Election, what election?

Is this country about to go to vote? An election in this country? Moving around the city, I couldn’t help noticing a rather subdued atmosphere this time around, unlike in the previous elections where people were into it in a big way.

There is hardly any excitement except for the party workers distributing their pamphlets. The banners,the buntings, the flags are there but they don’t turn you on.

What does all this mean? There are many ways of looking at it.

My take on this is that the voters, at least, in the urban areas have already made up their mind who they are going to vote for if they go out to vote,that is. I have been trying to catch up with speeches and ceramahs from both sides, there are hardly any good ones that I am prepared to run to.The current wet weather has not been much of a help either.

One of my friends who is campaigning told me that some of the candidates are using technology to get their message across. By giving a power point presentation complete with photographs and other graphics the message is better conveyed to the target audience rather than listening to boring speeches.

And, don’t forget the ubiquitous hand phones, no smart politicians will leave home without one.

The approach is, therefore, more personal , it’s like the direct selling approach many of us are familiar with. See what technology can do to you. If video has killed the radio stars, the internet has flattened the world. If everybody can fly now,everybody can also write now(blogs and SMSes). As a result, information flies faster than the speed of sound.

I have been practically glued to the computer catching up with the alternative news on the latest goings on, the government controlled media have practically choked me to death with the same boring message of development. So, I don’t bother.

We all know the projects will never be given out in a fair manner unless you are connected to the people at the top. Voters like me want to know more about other things like fairness, accountability, corruption, security, education, the economy and all that. You know the soft side of development. At the end of the day we want to be better informed so that we can make the right decision when we cast our vote a week from now.

The government should realise by telling the public what is good for them is actually counter productive.Those we-know-what’s- best- for -you days are over, the voters these days are better educated and better informed. They want to decide for themselves, what they want are informed choices. In fact, the government will get more respect if the opposition is given some air time. This is called fairness. Does this sound familiar to you? It does not appear to exist in the government’s vocabulary, does it?

Meanwhile, I noticed they don’t do this in the Peninsular or in Sarawak, but, voters in Sabah are divided into Muslim Bumiputras, Non-Muslim Bumiputras and Chinese. Are you comfortable with this classification? Whose bright idea is this?

Since when we in Sabah identified ourselves along religious lines? Most of us are proud of our cultural heritage, thus I find the classification is rather stupid and insulting.

How do we know what religion a person practises by looking at the names in the electoral rolls? We know in Sabah a person with a Christian sounding name could be a Muslim, and vice versa. Most of the ethnic names are pretty neutral about their faith.

Then, with some of the Kadazandusun people, changing one’s religion is no big deal, so, how can the authorities be hundred percent sure of this oversimplified Muslim and non-Muslim Bumiputras dichotomy?

Why are the Chinese lumped into one single grouping, when they are followers of many religions? Obviously, there is inconsistency in this method.

Let’s go back to the familiar way of identifying our voters along ethnicity, and leave religion out of this, please.

We should be proud in telling the world of our unique diversity instead of oversimplifying it, don’t you think?