Kiasu supporters held up Bukit Bintang recount - but from which party?

Something appears rather screwy with a page 2 article in theSun on 24 March. Titled “Demands of ‘kiasu’ team hold up recounting process”, the piece is on the recounting of votes for the Bukit Bintang parliamentary seat.

The recounting on 22 March took up a lot of time, from 10am to 10:35pm. Why?

The third and fourth paragraphs of the article state:

After observing the goings-on at the tallying centre and the recount, anyone will be convinced that the EC (Election Commission) is not to be totally blamed for the slow process.

Instead, it is the “kiasu” behaviour of the supporters of contesting parties that is to blame.

Fong Kui Lun of DAP, Tan Chew Mooi of the MCA, Wee Choo Keong of the MDP, and Independent Billie Lim contested for the Bukit Bintang seat.

Since Wee and Lim clearly lost on the first count, the recounting had nothing to do with them. Indeed, the article did not mention them at all. (Keep in mind that DAP won that seat on first count and also on recount.)

And so, the “contesting parties” mentioned in the above quote would refer to the DAP and the MCA.

However, the rest of the article paints quite a different picture.

Paragraphs 7 to 17 get into what happened during the recounting process. But the focus is only on what the MCA tried to do that contributed to the slow counting. Quite clearly, the MCA was the only “kiasu” party here!

Our problem here is not with the many things the MCA did that contributed to the long recounting process.

Rather, why did theSun say “contesting parties”, indicating that more than one party was involved?

Typos? Careless writing? But should not the “MCA” be mentioned instead of “contesting parties”? How could they be confused?

Perhaps the article is referring to recounting elsewhere as well to justify the use of “parties”? Let’s see.

Only paragraphs 5 and 6 of the article focus on recounting elsewhere, specifically Permatang Pauh. They mention how Wan Azizah asked for a recount after the first count saw her lost by 36 votes.

But theSun did not provide anything to indicate Wan Azizah engaged in activities that contributed to the slow recounting process. The article ends with the observation that although Permatang Pauh had 3, 614 ballots more than in Bukit Bintang, the recounting there ended five hours earlier - ­again, underscoring the unusually long recounting process at Bukit Bintang.

If theSun wanted to make the case that the MCA was not the only “kiasu” party, it failed with the Permatang Pauh example.

Again, only the MCA can be blamed ...

It must be stated that theSun should be commended for bringing to public attention the many things done by the MCA that contributed to the long recounting at Bukit Bintang. Neither the UMNO-connected New Straits Times nor the MCA-paper The Star covered the story.

But as much as we would like to give theSun the benefit of the doubt, we can’t help but feel that the way the story was written was rather confusing….

Blog visitor DC says he was at the scene of the recount: "First of all, I, like you, commend theSun for bringing to the people's attention what happened at the recounting process in Bukit Bintang. As I was there myself as a polling agent recounting the votes, I can say that the losing team would use whatever ways to dispute the vote and the winning team will use whatever way to protect their votes. As such, you may said that both teams were also "kiasu".

"But from what I understand, the article seems to point to the losing side as the "kiasu" team and I totally agree with it. The times the recounting process was disrupted were all due to the demands and the 'childish' acts of certain people from the "kiasu" team in trying to ensure victory for their lovely candidate.

"The article might be confusing to people who are not there but not for me because to me there is really a "kiasu" team there showcasing all their talents in behaving like sore losers."