Reporting news – AGM

On 27 Feb 2005, Penang Island played host to what should have been the highlight of any ham member in Malaysia – The 2004 AGM and the election of the new committee.

Instead, what many of us witnessed was a major travesty of justice. The catalyst of this particular event was the balloting procedure designed by the 2003/2004 committee. - Sending of ballot papers received late dute to Dates and holidays during the CNY holidays
A major point of contention was that the official address for the balloting procedure was altered to an address in Penang in lieu of the one in our constitution. When queried, the Committee chose to ignore this infringement and proceeded with the AGM and election, claiming that it was insignificant. There are other infringements but this is a cardinal point to show that the incumbent and incoming committees care more about ‘convenience’ than about being right and abiding with the constitution. Any person in MARTS who should arbitrarily wield the constitution that binds us must in good faith reconsider his position.

We feel that those in elected positions who choose to serve the society and its members should worry less about their ‘rights’ and power and think more about their obligations and responsibilities – two terms that were never mentioned at this meeting.

Despite numerous protests from at least 5 members highlighting this infringement, the committee chose to proceed, pass the decision to the floor, and then arbitrarily choose to proceed – in that order.

In retrospect, an election is held to choose members who best exemplify the ham spirit and show the greatest aptitude to serving its members. This years elections saw 11 candidates, of which 9 were elected. This is indeed a poor showing and does little to reflect the ideals of democracy. It further shows poor representation of the diverse and varied interest groups in our ham fraternity. Due to the poorly run balloting and administrative skills of the outgoing committee, only 11 members stood for elections.

It is interesting to note that of the 11 members standing for election, 9 were standing for re-election. As one astute member pointed out, what have the 9 members done in the previous term to justify their re-election. As a matter of principle and a point of morality, we feel they should step down on this point alone.

Further to this we also see a conflict of interest in the inclusion of the remaining 2 members with a critical association with MARES. These members are respectively the technical advisor and the secretary of MARES. While reeking of complicity, it is just poor judgement that these two candidates should run, amounting to a conflict of interest.

One other critical observation of the past ‘election’ was the emphasis on representation of Mike and Whiskey class members. If this point is taken to its obvious conclusion, there would be more whiskey representatives aboard.

In our current time, we see self-regulation movements in areas of banking, taxation, local politics and many other areas that were previously controlled by the government. Marts and the ham community is and foremost one of the first self-regulating organizations in the world. That means we impose self limits on ourselves. Why move us back into the stone age by limiting representation?

In the final analysis, every ham member has to ask himself. Are you proud of your elected leaders? Are you convinced at least some of them are in the position to lobby your interests, rights and obligations? If the answer is no, you have an obligation to yourself and the future generations of ham to change the status quo.