It's that time again..

No, no, no, not the time of the month. But rather the "errection" is back. We've already known it was in the offing. Our free press were printing stories of how much progress the "gahmen" has achieved in the last 5 years.

I've been rather impressed with the changes of late. Service counters are open from 7:30 in the morning till 5:00 in the evening (well, they should be) and you can check your voter registration status online, get a passport in 24 hours, a drivers license in 20 minutes and pay your local council taxes in shopping malls. Everything more or less works (sometimes slow and a bit broken but all governments are like that, bureaucracy breeds inefficiency)

However, one item of news irks me.

EC: Postal vote only for certain groups

PUTRAJAYA: Malaysians living overseas cannot vote through the post unless they are military personnel, students, staff of embassies and high commissions and their spouses.

Election Commission (EC) secretary Datuk Kamaruzaman Mohd Noor advised them to return home if they wanted to vote on March 8.

“The law does not provide for ordinary citizens living abroad to cast postal votes.

“Under the Election Regulations (Electoral Roll) 2002 and Election Regulations (Postal Votes) 2003, only three categories of citizens living overseas are allowed to cast postal votes.

“Individuals who are keen to vote must come back to Malaysia as there is no other alternative for them to exercise their rights,” he said in response to an e-mail sent to The Star by a Malaysian living in Hong Kong who wants to vote in next month’s election.

Of the 10,922,139 registered voters on the 2007 master electoral roll gazetted on Feb 5, 221,085 are postal voters.

Kamaruzaman said voters who are not able to go to the polling stations due to work commitment, such as emergency service personnel and journalists, could apply to the EC through their organisations to vote by post.

“No individual application will be entertained because the law does not provide for this,” he said.

Kamaruzaman assured postal voters that they need not fear as the process was carried out in secret, adding that the serial number on the electoral roll would be different from that on the ballot paper.

“Even during the counting process, the candidates’ agents will closely scrutinise every ballot paper before giving their approval or objection.

“So, unless the agents are completely blind, I cannot entertain any allegations that there is no transparency in voting by post,” he said.

On the issue of voters aged 100 and above and still listed on the electoral roll, Kamaruzaman said as long as the National Registration Department's records showed that a person has not died, the EC could not expunge the name from the roll.

Postal votes are not allowed in a country where we have super-duper high-tech biometric ID cards. Everyone must return to the address on their identity cards to vote. Where is the logic in this? A discontent must arise from people who do not work in their home states, that to exercise their right to be heard by the government they must spend an inordinate amount of time and money to do so.

Why can't the government have remote polling stations for out of state workers? If they can organise overseas postal votes for certain groups of people, why can't they do in in Malaysia itself?

Actually, while I'm on the subject, why can't ALL Malaysians abroad vote? Are they afraid that because we don't live in Malaysia and experience the progress of the government we won't vote for them? Hardly makes for democratic elections, does it? I'm in two minds over this one.

Much as we make fun of the people in power in this country, there has been some progress (I've been abroad and each time I return, there is always a change even though a small one or sometimes not a good one). The opposition in this country is a small minority, and they don't really do things any better, there is more power grabbing and the greed is obvious in their eyes.

Do we continue the pseudo-theocracy* of this country or do we appoint those who object the government for the sake of objecting instead of bringing chance?


*for those that object the use of a theocratic government of Malaysia, I'll think you'll find many instances where many of the ruling subsumes posts that are given to them by a higher being. Although in some states, there's an almost dictatorship, especially with regards to certain chief ministers