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Interference of foreign agents into election process via NGO

Final Push Made Ahead of Tight Malaysia Vote

U.S. Financed Independent Polls Are Not Independent
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysian politicians are making a final push on the last day of campaigning as an independent survey showed Prime Minister Najib Razak's long-ruling coalition running neck and neck with the opposition alliance ahead of Sunday's general elections.

A survey released by polling house Merdeka Center predicted Najib's National Front coalition will win 85 Parliamentary seats, while a three-member opposition alliance led by former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim will take 89 seats. It says 46 seats are too close to call and that two seats will go to smaller parties.

Such tight independent polls usually carry the smell of U.S. interference.

A tight independent poll will show the U.S. favorite candidate may win. When the election then goes against the U.S. favorite the tight independent poll will be used to claim election fraud and to instigate riots to then somehow wrestle the U.S. favorite into power.

We have seen this scheme in various color revolutions in eastern Europe, in Thailand and recently also in Venezuela.

Indeed a short search for "Merdeka Center NED" immediately brings up data that lets one doubt the independence of that polling outfit. It is the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy is financing the Merdeka Center poll:

Merdeka Center for Opinion Research
$60,000
To provide policy makers and civil society representatives with public opinion research that can be used to formulate policies and programs in Malaysia. The Merdeka Center for Opinion Research will conduct four public opinion surveys across peninsular Malaysia in an effort to gauge the Malaysian public's opinion on a variety of public policy issues.
The NED is funding several other so called Non-Government Organizations to push for its policy objectives onto the Malaysian public. The openly admitted total of U.S. money to U.S. friendly NGO's is over $1 million. It is likely that is more money behind this.

Part of such fraud is do saw doubt about the integrity of the election commission as is already happening in Malaysia.

Malaysia will have to brace itself for some unruly weeks to come. It should, as soon as possible, push out such foreign financed political influence.

b at 03:43 AM | Comments (12) 

M of A - U.S. Financed Independent Polls Are Not Independent

Is what they want with Malaysia the strait of Malacca and more encirclement of China? Or is there more?

Posted by: Crest | May 4, 2013 3:48:58 AM | 1

Kudos for Evo Morales, he kicked out USAID. They are the worst agents of empire, they destroy a country from the inside. The people who they indoctrinate are quislings in the making. The BRICS must come up with alternative institutions that can prevail against the subjugation that western NGO's bring about.

Posted by: Fernando | May 4, 2013 3:51:26 AM | 2

Is Tony Cartalucci an actual person? Has anyone ever actually met and spoken with him?

Posted by: john francis lee | May 4, 2013 4:52:50 AM | 3

Correction in spelling -
Part of such fraud is do saw doubt
should be "Part of such fraud is to sow doubt"

Posted by: Northern Night Owl | May 4, 2013 6:15:32 AM | 4

@2 Absolutely. Evo is very heroic to do that. Someone needs to step into Chavez's shoes now more than ever.

As for Malaysia, the script seems to be the same again and again with only the name of the country changed. The US is expending all of its political capital though (along with its actual capital as well). Just give the world a year to watch the way Bolivia and Russia are clamping down on foreign NGOs and follow suit. The US won't have access anywhere, all while having destroyed the very concept of an open society. In using its key values as simple trojan horses for its neoliberal agenda, it is quickly destroying every freedom it claims to want to bring to the world.

What a disgrace the United States is.

Posted by: guest | May 4, 2013 7:09:30 AM | 5

On the money again, b, this from The Guardian (of imperial interests)

"Malaysia's governing party has been accused of a series of dirty tricks to ensure it keeps hold of power after Sunday's election.

The prime minister has denied chartering planes to move tens of thousands of voters into marginal constituencies.

Najib Razak's party, the United Malays National Organisation, said the flights had been paid for by supporters and not by the prime minister's office and were a routine effort to help people get back home to vote.

The opposition allege a number of other abuses in the lead-up to the closest election since independence in 1957.

One researcher found a suspiciously large number of voters over the age of 100 in the eastern state of Sabah. Nurul Izzah Anwar, the daughter of the opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, says there are nearly 5,000 extra voters registered in her constituency in Kuala Lumpur whom she cannot trace.

The official election commission says it has done everything it can to ensure this is the cleanest election in Malaysian history.

A survey released by the Merdeka Centre, an opinion polling firm, predicted that Najib's National Front coalition could win 85 parliamentary seats, while a three-member opposition alliance led by Anwar will take 89 seats. It said 46 seats were too close to call while two seats would go to smaller parties.

The National Front holds 135 seats in the 222-member parliament, while Anwar's People's Alliance has 75 seats after some MPs left in recent years to become independents.

If the opposition wins, it will mark a remarkable comeback for Anwar, a former deputy prime minister who was sacked in 1998 and subsequently jailed on corruption and sodomy charges that he claims were fabricated by his political enemies. He was released from jail in 2004 and now leads the biggest threat to the National Front.

