Kula’s judicial review application dismissed

The Court of Appeal upholds a High Court decision against declaring the appointments of two ministers and two deputy ministers as unconstitutional.

KUALA LUMPUR: The Court of Appeal has dismissed Ipoh Barat MP M.Kula Segaran’s application for a judicial review to nullify the appointments of four senators as ministers and deputy ministers after the last general election as unconstitutional.

The bench, presided by Linton Albert, Rohana Yusoff and Vernon Ong Lam Kiat, dismissed the application without cost.

Lawyers representing the Attorney-General’s (AG) chambers earlier asked for cost of RM10,000.

But Kula Segaran’s counsel R.Kengadharan objected, emphasising that in a public interest case, award of costs should not be awarded. The court concurred.

Kula Segaran now plans to take the matter up to the Federal Court.

On June 19 last year, Kula Segaran filed the application for a judicial review to nullify the appointments of Abdul Wahid Omar and Paul Low Seng Kuan as Ministers in the Prime Minister’s Department, J Loga Bala Mohan as Deputy Minister of Federal Territory and Ahmad Bashah Md Hanipah as Deputy Minister of Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism.

In his affidavit, Kula Segaran argued that it was a requirement of the Federal Constitution that ministers and deputy ministers must be appointed from among members of either house of Parliament.

He said the appointment of the respondents as ministers and deputy ministers on May 15 2013 was unconstitutional because they were at the time not yet sworn in as members of either house.

He pointed out that the four did not stand for election at any parliamentary constituency during the 13th General Election held on May 5 2013.

However, the AG’s Chambers, represented by Amarjit Singh and Suzana Atan objected that the application for judicial review and appeal filed by Kula Segaran was frivolous and did not disclose an arguable case.

They said Kula Segaran had based his argument on non-existing words or words that he himself had added to the Federal Constitution.

The AG’s chambers noted that the oath was taken by the respondents after their appointment as members of the Senate.

In his statement today, Kula Segaran expressed disappointment on the swift disposal of the appeal.

“Being a serious constitutional issue with wide implications and the first of its kind in the country, the government lawyers were not even invited to address the bench.

“In light of the outcome, I am now keen to appeal to the Federal Court,” he said.

Winning GE13 convincingly, by jailing political foes a year later?

  

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak with United States President Barack Obama. Najib had boasted about his reformist credentials during Obama’s visit to Malaysia two weeks ago. – AFP pic

One year after the Barisan Nasional (BN) won the 13th general election (GE13) with fewer votes and fewer seats, more lawmakers from the opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) find themselves at the wrong end of the law and risking jail time.

Tomorrow, Seputeh MP Teresa Kok will be charged with sedition, weeks after the late Karpal Singh was convicted of the same charge.

Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim faces the possibility of jail for a second sodomy conviction while his PKR party colleague Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad is expected to charged again under the Peaceful Assembly Act.

Just two weeks ago, the Court of Appeal had declared Section 9(5) of the Peaceful Assembly Act – which criminalises the failure to give 10-day notice before a gathering – to be unconstitutional.

And in July 2012, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced that the Sedition Act will be repealed and replaced by a National Harmony Act. That has yet to take place and instead, more people have been charged with sedition.

Will Malaysians, or the 51% of the electorate who voted for PR in GE13, stand on the sidelines as disinterested watchers as their elected reps are picked off one by one by an administration that obviously thinks the only way to win is by making the opposition "disappear"?

And this from a PM who was boasting about his reformist credentials during United States President Barack Obama's visit to Malaysia two weeks ago.

Can the government say that this is an independent decision of the public prosecutor, knowing full that even a standard operational procedure as searching the sea for a lost plane needs Putrajaya's approval.

Or is the public prosecutor's push to charge Kok with sedition over her “Onederful Malaysia” Chinese New Year clip and Nik Nazmi for an offence under a law now deemed unconstitutional shows recalcitrance on his part?

The reality is that the buck stops with the prime minister. Even research and development projects appear to need his approval or endorsement.

What more prosecuting politicians in court.

It might be another four years to the next polls but the systemic move to remove popular PR leaders shows an administration that has abandoned its reformist zeal and stripes in favour of the old playbook of intimidation and incarceration.

How else can BN win an election, if not by physically removing its foes from the political arena using archaic laws such as the Sedition Act?

Where does this leave Malaysians who were asked to believe in the 1Malaysia slogan and a prime minister who had proudly declared "the era of government knows best is over" when he took office in 2009?

It leaves them nowhere except to find ways to remind the government that it is the people who keep them in power, and it is the people who will unseat any government that fails to keep its promises. – May 5, 2014.

Court throws out polls petitions against Zahid

The New Straits Times

KUALA LUMPUR: Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi retained his Bagan Datoh constituency when the Election Court yesterday dismissed election petitions by PKR candidate Madhi Hasan and voter Azmi Sulaiman.

Judge Datuk Hasnah Mohammed Hashim ruled that the court agreed with the preliminary objection raised by Zahid that the petitioners' allegations of electoral corruption against him were not supported by sufficient facts.

"There cannot be mere conjecture. The petitioners must be able to state the facts (supporting the allegations) clearly."

Hasnah cited the example of Madhi failing to prove that there was a nexus between Zahid and one R. Supramaniam, who allegedly gave RM100 and five bags of rice to influence a Bagan Datoh voter named Mustofa Saifudin.

In prior proceedings, Madhi had argued that the illegal practice by Supramaniam, who he alleged was Zahid's agent, took place on April 19 last year, a day before nomination day.

On Azmi's allegation that Zahid gave money and rice to 24,000 Barisan Nasional party workers to ensure his electoral victory, Hasnah said Azmi had failed to identify any of the party workers involved.

After Hasnah dismissed both petitions, she ordered Madhi and Azmi to each pay RM25,000 in costs to Zahid.

Madhi said he would discuss with his lawyer on whether to file an appeal.

Ambiga: We never mentioned 40,000 Bangladeshis

Outgoing Bersih chief S Ambiga says they merely highlighted that a high number of East Malaysians were being ferried to the peninsula before the general election.

PETALING JAYA: Bersih did not mention 40,000 Bangladeshis voted in the general election, said Bersih chairman S Ambiga.

Ambiga told FMT that Bersih only highlighted the high number of East Malaysians being brought in to the peninsula, days before the general election.

“Tengku Adnan (Tengku Mansor) himself had admitted that the East Malaysians were ferried by Barisan Nasional-friendly organisations to vote.

“But I don’t remember mentioning 40,000 Bangladeshis,” she said.

Yesterday, Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim denied making claims that there were 40,000 Bangladeshi phantom voters in the 13th general election, saying that the statement was spun by pro-Umno bloggers.

“We have checked our statements and have never made such claims,” he said, during a media conference at the Parliament’s lobby.

In a blog post on May 2, Anwar mentioned he had documentary evidence that a group of foreign nationals were being transported from the airports to various points in the peninsula, using transport provided by government agencies as well as chartered bus operators.

Tengku Adnan, who is Umno secretary-general, admitted that people were being ferried from East Malaysia but dismissed claims that they were dubious voters.

Touching on dubious voters, Ambiga said the royal commission proceedings in Sabah had proved their allegations all along that there were foreigners registered in the national electoral roll.

She also said there many other instances of irregularities during the general election, which was left unanswered by the Elections Commission and the government.

“But the government is not responding to that. Instead, they keep harping on the 40,000 Bangladeshis.
“To me, this is just a smokescreen. They are not talking about the foreigners being registered in our electoral roll,” she said.

Anwar: Bloger Umno reka 40,000 pengundi hantu

Anwar: No way there were 40,000 Bangla voters

Anwar Ibrahim today denied making any claims that there were 40,000 Bangladeshi voters during the 13 th general election

KUALA LUMPUR: Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim today denied making claims about the 40,000 Bangladeshi phantom voters in the 13 th general election, saying that the statement was put in his mouth by his political opponents.

