Some time ago, I was talking to my mom about the use of indelible ink in the coming general election in Malaysia. Although in the local newspaper, the Election Commission (EC) said that they’ve done the calculations and enough bottles of ink have arrived and each polling station will have enough supply of the indelible ink, I said to her that I’m pretty sure that the EC will mess it up by not supplying enough ink. The polling station people will inevitably spill some of the ink or some of the bottles of ink would have dried up during the long journey from India to Malaysia. In other words, the use of indelible ink will be kelam-kabut (chaotic).

The chaos that I imagined will be due to the lack of experience. In the end some people will not be marked because the ink has ran out…I can live with that. At least the EC is fulfilling one of the demands of BERSIH. I never imagined that the EC will purposefully not supply enough ink so that “Phantom Menace” and “Attack of the Clones” could take place. That’s just too well planned and sinister….

Then four days before the general election, the EC throws us a curve ball: the use of indelible ink has been canceled.

“Abdul Rashid (Chairman of EC) said there were also reports made to the police confirming that certain irresponsible quarters had purchased indelible ink from abroad with the intention of creating confusion and suspicion as to the status of voters.”

Who are these irresponsible quarters?? Which quarters seek to gain from the cancellation of the use of indelible ink? Definitely not the opposition.

“The EC views these issues seriously as the election process and public order and security cannot be compromised,” he said.

I guess the EC will not compromise “public order and security” but they have no issues with trampling on a clean and fair election process.

There’s something so sinister about this whole election process. It is widely known that the EC has been carving constituencies to benefit the ruling government. I mean, I know that it hasn’t been clean and fair but I used to think the chaos on the election day itself (i.e., messy electoral, occasional cloning, etc) is similar to the chaos of the public transportation system in Penang. Now I see that the chaos is just a veil: real planning and many strategic decisions have been made by the Ministry of Sinister Affairs to ensure a non-BERSIH election.

This is so sad and disappointing.