Mysterious Balai Polis bin Kerinchi

KUALA LUMPUR: Encik Balai Polis bin Kerinchi may also be known as Balai bin Polis Kerinchi – and may not necessarily be Malay, an “insight” into this mystifying person who has suddenly become the most famous voter in the country has revealed.

We spent the whole of yesterday trying to find out if anyone in the vicinity of Balai Polis Kerinchi knew Balai Polis bin Kerinchi or Balai bin Polis Kerinchi, but even policemen there only knew the police station and recoiled at anyone bold enough to be named Balai Polis Kerinchi.

Someone suggested Balai has 16 children of voting age with the same name and was sure he is Indian. The births of all the children were registered at Balai Polis Kerinchi, hence, the name.

Ok, I made up all of the above, but there is actually a Balai Polis Kerinchi on the official electoral roll that will be used in the 13th general election.

PRK vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar, who yesterday rocketed voter Balai Polis Kerinchi to national spotlight, said the identity card number in the electoral roll, RF161872, corresponded to a Mohd Faizul Mohd Yusop on the Election Commission’s (EC) online database.

For all we know, Balai Polis Kerinchi might be a postal voter and why the EC is not responding to Nurul’s expose is as baffling as the voter’s name.

The more we come across such fawning reports involving the EC, the more the stomach churns.

Bersih 2.0 and later a parliamentary select committee happened because of the people’s lack of trust in the EC.

Clearly, a police station can’t vote. Why is it then the EC constantly attracts controversy?

For one consumed by existential questions, let me draw a parallel to a scene in Hannah and Her Sisters, when Woody Allen, playing Mickey Sachs, asks his dad: “If God exists, why were there Nazis?”

Still busy clearing up dinner, his perplexed father replies: “How the hell do I know why there were Nazis? I don’t know how the can opener works!”

Neither does the EC. It appears nothing is an eye opener for the commission that never fails to attract controversy.

It is shamelessly unable to clean up the rolls and somehow produces an uncanny ability to remain in the comfort of well-upholstered insulation from reality.

For the EC to recover, they will need to somehow frame such setbacks as freakish mistakes of their own recklessness.