Beyond the Ballot Box

For the last two weeks of the year, we’re going to be revisiting some of the best discussions we’ve had throughout the year. On this edition of Best of Beyond the Ballot Box 2021, we’ll be looking at democracy in Malaysia and the power of the people.

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At long last, The lowering of voting age from 21 to 18 and automatic voter registration has been gazetted and was officially implemented yesterday, December 15th. This means that the upcoming Sarawak State Elections will be the last time Malaysian youths aged 18-21 will miss out on. 

Today, we catch up with Qyira Yusri, Co-Founder of UNDI 18 to discuss how she’s feeling after tirelessly pushing for this for 5 years, and also what this could mean for the future of our political landscape. But before that, we revisit a conversation we had with the two co-founders of UNDI 18, Qyira and Tharma Pillai, back in April, on how they started this movement 5 years ago while they were still students in the US.

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The Sarawak State Elections nominations took place a couple of days ago. A record number of 349 candidates are contesting 82 seats in Malaysia’s largest state. Multi-cornered fights are happening in all but four constituencies, with Dadong seeing an eight-corned battle. Dr Bridget Welsh joins us to discuss.

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This week marks 100 days since Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri became the ninth Prime Minister of Malaysia. At the start of his tenure as PM, he mentioned that he has given himself and his cabinet 100 days to prove their worth, particularly when it comes to dealing with the Covid-19 health crisis and the economic fallout. So, how has the Prime Minister and his cabinet performed so far? Dr Bridget Welsh joins us to discuss.

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While many experts predicted that Harapan would lose in the Melaka state elections, most expected it to be a close battle. However, the end result read, Barisan Nasional 21, Perikatan Nasional 2, Pakatan Harapan 5 (out of which, DAP won 4, Amanah 1 and PKR 0). Many also predicted that DAP would retain their 8 seats or at least most of it. But they did not. So, what went wrong? Howard Lee joins us to share his thoughts. 

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 S. Arutchelvan is the deputy chairperson of Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM). Arul has been an activist and a human rights defender for more than 30 years, has worked for SUARAM and been a part of and led many people’s movements throughout his years, including the anti-ISA movement. He joins us to share his story.

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Farzana Hayani is the youngest candidate that’s competing at the Malacca State Elections this Saturday. Representing PKR/Pakatan Harapan, Farzana will be competing against Perikatan Nasional’s Muhammad Jefri Safry, Barisan Nasional’s Siti Faizah and Nazatul Asyraf from PUTRA for the Sungai Rambai seat. She joins us to discuss her journey so far and her political ideology.

Image credit: Farzana Hayani Instagram page.

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A few weeks ago, Parti MUDA announced that they’re in the midst of negotiating with Pakatan Harapan and that they will be competing in the Melaka state elections, an announcement that got many young people who are looking for a change in Malaysian politics, excited. MUDA’s discussion with Harapan did not bear fruit and in a press conference they said that they won’t be competing in Melaka with Harapan because Harapan chose to field defectors. But why then didn’t they field a candidate or two anyway in an election that’s set to have multi-cornered battles everywhere? Dr Thanussha of MUDA joins us to discuss.

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The Melaka State Elections is set to take place on the 20th of November. This comes at the heels of 4 members of the PN/BN coalition deciding to pull their support from the Chief Minister of Melaka, Datuk Seri Sulaiman Md Ali of UMNO, causing the government to collapse. Political analyst, Oh Ei Sun joins us to discuss all things Melaka elections.

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We often say that we live in a democracy. That people have the power. That the direction of the country can be chosen at the ballot box. But is this true? Does our current election system actually result in a Parliament that is diverse and a proper representation of the people? Or does the system only encourage a binary form of politics that encourages us to hate the other side?

Jurleo Jurit & Arthur Yeow are some of the finalists from Architects of Diversity’s Hackathon Politik competition. They produced a 10-page whitepaper discussing the issues with our electoral system and proposed a mixed voting system that will expand democracy in Malaysia. We discuss the content of their proposal.

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