CoFfEE witH PUNithAN

The intense battle for positions during the MIC elections, has switched into another mode, this time its the cyberspace on the internet.

At least four websites have appeared overnight conducting online polls to pick candidates tipped to win posts at stake in the party elections slated for Sept 12.

While identity of those conducting the polls remains a mystery, these websites were conducting online polls to pick the deputy president and three vice-presidents of the 62-year-old MIC.

At the party election, a total 1,464 delegates would cast their votes to pick a deputy president, three vice-presidents and 23 central working committee members.

The deputy president's race would be a toss between incumbent Datuk G. Palanivel, former deputy president Datuk S. Subramaniam and vice-president Datuk S. Sothinathan.

A total of seven candidates are vying for three vice-president seats and they are Human Resources Minister Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam, deputy minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk S.K. Devamany, Federal Territories deputy minister Datuk M. Saravanan, businessman Datuk S. Balakrishnan of Johor, Datuk V.K.K. Teagarajan of Kuala Lumpur, former MIC Selangor Youth secretary P. Subramaniam and P. Mariayee from Negeri Sembilan.

Party president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu, who won the MIC top post for a record 11th consecutive term in March, this year at the presidential election, has endorsed Palanivel for deputy presidency and Dr Subramaniam, Devamany and Saravanan as his preferred veeps.

Short-messaging-system (SMS) is being used to inform Malaysian Indians that there were such polls being conducted online, telling them to vote to pick the new party line-up, which has about 630,000 members.

So far four sites have gone online and they can be accessed at www.micelection2009.com, www.micpolls2009.com, www.micelections2009.com and www.micfuture2009.com.

Of the four, two website's polls has Palanivel in the lead while another has Subramaniam as the leader but the fourth (micfuture2009.com) could not be accessed due to heavy traffic.

The micpolls2009 site indicates that Palanivel had polled 69 percent, Subramaniam and Sothinathan (14 percent each) while micelections.com polls has Palanivel in the lead with 57 percent, Subramaniam (30 percent) and Sothinathan 13 percent.

The micelection.com poll however gives a massive lead for Subramaniam with 59.3 percent, Palanivel 13.6 percent and Sothinathan 27.2 percent.

As for the vice presidents' race, Dr Subramaniam leads in all three polls by micpolls.com, micelections.com and micelection with 35 percent, 34 percent and 66.7 percent; Devamany has 23 percent, 22 percent and 65.3 percent while Saravanan has 19 percent, 19 percent and 34.7 percent respectively.

Balakrishnan (14, 16 and 36.1 percent), Teagarajan (7, 8 and 30.6 percent) Mariayee (2, 1 and 9.7 percent) and Subramaniam (1, 1 and 12.5 percent) respectively.

Most of these websites would close polling on either Sept 9 or Sept 10 with results expected to be released to the media a day ahead of polling on Sept 12.