By : KIM
QUEK
ON THE DAY of an anticipated
major announcement by Najib Razak on the terms of reference for the proposed
royal commission of inquiry on illegal immigrants in Sabah, it is pertinent to
take stock of the gravity of this looming menace in the state.
In the past four decades,
the population of Sabah has increased by almost five folds (from 650,000 in
1970 to 3.12 million in 2010), much of it consists of illegal immigrants or
their descendants.
Such population implosion
has not only created unbearable strain on Sabah's social and economic fabric,
but it has also stripped the original Sahahans of their sovereignty, in that a
large chunk of its present electorate are made up of these illegal immigrants
who have been illicitly granted voting rights through a massive clandestine
operation known as ‘Project M' (M stands for Mahathir).
This group of illegal
voters, known as phantom voters, has now become the kingmaker, who can tilt the
balance of power not only in Sabah in the coming GE 13 elections, but also in
Putrajaya. This is because a major win by BN in the state, as it has done in
the past (thanks to the phantom voters, of course), will help UMNO to ward off
Pakatan Rakyat's challenge through a simple parliamentary majority.
While many have heard of the
phenomenon of the Sabah phantom voters, perhaps not so many are familiar with
the hows and whys of it. For this reason, we should perhaps seek enlightenment
from justice Muhammad Kamil Awang's judgment annulling the Likas election in
Sabah in June 2001.
Court
judgment
In a rare display of
judicial independence under former PM Dr Mahathir Mohamad's rule, Muhammad in
his judgment chronicled details of a massive illicit campaign initiated by
Mahathir to convert illegal immigrants into voters through the unlawful issue
of blue ICs and the unlawful registration of these IC holders into the
electoral rolls.
These details of illegal
activities presented in court included many instances of witnesses'
testimonies, affidavits and incriminating government and political party
correspondence and circulars.
These evidence point
conclusively to the involvement of the National Registration Department (NRD),
Election Commission (EC), police and UMNO high ranking officials in a joint
conspiracy to massively convert illegal Filipino and Indon migrants into
citizens and voters. In fact, this voter scam was so serious that it was
described by Muhammad as only the "tip of a growing iceberg".
sabah rough estimates of
foreign born voters 200606Muhammad's judgment, which has not been disputed to
date, also gave details of how repeated official complaints from the opposition
parties on such fraudulent practices had been consistently stonewalled
(concealed) by the authorities all the way up to the highest levels of
government, including a rejection for debate in Parliament.
In fact, there were
indisputable evidence that even the highest authorities in NRD and EC had been
incriminated in this phantom voters scam.
What motivated these highest
civil servants to commit such treasonous acts against the Sabah state in
unlawfully admitting these hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants as
citizens and voters?
Personal gains can be ruled
out, as these are more than offset by the heavy punishment that can be meted
out for such high crimes of treason against the country.
UMNO
political strategy
The only plausible
explanation is that this is the political strategy of the UMNO leadership to
regain political power in Sabah from the Kadazan (mainly Christian) dominated
PBS. The latter has won every Sabah election since 1986 save the last one in
1999.
It does not take a genius to
find out why. Until the last election in 1999, the Sabah electorate had been
such that non-Muslim Kadazans and Chinese overwhelmingly outnumbered the Malays
(all Muslims) and other Muslims.
With Umno's heavy emphasis
on racial and religious privileges, which alienated the non-Malays and non-Muslims,
there was virtually no chance that the UMNO dominated BN could unseat the PBS
government unless there was a drastic restructuring of the ratio of Muslim
dominated electorates to non-Muslim dominated electorates and re-drawing of the
electoral boundaries (gerrymandering).
And this is exactly what
happened. Through the massive infusion of illegal Philippine and Indonesian
immigrants (who are all Muslims) into the electoral roll, as well as
gerrymandering, Muslim majority constituencies in Sabah in the 1999 electoral
roll had suddenly and inexplicably increased from 30 percent to 50 percent of
the total constituencies of 48 within a short period of five years.
Given this numerical boost,
BN swept the 1999 Sabah election, after employing every dirty election trick
available under the sun, including the usual blatant abuses of government
agencies and resources and the onesided mass media which was completely under
the thumb of the ruling UMNO-controlled coalition.
With these phantom voters as
bedrock of support, UMNO has dominated political power in Sabah ever since.
Until the last general election in 2008, every UMNO minister liked to brag the
opposition can never defeat them at the polls.
Chance
of a lifetime
If the coming announcement
by Najib is to have any meaning to Sabahans, the proposed RCI must aimed to
convince the voters at firstly restoring their democratic rights by purging the
electoral roll of phantoms, and secondly solving their social and economic
plight through proper management of these illegal immigrants, including phased
repatriation and effective measures to prevent further influx.
UMNO
has never been so vulnerable of losing power as it is now.
Hence, it is the chance of a
lifetime for Sabahans to demand and get what is due to them - a fair solution
to the illegal MyKad immigrants and the ever-present phantom voters menace.
There is absolutely no need for them to compromise.
As the situation is getting hopeless by the
day, the only recourse left to the Sabahans and even the Sarawakians is to vote
the other political coalition, namely, the Pakatan Rakyat, into power.
The facts speak for itself.
The Sabahans should not be fooled again by BN. It is now or never.Wake up to
the reality that even your own native leaders in BN took all of you for a ride
to nowhere. Get rid of them once and for all and rest assured things will be
different and better for all native Sabahans..
The
crux of the matter is the government is run by crooks
Only a change in government
will bring the criminals to justice .Their horrific acts are traitorious Their
punishment should reflect the gravity of the crime. We owe it to the country to
bring those responsible to justice. History will not be kind to these UMNO
people especially Mahathir who had basically behaved 'traitoriously' in their
efforts to regain power and now the people have to deal with it.
Nothing much will come out
of the RCI. UMNO will make sure of it. Mahathir already commented that it is
useless. Like the Teoh Beng Hock RCI, it's just another whitewash to protect
UMNO and Mahathir, the chief architect responsible for selling out Sabah to
illegals.
Only a dictatorial regime
will be able to successfully carry out such a massive clandestine exercise to
cheat the people of Sabah. Because of this fraud on the people, all elections
from 1999 onwards are technically null and void. It is also clear now why the
UMNOnised BN regime is so fearful of Bersih and the people's demand for free
and fair elections.
That is why UMNO has always
been confident of winning the general election because of their "fixed
deposit" in Sabah.
In Peninsular Malaysia, even
if UMNO gets less than 1/2 of the votes, they will still win by a 2/3rd
majority because the people of Sabah voted for them. It will be no different
this time, as with the cheating and political maneuvring undertaken with the
help of the EC, UMNO will be sure to win again.
The opposition has to garner
at least 2/3rds of the votes to win by even a simple majority. It's an uphill
battle and it's not going to be easy. Let us hope Sabahans will not be fooled
again. The only way to change things in Sabah is to change the state and
federal governments. They must help every Malaysian citizen to destroy the hegemony
of UMNO's control in the electoral process.
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