He said Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak misled the public in his Budget 2014 speech by saying that the opposition’s claims were untrue; whereas there were no such claims in the first place.

“We have checked our statements; we have never made such claims before,” he said during the media conference at the Parliament’s lobby today.

“This is a spin by Umno blogger; who ever said there were 40,000 Bangladeshis?” he added.

In announcing the Budget 2014 last month, Najib jibed Pakatan to “ask for forgiveness from god” for making the supposed wild allegation about the Bangladeshi voters.

“Until today, no one has even seen them or their shadow. Enough of the lies,” Najib said.

In reply, Anwar said his statement was that there are foreign nationals; as well as from Sabah and Sarawak who were flown in to the Peninsular to vote.

“Besides, the election commission chairman Abdul Aziz Yusof has said there were 62,000 dubious voters in the electoral roll.

“Thirdly, after the advanced voting process, I have said with proofs that foreign nationals from India, Bangladesh, Philippines and Indonesia were allowed to vote.

“My question was how did people with these nationalities made as advanced voters?” he said.

Anwar also chided Najib for dragging the Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina into the picture during the premier’s recent visit to Bangladesh.

“He asked the Bangladesh PM to say there is no Bangladeshi voters. But this is a domestic affair, how would she know?” he said.

He further said an independent commission should have been set up to verify the claims, since the EC has lost its credibility.

No foreigners on election day

Election watchdog Bersih, had mobilised thousands of Malaysians to rally for clean elections in the past; slammed the EC prior to the May 5 polls for not having done enough to address the issue.

“You can’t trust the EC as the referee, as the referee is keeping silent about this,” Bersih co-chairman Ambiga Sreenevasan had said then.

“We know this is happening because the government has a history of giving foreigners citizenships for votes,” she was quoted by news reports.

This was subsequently picked up by the opposition which had urged its supporters to be on a lookout for foreign-looking voters at polling stations around the country on voting day.

During polling, several people were hauled up by opposition supporters but they all turned out to be Malaysian citizens with foreign parentage.

After the polls, Anwar called for a rally at the Kelana Jaya sports complex and vowed a ‘fierce’ campaign for electoral reform and said he would soon produce evidence of fraud by what he called an ‘illegitimate’ government.

He said the election was stolen via “unprecedented electoral fraud.”

Anwar had alleged a government scheme to fly tens of thousands of ‘dubious’ and possibly foreign voters to flood key constituencies.

A report released a few days after the polls by two independent watchdogs said the polls were marred by pro-government bias and irregularities that indicate “serious flaws” in the electoral system.

The Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs and Centre for Public Policy Studies cited concerns including partisan use of government machinery, pro-government media bias and doubts over the integrity of voter rolls.

The election was “only partially free and not fair”, the report said. It did not mention of any foreign voters, voting in the 13th general election.

Parliament heats up as deputy minister accuses Anwar of lying

Hasina denies her citizens voted in GE13

The Bangladesh Prime Minister apparently shook her head in disbelief when told about the opposition's allegations.

DHAKA: Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has denied Pakatan Rakyat’s claim that 40,000 of her people were involved and voted for the Barisan Nasional (BN) in Malaysia’s 13th general election(GE13).

Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak said during his meeting with Sheikh Hasina, the South Asian leader shook her head in disbelieve at the erroneous claim.

Najib also said if the claim that his visit to Bangladesh was to meet and thank those people for voting for the BN in the last general election, then his mission had failed as he did not meet any of the purported voters.

“Looks like this second mission has failed because I did not meet the 40,000 Bangladeshis who were said to have voted for the Barisan Nasional,” he told reporters after a bilateral meeting with the Bangladesh government here.

Najib said the Bangladesh prime minister further dismissed the claim as absurd as it was unlikely for Malaysia to accord citizenship to 40,000 Bangladeshis.

Last week, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Shahidan Kassim while winding up the Budget 2014 Bill in the Dewan Rakyat charged the claim made by the opposition during the GE13 to be a big lie, stressing that only 12 Bangladeshis had acquired Malaysian citizenship in the past 10 years.

- Bernama

Barisan and Opposition to resolve 19 election petition appeals amicably

The Star

PUTRAJAYA: The Barisan Nasional and the Opposition pact are discussing a possible “global settlement” to resolve 19 election petition appeals that have yet to be decided by the Federal Court.

Barisan lawyer Datuk Firoz Hussein Ahmad Jamaluddin said they are hoping to resolve the issue amicably.

“I think it is a positive way for all to move on,” he said, adding that the parties concerned were all in agreement to discuss the matter.

“We are optimistic about it,” he told reporters after the appeals were called before a five-man panel chaired by Court of Appeal president Justice Raus Sharif yesterday.

A global settlement refers to an agreement between concerned parties after all sides address or compromise over the relevant matters accordingly.

Justice Raus set Dec 2 for the parties to inform the court on the outcome of their discussion.

Barisan co-counsel Datuk Mohd Hafarizam Harun said the Barisan had filed fewer than 20 election petitions, of which four were pending appeals.

“The court should not be used as a forum to change the government,” he said.

Mohd Hafarizam said the petition appeals cover, among others, the state seats of Selama and Manong and parliamentary seats Bagan Datoh, Machang, Ketereh, Batu, Lembah Pantai, Kuala Selangor and Titiwangsa.

PAS lawyer Hisham Fauzi told the media he has to get instructions from the party first as the Barisan had offered to withdraw its appeals.

“Our petitions have been struck out due to the Barisan’s objection regarding the appointment of solicitors. Filing of petitions must be done by the petitioner and the petitions must be served by the petitioner himself.

“We have asked the apex court to decide over this issues as we feel that certain provisions under the election petition rules cannot overrule the right to counsel under the Federal Constitution and provisions under the Legal Profession Act; any lawyer can appear for any case,” said Hisham.

Besides that, he said the Opposition was concerned over the high cost imposed when petitions are struck out by the High Court in certain states.

Lawyer Edmund Bon, who acted for two PKR petitions, said they had agreed to discuss the global settlement.

Ambiga rapped for disputing PM's denial of GE13 fraud

(Malaysiakini) Bersih co-chairperson Ambiga Sreenevasan was “wrong” to accuse the prime minister of dropping a red herring, when he denied the claim that 40,000 Bangladeshis had voted during the 13th general election.

Utusan Malaysia reported today that two Malay rights pressure groups said this is because the claim itself was a lie perpetuated by the opposition.

“Why haven't the opposition made a public apology over this? This slander clearly shows they believe the rakyat are stupid and can be lied to...,” Perkasa president Ibrahim Ali is quoted as saying.

“In fact, today, opposition spokesperson Ambiga is trying to put the blame on the government. Who created this lie? Is Ambiga now a forgetful person?”

Supporting him, Jaringan Melayu Malaysia president Azwanddin Hamzah said the “majority” of Malaysians are now demanding that the authorities should act against such slander.

“I would like to congratulate Ambiga who seems to have quickly learnt from Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim to always deny their own faults and blame Umno and BN,” he reportedly said.

Yesterday, Ambiga had said that Najib's repeated denials that 40,000 Bangladeshis had voted in GE13 were a red herring, to evade answering other allegations of electoral fraud.

Najib, in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, had been asked to comment on "allegations of fraud, buying votes, double-voting, phantom voters, (and) issues of gerrymandering".

He replied that the allegations are "by and large...totally unfounded", and then pointed to the allegation that 40,000 Bangladeshis had been ferried in to vote as an example, stressing that this has never been proven.

Electoral fraud tribunal defends legitimacy after EC, Attorney-General backlash

Palani paid RM20 for my vote, says orang asli voter

The Cameron Highlands voter says he is still owed RM80 in balance and that the MIC president also threatened to withdraw all free services for the community if they voted the opposition.

