Clive Kessler’s “GE13: What happened? And what now?” – An Artful Exercise In Pseudo-Intellectual Spin?!

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GE-13

An Artful Exercise In Pseudo-Intellectual Spin

A matter of choice — Clive Kessler

Late last week, an interesting rejoinder was offered to my two-part retrospective account of GE13, Malaysia’s recent national elections “GE13: What happened? And what now?” (The Malaysian Insider, June 12 and 13).

A news and political commentary site that goes by the name “The Choice” published a critique of my analysis, and of my attitude and approach, entitled “An Artful Exercise in Pseudo-Intellectual Spin”).

It can be read at: http://www.thechoice.my/top-stories/64889-an-artful-exercise-in-pseudo-intellectual-spin#sthash.du76qoeY.uxfs and reading it is without doubt a worthwhile use of time and mind.

It is no “cheap shot”.

In its own way, it takes what I had to say very seriously. Somebody clearly thought my GE13 review worth the effort of a serious response.

And it is quite exquisitely written. By someone who evidently enjoys a wonderful “native-speaker” command of the English language — and the benefits of a far better education and apprenticeship in this kind of writing than I myself ever had.

It does not come from the pen of any amateur.

So regardless of its content, I welcome it. And not just as an unintended acknowledgement of my own commentary. More, as a much needed contribution to raising the standard of political writing and public debate in Malaysia.

More well-written, incisive and decidedly opinionated comment from people who clearly know their own minds is much needed. One has only to consider the woeful level of so much political writing in Malaysia these days to see how great that need is.

So this was, in my mind, a welcome contribution.

Welcome even though I consider it altogether wrong-headed.

As I hastened to suggest to the editor at “The Choice”.

An immediate response I wrote as follows:

“Thank you for providing this the wonderful portrait of who I really am.

“It is so clever I can scarcely recognise myself in it!

“Yes, I have at times, and especially of late, been critical of Barisan Nasional and Umno, for falling short of what they might be and need to be. Of what the obligations of genuinely inclusive national leadership require of them.

“And I am often criticised by opposition people for being a closet government sympathiser. For seeing, and for asking (those on the government side) to display and act upon, what is good on that side of the political fence.

“And, what is more, various opposition people often do not like what I say about their side and its leadership, as well as its failure to articulate a clear political identity, programme and policies.

“I know that you cannot please everybody.

“I generally please nobody.

“And that is how things should be.

“That is what happens when you are not a partisan but try to apply some clear analytical vision to everybody.

“Oh, yes, and one other thing.

“I put my name on what I write.

“That is my ‘CHOICE’ and my commitment.

“Where do you guys stand on that?

“Do you dare put your names on what you write?

“Today would be a good day to start!”

The main objection

The main objection voiced by “The Choice” is that I chose to present a different view of what happened — of how the Umno/BN campaign was conducted, especially at the “ground level” among the conventionally-minded Malay majority in the in the Malay heartlands — than most of the international press.

Well, yes. True. I did present a different view.

Different does not, of course, necessarily mean wrong or unacceptable. Whether you quote the tenets of liberal democracy or some well-known prophetic hadith, difference of opinion is to be welcomed as a source of vitality in public life, not condemned.

Here, my view of these matters is different from the standard or official view that “The Choice” seems to welcome and encourage for several reasons.

Unlike the members of the international press, I am not a journalist. So, unsurprisingly, I see and experience what happens here differently from how they do, and I write, as I can only do, on that basis.

I am a scholar, one who has devoted a great part of his efforts over more than half a century considering and seeking to fathom, in an informed way, the deep currents flowing through Malay, Malayan and Malaysian society.

Even as a scholar, I am not a political scientist. My initial education was in anthropology, sociology and Asian social history.

So my work, when I write about Malaysia, often differs, or is differently “pitched” and expressed, from what the expert or specialist political scientists write.

I write about Malay and Malaysian society and culture more generally than they. I see politics within that broader context: as an aspect of a wider story, as a theme in a more complex panorama.

And when I write, it is the wider society that interests me, not the political struggles that throw light upon it. Bismarck was right when he observed that the business of politics is very much like making sausages; it’s best not to look too closely at what goes into it and how it is done, and instead simply to focus upon what comes out from it.

And I try to see Malaysia as a normal country, not a special case. I think and write about it in the same way that I write about and comment upon developments in some other countries that I know and care about — including Australia, where I was born and mainly live, in England where I lived for several years, and the United States, for a decade.

In all those places — not Malaysia alone — politics, for me, is to be understood in more than narrow and conventional political terms. I view political life with the distinctive eye of a “broad-gauge” scholar, one whose scholarly work over the years has ranged across perhaps some half dozen different academic field and disciples in the social sciences and humanities, not a specialist political scientist or political writer.

