IT appears that the confidence motion proposed for Sept 7 may trigger the 15th General Election (GE15) much earlier than mid-2023 after all.
The Agong can of course exercise discretionary powers under Article 55 and withhold consent for the dissolution of Parliament.
If Parliament isn’t dissolved within its five-year term, it will be automatically dissolved upon expiry, with or without proper dissolution.
The COVID-19 pandemic provides the special circumstances which calls for the tweaking of the election using a new format.
That way, we can have candidates returned unopposed in all seats, parliamentary, state and territorial on nomination day.
The new format is simple. All candidates should agree among themselves by consensus, after collecting nomination forms, that they pick one person to be returned unopposed.
That point can be reached only after candidates debate each other, online, before nomination day. The debate should be moderated along the lines of the US Presidential debates.
Debates provide the best way to pick the most suitable candidate for public office.
In this case, debates will help convince the candidates on the most suitable person among them to be returned unopposed on nomination day.
And there’s plenty of material to debate, be it local, state/territorial, national, regional or even international.
Much of the focus for the debates would probably be on empowering local Governments, the pandemic and economic recovery.
There are many questions being asked on social media on vaccine purchases and the various stimulus packages.
The people want to see the money trail, and obviously, the figures should be audited and presented in Parliament.
There is also a great deal of public interest in the recovered 1MDB funds and the present financial status of 1MDB and SRC International.
At present, Malaysia finds itself trapped in the middle income bracket, dependent on unskilled and low skill foreign labour for industries in the low end sector.
There should be Government incentives to bring in technology and at the same train local workers. If foreign workers are retained, employers should be encouraged to upgrade them. Malaysia needs to move up the value chain.
In Sabah and Sarawak, the debates should also focus on Borneo rights.
There’s lack of leadership in the Borneo territories on this long-standing issue and no political will in Putrajaya.
The candidates can pick the ‘winner’ on the morning of nomination day by show of hands in a face-off meeting. The whole process will not take more than 15 minutes.
Obviously, no candidate can vote for himself or herself.
The victor should collect at least 51% of the votes from those present and counted. If no one gets 51%, there should be a run-off between the top two candidates.
If we go through the history of elections in Malaysia, we will come across many instances where candidates were returned unopposed on nomination day.
Sarawak, in fact, regularly witnessed many elections where candidates were returned unopposed on nomination day.
One unique feature in Sarawak was candidates collecting nomination forms, not submitting them, and not returning them personally. They were returned by others, on behalf of the collector, and the election deposit claimed.
Such instances saw one candidate being returned unopposed when nominations close.
The modus operandi remains simple. The eventual victor would have agents track all those who collect nomination forms back to their homes.
After a little persuasion, the would-be collector would hand over the nomination form and MyKad to the agent in return for an agreed sum of money. The MyKad, retained until nomination was over, was just in case the would-be candidate lodged a police report.
There are no prizes for guessing which candidates were returned unopposed over the years, especially in Sarawak, on nomination day.
Suffice to say, if the snap Sabah election on Sept 26 last year had been tweaked according to the format, as suggested, we would not be witnessing the current spike in virus cases in Malaysia. – Aug 12, 2021
Joe Fernandez is a longtime Borneo watcher and a regular FocusM contributor.
