What Do Voters Want Today?
In this year's GE13, it also saw a significant rise on the number of independent candidates. Well, the backgrounds of these independent candidates are of many kinds, majority are political party dissidents from both BN and PR, incumbents who are not being selected to recontest in their respective seats, and of course, for the first time, there are also a lots of serious contenders who are contesting as independents to offer what they said, "they would only serve the people in particular because they would not be tied up to the interests of the political parties".
Then, on the voters' side. What do the voters of today actually want? The voters of today are very much different from the voters decades ago. Voters of today comprised of the younger generations by majority, many of them had began to be politically conscious on their rights and needs, as well as what they should fight for and protect for their next generations to come.
The emergence of these new generation of voters today, coupled with new kinds of expectations and demands are due to the current internet-age, where more and more youngsters are becoming internet and information technology (IT)-savvy. These voters are no more depending on obtaining various information via traditional mainstream medias (radios, televisions and newspapers). They are more incline in getting all those information via internet and online news portals which are considered faster, accurate and uncensored. The only thing these new voters want are the truth and nothing else but the truth indeed.
Apart from that the voters of today also no longer look at things based on racial lines or any other traditional support base. The voters of today are seeking an expectation or demand on performance at large, a non-racial approach, the effectiveness of public policy to our people, professional civil service, transparency and the most important of today, to wipe out corruption, mismanagement and power abuse within the government.
Asides this, today's voters are also no longer afraid nor bowing to the traditional political lines such as race-based political platforms, racial extremism, political threats, the repeat of 13th May incident, political hooliganism, jealousy, cronyism in politics and business. What these voters would like to see are something basic which are fair and equal to everyone of us and even to the political divide. These voters want to see a fair and equal presentation in politics, not taking on the race line but more to the public policy line which would have a far more and greater impact to the people at large and the entire nation, not just benefiting one particular race at all.
Other than that, transparency and efforts to wipe out corruption from the government and all its political and business linkage as well as the resolution on the illegal immigrants issues are also being sought after by these generations of voters. They wanted to vote a political party that would ensure the transparency in whatever the government does, to see if all those policies and implementations really benefit the large segment of our people and our next generation to come.
Corruptions with various scandals with losses in billions of Ringgit continues to be spiced up from the government of the present ruling coalition also caused the voters of today to get fed up on the unresolved situation, as those who are supposed to be brought to justice are still free, court proceedings on various corruption cases keep on postponing and corrupted people getting scot free because of lack of evidence as well as the ineffectiveness of the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission (MACC) in combating the real corruptions nationwide.
Then, the problems of continuous influx of illegal immigrants into our nation. Worst of all, these illegal immigrants are being mysteriously converted into Malaysian citizens overnight and given the rights to vote in general elections. A Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) has been established in order to address this scandal but to-date, what is the level of effectiveness of this RCI. A purportedly "foreign invasion" recently had resulted to the postponement of the hearings of this RCI to the middle of next May, which is after the GE13. Was this a plot by the ruling coalition to ensure that those negative elements from their side would not be exposed prior to GE13? Yes, voters are wondering and asking on this possibilities too.
Both side of the political divide, the BN and PR had already presented their respective manifestos to the people and again both sides are campaigning all they can in order to bring the voters on their side. We do not want to say which side we would prefer the voters to support, but one simple piece of advice for our voters come 5th May next month, you all have seen the bad and the worst, billions of Ringgit of public funds has been spent lavishly by those who has been in power for decades, what have we gain as an ordinary citizens.
Please ensure you put the markings on the correct columns before you cast your votes.