SUBANG JAYA: An orang asli voter from Cameron Highlands today accused the Barisan Nasional candidate for the parliamentary constituency of dwelling in money politics and threats in order to win the seat.

Testifying at Bersih’s People’s Tribunal on the alleged cheatings that took place during the May general election, voter Norman Kong said MIC president G Palanivel had allegedly threatened an indigenous community in Jelai that he would end all free hospital services and education programmes if the community voted for the opposition.

Norman also claimed that he was paid RM20 by Palanivel as an advance money for him to vote for the BN during the polling day.

He added that he was promised another RM80 if he managed to bring more people from his community to vote for the BN.

Norman who traveled eight hours to testify in the tribunal this afternoon also mentioned that BN had made various kinds of promises during the campaign period.

“Palanivel came to my village in a helicopter. He promised us many things, from road to houses. He told us not to vote for anyone else other than BN.

“He then said that he would end the free medical treatment and schools if we voted for the opposition, and that we will have to pay for them.

“Palanivel gave me RM20 to vote for BN and promised another RM80 if I brought more people to vote for BN. But I never received the RM80 that was promised,” he said.

“I had voted in three elections and every time there is an election they (BN) promised us better roads and new houses. But until today we never got get what was promised to us. Janji tidak ditepati,” he said.

Norman also testified that the orang asli village heads in the constituency were brainwashed by the Orang Asli Department to vote only for BN.

“The was a programme in Kuantan organised by the department where several orang asli village heads were invited to join the programme. They were brainwashed by the facilitator during the whole program,” he claimed.

“They were told to only vote for BN and not to vote for the oppostion. Later when they returned to their respective kampungs, they were asked to teach their people to follow what they were told during the programme,” he said.

In the GE, Palanivel won Cameron Highlands with a slim 462-vote majority in a five-cornered fight. His closest rival was DAP’s M Manogaran who polled in 10,044 votes compared to Palanivel’s 10,506.

Manogaran recently lost his election petition to challenge the Cameron Highlands results.

The tribunal continues tomorrow.

GE13 media coverage study reveals bias, bribery

Malaysia: An Irreconcilable Divide?

Anwar: We'll get you next time

The outlook isn't that good, an academic says
Never before have Malaysians ventured into such unchartered waters. The outcome of the May 5 general elections has revealed just how split and intensely divided the electorate in the country currently is, and it has set in motion a political and social scenario that is tantamount to having to confront new realities in this nation of some 27 million people.

The fact that the two main political coalitions Barisan Nasional (BN) and Pakatan Rakyat (PR) - spearheaded by Najib Abdul Razak for the former and Anwar Ibrahim for the latter - were tangled in an intense campaign leading up to the elections was emblematic of the fact that Malaysians found themselves divided between two distinctly divergent paths. Recognizing the lack of widespread enthusiasm for the several BN aligned parties, campaign strategists for BN made a distinct choice during the campaign to play up Najib's relatively favorable public rating as a way to galvanize support. By contrast, Anwar's popularity and his dynamic public presence set the stage for the campaign to be one about a popularity contest between Najib and Anwar.

Yet, it was apparent from early on in the buildup to the elections, and since then, that the Malaysian divide is much more than one about two prominent political figures, it is indeed substantive and deep. The fact that Najib had to stem the political bleeding for the ruling coalition that first became most transparent after the 2008 general elections seemed obvious enough. The loss of their two-thirds control of parliament and several key states including Selangor, Penang and Kedah in 2008 was a significant enough blow to BN's seemingly invincible political machinery. Indeed, one of the main goals of BN this time around was not just to reassert their domination in parliament, but also to recapture the aforementioned state governments from the PR coalitions.

Although BN managed to wrest Kedah from PR's control, the much coveted states of Selangor and Penang once again remained out of the former's grasp. Indeed, as is well-known by now, aside from suffering greater losses in these two significant states, Najib's coalition ceded more ground to the opposition since 2008 as its majority in parliament dropped from 140 to 133 seats while it also lost the popular vote (52 to 48 percent). Yet, having garnered enough seats in a gerrymandered, first-past-the post electoral system, BN has managed to continue its historic streak of uninterrupted control of the federal government.

Most of the postmortems of this highly contentious and charged election have revealed some consistent findings. Of all the kernels of facts about the elections, we know that along with rural voters, a higher proportion of females also leaned heavily towards BN. On the other hand, the younger voters (particularly in those in their 20s and early 30s), for a significant number of whom this would have been their first foray into the electoral rolls, and non-rural voters were more enthusiastic and energized about the opposition.

The significance of this mobilization of younger and more agitated voters is being played out in so-called 'Black 505' rallies in various parts of the country in the days since the elections. Notwithstanding the fact that these rallies are far from spontaneous and have come to represent PR's way of keeping the spotlight on their claims that BN's parliamentary wins are attributable to gross electoral fraud, the response of PR's supporters in coming out to these rallies is a telling barometer of the depth and intensity of the political divide.

Thus far, relatively large rallies - in the tens of thousands - not only in PR strongholds such as in Kuala Lumpur and Penang, but also in BN controlled states such as Johor and Negeri Sembilan - suggest that the opposition remains focused and agitated about making sure the issue of electoral fraud does not become a mere footnote.

While these rallies seem unlikely to result in any kind of process that might lead to a reconsideration of the validity of the results in various constituencies as singled out by PR for suspicious voting patterns and tainted ballots, let alone a reversal of the overall outcome as it currently stands, the rallies continue to symbolically undermine the BN government's legitimacy. Just as critically, they reinforce the fact that the line demarcating the political divide between the two sides of the political divide has never been more tangible and profound.

This divide, one that has become progressively crystallized over the past decade, is likely to only get more intense. On one level, a much emboldened and empowered opposition means there is going to be even closer scrutiny of Najib's policies. While the PR-sponsored rallies have thus far been a potent means by which Anwar has kept the heat on Najib and the Barisan, they obviously cannot go on indefinitely. When Anwar and his allies eventually go back to the mundane grind of the more routine political tussles, that will be when we will learn how effective the opposition can be in further extending the credibility gap problem for Najib's government.

Such a charged political climate will also most certainly ensure that Najib's allies from the far-right of his UMNO party will not take too kindly to this scrutiny and political assault from the opposition.

Indeed, some of the more overt political confrontations and forays between the pro-Najib Malay ultra-nationalists such as Perkasa and the opposition since 2008 are likely to serve as precursors to what lies ahead as far as political theater is concerned.

If Najib's past record is any indication, we're unlikely to see him rein in the ultra-nationalist who have been a loyal and dependable base for his party. Yet, it is arguable that Najib would be well-served to systematically move further to the center-left of his party and, by extension, regain some of the soft public support that abandoned his coalition this time around, since the far-right wing really has no alternative but to stick with Najib's UMNO party.

However, don't expect Najib to make any bold and consistent moves toward the center-left until after the next round of UMNO's general assembly, where he will first no doubt need to secure his own standing and credibility within the party. That said, there is nonetheless a compelling case to be made for him to seize the moment, so to speak, and address a number of the fundamental grievances of a large cross-section of the electorate that led them to abandon his coalition.

These issues are quite widely known: addressing the rampant racism and politicization of race, confronting and clamping down on the pervasiveness of corruption not least among those in high place in the government and making a concerted effort to stall and reverse the precipitous decline of public confidence in public institutions, such as law enforcement and the judiciary.

The fact of the matter is the lack of public confidence in the government's willingness and ability to deliver on 'good governance' by instituting bold reforms has reached an ominously critical point and much of this public disappointment has translated into public cynicism, which PR has effectively exploited since 2008. However, if history is any indication, the odds are heavily stacked against UMNO or Najib pursuing fundamental reforms in the aforementioned areas.

As such, the stage seems set for what is likely to be a volatile and deeply divisive political theater for the foreseeable future.

(Sunil Kukreja is a professor of sociology and associate academic dean at the University of Puget Sound.)

