via Lauschke Amy Quote:The election process is one of the pillars of democracy without which, there can be no legitimacy to govern. This is the reason why the Elections Department is under the direct purview of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) – to underscore its significance. And the election process includes every stage – from printing the ballots to discarding the boxes. It is not good enough to say the ballot boxes were “not controlled” – to dismiss the discourse based on this legal technicality is to insult this vital democratic process. Elections must not only be fair and lawful, they must be seen to be so and defended rigorously. The onus is on the Elections Department to clearly outline how this oversight happened, including where the lapse actually happened. If was a lack of thoroughness in the process itself (which seems to be the case here), the department has to identify these areas and assure the public what it is going to implement to ensure its rigor in future. If it is human error, it needs to identify who (not necessarily by name but by role) broke the chain of custody. Is the election process sacred at all? Only then can the public be assured – not assured that there was no instance of fraud, but assured that the Elections Department takes its job very seriously and remains accountable to the democratic process. Likewise, the fact that the Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong himself did not address the issue in parliament does not inspire confidence – in contrast, it leads one to wonder if he even recognizes how sacred the election process needs to be treated. The PMO’s reply leaves much to be desired – it is not enough to say they are “just like any other boxes” and declare there was no lapse in electoral process. In fact, it is an irony of sorts since the fact that an explanation had to be offered in parliament in itself shows that it was nothing other than a lapse. Only the validity of the election remains intact here; the conduct of the Elections Department is still open for debate. It is not acceptable for the PMO to just claim that the process is rigorous; the Elections Department now needs to prove it is so. — via Temasek Review
Posted on: Fri, 18 Oct 2013 02:49:25 +0000
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