Semalam di Rapat Umum Calon Pemilihan MPP Sidang 2011/2012...

Prakata: Kepada pengguna yang kurang fasih dalam bahasa Inggeris, anda boleh menggunakan perkhidmatan terjemahan dalam talian Google Translate, Citcat.com dan PRPM sekiranya timbul sebarang kekeliruan ataupun wujudnya sebarang perkataan ataupun istilah yang kurang jelas bagi anda. Guna dengan cermat, guna dengan bijak, elak daripada terjemah seluruh masukan blog sekaligus kerana hasilnya memang akan kelakar!
-Continuation from the previous post-

Attention fellow USMers (for eligible full time undergraduate who actually still bothered about it anyway...I bothered about it but I have no voting right until next year! FUCK. I know my peers doesn't give a hoot about it.), today (Monday 21 February) is the polling/voting day for this year's campus election in USM. Polling stations open from 8am onward and close at 5pm and voting count starts at 6pm over Dewan Utama Pelajar. For those who are staying in campus/desasiswa, please vote at respective Desasiswa and for those who are staying off-campus (or Pelajar Tanpa Asrama, PETAS), please vote at Kompleks Cahayasiswa (old Cahaya Gemilang) which is right beside Pusat Kesihatan and right across the road from School of Physics. Remember to bring to student card, check your name from the electoral roster, obtain your ballot paper(s), read the instruction properly, cross (X, pangkah) candidates of your liking depending on the number of seats allocated, fold your ballot and cast your vote in the right ballot box with one at the general constituencies box and another one at your own schools' box. Vote smart and vote right!

That's all for PSA. Yesterday (Sunday 20 February) is the last day of campaign for all the aspiring candidates in this election and yours truly went to the public rally (though dubbed as Sesi Pengenalan Calon by official sources) for the candidates held at Padang Kawad. My verdict for the rally this year: better than last year but overall still suffers from lack of depths and contents, a reflection that there are plenty of us that are still immature. It was so hard to concentrate and sieve the actual minutae points of the memorandums from all the empty howling by the candidates and heckling idiotic monkeys (regardless of factions. Fuck Aspirasi, Fuck Pro-Mahasiswa) around me. Let's start off with some pictorial snippets around the public rally.

9 am. Still pretty much empty here even though everything else is ready with the cheeky Malaysian PSA oldies "Bersama kita mengundi..." song playing to the background. Those small crowd at the centre of the cordon is the Pro-Mahasiswa supporters.

There, it's not a public rally, it's a sesi pengenalan diri calon. Thank you for making it sound cheaper and insignifant than it already is, HEPPUSM.

For some reason, there are rows of stalls on the other side of the padang kawad selling merchandises and foods! I suspect these stalls are from the Liga Malaysia match last night (not sure USM vs which team) and HEPP ask them to extend their business until today just for the crowd tonight. I bet the stalls earn some tonight and so do those in charge of the rentals here.

9:15pm. Arrival of the noisy Aspirasi motorcade, the one that attracts the ire from the rest of the campus especially the outrageously decorated Mentega-Menegaa motorcade.

And it finally started despite small initial crowd. A sure sign of the campus population's apathy and other factors which I will discuss later.

For the purpose of time-keeping, someone actually come up with this neat gizmo that signals the time remaining for the candidate to deliver his speech! Cute eh?

As time passed though, the crowd grows steadily but still far from being big but the division of crowds become glaringly obvious with the far right side of the cordon occupied by the Aspirasi supporters, the middle by Pro-Mahasiswa and the left side all the other fencesitter/curious bypassers/other people that bothered to come.

The PMIslam's Tudungnistas bringing their characteristic orange hand waver thing.

The rally starts off with the School constituencies.  One bone that I would like right to pick right over here is that the sequence of candidates are not arranged school by school but by first come first serve basis. It really forces all the spectators who came here to listen properly (definitely not an easy task with supporters howling like animals.) or we might just missed it altogether. The flows of the contents lack in coherence as their manifestos are mostly tailor made for their respective electorate.

After the school candidates are done, the campus wide general constituencies candidates is up, again sequence are first come first serve basis but since their manifesto are appealing for campus wide electorate, the coherence of issues are there (though not without bone to pick on later.)

And it is when the general constituencies' candidates' turn that the crowd number surges and the noise increases exponentially.

This was captured as I was heading back to my dorm after everything ended: polling station at Fajar Harapan, all prepared for fellow voters to poll! Who will emerge victorious, who will sunk and regress into insignicance? We'll see when the polling station closes.