Winner of seats, not votes

The answer is that although in the first past the post system the risk of a party having a majority of seats with a minority of popular votes is always there, the way to avoid such absurdities is to ensure that all the constituencies are appro­ximately t­h­­e sa­me size in terms of voter numbers. This is obviously not the case in Malaysia.

Azmi Sharom, The Star

WHEN criticising laws and policies in this country, one of the stock answers that one is faced with is that the majority voted for the government in power, therefore, they are obviously happy with those said laws and policies. The majority rules after all.

I’d like to see anyone try that line of argument with me now. Not since 1969 has Malaysia had a government whom the majority of voters did not choose.

The popular vote in the 13th general election had 47% voting for Ba­risan Nasional, 51% for Pakatan Rak­yat and the remainder to Indepen­dents.

The difference in numerical terms shows Pakatan with almost 390,000 more votes than Barisan.

These numbers are almost the mirror image of figures during the 12th general election when BN won, so theoretically it should now be Pa­k­atan’s turn to govern.

Yet in GE13; Barisan lost only se­v­en seats (my calculations are based on results of the 2008 elections before the frog-like behaviour of a handful of MPs) and are thus still holding the majority of seats in parliament.

This is a weird situation of course and one that a teacher would be h­a­r­d pressed to explain to a class of nine-year-olds. Odd as it is, this is a possible outcome when one uses the first past the post system.

However, such abnormalities are usually found in political systems where there are more than two political parties or coalitions.

In those situations the possibility of votes being split are more numerous thus leading to the possibility of a government with less than 50% of the popular votes but more seats in the legislature.

In our situation, because by and large there are only two major players (the Independents and smaller parties had a minimal impact in terms of vote splitting), the popular vote should reflect the number of seats in parliament. Yet it did not.

So the question here is how can the system that we use (one used all over the world) lead to what on the face of it is an unfair result.

The answer is that although in the first past the post system the risk of a party having a majority of seats with a minority of popular votes is always there, the way to avoid such absurdities is to ensure that all the constituencies are appro­ximately t­h­­e sa­me size in terms of voter numbers. This is obviously not the case in Malaysia.

The discrepancies of voter numbers can be huge; this is particularly so when comparing the rural and urban areas with the latter having far more registered voters (although this is not necessarily the case all the time; urban Putrajaya is tiny in terms of voter numbers).

Naturally, rural areas are more sparsely populated than urban areas and therefore a certain degree of flexibility is required when delineating constituency lines. Rural areas will by sheer demographic and geographic realities have fewer voters in them.

However, the difference must not be ridiculously high. The general guideline is that a discrepancy must not be more than 15% and thus when drawing the boundaries of the constituencies, this factor ought to be considered.

This is clearly not the case. To give you an idea as to how big the discrepancies can get; the difference between Kapar (144,159 voters) and Putrajaya (15,791 voters) is just over 900%.

In effect, in the smaller constituencies, a person’s vote carries more weight than in the larger ones and it is no coincidence that the ruling coalition finds its support largely in small constituencies.

This is not a satisfactory situation but it is one that can be fixed because the moment has come for a re-delineation exercise in this country. What perfect timing.

The Election Commission (EC) is charged with the exercise although the final acceptance of their recommendations lies in the hands of parliament (and the state legislatures in the case of state seats).

This is an opportunity for the EC to do the right thing and make good recommendations.

They must if they are to recover any shred of dignity following their performance in the GE13. The fiasco with the so-called indelible ink is one example of how poorly handled things were.

The fact that the ink can be was­hed off (due to the “diluted” version used) has been attributed to the non-shaking of bottles (yes, seriously); Islamic teaching (although in India and Pakistan there appears to be no complaints about using the ink from the hundreds of millions of M­u­s­lims there); in the interest of health, apparently the ink can mess up your kidneys or give you cancer or something equally horrible (which is jolly thoughtful of the EC, but perhaps a tad paranoid and over-protective).

It was ludicrous to say that it does not matter if the ink is washable because you can only vote once with your identity card. What if someone has phantom like tendencies and has more than one identity card?

Which leads us to the EC’s terribly blasé treatment of genuine fears that phan­tom voters existed; another e­x­am­ple of them behaving in a manner that does not engender public confidence.

I am unsure if the EC will redraw the constituency boundaries in a fai­rer manner, and I am even more un­s­ure if the ruling party will accept any­thing that in their minds will be a disadvantage to their grasp on power.

What I am sure about is this country runs the risk of being a joke if something is not done to fix this. Unfortunately, it w­o­n’t be a funny joke and there is the probability of an un-amused and furious populace.

Democratic practices done properly are what ensure peace, not façade democracies which do not ultimately respect the peoples’ choice.

When will those with the responsibility and the power stop t­h­i­n­king in petty terms and realise this? When will they show that they truly care about the nation?

Anwar Asks if Obama Is Aware of Malaysia Election-Fraud Claims

Wall Street Journal
Malaysia’s opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has found something new to fight over with the country’s government: U.S. President Barack Obama’s message of congratulations to Prime Minister Najib Razak.
Mr. Obama called Mr. Najib on May 13 after his win in Malaysia’s parliamentary elections. Mr. Najib’s National Front coalition won 60% of the seats in the national parliament, although Mr. Anwar’s opposition alliance secured 51% of the popular vote on May 5 and is claiming that vote fraud tipped the balance in the government’s favor.

President Barack Obama, shown at a recent news conference, called Prime Minister Najib Razak and ‘welcomed the prime minister’s efforts to address concerns about election irregularities,’ according to the White House.

According to the White House, Mr. Obama “noted that Malaysians had turned out in record numbers to vote and welcomed the Prime Minister’s efforts to address concerns about election irregularities.” He also discussed trade issues and other matters.
The Malaysian government late on Tuesday issued a statement saying that the U.S. President “expressed his understanding and acceptance of the process and results” of the May 5 polls.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, though, Mr. Anwar questioned whether the U.S. was fully aware of the vote-fraud allegations, and also pointed out that Malaysian government statements on calls between Mr. Najib and Mr. Obama sometimes differ from the accounts provided by the White House.
Referring to Mr. Obama, Mr. Anwar said, “I don’t think he is privy to the fact that there is this huge feeling and expression of anger and outrage against this mass rigging and fraud.” Mr. Anwar went on to say that the U.S. had recognized elections under late dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines and under Hosni Mubarak in Egypt.
“So I think it is also important that the Americans be given the facts to objectively evaluate people,” Mr. Anwar said. “Do you accept the process when the media is not free? Do you accept the process when you cannot monitor the votes, where it went to? Do you accept the process when clearly the electoral list is compromised.”
A Malaysian government spokesman said the government’s account of Mr. Najib’s conversation with Mr. Obama was accurate. Mr. Najib previously has denied the opposition’s allegations of electoral fraud, as has Malaysia’s Election Commission. Some political analysts have also noted that decades of gerrymandering have given a strong voice to rural electoral districts that tend to favor government parties.
But the closeness of the election race and the vote-fraud allegations are raising temperatures across this influential, predominantly Muslim country of 28 million people. Tens of thousands of people packed into a sports stadium last Wednesday to hear Mr. Anwar detail his fraud allegations, many wearing black T-shirts bearing the date of the May 5 elections. Subsequent rallies have been held in other areas, including Penang and Perak states.
In an interview last week, Mr. Anwar said the opposition is gathering what he described as further evidence of election fraud that he intends to submit to the country’s Election Commission and local courts to try to force a re-run of the election in dozens of electoral district

Wake-up call in Malaysia

BN under pressure to dismantle race-based policies as opposition draws more support from all sides, lifting popular vote above 50%. 

Newspaper section: Asia focus

History was supposed to have been made on May 5, the day Malaysians came out in record numbers to vote for a new government.