"They are in a dead heat. Both are enjoying equally strong support. It will be a very tight contest," said Ibrahim Suffian, the head of the Merdeka Centre."

Posted by: bevin | May 4, 2013 9:16:39 AM | 6

@ 3. Is Tony Cartalucci an actual person?
I'm pretty sure he's as actual as b, john francis lee and Hoarsewhisperer.
I've never met or communicated with him, but I don't need to. I know how he thinks, and why.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | May 4, 2013 12:40:54 PM | 7

So-called liberal online organs such as COMMONDREAMS.ORG are suckers for these NGO's..........

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2013/05/03-1

I was banned from this site after only 3 posts for defending Putin several months ago during the "Pussy Riot" fiasco. I was civil and never once insulted anyone, so I can only assume that it was the actual content of my post which got me axed.

If you read the comments section of Abby Zimmet's article, several people in the thread attempt to inform her that she's acting as a propaganda organ for USAID and that the only "freedoms" these NGO's are interested in are "free markets."

Posted by: RC | May 4, 2013 1:47:13 PM | 8

By the way, USAID pays it's people in foreign countries very handsomely, perks, visas.

Posted by: Fernando | May 4, 2013 2:24:59 PM | 9

According to Voice of Russia, the citizens of Banias say the city is calm and nothing is out if order.

Posted by: Fernando | May 4, 2013 3:38:27 PM | 10

Classic color revolution. The opposition candidate Anwar Ibrahim declares to have won before the counting is over.

Posted by: b | May 5, 2013 8:16:56 AM | 11

Reuters on early election results: Malaysia's ruling coalition takes early lead in poll results
With less than a quarter of parliamentary results confirmed in the Southeast Asian nation, the National Front was leading with 37 seats to the opposition's 13, according to the country's Election Commission. A count by the independent Malaysiakini website gave the seat tally as 29 to 21 in favor of the coalition.

The "independent Malaysiakini website" is or course also financed by the NED and other foreign sources.

More Reuters:

Before most votes were counted, Anwar declared victory in a surprise statement that appeared to be a tactic to whip up support. "PR has won," Anwar wrote on his Twitter account, urging the ruling party and the country's Election Commission "not to attempt to hijack the results".
The rest is propaganda blah--blah ...

Russia - NGO Law Monitor - Research Center - ICNL

Civil society in Russia consists of more than 220,000 non-commercial organizations (NCOs).Russian government regulation of civil society has been much in the spotlight since January 2006, when Russia enacted the Russian Federation Law on Introducing Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation (the 2006 Russian NCO Law). The 2006 Russian NCO Law introduced burdensome and difficult-to-meet reporting requirements for NCOs, accompanied by severe penalties for non-compliance; new and similarly burdensome registration procedures for Russian and foreign NCOs operating in Russia; and new broad powers of the registration bodies to audit the activities of NCOs. The legislation raised special concerns because it allowed for broad and restrictive interpretation. Some reporting requirements are not only difficult and costly to comply with, but also hard to understand, leaving excessive room for government officials to exercise discretion in determining whom to target when enforcing these rules.

The election of President Dmitry Medvedev in 2008 fueled hopes that the legal framework for civil society would improve. In June 2009, the State Duma adopted amendments to Russian Federal Law No. 7-FZ of January 12, 1996, “On Non-Commercial Organizations” (NCO Law)[1] that came into force on August 1, 2009, after President Medvedev signed the amendments on July 17, 2009.These amendments included a number of positive changes.[2]
 

However, in May 2012 Vladimir Putin regained the presidency, and in July 2012 he signed a law Introducing Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation Regarding the Regulation of Activities of Non-commercial Organizations Performing the Function of Foreign Agents. The law requires all NCOs to register in the registry of NCOs, which is maintained by the Ministry of Justice, prior to receipt of funding from any foreign sources if they intend to conduct political activities. Such NCOs are called "NCOs carrying functions of a foreign agent."

Other restrictive laws have been enacted since Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency. In June 2012, 150-fold and 300-fold increases to existing fines for violating rules on the participation in and organization of public protests for individuals and organizations, respectively, were enacted. In July 2012, defamation was reintroduced as a criminal offence in Russia, which mandates fines on media outlets of up to two million rubles (approximately $61,000) for producing “defamatory” public statements. Also in July 2012, changes introduced to the Law on "Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection" increased Internet censorship and curbed the freedom of expression. On October 23, 2012, the law on amendments to the criminal code was adopted, which expands the definition of treason, making it so vague that it allows the government to brand any inconvenient figure as a traitor.

 

Election 2013 Government welcomes foreign observers – but no interference in polls – The Express Tribune

Cambridge Journals Online - Review of International Studies - Abstract - The legitimacy of foreign intervention in elections: the Ukranian responce

The empirical and theoretical study of the effect of foreign intervention in the electoral processes of states is exceedingly weak. Using insights from the nationalism literature, this article provides a theoretical argument on domestic reactions to foreign interference in a state's internal politics. It then tests the predictions generated by the argument using mass survey data in Ukraine. The article analyses the Ukrainian people's reaction to Western and Russian intervention in the 2004 presidential elections – the Orange Revolution. We find that efforts by Western governments, international organisations, and non-governmental organisations to shape Ukraine's electoral landscape appear to be unwelcome to average Ukrainians while electoral interference by a non-democratic state, Russia, is seen as less alienating. Our theoretical framework accounts for these potentially surprising results.

