Bagan Pinang- why vote for PAS?

Why indeed. Because some PAS people want to scale the perimeter fence? Have they done anything more than UMNO as regards Islam? That's about it really. Talking about Islam in terms of intangibles. Spiritual cleansing, spiritual salvation and all that. Let's talk tangibles. Let's talk about their delivery. UMNO and BN can do that. Not perfect. But they can do that nevertheless.

By Tuesday, we will know who the UMNO candidate for Bagan Pinang is. Whoever UMNO chooses, it must win Bagan Pinang. Our opposition is making all the noise about the injustice associated with postal voting. Despite the personal narratives of people who claimed to have seen and have inside knowledge about the mechanics of postal voting, the fact remains, it shall remain that way. The voting done by military personnel is as transparent as it could be. If you don't accept it as it is now done- too bad. It's not going to be changed just because some PAS people are going to scale the parameter fence.

If there is cheating, it is an exception to the rule. One person may be late coming to the polling station, so it's closed. The papers are placed in the postal bags to be escorted to the counting station. There's no mystery over postal voting. The SPR has been on TV explaining the mechanics of postal voting. But if you have pre-judged the issue, there's nothing to explain anymore. In cases where postal bags or even boxes en route had gone missing, there was nothing to stop the contending parties from raising the matter up. Otherwise, the tales of missing boxes and bags are old wives tales. If you didn't raise hell then, you are estopped by your conduct from raising it ages after the fact. What you are asking us to do is to rectify and make good your shortcomings and diffidence the last time. You done anything to us?

Everything in the army is serialised ie personnel equipment duty roaster and what not. This is for easy accounting, control and check and balance. Take for example in the list of army voters, serial Ten is Ahmad. When Ahmad approaches the controlling officer, his name is checked, ticked and given the voting slip. He goes to the booth and put a cross on the slip without anyone knowing where he put the cross and finally into the postal bag. There is no serial number Ten on the voting slip to indicate that it belongs to Ahmad. It may have changed I do not know?? The controlling officer will check against his list who has not voted yet and will send out some soldiers to look for them/him. Thats is all that happens in the army voting.

There is indeed no serial number on the voting slip. It's the same as in civilian voting. We bring our ID and it's checked against the voting register which is numbered. The officer will take the ruler and draw a line across our names to indicate we are present and accounted for. We take the voting slip which isn't numbered and do our duty. No one knows who we vote.

So what is the real purpose of disputing postal votes? I have read the comments appearing on my articles regarding the postal voting. How do you explain when soldiers voted against the government? When our navy boys voted against the BN candidate of DUN Beserah recently, no one was punished precisely because it's impossible to say who voted for whom. In any case, the government respects each individual's voting preference. No one was punished when the flyboys voted against BN candidate of Paya Besar in 1999. In 2004 and also 2008, there were still protest votes and yet no one was hauled to be court martial or whatever.

The truth is the celebrated consciousness you speak of when sections of the military voted against BN fail to reach the tipping point beyond which the qualitative change you desire can take place. The numbers game equalises you- more soldiers feel they can identify with the BN. You only wish the same will occur on a widespread basis. It hasn't. Have you looked at the composition of our soldiers? How many are officers and how many are generals? The generals that came out lambasting the government are probably those who had some of their business proposals turned down. You know how officers from major upwards live? They have drivers, cars, batman who is his dogsbody. It's a pampered life. Who knows when they were in service, they acted like tyrants?

There were also totally unrelated comments saying that the soldiers were fighting with substandard equipments. I don't doubt that- but the generals have meetings every time with their superiors, why didn't they do anything about that? The real possibility is that some of your brother officers were the ones making deals to procure certain equipments from certain suppliers and because of the esprit de corps among fellow officers; you were willing to go along. That will make the soldiers even more rebellious and disregard whatever the generals say.

Some may even complain that soldiers earned low incomes. These complain are unsupported by facts. Things have improved vastly in the lives of our soldiers. They have good living quarters, facilities, schools, and all that. They have recreational facilities. These should be added to the income they received. Let's be rational. You can't expect a recruit to earn the same pay as a bank executive do you? By and large, the soldiers and their families who supported them to become soldiers feel grateful just to be taken out of listlessness and poverty. To most of them, it's a new beginning.

So soldiers, ignore the brickbats, vote according to your conscience.

The real purpose of disputing postal votes is to provide a deception and rationalise your own shortcomings. As I have said before, PAS Negeri Sembilan knows, it rode on the general wave of discontent during the 12^th GE. It knows it has nothing intrinsic to offer.