Some pundits predicted the country’s 13th general election — GE13 in the local shorthand — would be a defining moment that ended the grip on power by the Barisan Nasional (BN). Many were preparing for opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim to be ushered in as prime minister the next day.

The huge interest in the contest for 222 Parliamentary seats and 505 state seats was reflected in the record turnout — 84.84% or 11.25 million of the 13.2 million registered voters. Of the total, 2.3 million were new voters.

Since independence from Britain in 1957, Malaysians have known no other government than BN, a coalition of the United Malays National Organisation (Umno), MCA and Gerakan representing the Chinese, and MIC representing Indians.

The opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) comprises the new and predominantly Chinese Democratic Action Party (DAP), PAS (Parti Islam Se-Malaysia) and PKR (Parti Keadilan Rakyat) led by Anwar.

Anwar was quick to declare victory via Twitter early on election night, five hours before the official announcement at midnight by the Election Commission. The results showed the BN returning to power, but not without bleeding more seats at both the federal and state levels compared to 2008. As well, its share of the popular vote fell to 48.7% against 51.3% for the PR.

But in Malaysia, where the government for years has been accused of skewing electoral boundaries to favour candidates in its rural heartland, losing the popular vote is no bar to winning the House.

BN won 133 federal seats, just one less than in 2008, and 274 out of the 505 state seats. PR won 89 parliamentary seats, six more than in 2008. The opposition retained control of Malaysia’s two wealthiest states — Penang and Selangor. PAS held on in Kelantan but lost Kedah to BN. Anwar’s party also caused hairline cracks in BN’s once “fixed deposit” states — Johor and Sabah.

The opposition continues to insist that it was robbed of victory, that the polls were rigged and the process marred by fraud. The poll watchdog Bersih has also refused to recognise the BN government until it verifies reports of electoral fraud.

Reports from southern Thailand, to cite just one example, said that BN was paying 400 to 500 ringgit in “travel expenses” to each voter holding Malaysian nationality to travel south to cast ballots. International observers, however, said the polling process on the whole was fair and transparent.

A group of young voters in Sabah participated in a silent walk on Tuesday to express their disappointment over the results, which they felt did not reflect the nation’s desire for a change in government.

Addressing some 60,000 supporters at a rally last Wednesday night, Anwar vowed that PR would challenge the results in at least 30 seats.

Prime Minister Najib Razak, who was sworn in on Monday, conceded that his party had some work to do to regain voters’ trust.

The clear winner among the political parties that contested the election was the DAP, which engineered what Najib ruefully called “the Chinese tsunami” of votes that abandoned the BN. That left the BN’s Chinese-based parties including MCA and Gerakan as the biggest losers.

Chinese voters increasingly are expressing their disapproval of decades of race-based development policies that favour ethnic Malays. They claim the policies have not promoted equality but have simply entrenched corruption.

However, BN’s weaker showing points to a strong wave of rejection from all Malaysians and not just from the minority Chinese. A major swing in the urban and middle-class electorate shows that Malaysia’s urban-rural rift is widening.

Experts analysing the results say there has been a political awakening in the country, which in the longer term will be beneficial. The evolution will continue, with the restlessness of the younger generation wanting to have a say in their future ensuring that the politics of race will sooner rather than later be put out to pasture.

Rather than blaming the Chinese for voting for the opposition, the BN should admit that it has failed to heed the new political reality. MCA and MIC had failed to serve the community they were created to serve and they no longer appeal to the younger voters.

Though Najib has made a lot of changes since he came to power four years ago, he has to do more. His government must continue to dismantle bumiputera policies and also introduce the Goods and Services Tax (GST) to make Malaysia more competitive and lift it out of a middle-income trap.

As well, a total review of the education system can no longer be avoided, a social security system needs to be in place, and exorbitant higher education fees addressed. The rising crime rate is also a serious matter.

Now it is time for reconciliation, as unity is the key in diverse Malaysia. However, equality for all, regardless of gender, race or religion is a critical factor. For unity to work, Malaysians should not longer be judged based on their race.

The government has five years to undo past mistakes and bring change or else the next battle — GE14 — will be won by the party that can present a better united front.

13th General Elections of Malaysia – A Fraud Analysis

By ge13fraudanalyst 

This article can be downloaded as a PDF.
Download the PDF here.
Please note that this analysis is done for academic interest only.
Please do not parade the results for your propagandas

The media landscape of 2013 is a very new one. The 13th General Elections of Malaysia had taken on its own life on social media websites like Facebook and Twitter, what with hashtags like #ubah and catchphrases like ‘ini kalilah”. This author had watched the Malaysian General Election with a certain perverse obsession, despite having nothing to do with it.
There were rhetorics abound, made by supporters of both parties. Ridiculous claims and promises – objectively unsustainable ones – were made by the ruling party. Slogans were shouted on traditional media and on social media. There were ceramahs and there were concerts. Then came Election Day. By Election Day, the situation had turned out to be what I consider fairly ugly. Look out for fraud, people were told. Look out for phantom voters, such as Bangladeshis, derogatively called ‘Banglas’, who were hired by the ruling party, Barisan National to play phantom voters. Many allegations and rumours of citizen arrests circulated around Facebook and Twitter.
As with any election, comes the counting. During the counting period, there were again, many anecdotal stories about blackouts followed by sudden increase in ballot boxes; stories about vote swapping; and stories about new ballot boxes being ferried in. Naturally, people cried foul over such activities, once again claiming fraud. This situation was exacerbated by the announcement that Barisan National had won the elections and would remain government.
People were not happy, and for a period of two to three days, social media was flooded with “evidence” to fraud. In this author’s opinions, they were hardly evidence of fraud, merely anecdotal evidence. To quote Michael Shermer, Editor in Chief of Skeptic Magazine: “Anecdotal thinking is natural. Science requires training.”
And so, this author decided to perform some analysis to determine if fraud had happened.

Affiliation Disclaimer

This author has no affiliations with any political party in Malaysia. The analysis was done mainly out of academic curiosity. However, considering rather racist and segregationalist claims made by the leaders of Barisan National, the results of the analysis has presented an ethical dilemma to the author.
The ethical dilemma is this: Should this analysis ever be discovered by a political party, it would most definitely be paraded around. By the ruling party, this analysis will most definitely be misconstrued as the General Elections were conducted fairly; by the opposition party, this analysis will most definitely be misconstrued as propaganda from the ruling party.
And yet, this author owes it to the enlightened peoples of Malaysia, to present a analysis that is not fraught with emotions, nor side: A factual analysis, so to speak.
As such, the data and source code used in this analysis will be open source and available to all.

The 13th General Elections of Malaysia: A statistical analysis

In this study, we shall analyse the results of the 13th General Elections of Malaysia through the lens of a statistician. We will do so with a rough framework of answering the various questions of fraud that had been floating around social media websites. With the big question in mind: DID FRAUD OCCUR?, and we will begin by investigating the allegations of how such frauds might occur. We will finally return to the question at the end of the analysis.
We will acquire data from official figures released by the SPR (both from The Star and the compilation by James Chong.
Both data from The Star and James Chong have been matched up and no discrepancies were found.

A General Overview

We begin with a general overview of the question: Did fraud occur? with a cursory glance at the numbers of the elections. A very popular technique to discover evidence of fraud is to apply a Benford’s Law analysis on the numbers of the elections.
Benford’s Law refers to a specific form of frequency distribution of digits in many real-life data. Many people have defined this as data from naturally-occuring processes. The idea is that the first (and/or) second digit of numbers generated from naturally-occuring processes would fall into this sort of distribution: ’1′ in the first digit would appear more often than ’2′; ’2′ will appear more often than ’3′; ’3′ will appear more often than ’4′ and so on and so forth. Specifically, ’1′ would appear in the first digit about 30% of the time, and ’9′ will appear in the first digit about 5% of the time. Mathematicians are still trying to figure out why this happens.
We would expect that if a process generates the numbers naturally (i.e. the numbers have not been tampered with), the numbers will follow the distribution of Benford’s Law. However, if the numbers have been tampered with, one would expect aberrations in the distribution, with spikes in other numbers.
An election is a naturally-occuring process that generates numbers in terms of votes, and turnouts. We would expect, if the election numbers have not been tampered with – such as with ballot stuffing – would follow a distribution that is quite similar to Benford’s Law. It should be noted that some deviation is to be expected.
Without much further ado, we shall analyse the distribution of the numbers generated by the 13th General Elections of Malaysia. The Benford’s Law distribution is plotted for both vote counts for each party (BN vs PR) and for turnout vs registered voters.