US intervention in Cambodia from bombs to ballots by David Roberts

There was little room for irony in Washington this summer as Congress puffed itself up with outrage over possible foreign influence in the US electoral process. "The American people have the right to know" intoned Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM), "and we have the highest duty to determine whether there was a concerted plan by foreign governments to infiltrate our electoral process.''

Applied to the US, the rhetoric is melodramatic and hypocritical; used to describe the US role in Cambodia, it is glaringly inadequate. The legacy of US interference is written in blood and misery across the map of Cambodia. Although the bombing has stopped, and the world has a "new order," the US is still interfering in the domestic affairs of this small nation. And elections are only one part of the strategy.

On the surface, the recent ouster of Norodom Ranariddh, the leader of the UNCINPEC (National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful, and Cooperative Cambodia) royalists, by his coalition partner Hun Sen, head of the Cambodian People's Party (CPP), seems a straightforward enough violation of democratic practice; it also appears to have little relationship to Washington. But the surface in Cambodia is shallow indeed and the roots of this coup lie deep and entangled with a history of US interference spanning almost three decades.

Although the US weapons of choice are now dollars and ballots, in the 1970s, they were bombs and troops. Then, as the war in Vietnam spilled across its borders, the US under Nixon and Kissinger launched "secret" and murderous air attacks on Cambodia's eastern border in its effort to wipe out Vietnamese communists. When revelations of this violation of a neutral country reached the anti-war movement and sparked public protest, the US temporarily halted the bombings and deployed a covert army of ground troops. But as soon as the political heat died, the bombers flew again and rained down the equivalent of five Hiroshimas on a country which had no quarrel with the US.

Apart from killing innumerable Cambodians and returning parts of Cambodia to the Stone Age, Washington's military and political intervention had other, long-lasting consequences. In March 1970, just after US ground troops invaded, a ClA-backed coup deposed King Norodom Sihanouk. His pro-Washington replacement, Lon Nol, who ruled from 1970 to 1975, was a weak, corrupt despot rejected by much of the nation. Antagonism to his regime, outrage over US bombing, and the starvation and destruction which flowed from Washington's policies in Southeast Asia breathed new life into Cambodia's Khmer Rouge. From the jungle where it had been banished by Sihanouk in the 1960s, the movement rapidly built popular support.

Out of the inferno of civil war and foreign invasion, the Khmer Rouge and its leader, Pol Pot, gained strength and in April 1975 took power. Declaring "Year Zero," they closed down Cambodia and began dragging the country back to a pre-industrial era devoid of the foreign influence they blamed for the country's woes. In the process, Pol Pot split Cambodian society in two. His "new" people were those the regime distrusted: educated professionals who had lived cozy lives in Phnom Penh and members of the former government. Corrupt and corrupting, they were executed by the thousands. The second group, the "old," were rural peasants whose lives were romantically seen as hard but honest and who were to be more trusted because they were uncorrupted by modern city life and Western influences. To prevent their contamination, Pol Pot ordered the abolition of memory. Money and medicine were abolished. The national bank was blown up. The library, repository of much of Cambodia's precious history, was turned into a pig-sty The Catholic cathedral was razed to the ground, and Cambodia's ancient religion of Buddhism was outlawed.

Then came the genocide. Under the pretext of US bombings, the Khmer Rouge emptied the capital, Phnom Penh, which was swollen with refugees. Leaving behind homes and possessions, up to 1.5 million people were expelled to a countryside devastated by "secret" bombing, invasion, and five years of civil war between the troops of Lon Nol and Pol Pot. One journalist at the time described the evacuation as the greatest caravan of human misery the world has ever seen."

In the three years and eight months that followed, Cambodia entered the darkest period of its history and experienced a unique, horrific auto-genocide. Looking to explain why its impractical, flawed, and intellectually bankrupt revolution had gone asunder, the Khmer Rouge, like so many before them created "enemies within" and accused its terrified victims of being CIA, KGB, or sometimes both. People suspected of "crimes" against the Khmer Rouge organization, who perhaps wore glasses or spoke foreign languages, were often sent to a small converted school in Phnom Penh where Pol Pot's henchmen extracted false confessions and imposed sentences. Of the 20,000 who entered Tuol Sleng, seven survived. One, an artist, Heng Nath, whose work appears on this page, painted recollections of cruelty that beggar belief. The images haunt the tragic, dilapidated school: Scorpions are coaxed from a box next to a woman as her nipples are pinched with pliers; a man suspended up side down in water is electrocuted; prisoners are forced to eat their own excrement. The reign of terror, slavery, overwork and starvation that spread throughout the country claimed between one and two million lives.

 

 


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