Gabungan Pilihanraya Bersih dan Adil / Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections

Voter registration at Rifle Range Food Court, Penang 9-11am, Saturday 28th August.

By THE IRRAWADDY

The secretary-general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), Surin Pitsuwan, said on Thursday he hopes there will be freedom of speech and travel prior to the upcoming Burmese elections on Nov. 7.

Pitsuwan told reporters in Da Nang, Vietnam, “I hope that Myanmar [Burma] will prove the skeptics wrong and Myanmar will respond positively to freedom of travel and expression during the lead up to the elections.” He is in Vietnam to attend the 42nd Asean Economic Ministers Meeting.

His comments followed a recent statement released by the Foreign Minister of Vietnam that welcomed the decision by Burma to set the date for the elections. It also said regional governmets “encourages Burma to further accelerate progress in the implementation of the roadmap for national reconciliation and democracy, including preparations for the planned elections leading to a constitutional government.”

The Asean secretariat issued a press release on Thursday saying: “It is certainly a welcome relief in the sense that the date is now definite. Not only has Asean been anxious about the preparations for the general elections in Myanmar, but the entire global community has been concerned that it would not be free, fair and effective as a mechanism of national reconciliation.

Asean also stressed the need for Burma to continue to work with Asean and the UN in this process and expressed its readiness to render assistance as deemed appropriate by Burma in accordance with the Asean Charter.
“Asean will keep close consultations with Burma in this regard,”said the statement.

Meanwhile, the Burmese opposition, regional human rights activists and the international community still have doubts that the Burmese election will be free and fair, partly because it lacks the participation of the main opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD).

The NLD recently announced that it would boycott the election. Detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi also urged the Burmese people to monitor the election process closely and to report voting irregularities.

Pemfailan saman RM1juta keganasan polis & FRU himpunan BERSIH ‘07 oleh Aleyasak; 17 Ogos, 3pm, Mahkamah Jl Duta KL

By Clara Chooi (Malaysian Insider)

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 17 — The Chinese will continue to rebuff the Barisan Nasional (BN) if the ruling coalition refuses to implement reforms that will see a fairer distribution of power for the economically-powerful community, according to a recent survey.

According to the synopsis of the poll, conducted by a Malaysian research house between June 27 and July 25, it was found that while Chinese voters were quickly moving away from ethnic-based politics, their political mindset continues to be severely hampered by their anger with the BN government over being treated unfairly and ignored in national policies.

To that effect, 70 per cent of the community now agree that a two-party system was better than the country’s present political makeup, largely due to the inability of the ruling party to address long-standing issues, namely that of unequal treatment of the races.

Those polled also expressed disgust and high scepticism at the ruling party’s penchant for spouting sweet-sounding promises to woo the non-Malay vote during elections, a trend that was evident during the country’s last two by-elections.

In both the Hulu Selangor and Sibu by-elections, a scant number of Chinese votes went to the BN candidate, indicating that the community was not impressed with the ruling party’s ambitious promises.

In Hulu Selangor, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak committed RM3 million to the refurbishment of a Chinese primary school in Rasa. In Sibu, the premier made his infamous “I help you, you help me” RM5 million pledge for flood mitigation in Rejang Park.

Despite this, the Chinese continued to turn a cold shoulder on the BN and in both by-elections, taunted by the opposition as “buy-elections”, the community only contributed some 30 per cent of their votes to the ruling party.

As such, a mere 66 per cent of those polled in the survey expressed dissatisfaction with the actions of political leaders in making similar election promises, often times revolving around funding for the community’s associations, temples and vernacular schools.

To the community, such promises were merely a form of vote-buying and remained insincere so long as there was no progress in efforts to ensure their fair treatment in national policy-making.

The survey polled the opinions of 590 Chinese and 413 Malay respondents via the telephone and included five focus group discussions with Chinese voters in several locations across Peninsular Malaysia.

However, while the Chinese dislike being showered with election sweeteners, their political mindsets continue to be fuelled by their dissatisfaction over being unfairly treated.

They do not think that giving benefits to the non-Malays equalled to being unfair to Malay voters.

Instead, Chinese voters believe that giving benefits to the non-Malays is more an act of fairness to the community rather than an act of unfairness to the Malays.

The survey also discovered that contrary to common perception, an overwhelming majority — 90 per cent — of Chinese voters feel that unity among Malaysians was more important than unity in their own community.

This was further supported by the fact that 66 per cent of the community believed that improving the quality of education in all types of schools was more important than protecting Chinese vernacular schools.

Only 28 per cent of respondents polled believed otherwise.

The focus group discussions revealed that the quality of education was the primary concern of parents when selecting schools for their children.

The reason why many preferred to send their children to Chinese schools was mostly due to the perception of the higher standard of teaching in Chinese schools.

A majority of the Chinese are also against the practice of detention without trial, a provision famously enshrined under the Internal Security Act (ISA).

The poll found that 66 per cent of them were against it while 20 per cent agreed with it.

The main reason found for the community’s dissent against preventive laws like the ISA and the Sedition Act was due to their understanding of human rights and their belief that such laws have been abused and were mainly used to target dissidents and opposition leaders.

Despite this, a larger portion of the Chinese feel that economic development was more important than democratic development, with 49 per cent of voters in agreement and 34 per cent feeling otherwise.

From the results of the polls, it can be reasonably concluded that the Chinese voters’ support for development in the democratic process was largely due to their feelings of disempowerment and pragmatism.

Humayun Kabir (Malaysiakini)

The Perak Election Commission (EC) is acting contrary to election laws by disallowing the Pakatan assistant registering officer (ARO) from registering existing voters who are transferring from a different locality, says DAP.

DAP Tronoh assemblyperson V Sivakumar (left) said the Perak EC has issued a new ruling that only post offices or the EC can register voters who want to change their home addresses.

It says the ARO only has the authority to register new voters.

“This ruling is absurd as the Election Laws – Election (Registration of Electors) Regulations 1971 Section 13(1) states that we have the power to do so,” said the former Pakatan Perak speaker, at a press conference at state DAP headquarters today.

Section 13(1) states: Any elector who has already registered, desires to transfer his registration to a different locality in which he is qualified to be registered, to forward his application to the registering officer of the registration area or the assistant registering officer of the registration unit in which he is qualified as an elector.

The Tronoh assemblyperson said that many voters are working, and cannot come during office hours to either the post office or the EC office to change their home addresses. So, they come to his service centre after office hours.

He says the voters get irritated when they are told it cannot be done there, and are reluctant to persist with the address change if they have to go elsewhere.

‘Discouraging voters’

“So, the EC is discouraging voters from registering their change of home addresses and thus denying them the opportunity to vote,” pointed out Sivakumar.

“There are 500,000 eligible voters in Perak who should be encouraged to register themselves and we should cut through this kind of red tape.”

DAP Bercham assemblyperson Sum Cheok Leng added that his state constituency has 127,000 eligible voters but only 30,000 have registered as voters with the EC.

According to Sum, Bercham is a new housing estate that has 75 percent Chinese residents, 13 percent Malays and 12 percent Indians.

Sum fears that this new ruling by the EC may discourage the mostly new residents of Bercham from registering their new addresses, as most them work and can only do so after office hours.