Benford Law Distribution vs Votes for BN and PR

This chart shows the distribution of first digits of votes for each party, as compared to the Benford’s Law distribution (pink line). Note that both PR and BN lines do follow the Benford’s Law distribution quite closely (it does in fact fit quite well)

Benford’s Law Distribution vs Registered Voters and Voter Turnout

This chart shows the distribution of first digits of the turnout and the number of registered voters, as compared to the Benford’s Law distribution. Do note that the registered voters count is slightly off the Benford Law distribution, for the number 2.
What does this imply? It does imply that the election is fairly natural and the election numbers were generally not tampered with. The distribution of ’2′ in the registered voters could be concerning, but it’s not much to stand on.

Alleged Discrepancies

The use of Benford’s Law in election data has been widely disputed. Deckert et. al. (2011) asserts that it is like flipping a coin to determine if fraud had occurred, and ‘…at best a forensic tool’ – which is what precisely we treated the results as. With a skeptical mind, we pursued further.
Perhaps one of the more easily verified allegations floating around social media is that the numbers do not add up (such as in this picture). To achieve this, we combed through the data for discrepancies.
We approached the discrepancy problem with a rather novel method due to the data. We had noticed that the turnout numbers for both data from The Star and James Chong were actually sums of the actual votes for each party and the number of rejected votes. They were not actually reported number of total votes. As such a simple analysis for discrepancy (i.e. taking the sum of actual votes for each party and the number of rejected votes, and then comparing it to the reported total votes) would be a useless affair. Instead, a different method had to be used:
The election was split into two parts, and most people in most states had two ballots: one for state level (N) and one for parliament level (P). If there were to be any discrepancies, it would most likely show up in the differences between the State level and the Parliament level, due to logistics involved in ballot stuffing.
We computed a table of the total number of votes for the N level and the P level elections, and computed their discrepancies. We define an acceptable error margin of 1% to account for human and systemic error (because humans do make mistake, both in counting and entering data into a spreadsheet).
Below is the resulting table:

State-Parliament Discrepancies

As can be noted – the discrepancies are very minute – and most definitely within acceptable error margin. Were we to reduce the acceptable error margin to 0.5%, all of the data would still be within acceptable range.
Observant readers will notice that Sarawak as well as the Federal Territories is missing from this list. This is because of the way the discrepancies were counted: they require both N and P level vote counts. Due to the unique history of Sarawak, the state elections will be held much later, and the Federal Territories are not states, therefore do not contribute to the N level votes. They were therefore omitted from analysis.
One might also notice that this does not actually answer the question of discrepancies as listed in the allegation above. The reason is simple: a per-electorate turnout ratio was computed for further analysis below, and no electorates were found to have turnout rates higher than 91%. This completely dispels the allegations of higher-than-100% turnout/voting rates

Systemic Election Irregularities

Astute readers would have noticed that the phrase “ballot stuffing” has been thrown about a few times thus far. Indeed, the whole exercise of this analysis is to figure out if fraud had happened by ballot stuffing. The state-of-the-art method of detecting election fraud was created by Klimek et. al (2012). In their paper, Klimek et. al. had defined two form of voting fraud: a) Incremental fraud; b) extreme fraud. We have taken their approach, and adapted it to the Malaysian general elections.

Incremental Fraud

Incremental fraud is defined as fraud that causes increases the vote count for the winning party. Ballot stuffing is a common method, and was described by Klimek et. al. in their paper. In the Malaysian context, we take the allegations of fraud and consider them one by one.

• Phantom voters – phantom voters are voters that do not exist on the electoral roll, and yet have their votes counted in. This is the traditional ballot stuffing. Here are a few ways to perform a phantom voters fraud: i) a bunch of new ballots from unknown origin for the defrauding party are added to the ballot box before or during counting (such as after a blackout); ii) after counting, increment the result count for the defrauding party, per channel (saluran)
• Dirty electoral roll – a dirty, or tainted electoral roll simply has the people who are not supposed to be on the electoral roll be on the electoral roll and voting. Here are a few ways to perform this fraud: i) pre-register a bunch of foreign workers as citizens eligible to vote – perhaps with financial incentives – and have them vote for the defrauding party; ii) have one person be registered to vote and vote at multiple electorates; iii) have one person vote multiple times per electorate (holding fake ICs and removing the indelible ink, for example)
• Default votes – default votes are votes that default to the defrauding party. An example of this kind of fraud is as such: change all incoming postal/military/police votes to default to the defrauding party.

All these fall under the purview of Incremental Fraud. In every way, it is essentially robbing the non-defrauding parties of votes.
According to Klimek et. al., incremental fraud can be modeled as such: ‘[W]ith probability fi, ballots are taken away from both the nonvoters and the opposition, and they are added to the [defrauding] party’s ballots.’
To detect incremental fraud then, is simple. If any one of the methods were used, we would expect the number of total votes to increase, in relation to the actual number of people. If the electoral roll is dirty, we would also expect the number of registered voters to increase.
Therefore, if incremental fraud had happened, we should expect to see a correlation between the percentage of people who voted for the defrauding party, and the percentage of people who turned up – in essence, because these extra people who turn up, we expect them to vote for the winning party.

Extreme Fraud

In the Klimek et. al. paper, extreme fraud was characterized as “…[W]ith probability fe, almost all ballots from the nonvoters and the opposition are added to the winning party’s ballots.”. Here, we differ from the Klimek paper. Instead of defining extreme fraud as one where nearly all of the opposition’s votes are swapped into votes for the defrauding party, we define extreme fraud as swapping results of counts, as per this allegation.
Although it is more than likely that the allegation were the results of clerical error, it would be nonetheless interesting to simulate what would happen.
Extreme fraud in our case is modeled as such: with probability fe, if the count of votes for the opposition part(ies) is higher than the count of the defrauding party, switch the counts so that the defrauding party has the count of the opposition party.
Both Klimek et. al.’s modeling of extreme fraud as well as this author’s own modeling of extreme fraud were performed. However, in interest of brevity of this article, only our modeling will be shown. The Klimek modeling of the election data will be provided in a link next to the caption of the images. Interpretation will be left as an exercise to the reader.

The Analysis

Now that Incremental Fraud and Extreme Fraud , as well as examples of those fraudulent activities are defined, we proceed to detect irregularities. Because we are only concerned with Barisan National defrauding the election process to win the government, we will restrict our analysis to the P-level elections.
First, we look at the logarithmic vote rate for Barisan National at the P level. As in the Klimek paper, we assume that the vote rate can be represented by a Gaussian distribution, with mean and SD taken from actual samples.