So, do I often have a different view than others of these developments? A different “take” from the standard or “default mode” view of these matters?

Of course I do. Not all the time, but frequently.

And if I did not, I would not bother, or waste my time, to write about them.

My Malaysian pre-occupation

As I have explained to readers in earlier columns, I wrote my first essays about Malaya, as it then was, as a high school history student in the Merdeka year, 1957. I first set foot, briefly, on Malayan soil in 1960.

I have been studying Malaysia seriously now for over half a century. From the time when the Malaysia idea was first floated and brought to fruition, and into the era of Indonesian “confrontation”. And from the time when, following its victory in Kelantan in 1959, the Islamic Party, or PMIP as it was then generally known, and its leaders were targeted for allegedly sympathising with, and even criminal complicity in, Indonesiankonfrontasi. That was the charge that was then made in the government white paper entitled “A Plot Exposed”.

That interest eventually led me to Kelantan, where I lived and conducted local rural research for a doctoral degree, for almost two years, from August 1967 to July 1969. It has become an interest and connection that has continued, and even grown deeper as my “Malaysian pre-occupation”, ever since then.

So, do I have a different relationship to Malaysian society, and a different view of what goes on in the so-called “Malay heartlands” and of the national government’s approach to those who live there, than  most working journalists these days?

Of course I do. How could I not?

How can I not understand those things differently, and write about them with a different view and understanding, than today’s foreign correspondents and media practitioners? And will I see what is going, below or outside of the range of vision of those overseas journalists, in the Malay heartlands as central to Malaysian national politics? Of course I will.

When an election is called, that is what I think about and focus on, rather than succumbing, as so many of the visiting journalists do, to a fascination with “celebrity” political leaders on all sides who are eager to “cut a good figure” internationally.

If that somehow fails to satisfy the editors and authors at “The Choice”, I am sorry to disappoint them.

But they can hardly expect otherwise. Not from someone with my scholarly background, interests and focus.

A partisan hack? A ‘shill’?

But, to be fair to my latest critic, there is more to the charge made against me by “The Choice” than the disappointed claim that I am simply different.

I am said to be different, unacceptably different, in a specific way.

The suggestion made there is that my writing is partisan, outrageously partisan. Specifically, that I have “offered one of the most intellectually sophisticated, clever, subtle examples of pro-Pakatan Rakyat propaganda we have seen in some time.”

This accusation conveniently ignores the fact that, over recent times, I have consistently characterised the Pakatan Rakyat coalition as an improbable partnership and one lacking any coherent political outlook or, as distinct from an inclination towards popularly pleasing gestures, clear policies.

So much, then, for the author’s claim that “Kessler completely ignores the complete lack of any genuine economic or social policy from Anwar and Pakatan.”

The critique made by “The Choice” suggests that what I write is simply palatable pap to comfort an opposition readership with antagonistic attitudes and closed minds.

Yet, perhaps strangely, there were some on the same side of the political fence as those at “The Choice” who were quite happy to quote me, as and when and how it suited them.

For example: after I had observed in these columns that, viewed in long-term historical perspective, so far only the old Alliance and its successor the Barisan Nasional had ever shown the ability to fashion a competent “governing bloc” in Malaysia, and that the Pakatan opposition had so far given no sign at all of being able to replicate the achievement, the editors at TV3 were quite happy to lead the 8 o’clock news one evening with their neatly excerpted citation of my verdict on Pakatan’s plausibility as a prospective national government.

And as for the charge of being a partisan “shill” for Pakatan, or anybody, in what I write, I simply point out that that, once the election was called and candidates were nominated, I fastidiously chose not to write about the election campaign — or anything else — in these pages. And I did not resume writing about Malaysian  society and politics until last week’s two-part retrospective to which “The Choice” now takes such elegant and finely outraged exception. It was written some five weeks after election day.

Hardly a rush to judgment, a hasty bid for opposition approval, or an eager gesture of ingratiation to a readership harbouring anti-government sentiments.

I did not write during that voluntary moratorium because, in my view, once the serious business of the elections was under way, that was a matter for the Malaysian people, for the voters, to decide and not one into which I should seek to intrude my own views.

Was that the action of a partisan meddler? Hardly.

My principled fastidiousness here seems to have been wasted, or to have gone unrecognized at “The Choice”.

Had I wanted to be partisan, I certainly might have acted differently during those weeks from mid-April to mid-June and written differently all along throughout all the preceding months and years.