For the purpose of streamlining the discussion, I will only concentrates on the seats and candidate that matters to me that is the campus general constituencies candidates and my own schools, School of Humanities before wrapping up with overall conclusions and opinions about everything. But first, special bone-picking lashes!

Sebastian Kwan Soon Hong, token Aspirasi candidates for School of Industrial Technology (or TI) as per agreed through backroom negotiations: I almost  opened my mouth and scream profanities at him when him speaking English tried to appeal to the international voters (which I doubt many are around here Padang Kawad anyway) and thus declaring that "every students in USM can vote!". Little did he know that there is a disgruntled postgraduate student who were deprived of his voting right this time until next year standing on the left side of the cordon. You ignorant little sodhead! 

Mohd Iswandi Ishak, Pro-Mahasiswa candidate for TI:  I made this special mention about him because I still fondly remember about my correspondence with him over Facebook (when he added me for some reason) which end up me grilling him to admit his affiliation and force him listen to my tirade against campus politic and the two fucking factions. But overall in the campaign, he's considered as among the milder Pro-Mahasiswa candidate which means comparatively less accusation and more ideal. Though his English do need LOTS of brush up. Socialist = people who social a lot? (This was from my personal correspondence with him. I loled.)

First off: School of Humanities.

These three are the candidates: two (suspected) Aspirasi token candidates Nur Farhanah and Thaqib and (somewhat close to Aspirasi but still) Indies, Bayang.

Impression: Thaqib was the first candidate for School of Humanities to deliver his speech and manifesto and he flubbed because of nervousness. I tried to listen whatever he tried to deliver but his already flubbing speech were drowned out by jeers and heckling from the Pro-Mahasiswa side making it totally indiscernible. I only managed to hear something about legacy of School of Humanities being one of the pioneering school in this campus and common event for all the clubs in Humanities and stuff. In the end, I wasn't impressed but not just because of him flubbing his memorandum but because of idiots jeering in the background. Next was Bayang. And what a dramatic theatrics there with his equally dramatic Bornean supporters! His platform is I LOVE USM!!! as well as talking about improving soft-skills of graduates and such. His exits is equally dramatic: he pull from his jacket coins, let it fall on the floor and declare he didn't join the election for the money and the fame! But he have to pick it all up again when he's done with his theatrics though.

I mean look at his get-up. That's not a blazer, that's a TUX! He's more like a magician than a candidate for a campaign. Whether his on-stage theatrics will deliver for the Humanities or not? We'll see from the poll!

Last but not least is Nur Farhanah which again touches about the disunity among student clubs and association in School of Humanities which then I didn't manage to follow closely because I was already tired by the time it reaches her turn to speak. Nevertheless, their manifesto didn't stray far from the issues beleaguered us from the Humanities. Disunity and lack of exposure, communication and cooperation between clubs in Humanities is definitely true from my bygone wasted and naive years in the positions. We'll see whether these candidates' pledges will translate into vote especially when there is rampant voter apathy among most of us.

Next: the general constituencies. By the time it's their turn to make their round of speech, my concentration is already HURR-DURRED hence I will only be able to talk about candidates which his speech manage to snap me out of my DERP.

The full list of candidates for the general constituencies. Six seats allocated for main campus general constituencies.

Tan Boon Chuan: HE IS DEFINITELY GOING TO LOSE. No manifesto from him whatsoever but instead littered with shout of grievance and "electoral violence" regarding his burnt banner over Tekun last night, complete with newspaper cutout from KwangHua Daily. Boo-hoo, you little cry-baby! You are just there because you are fittingly the token Chinese for Aspirasi and you're close to the power that be. YOU FAIL. Lose and go back to your room.

Lim Gene-Harn: he isn't the typical token Aspirasi Chinese but he is in the Aspirasi so...but anyway, he has passion, he has ideas but he is obviously nervous until he pretty much flubbed his speech. His insights definitely were not reciprocated because most of us that came are idiots including people from Aspirasi sides like Wafi and his attempt of being passionate and true to the heart come across to me as a little too forceful (I mean, tearing his script?) and his desperate plead for a little silence is unheeded by all the idiots down here. No wonder we student fail. Nevertheless, I think he might have a chance but just by a slim margin...

