This is if what Minister in the PM’s Department Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim said in the Dewan Rakyat (as reported by The Malaysian Insider) recently is true.
He continued to say that it was the fault of the voters that the ink wasn’t permanent because they purposely tried to wash the ink off.
This reminds me of an impromptu press conference given by Election Commission Deputy Chairman Datuk Wan Ahmad Wan Omar on election day in Lembah Pantai.
I was there when he put the blame on the voters, just like Datuk Seri Shahidan did, and said that if you scrub hard and with intention of removing the ink, of course it will come off.
He also added that voters should not make a big fuss if they found that the indelible ink on their fingers could be washed off.
There were many more steps that were in place to ensure that people could not vote more than once, such as the IC, physical appearance, etc.
Now wait just seminit right there!
I think these two individuals are missing the main point. They both seem to think that the indelible ink being delible as the main issue that everyone is so concern about.
Here’s how my non-parliamentarian intellect tries to analyse and comprehend what the people really mean when they stir up a fuss about the indelible ink.
If the indelible is actually removable, then it clearly shows that it is a flaw on the side of the Election Commission.
And if there is a possibility of a single flaw, then there could be a possibility of many more flaws on the side of the Election Commission.
(This reminds me of something another journalist whispered in my ear during Datuk Wan Ahmad’s election press conference in Lembah Pantai.
“We’re not questioning the right of people who have IC’s to vote. What we’re concern about is how those ICs were issued in the first place,” he said.
Why he decided to just whisper that statement to me instead of pointing it out to Datuk Wan Ahmad openly baffles me.)
Ok, fine. If their argument is that there are so many other steps in place to make sure that the flaws can be minimised, then why be so defensive about that one flaw?
I also think that one of the major reasons why people try so hard to wash off the indelible ink and to intentionally point it out is because they have no faith in the EC.
This could be because they either have proof that the EC is biased, or just simply because of a perception that they have after all these years.
Instead of being defensive, the EC needs to address these issues. Why do they have to attack the voters for making a fuss when the fuss they are making is a legit fuss?
And now to make things worse, the minister in charge (the EC being under a minister opens a whole different can of worms) states that they used food colouring instead.
So what’s the next step for the EC? Should the body’s top management resign? Should they admit their mistake and apologise? Should they call for fresh elections?
I’m not one to say because if I do say my piece, I would just be accused of being anti-establishment for the sake of being anti-establishment.
But what I really do want to say at the end of it all is that I really wonder how come the ink on my finger stayed on for almost a week.
