Raja Petra Kamarudin
Normally, I don’t face much problems getting my hands on any document that I wish to get my hands on, in particular documents related to civil suits and court cases. After all, once filed in court, these are public documents not covered under the Official Secrets Act.
Most times, the parties involved in these legal disputes would gladly give me copies of the relevant documents even when I do not ask for them. No doubt their intention in giving me those documents is so that Malaysia Today can give their court case maximum publicity.
I suppose if we can help these people win their case in the court of public opinion then it becomes a bit more difficult for the court to fiddle with their case. The case has already become too high profile and the public would be watching the developments of this case. Hence the judges would not dare ‘play around’.
But in the case of the 58 election petitions filed by Pakatan Rakyat, I am having problems getting copies of the documents. I would have thought as soon as the election petitions were filed Pakatan Rakyat would want to publish copies of their claims in the Internet for all and sundry to see.
I then contacted the ‘other side’, hoping that the defendants would gladly give me all the copies I wanted. However, much to my surprise, even the government side did not want me to give me any copies.
And that was certainly a surprise.
What are they trying to hide? Why do they want to keep the details of what has been filed a secret? Is it not the right of the public to know? Don’t they want the public to know since this matter is of great public interest?
Then I found out that they want to keep the details buried because negotiations are currently being held by both sides in this conflict to try to settle the matter out of court. They realise that if the cases continue then all the details would become public. An out of court settlement would mean that the details would remain buried.
I can understand the government wanting to keep things buried since it is the government that is being accused of cheating in the May 2013 general election. But why would the opposition want to also keep things buried since it is to the advantage of the opposition to reveal in what way the government cheated?
There were supposed to have been 40,000 or more foreigners (Bangladeshis, and probably Filipinos and Indonesians as well) who voted as phantom voters. There were supposed to have been blackouts or power failures at various places during the counting of the votes. Three (3) ballot boxes were supposed to have been hijacked and/or disappeared after voting ended and the polling stations closed.
All this was supposed to have happened on Polling Day -- and is the case against the government. And we assume that the 58 election petitions filed by the opposition would mention all these discrepancies -- the case against the government.
Alas, I was told that none of these issues are mentioned in the election petitions. No 40,000 phantom voters -- Bangladeshis or whatever. No blackouts -- not even in a single constituency. And no hijacked or missing ballot boxes -- not even one.
Why are all these not raised in the election petitions? Anwar Ibrahim stated very clearly in his speeches and press conferences that they have solid evidence of all these events to support their allegation. But none of this evidence was attached to the election petitions. In fact, the election petitions do not even mention these things.
Is this why they want the issue buried?
If the election petitions do not mention all this then I can quite understand why the opposition would like to bury this issue and not allow the documents to become public. But what I cannot understand is why is the government also keen to keep it buried? What is the government going to gain by helping the opposition keep this matter buried?
And this, I suppose, is the more important question. The opposition wants to keep this matter buried so that no questions will be raised as to why none of the election petitions mention what the opposition allege had happened. But what, however, is the government going to get in return by helping the opposition keep the details of the election petitions a secret?
Politics is strange, is it not? Sometimes, in politics, compromises need to be made for the benefit of mutual gain. And in the meantime the Malaysian public, the voters, are being made into suckers. While the politicians from both sides of the political divide stand up on stage and say all sorts of things, behind the scenes they are talking about mutual gain and how ‘you scratch my back and I scratch your back’.
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