Pasca-Pilihanraya Kampus USM 2011/2012: Two cents.

The dust has finally settled, the campus election's over, victors emerge among all the aspiring candidates and a new Student Representatives Council will formed for 2011/2012 session. But who's actually the victors here over and all? Let's have a look of the actual result. (Pictures I shamelessly stolen from Gene-Harn's Facebook. It's a great thing common friends are. *wink* and at least I bothered to link back to the source.)

First up: The General Constituencies.

If we look at this results by factions then we have three Aspirasi and three Pro-Mahasiswa equally dividing the general constituencies! The three Aspirasi: Hafiz (Can't believe that baby-faced drama queen actually won the second most votes! Grr.), Soma...Ismailia (Soon to be secretary.) and Idzuan (Chairman wannabe turns out to be not as popular as other people think. Trololol.).  The three Pro-M: Fatin (It's a woman this time for the most popular candidates *woot*! Might end up as a VP though or worse ordinary AJK. But I can't remember what impression she left on me...), Lukhman (poised to be PMI honchos or something.) and Musmuliadi (Sabahan. Can't remember him much aside from his distinctive Sabahan accent.). Last but not least, notice ANYTHING from final results here? ANYTHING? *cue butthurt which I will cover next.)

My school, School of Humanities.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Bayang the indies!!!!! And Thaqib won? He flub his speech for pete's sake! Heard that the other lady candidate Nur Farhannah from Aspirasi decide to lodge an appeal for recount so I wonder how will it turnout to be in the end. Ohh post-election drama!

If we look at the overall results by faction, Aspirasi remains in power with 24 seats (with all six of the Engineering Campus seats won without a fight) while Pro-M made a tremendous leap with 13 seats (All five seats in Kelantan Medical Campus are theirs and they made a head way in various school in the main campus such as TI (Iswandi won! lol), Biology, Physics, Mathematics and making it's way back to School of Education with one out of three seats. This is impressive: the Sciences school are all represented by PMI people? Isn't it they against Darwinism in the first place lol?). One last seat: Bayang the indies over PPIK!

Now, the voter's turnout. I have been seeing conflicting reports online with official USM source talks about a further decrease to 55% while MK (Chinese version) talks about 64% which is similar to last election. For the purpose of making my point, I think I will stick with the official 55% turnout. There are so many factors that can be attributed to the decreasing voter turnout but one thorn that stick out the most is the fact that the campaign period took place on weekend starting on Friday onwards. The weekend is when the Balik-Kampungnistas went back to the comfort of their hometown while the rest who stayed back prefer to remain in their peaceful and comfy room minding their own business hence limiting any chances for the candidates to engage with their electorates. (Official reason by HEPUSM: To minimize the disruption towards the class on weekdays. Thanks? The lecturers and hardworking student will but those candidates and their peons and buttlickers won't.) Coupled with the already inadequate time frame (three days) and avenue (Cue all the wasted campaign flyers and banners littered around campus. Very lestari indeed. Some tried to overcome this with Facebook but still not enough.) to campaign, there's no way the voters turnout will go up. Then there's talk about the chronic voter's apathy or even worse, annoyance and hatred towards all these hullabaloo. (I know a few of my peers were pissed.) The apathy are most visible among the older third and fourth year student whom I guessed that after year in and year out of elections and everything in our life moves on and USM is still in APEX mood, we think that MPP are expendables and the candidates' election campaign that remains (berada di takuk lama as they say in Malay) uninspiring and sometimes downright insulting to our intelligence (especially the cheap catchphrase. Mentega = Menegaa?) definitely fuels the hatred further. Not to mention that plenty of people's quiet weekend to rest was interrupted by the hailers/siren going around 7am and 12 midnight and their dorm littered with campaign fliers! I guessed it ticks everyone! I guessed those who actually voted are the first and second year who are still curious about election as a whole.

Looking back at all these factors and conjectures and such, it makes me kinda suspicious that it's all part of the USM's plot to make USM student complacent especially with all the perks and new facilities for the benefits of students (Life's GOOD in USM!) thus diverting our attention in making more progress in studies and research away from all the petty earthly distraction like campus election and Aspirasi and Pro-M and the banner burning drama and all that even when MPP is basically theirs with all the limitation and such. It's very wrong to claim that the MPP represented all 22,000 students in USM when there are at least a few thousand postgrads who were deprived of their voting right for so long until next year when the limitation will be lifted, international student who don't understand Malay and none of the candidate tried to reach out, as well as a few thousand more from the Pendidikan Jarak Jauh (Distance Education) students who are legally a student in USM except that they are mostly part time students. At most I would dare say that MPP only represented barely 60% of the students, all full time Malaysian undergrads and yet all 22,000 students are bamboozled into thinking that MPP (and by extension Student Consultative Assembly or DPP) has any semblance of democracy and such. Look I am angry again! Fuck you MPP! Fuck lack of representation! More analysis here, Syukri who were close with the power that be.

While some of the not-victors face their defeat with decorum (I know Gene-Harn did but that's because he has a few vehicles of his own especially through AIESEC to do everything. They got the influence from their corporate sponsors! And I still don't like he's comparing his campaign using MLM analogy because we all know that MLM is the root of all EVIL like all capitalist corporate scum. Fair trade over free trade! Social security over winner takes all capitalism!), others are less mature then they should be like Boon Chuan over here. Looks like he's correct after all: we're all immature including himself! A shot in his own feet!

SOMEONE IS BUTTHURT. He said that his friend promised him to bring his friend to vote and hope that he will voice out for Chinese community and what not but in the end didn't come to vote. Hmm? What's the recent activity down there? *click*

Extended discussion about representation of Chinese in the MPP (the original poster wondered why the low turnout among Chinese voters) which ends up with Boon Chuan whining about whatever he had done for the Chinese in Pimpinsiswa and Minggu Siswa Lestari (One of them is about BEEF of all things. Thank god *deliberate irony here* that I eat almost all edible food by being a Pastafarian. Except maybe sour gourd.) which then attracted the Pro-M people to lash him that his whining is ridiculous and should concentrate on bigger issue like bus as well as the campaign period is too short. He take his potshot against his own team and MPP being all racist and insensitive (including himself obviously). One statement that tickled me: he said it's sensitive to talk about this in open but then why is this on Facebook? TROLOLOL. Anyone want a translation of the whole transcription?

What worse about his butthurt is that he took screenshot of his (happened to be Malay) junior that voted all six votes of her to Malay candidates despite only knowing three of them. At least he did his courtesy of editing her name out but still his butthurt shows! Don't ask for reward when you help people and freedom to vote is shitty innit?

Problem? *Troll face*.

So what can we learn from the post-election drama? 1.) Be careful of what you say on Facebook and real life because it will come back at ya. (I learn it the hard way the last time I was in corridor of power. I can't even look at those people the same way I did anymore.) 2.) Please take Critical Thinking. It really helps! 3.) EVERYONE is apparently FUCKING RACIST. 4.) Be an atheist. It makes you less picky about food and religion (though I am more of a French and Turkish type.) 5.) MPP do have chronic trust issue even within the same team! No wonder the public feel alienated!


Epilogue: Kinda worry that this post when stir up a shit storm. Better prepare to take down the post. I am now relying on my blog's lack of popularity to fly under the radar now! Anyway, the election time is indeed a good time to up my blogpost output! And yikes haven't posted anything about my SISTAHood yet! Gotta go!