Kam Raslan’s Talking Edge

(Reprinted from The Edge – Options pullout, 3 March 2008 issue)

never mind the traffic and registration woes

Dear Kam,
I can’t decide what choice I should make in this election. On the one hand, there might not be much traffic on the road and so I could visit my family in Penang. But on the other hand, there might be a lot of local traffic in which case I’ll be stuck in a jam on the bridge. Election day is always filled with difficult choices.
Nu Tu Mush
via email

I’ve always made it a point of traveling around the country during election season, but this year I can’t be bothered. This is partly because I don’t want to play the Russian roulette of driving on our roads and partly because I really can’t be bothered. I will absolutely, most definitely, be voting because it’s something I really enjoy doing and because I feel very fortunate that I can. I was shamed into registering to vote many years ago when I attended a discussion on the state of Malaysian politics. Everybody was complaining and being apathetic at the same time (a peculiarly Malaysian trait). Eventually, a South African woman spoke, and she was very annoyed with us. She asked how many of us were registered to vote and very, very few could put their hands up. She told us that we should be ashamed of ourselves because for most of her life she had not even been allowed to vote in her own country because of the colour of her skin. We, she told us, have the right to vote and that it was an insult to the millions around the world who don’t have that right, not to exercise it. I went and registered and now when
I vote I thank her.

When I think back on my election season road trips, I can no longer distinguish one election from another. They all seem to merge into one, but there are some memories that stand out. One year, I went to the Umno HQ when the results had come in and I watched Dr M acknowledge his huge victory in a remarkably graceless manner. It was a significant moment for me because when I looked around the room I saw all the foreign and local journalists with TV cameras at the ready and I realized that although this would be the exact location for the emblematic election news story, it was not where the real story was happening. It was the shop-front and not the place to be to get any understanding of this country. So I left and went to a dimly-lit hall where opposition supporters were sweeping up their bunting and trying to understand why they had lost and what the future now meant for them. After that day, I generally avoid the eye of the storm, where the air is calm, and instead go to the edges where the wind speed is higher.

Nomination day is probably the most exciting day and I visited one in deepest Selangor where a Keadilan candidate was going up against the well-entrenched BN candidate. I was surprised to see the Keadilan supporters shouting “Allahu akbar” as their election slogan, despite the fact that there were many non-Muslim opposition supporters present who were looking decidedly uncomfortable and silent. I remember one year I shook hands with a female Pas supporter. I was just trying to be polite and I really wasn’t thinking but she looked decidedly uncomfortable as she tentatively offered me her gloved hand. We had absolutely nothing in common. I remember the banter between BN and opposition supporters on one election day when the BN supporters pointed to the Twin Towers and declared that only BN could do that, which is true enough if that’s how you judge things. On one election day, I visited some BN supporters in deepest KL who said they were being paid to sit around the voting hall. Meanwhile, the opposition supporters were doing the same thing for nothing. Once I visited a very spread-out constituency in deepest Perak that had a significant Orang Asli vote and where the various candidates’ flag-flying motorcades were constantly whizzing past each other in desperate last-minute electioneering. The Orang Asli looked decidedly uncomfortable suddenly being the centre of attention. And I visited Samy Vellu’s constituency, which was decidedly odd.

But this year I can’t be bothered. Well, having said that, I’ll probably go somewhere and take a look because elections are exciting. Elections in Malaysia (probably everywhere) are a strange mixture of intense energy and intense apathy. Candidates, especially the opposition who don’t get access to the media, rush around pressing the flesh trying to meet as many voters as possible, feeling more tired and more alive than ever before. Some Malaysians are intensely interested but many, perhaps most, absolutely can’t be bothered.

I’ll be exercising my right to vote because for years Nelson Mandela could not. I’m not grateful, I know it’s my right.

Dear Kam,
I want to vote but I’m not registered.
What do I do?
Gingko Biloba
via email

You’re too late. Malaysia likes to shout about it’s hi-tech visions and yet when it comes to voter registration we’re surprisingly lo-tech. According to our Election Commission’s own website, it can take anywhere between nine to six months for your registration application to be processed, but they’re hoping to get it down to three months. Meanwhile, in India (population: 1.1 billion) it’s possible to register a mere week before nomination day. Meanwhile, a friend of mine, a Malaysian temporarily living overseas, is quite simply not allowed to vote because he is not eligible for a postal vote, despite the fact that he is a Malaysian citizen, which one would have thought was eligibility enough, but apparently not.

One can only presume that countries like India (or any country that takes democracy seriously) are cheating by using those new-fangled devil-machines called “computers” and the “postal service.” We’re more old fashioned and like to use feather quills that have to be dipped in ink pots, and as for postage from Europe we prefer to use the camel caravans on the Silk Route and Melaka-bound junks from Cathay. One day, we might use “computers” (micro-chips manufactured in Malaysia), but that’s just crazy talk.

Reprinted with the kind permission of