Some interesting campaigning is going on in my neighborhood of Segambut, P117, where Jayanti Devi Balaguru of GERAKAN, under Barisan Nasional, will contend with Lim Lip Eng of DAP, under Pakatan Rakyat.


Here, in Segambut Dalam, we see Barisan Nasional chairman and incumbent Prime Minister, Najib Razak, on what appears to be a bottle!


Another view from the side, with Jayanti at the neck of the bottle.


View from the other side of the road, Jalan Segambut.

Interestingly, this road used to be full of BN and DAP banners. The DAP banners have since disappeared. One could suspect the BN party workers of removing the DAP banners, but that also means that DAP has less flags to take down after the elections.


Meanwhile, closer to home, is an interesting poster - it used to be just Najib Razak on a poster, with the caption, "LET'S VOTE !" with that horrible space before the exclamation mark. That is just bad, bad English. However, sometime this week, another poster was overlaid in front, this time featuring the incumbent Deputy Prime Minister, Muhyiddin Yassin.


At the same junction, you see the same thing - Najib Razak's original poster, overlaid by another poster featuring his favorite right-hand man.

However, the address on my NRIC is in PJ, so I will be voting there instead. The other benefit of that is that I get to vote for a Parliament and State candidate. If I changed the address to this one in the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, I'd only get to vote for a Parliament candidate.

All pictures can be clicked for a larger view.

Ignoring who you are voting for, what kind of situation would you like?

A) BN wins by a supermajority
B) BN wins by a simple majority
C) BN wins by a jaguh kampung majority
D) PR wins by a jaguh kampung majority
E) PR wins by a simple majority
F) PR wins by a supermajority

Supermajority = more than 2/3rds of Parliament
Simple majority = more than 50% of Parliament but less than 2/3rds of Parliament
Jaguh kampung majority = more than 50% of Parliament but less than 2/3rds of Parliament and the total votes are less than 50%

The Jaguh kampung majority happened in 1969, when the Alliance (UMNO, MCA, MIC) + SUPP won 65.67% of the seats with 49.3% of the total votes. The Opposition (PAS, Gerakan, PPP, DAP, etc.) had 50.7% of total votes but only 34.33% of seats.

If you have more than 2/3rds of Parliament, you can change the Constitution.

Now I would personally like either C) or E) to happen. 2008 results were B) and you could say that the sentiment has swayed towards PR, but there are new dubious voters and the EC has doubled the number of classrooms to vote in (meaning that you need twice as many Polling Agents and Counting Agents to make sure no cheating happens.)

As much as I am tempted to vote BN to ensure that F) does not happen, I know BN has already implemented measures to make sure that B) or C) happens.

In a fair election, the percentage of parliament seats should be equal to the total vote percentage. Every voter should have equal voting power. (In Singapore, 60.14% voted for PAP but they got 93.1% seats, not fair either!)

So how does this happen? Some seats are smaller than others, like in 2008 where Putrajaya had 6,608 voters and Kapar had 112,224 voters. A voter in Putrajaya has 16.98 times more voting power than a voter in Kapar! In 2013, Putrajaya has 15,978 voters versus Kapar with 144,369 voters, making the difference 9.035 times. It takes 72,185 voters in Kapar to ensure a winner, while a candidate in Putrajaya needs only 7,990 voters to win. (If both seats only have 2 candidates.)

Article 116 of the Federal Constitution had three clauses (3) (4) and (5) that were removed in 21st June 1962. What were they?



In short, they were removed, allowing elections to be more imbalanced. The difference between the electoral quota was supposed to be no more than 15%! Electoral quota = 13,300,000 / 222 = 59,909.9 voters per constituency. (Simpler than digging number of electors per state.) So Putrajaya has 274% difference while Kapar has 140% difference. Even in my voting area, Petaling Jaya Selatan, there are 79,699 voters, or 33% difference. If we truly stuck to the 15% formula, each seat should only have 50,923 to 68,895 voters.

It is with this imbalanced constituency division, that you can actually win more than 50% seats with only 15% of the total votes. This is the ultimate Jaguh Kampung Majority.

