This “ecommerce” site exposes the cost of politicians’ luxe fashion to educate GE15 voters

The time is nigh for us to make a crucial decision that will affect our country’s future. GE15 is just days away, and we’re bombarded with reminders to vote, know who you’re voting for, and why you should vote, all over social media.

C27, a “digital enablement firm” that defines itself as “rebels with a cause”, has a different take on how it’s doing all that.

Take a look at the picture below.

You wouldn’t be wrong to think that Voteordié is an ecommerce website for luxury goods, but look closer and you’ll see its true, satirical nature.

On display are products such as the:

These listings aren’t just meant to show the exorbitant prices of politicians’ belongings; if you clicked into a product, you would see comparisons of its price to the funding of an initiative that would benefit the populace.

For example, the Cartier Love Bracelet (set of 5) that cost RM146,000 (RM28,000 – RM30,600 per bracelet) as worn by Yana Najib is akin to the Budget 2022 funds for early schooling assistance for as many as 1,000 parents, who would get RM150 per studying child.

More than just taking jabs at the politicians’ luxurious lifestyles, Voteordié’s methods put into perspective the disparity of wealth between Malaysia’s political elite and the average citizen.

As C27 stated on Instagram, “An agency can’t vote, but we couldn’t just keep quiet either, so we launched voteordie.shop.”

The listings aren’t extensive, understandably so, since they’re not the sole purpose of the website. Rather, they’re a way to draw netizens’ attention for a bigger cause: education on how to vote wisely.

Thus, when you click “Add to cart”, you can’t actually buy anything. Instead, you’re brought to Voteordié’s About Us page, where the C27 team explains their reasoning for starting the website.

The team at C27 have done their research and taken their time to develop a rather well-polished website for the sake of educating the masses on the importance of voting.

And they’ve followed through with that mission. In their FAQ, designed to look like your average ecommerce store’s FAQ, every answer is instead links to third-party sources such as news station BFM, and popular satirical cartoon artist Fahmi Reza’s TikTok, where he actively posts about the upcoming elections.

The links cover topics such as how to learn more about the parties that you can vote for, why you should be voting, and more.

At the top of the website, there are pages for Women and Men, but where you would expect to see products categorised accordingly, C27 has instead listed out every politician vying for one of the 222 seats across the Malaysian states.

Voteordié is not necessarily a one-stop site for all your voting information, but it’s a great start to getting people interested in voting through a healthy mix of entertainment and education.

Midway through writing this, however, it appears that the site is unable to load, whether due to a server overload or something else. Hopefully, this can be resolved soon as we near GE15.