12th GENERAL ELECTION


It was announced over the news today that the 12th General Election will be held on 8th March 2008. Though an extremely important event, it does not bring forth a gush of anticipation and excitement from the people.

Malaysian elections are by and large rather tame, one-sided affairs with so many restrictions on campaigning imposed by the government of the day. BN is always expected to win. The only unknown factor is the margin of the win. Even then 2/3 majority is more or less a foregone conclusion.

Despite being a non-event, come polling day, whether rain or shine, I will dutifully queue up to cast my ballot. I have done the same without fail for the past 5-6 general elections after registering as a voter in Subang Jaya some 27 years ago.

That was probably a mistake I did not anticipate when I registered. Subang Jaya is, has been and always will be a BN stronghold. The opposition is not likely to win in Subang Jaya for the next 30 years. The votes that I had cast for Semangat 46, PAS, DAP, PRM, PKR, Independents, etc over the years did not amount to much. Nevertheless, it is not totally an exercise in futility as my ballot is still a dissenting vote against BN and a statistic in the popular vote.

Maybe I should consider changing my registered address to a marginal constituency to make my vote really counts.

14 February 2008

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