Such disparities between the tangible evidence of popular sentiment and the apparently inevitable final result have forced many to question the integrity of Malaysia’s electoral system—not just now but after previous elections as well. Indeed, a whole new organisation called Bersih (meaning “clean” in Malaysian) was set up in 2006 to campaign for “clean and fair elections”. It has held three large rallies over the years in the capital Kuala Lumpur to press the government, and in particular the government-appointed Election Commission (EC), to change their ways, but with few results.
After the many allegations of fraud by the BN and its allies during the election last May Bersih therefore decided to change tactics. Instead of another rally they set up a self-styled “People’s Tribunal on the 13th General Elections” to hear evidence in public from anyone who had a story to tell about vote-rigging, vote-buying, intimidation, phantom-voters and the rest of it. After a week hearing testimony in a space laid out like a courtroom in a Kuala Lumpur hotel, the People’s Tribunal wrapped up the first stage of its work on September 27th by listening to the evidence of the head of Bersih herself, the redoubtable lawyer Ambiga Sreenevasan. Now the People’s Tribunal has three months to go away and ponder what it has heard, after which it is supposed to present a final report on the election together with some recommendations on how the electoral system might be improved, or at least cleaned up.
As Bersih is merely an NGO, albeit now probably Malaysia’s most famous one, this People’s Tribunal has no force in law and no official status. Indeed, the authorities, that is the police and the EC, have kept well away from it—as has the BN, which gave no evidence. Indeed, many in UMNO and the BN view Bersih not as an independent organisation working for democracy but as enemies working hand-in-glove with the opposition led by Anwar Ibrahim. This complete lack of official co-operation will diminish the authority of the People’s Tribunal of course, but it is precisely because the powers-that-be have shown no interest in any thoroughgoing investigation of the election and all its alleged abuses that Bersih felt compelled to set this tribunal up in the first place.
Instead the tribunal will have to rely on its moral authority, and the professionalism of its proceedings and final report. The five-member panel is headed by a very experienced Kenyan constitutional lawyer, Yash Pal Ghai, who has done much work for the United Nations. There is also an Indonesian professor of political science as well as three Malaysians, two of whom are also political scientists. The tribunal is also supported by 40 volunteer lawyers.
Sifting through the evidence so far presented it’s unlikely that the tribunal has turned up any silver bullets—specific and well documented cases of rigging that can be traced back directly to UMNO headquarters. There was a lot made on the day, for example, about “phantom” Bangladeshi voters being bussed or jetted in by UMNO to swing the vote their way in certain closely-fought constituencies, but little hard evidence of this is likely to emerge.
What will be more interesting, though, is what the experts on the panel make of the massive gerrymandering, whereby constituency boundaries are drawn so as to favour the BN’s mainly rural, Malay vote as against the urban, often Chinese or Indian vote of the opposition. It’s through this sort of rigging that the BN is able to still pile up respectable majorities in parliament on a decreasing share of the popular vote. This involves no shenanigans on the day of the election itself, but still militates enormously against what most people would characterise as a “free and fair” election.
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