to go down die fighting.

(Well said – despite the win, Pakatan still had to wait for Dr M to be sworn in as the next PM)

With still some uncertainties with no official announcements from the Palace or the BN conceding defect, I had expected that it will be some time before we get the confirmation that Pakatan will form the next Federal Government. I looked at the time and it was almost time to wake up for work.

There was no point of going to back to sleep. My son who I thought was sleeping came down to the hall and asked if public holidays had been declared – apparently he had been awake all night catching up on the election. Just when I was considering to message my boss that I will be talking half day off (no point I come to work and end up sleeping on the work desk), public holidays were announced by the Chief Secretary (because Dr M was not the PM yet).

And finally almost the 11 am, Najib finally appeared and conceded defeatin this GE14 and the Federal power was confirmed to be firmly under the hands of Pakatan Harapan. The sworn in of the Prime Minister however took even more time to be confirmed.

Anyway it was a GE14 to remember – it is a history in the making. Considering that the opposition will be taking over for the first time since Merdeka, since 1957, I do expected mistakes, slippages, politicians jumping ships and amateur like decision at least for the first 100 days but that is expected. But the cleanup of the nation had started on a strong footing. And Dr M did start off on a very aggressive manner and it started with blacklisting some key players in the earlier corruption acts from leaving the country.

I went to sleep and when I woke up, the air somehow smelt fresher and the environment calmer. Welcome to Malaysia Baru – the New Malaysia.

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