If B) happens, it will be the same as in 2009-2013 - election mode forever. If C) or D) happens, you can bet there will be chaos because whoever wins is considered illegitimate.

Feedback Open Mic, at The Bee, Publika, one 20th of March 2012. Here's Raksasa.


Reza Salleh, organizer, is up on stage next.


Offroads.


These guys play blues rock and roll in the vein of Led Zeppelin and Stevie Ray Vaughn.


You gotta have at least two guitarists, one for the lead lines, and another for the rhythm.


Relent.


They did an awesome cover of Adele - Rolling In The Deep.


Markiza and Peter Hassan Brown, good ol' folksters. They were joined by Wong Lip Kee on guitar.


Carpark does some hard-rocking rock kapak (80's metal.)


Najwa joined last minute. Here's the jazzy soulful singer with Faz on guitar. I've not heard her do acoustic, but she was awesome at it. She did a Erykah Badu cover as well.


Her brother joins her for a duet. Man can these siblings sing!


(Of course, this being impromptu, Farhan had to look up the lyrics.)

All shots with the Sony A900 with Sony 135mm F2.8/T4.5 Smooth Transition Focus. Yup, still workable in low light despite the T4.5, if you put your mind to it!

Here's Reza Salleh at the Feedback Open Mic at The Bee, Publika, 6th March 2013.


Joe Loy has a thing for open chords.


James and the Mini Peaches. When I Googled their band name, I finally realized how they came to their name!


Free Loaders Inc., 90's rock of the good kind.


Az Samad, fingerstyle and guitar tapping specialist.


N. Rama Lohan, guitar specialist. He reviews guitars for The Star!


He was playing with a bunch of music journalists (except Kevin Theseira on bass, I think). This was classic rock band Square Circles.


2side1BRAIN. Proper post-hardcore from Japan!


They made full use of the space.


Bassist with funky contact lenses.


That is one long cable.


One wonders how they monitor themselves.


Raksasa tends to end the show.

All shots with the Sony A77 with Opteka 85mm F1.4 and Carl Zeiss 24mm F2.0 ZA SSM.

21st February 2013: Feedback Open Mic at The Bee, Publika! Here's Reza Salleh featuring a guest band from Japan. This is Akiyoshi Masashi on flourescent-stringed bass.


Badak, awesome proto-punk hard rock. Refreshing, in the wave of indie kids flooding the scene.


Barisan Mustafa. We were wondering what he was going to do, but I could guess this was a gimmick.


He was full on, proper PUNK! Vulgarities, ballsy anti-establishment attitude, it was all there!


Quite hilarious, plus it's something I'd not seen at one of these open mics.


Free To Fall was, well, not punk.


PanPara, from Japan. These guys swam across the ocean and were marinated in the waves, giving them non-stop groove.


Julian and Marvin, I think, doing two Beatles covers - With A Little Help From My Friends and sweet ballad Something.


OJ Law, with just his laptop as backing track. He covered The Corrs - Dreams in his own delicate way.


Tama from Korea, with a coarse voice suited for rock.


Raksasa, intense acoustic with a backing track.


Bassment Syndicate featuring Japanese fusion today.


Mordo Blasters, a young rock-and-rollin' band.


Darren Ashley was setting up, when his parents came up to express how much of fans they are to their son's music. They also debated on stage, as to who he inherited the musical talent from. Fun uncle and aunty!


Then it was his set, this time a rock set...


...with the electropop coming in later.


We're still waiting for an triple album by the way - first disc being electropop and delay loop experimentation, second disc being more rock, third disc being his older acoustic jazz ballads.


Velvet Peach Seven! The difference being Ike-chan, the guitarist, of course.


I'm sure we don't recognize the drummer, Panten, who also played with Reza, PanPara, and Tama...


By then, The Bee had to close, and there were some acts that did not get to play. So, one of them was cajoled to play anyway outdoors, where a crowd listened intently...


Didn't get her name, but she had a sweet song.

All shots with the Sony A77, Samyang 35mm F1.4 UMC and Opteka 85mm F1.4, both manually focused.