Logarithmic Vote Rate for BN

The logarithmic vote rate. From this figure, it can be observed that the vote rate is roughly Gaussian in nature, albeit not centered at 0, and is probably bimodal
The skewness for Barisan National at P level elections is 0.697269; while the kurtosis is 4.237479. One data point (PASIR MAS) was removed because BN had not competed in that electorate.
These numbers are relatively in line with the data from countries with ‘cleaner’ elections such as Austria, Canada or Finland. In fact, the distribution of logarithmic vote rates is remarkably similar to Sweden’s 2010 elections (also included in the Klimek et. al. paper).
Next we compare the distribution of the correlation between the Winning Ratio and Turnout Ratio. To do this, we follow in the footsteps of Klimek et. al – see the paper for model information.
Let fi be the probability that incremental fraud had happened; and let fe be the probability that extreme fraud had happened. We start by simulating the General Elections with a variety of fi and fe values. We then compare the distribution of the simulated resultant matrix of Winning Ratio vs Turnout Ratio to the matrix of the actual results.
An fi and fe of 0 means that the election is fair, and an fi and fe of 1 each means that the election is extremely corrupted. The figure below shows the distribution of votes for Barisan National, compared with simulated values of different fi and fe:

Comparisons of actual election data with different values of fi and fe.

This figure shows The Winning Ratio vs Turnout Ratio of various levels of fi and fe. This is the result of our own model. Results following the original Klimek et. al. model can be found here.
Here, we temporarily return to the Benford Law distribution. While the Benford Law distribution has been established as not a very good measure for detecting election frauds, it would still undoubtedly be interesting to note the distribution of the first digits of fraudulent and non-fraudulent voting behaviours.

Benford Law Distribution vs simulations with various fraud parameters

Benford’s Law on simulated election data. Note that even with fraud parameters of (0, 0), the simulations do not really follow Benford’s Law. It is however, less irregular than the simulation with high fraud parameters. Whilst this author has some ideas as to why this is the case, it will be left as an exercise to the reader.
Do note that in Figure 4, that the actual data looks more like simulations with low fraud parameters than simulations with high fi and fe. This is true for both our model and the original Klimek et. al. method of modeling. The main idea is to find the fi and fe values that fits best with the original data. This process is repeated for 1000 times to then find the range of fi and fe that best fit the election data. The original Klimek modeling process was repeated for 500 times due to time constraints
After searching for the best fit for 1000 times, we find the sector of (fi, fe) that appears the most often. We can then say that it is most likely those were the ranges of (fi, fe) of which the Malaysian General Elections happened in.
The best fit after 1000 iterations was: (fi, fe) = (0.03471, 0.01275). Here is the comparison between the simulated best fit and the actual data:

Best Fit vs Actual Data

This figure shows comparison between simulated and actual results. Results following the Klimek et. al. model can be found here.
This means that the best simulation could provide shows that with a probability 0.03471, Barisan National engaged in incremental fraud; and with a probability of 0.01275, Barisan National engaged in extreme fraud. A further analysis can be done, as the figures below show, on the distribution of the votes for Barisan National. We expect that if the simulation results make sense, the distribution of simulated votes would closely match the distribution of actual votes for the winning party.

Distributions of votes for BN: Best fit vs actual

The ascertained figure of (fi, fe) = (0.03471, 0.01275) is the mean of all (fi, fe) of best fit of the 1000 simulations. Simply put, for each round of simulation, we acquire the (fi, fe) of the best fit. Then we repeat the simulation 1000 times, which results in 1000 pairs of (fi , fe). We then take the mean of fi and fe, which is 0.03471 and 0.01275 respectively. However there remains some amount of variances to the range (fi, fe) can take. The figure below shows the ranges of fi and fe that fits best with the actual election results after 1000 simulations:

Distribution of Best-Fits by S. Since the lower S, the better the fit is, we simply inverted it in order to plot this chart

S is the sum of squares fit. The smaller S is, the better. To plot this chart, we used a simple inverse to find the sectors with the highest amounts of best-fits.
Finally, as mentioned by Klimek et. al., a chart showing the cumulative number of votes as a function of turnout is a good way to spot fraud as well. According to the authors, it is plotted as such “…[f]or each turnout level, the total number of votes from [electorates] with this level or lower is shown.”. Russia and Uganda did not show plateaus in such charts, which are indicative of fraudulent behaviour.
Here, we show a similarly plotted cumulative vote as a function of turnout for the Malaysian General Elections. Do note the plateau at a little bit past 90% turnout rate.

Cumulative votes as a function of voter turnout

Voter Growth

Another allegation that was made was the sudden increase of voter counts in various electorates. While such a factor would already be considered in the previous analysis, this author has decided to single out this issue and perform additional analysis on it. If fraud were to happen by means of voter growth, we would expect to see correlations between growth and votes for the winning party.
The figure below shows correlation between the proportion of population who voted for Barisan National and voter count growth per electorate. Both axes are in percentages.

Correlation between Winning Ratio and Growth of Electorate

A few negative-growth electorates were removed from the analysis, as is one electorate that had a growth rate above 100% (PUTRAJAYA).
A few data points were interesting: Barisan National lost in about half of the highest growing electorates – this gives credence to the theory that the opposition party, PR has managed to mobilize voters to their advantage in those electorates; the largest growth (outside PUTRAJAYA) was SUBANG. The Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s own electorate of Pekan, being hotly debated as a prime location for fraud had the 11th largest growth.
All in all, however, the data did not have any indication of suspicious activity.

Marginal Analysis

One final analysis that can be done is the same as above, except only performed with seats that were won by BN with a small margin (say, under 2%).
A cursory analysis indicated nothing suspicious. However it must be admitted that the analysis was incomplete for the lack of time.

Making Sense of All of This

What does this all mean? This author has failed to find evidence of fraud. From the numbers and statistics alone, it is indicative that the elections are quite clean and fair. It is likely some very tiny amounts of fraud did occur. It is however, in this author’s belief, not significant enough to change the results of the election.
To manipulate the number of votes in favour of Barisan National and yet not show up on a statistical analysis such as this would require tremendous amounts of knowledge.
For example, in order to perform any of the incremental fraud activities, the would-be defrauders would have to have perfect information about the position at every polling station in the country when the extra votes are brought in. Any slight change to tip the favour of Barisan National would skew a) the Benford Law distribution (as shown above); b) the distribution of Turnout Ratio and Winning Ratios.
If the would-be defrauders were to rig the count in one polling station, they would skew the distributions of the votes, leading to detection. To avoid detection, they would have to adjust the count at every polling station.
A better way to do it would be to rig the numbers on Borang 14 (again, with perfect information of what the other polling stations have reported).
Another method that was brought up was to have prepared the ballots in advance. Let us examine the two ways this can be done:

1. Prepare additional ballot boxes with results in advance. Switch the ballot boxes before counting begins.
2. Prepare two sets of ballots – one for BN and one for PR. Top up to the desired numbers.

The first method would be a logistics nightmare. The required amount of pre-prepared ballot boxes with the results would be a very large number. In order to rig the vote counts in one station, the other stations and other electorates would have to have their vote counts rigged as well, lest it be discovered by statistical techniques such as the ones above.
The second method would appear more plausible, but would require again, a network of constant communications across the country’s counting stations. The counting process is being watched by observers, so this is as well, unlikely.
There is one final method of fraud that will elude detection. The implications that come with it is also very massive. The method simply requires a group of highly sociopathic individuals who are very good at mathematics. Their job is to generate the fake votes in a convincing manner as to elude statistical detection. With an extension of method #1 above, it can be performed.
The implication, as previously mentioned, is massive. If that is happening, it means that one’s votes no longer matters. However, there is consolation that such an idea is so ludicrous that it never has a snowball’s chance in hell of happening.

Further Analysis

No statistical analysis is without weaknesses. Here, we list some of those weaknesses down. We leave them as suggestions for future work as an exercise to the reader.

• The resolution of the data is extremely poor. Higher levels of aggregation tend to mask irregularities at the lower level. In the Klimek paper, the resolution of data goes to polling station level. This cannot be done for Malaysia. However, Borang 14 data, should they be uploaded on to the internet, could act as a lower level of aggregation.
• The analysis concerns itself with only P-level elections due to time constraints. Further analysis could be done, on the N level as well as a combined analysis.
• As stated above, marginal analysis could potentially be revealing, however not much was done. Future analysis should also be aware of the small sample sizes involved and take that into account.
• Proper variance analysis was also not done. One would expect a binomial variance, and if the variability of votes for Barisan National were to be significanly less than binomial variability, it would be suggestive of fraud. However, cursory analysis from above indicates that variance is indeed binomial.
• Scacco and Baber (2008) and (2012)‘s hypothesis that human generated numbers tend to end in 7s and 5s could also be used to test the distribution of vote counts.