Kumeraintharan:  your radical Pro-Mahasiswa candidate that completes with shouts of STUDENT POOOWWWAAAAA!!! He's interesting because he's the first Indian Pro-Mahasiswa but the insider's info reveals that apparently there are two factions among the ethnic Indians in USM between RST's side and Campus side and this year apparently, they decided to go head to head with each other and Persatuan Kebudayaan India was actually standing behind Kumerain and throw their Bollywood style campaign machine behind him. Whether his motivation is fueled by personal vendetta or not remains to be discovered. Nevertheless, the issue he delivered is genuine especially when talking about the disproportionate membership of Dewan Perundingan Pelajar (Student parliament in USM) with 2/3 of it from MPP hence delivering absolute power to them rendering all other members in DPP essentially powerless. The selection of other members in the DPP and observers is not transparent as well (who are eligible? How to apply?). But the rest of his speech are riddled with shouts and provocation and mudslinging and all and it was a pain to hear until I am having a hard time trying to understand his speech. His talk about being able representative for all (because some people accuse him of radical Indian) by mentioning his seconders (PMI and PBT) come across to me as pandering to populism and in the end sounds stupid. Do you think he has a chance in flying by in slim lead?

Then there's the Aspirasi Malay candidate that makes me tick. All three of them made the same speech anyway so I will just lump them together and lashes them.

Somali...I mean Ismailia. She's a Kuchingite and yet I felt embarassed over a few thing that she mentioned in her speech.

Idzuan. Oh he's what I called the JACKASS that poised to be elected as the new chairman for the MPP. What a dick.

Hafiz, former MPP, the baby-faced drama queen.

All three of them centered their speech last night around the APEX Incentive given to all the Pure Science and Pure Arts first registered in USM starting from Academic year 2009/2010 til now. They delivered barbs to the Pro-Mahasiswa about their unrealistic dream of demanding USM to extend the APEX Incentive to all. Some of the statement delivered by them sounds downright insulting (Ismailia actually ask the other people not eligible for APEX Incentive to "study harder". WTF. But then again you know even though the pure Arts and Sciences are deemed "pure", it's actually the Applied Science and Arts that's actually perceived to get a job first than us Purist because the FUCKING CAPITALIST MARKET DEMAND said so. But then again they failed to take into account on the fact that the incentive are dependent on the CGPA and those lower than 3.00 (or is it 2.5? Not sure) by the end of academic year will be stripped of the incentive. The number will fluctuates and 22,000 students do includes the currently 3rd and 4th year pre-APEX batch as well as Postgrads who certainly didn't benefit from APEX incentives which in turn makes us feel alienated to vote. So in the end I am divided of this issue and I have no right to have the incentive anyway because I am the pre-APEX oldies that just so happen to register back to USM.) and none of them delivered any concrete manifestos whatsoever. And then all three of them actually indulged in personal attacks against the Pro-Mahasiswa front by questioning their virtue by asking how many of them involved in their volunteer activities for the flood in Johor and Northern Regions. That's pretty low in my opinion because who know's there are people (who just so happened to be Pro-M) who volunteered in there. It looks like as if Aspirasi hijacked the flood effort and try to make themselves all good and mighty by occupying the moral highground. Volunteerism is a personal choice, not a glamour badge to parade around. Enough with the glorification, give me contents!

As for the other candidates Aspirasi or Pro-Mahasiswa, they failed to left an impression on me. Sue me for that.

Over and all, the chaotic public rally is definitely a showcase of how weak the implementation of campus election in USM. The campaign timing chosen which is weekend definitely didn't help in making the campus population know about their candidates (and the candidates sucks anyway) thus further entrenching the widespread apathy among all of us regarding the whole thing. Obviously no one tried to make it better and everybody else sits comfortable in their comfortable room minding their life away. PTPM and/or Journalism and Broadcast major over School of Communication could've done something in this campaign by helping the candidates broadcast campaign message/video or conduct interviews and debates to let the candidates and us more time and avenue to scrutinize their manifesto. Public rally with all the fanatic fans and bad crowd control is the last place that any prospective voter can get of their manifesto, where it only counts when the louder you speak! No one listens to content in public rally because everybody is pandering to populism! But did anyone do that? No. The system (which in paper) that states that each candidates campaign as himself further fragments the issues in their manifesto and campaign effort and yet at the same these two idiotic factions Aspirasi and Pro-Mahasiswa exist. Why there isn't any effort of actually organizing and arranging these two factions into a proper organisation with streamlined manifesto and expenditure for public scrutiny mechanism? Why bother to exist and yet didn't bother to organize? And look! I am reduced to incoherent babble because of you bunch of idiots! I am outtahere! Can't wait to see the voters turnout hitting 50% and lower thus rendering MPP insignificant forever!

Epilogue: Gosh, I am angry. But everything will end today and MPP is stupid. Upcoming post: SISTAHs!