Conclusion

From the data, the 13th General Elections of Malaysia can be concluded to be quite fair. This author has failed to detect any irregularities through means of statistics. However, this does not mean to say that fraud did not happen, given leaked evidence of such fraud in form of communiques between high-up officials. If this election is fraught with fraud, it is not through means of incremental voting (ballot stuffing, “bangla” voters, extra ballot boxes and the like), or extreme fraud (swapping of results).
There were allegations of voter intimidation and blackmail (with what is known as the 13th May event). This author is unable to account for such activities within this analysis as the data arising from such events will probably fall in line with our model. This is to be left to any Royal Commission of sorts to figure out.
Here this author would also like to comment upon malapportionment and gerrymandering. Malapportionment and gerrymandering are very much tied to the bedrocks of modern representational democracy, and can often be considered as rules of the game. To fix this would require some massive upheaval of the democracies we’re used to. Whilst this author has some ideas as to what could be done with regards to malapportionment and gerrymandering (an idea is to rid of apportionment all together and return to Greek-style democracy, but that’s just crazy), it is very much outside the scope of this analysis and hence only a passing remark.
PR had won the popularity vote in this General Election. Were this author to give political advice, it would be to stop chasing on electoral fraud, and start campaigning on actual issues that matter to seats that do not represent many people. Win by the fringes, just like what Barisan National did.

Suara Rakyat Suara Keramat: Anwar Ibrahim's speech

Election 2013 results expose Dr M’s decline as a force

Dr Mahathir’s strong support base among the traditional, older Malay voters would likely be insufficient to win the votes for Barisan Nasional again. - File pix

KUALA LUMPUR, May 9 — Election 2013 has laid bare the declining influence of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad as a political force, an analysis of where and how he campaigned has shown.

The former prime minister campaigned incessantly but Barisan Nasional (BN) candidates whom he backed or shared his ideals - such as the controversial Zulkifli Noordin and Ibrahim Ali - all lost.

In Kedah - where his son Mukhriz is now Mentri Besar on the back of a BN victory - local politicians and observers have pointed out that voters gave PAS the boot because of poor governance by the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) party.

Brand Mahathir did not win Kedah for BN, but it was rather a case of PAS losing the state, one senior Umno politician in Kedah told The Malaysian Insider.

Dr Mahathir’s attempt at painting the battle for Gelang Patah in Johor as a Malay versus Chinese battle also failed miserably.

Many analysts and BN politicians have said that his incessant playing of the race card for the Election 2013 campaign saw support for him deplete.

“He still has his niche group of supporters in the Malays, they wouldn’t simply demonise leaders whom they feel have been there for them long enough.
Abdul Rahman said Mahathir is not the PM of the day.
“But yes... at times, it may be true that his time is over. What he says, how he says it, may not have traction among the younger generation, in the urban areas. But let us not forget - he is not the PM of the day,” Sabah Umno secretary Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan told The Malaysian Insider.

But other leaders were not so kind, believing the 87-year-old Dr Mahathir should finally enjoy his retirement and stay out of current day politics where they say he is fast growing irrelevant.

They said that in the age of social media politics, Dr Mahathir’s influence is waning quickly as Malaysians prefer the more liberal, moderate and inclusive brand of politics brought by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

Dr Mahathir’s strong support base among the traditional, older Malay voters would likely be insufficient to win the votes for Barisan Nasional (BN) again.

They said that it would be the fast-growing urban, middle-class and young voters who will soon form a larger part of the electorate.

And going by the vote trend of Election 2013, it is this key demographic that BN must win over if it wants to return with an even stronger mandate in the next general election.

“I hope by looking at the analysis of the elections, he will realise that his time is over,” said Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS) chief executive Wan Saiful Wan Jan.

“He should leave the administration of this country to the new generation of politicians led by Najib.

“He has had his time and he has done tremendous things but his day in politics is over. Before he destroys his legacy, perhaps it is time to leave gracefully,” he added.

Election 2013 saw Dr Mahathir backing right-wing Muslim hardliners like Perkasa president Datuk Ibrahim Ali and vice-president Datuk Zulkifli Noordin but neither one emerged victor in their contest.

Speaking to The Malaysian Insider recently, Shah Alam Umno division chief Datuk Ahmad Nawawi M. Zin admitted that if Dr Mahathir had not campaigned in Shah Alam, BN may have earned more votes.
Rafidah agreed that the use of racism to win support should be rejected.
“On the whole, in the cities, I feel Dr Mahathir’s influence is no longer relevant as the issues he brings and his opinions do not really suit with the current generation, especially with his backing of Perkasa.

“Perhaps BN has to review this,” he said.

While his foes in Pakatan Rakyat (PR) made sure their leaders worked hard to eschew racism while on the hustings, it was race that dominated nearly all of Dr Mahathir’s speeches over the stretch of the 15-day campaign period.

He repeatedly singled out his long-time parliamentary foe Lim Kit Siang for leaving his seat in Ipoh Timor to contest the Chinese-majority Gelang Patah seat in Johor, calling the DAP veteran an “extremist racist” for allegedly attempting to sway the Chinese to hate the Malays.

“I will say it out as vocal as possible. Lim Kit Siang is a racist. Lim Kit Siang is a racist. Lim Kit Siang is an extremist racist,” he had said during a ceramah in Shah Alam three days before polling day.

Speaking to The Malaysian Insider recently, Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz, a veteran Umno leader who served under Dr Mahathir’s administration agreed that the use of racism to win support should be rejected.

Without singling out her ex-boss, the outspoken former Wanita Umno chief told The Malaysian Insider that racial diversity should be wielded as a strength and not a weapon to divide and rule.

“Gone are the days when we can become champions of a certain race. I never subscribe to it. We are Malaysians first and foremost.

“I am a Malaysian who happens to be Malay... but it is our Malaysian-ness that we carry proudly when we are out there,” she said.

Merdeka Center for Opinion Research director Ibrahim Suffian, however, noted that while Dr Mahathir’s methods had been rejected by the urban and middle-class electorate, the leader still commands a huge following among Umno’s traditional support base in rural, Malay Malaysia.
Wan Saiful insisted that Dr Mahathir should bow out from the political scene and make a graceful exit.
But he agreed the influence was not as far-reaching as Umno and Dr Mahathir himself may have estimated, noting that many Malay voters in these exteriors had also swung to the opposition.

“Voters are more discerning. They reject this brand of ethnic chauvinism,” he observed.

But Ibrahim said Dr Mahathir still has much influence within Umno, the BN lynchpin, a point that fellow political analyst Wan Saiful agreed with.

“I agree... but he is influential among only Umno members and when it comes to an election, what you need to do is not just to pursuade your own side,” he pointed out.

Wan Saiful insisted that Dr Mahathir should bow out from the political scene and make a graceful exit, saying this was necessary for the former prime minister to ensure his legacy as Malaysia’s ‘father of modernisation” is not marred by mistakes he may make today.

“Najib is the PM of today and Dr Mahathir is of yesterday. Najib has sensed the need to move into a different direction and this is what he is doing,” he said.

Agreeing, Ibrahim reminded of the vast changes in the flow of information in today’s political landscape, saying this had largely affected the results of Election 2013 and Dr Mahathir’s influence.

“There is that challenge because Dr Mahathir is used to running a country when there was no social media and the population was more easily controlled and was smaller.

“Today, you have a much younger generation who live in times when information is free-flowing. The environment has changed and with it, many of our leaders must change too,” he said.