A ‘split-level’ campaign

The proof of my supposed animus, and the refutation of my prejudiced view, that is offered by “The Choice” focuses largely upon the action of the Prime Minister.

Just look at how he sought Chinese and Indian support! At his visits to temples! His attendance at their various religious festivals and cultural ceremonies! And, just look, too, at his principled efforts to generate economic change and administrative transformation! Legal reform too! And so on.

But what my review of GE13 had emphasised was the “split-level” nature of the campaign waged by the Umno/BN side.

The more genteel part, and the part that captured the attention of much of the foreign media, is the part that my critic at “The Choice” now reiterates.

But that was not the campaign that was pitched at the great mass of voters in the Malay heartlands, and which in the end ensured their support.

That campaign was waged, above all, by and in Utusan Malaysia. By Umno, that is to say, in and through the pages of Utusan and their far-reaching reach and impact throughout peninsular Malay society.

After all Utusan is “tidak asing” to Umno, is no stranger to the governing party. It is owned by Umno. It is not just of the same “darah-daging”, the same flesh and blood, as Umno but is its voice, the authoritative and authentic voice of Umno’s deepest soul. Or so it boasts, and so also does Umno of it.

So it must be taken seriously.

Some of us do. Do the writers at “The Choice” do likewise, I wonder.

We read it daily, some of us. Not to learn “gospel truth”, so to speak, to have objective reality laid bare and revealed to us, but to learn what issues are being developed and how they are being presented in the leading Malay media to the core Malay component of the national political community.

My point in my GE13 retrospective was simply that what Utusan and its media consociates offered was in many ways the key to the “real campaign”, and central to it, so far as the great majority of the nation’s Malay voters were concerned.

And that campaign, one that in its tenor and content was totally at odds with the more genteel “official” campaign that Umno/BN was offering in full public and international view, was not a campaign to which the foreign journalists and international media (because of their own limitations, I said, and not because of their own folly or any Umno trickery!) had any access.

It was campaign that was literally beyond their view, their cultural and communicative reach, one that was conducted and passed largely unnoticed “under their radar”.

But it was — who can possibly deny it? — a critically important, even decisive, part of the successful Umno/BN national campaign.

It was a campaign that some people saw and took seriously, and to which they gave the attention that it incontrovertibly deserved.

And that is why anyone who took that “Malay ground level” campaign seriously saw the whole election drama quite differently from the international media: those whose good sense and sound judgment “The Choice” wishes to commend, in criticism of the rather different view that I recently suggested.

Well, of course they must be right, and I wrong, “The Choice” wishes to suggest. After all, just look how many of them took that view and were satisfied with it.

Invoking the numbers may prove something. But doing so does not vindicate the view that the majority were content to offer, based upon the very partial and inadequate view that they had of the nature of the campaign and how it was waged.

A plea to be political “wimps”?

Here the writer at “The Choice” makes a truly strange defence of this Malay populist aspect of the Umno/BN campaign. “Kessler,” he says, “also attacks Najib for making a hard play for Malay hearts and. One must ask: why not? It may have escaped his notice that Najib heads a party called the United Malays National Organisation. One would naturally expect him to seek their votes and sympathy, especially in the Malay heartland.”

My criticism was not that Najib should have played the “wimp” rather than been a bold leader of his people. It was that he chose precisely not to do so.

My complaint was not that Najib and Umno had sought mass Malay support. My criticism was of how they went about doing it. My criticism of Prime Minister Najib and his party is the same that is to be made against the party’s public political vehicle, Utusan. Against the role that, at Umno’s direction, Utusan is assigned to play in national life.

In the end a government that does not seek to educate and uplift its people, to enlarge their understanding and open up a vision wider than that afforded long afforded them between their familiar cultural blinkers, is not really a government. It is merely a system of rule and administration.

Regrettably, Utusan exists at Umno’s behest not to widen the cultural horizon of the great majority of the nation’s Malays but to keep their vision narrowly framed by the same archaic perspective of their political grandparents.

Good enough for them then, perhaps, but these days, for today’s Malays and the challenges that they face, no longer.

But that was the part that Umno had Utusan play in GE13. In its “split-level campaign”, the party’s marching orders to the flagship Malay newspaper were — if one may parody the old song — “you take the low road and we’ll take the high, and we’ll all get back to Putrajaya together”.

It worked.

But it was not an edifying spectacle.

Mine was not an argument to Umno, as historically the nation’s main Malay-backed party, that its leaders should be political wimps.

It was an argument, or an expression of the hope, that Malaysia might soon become as good as it can be. And also a reminder that Umno has a major responsibility, and is uniquely positioned, to enable it to do so.

A ‘different view’

The critique levelled against me in “The Choice” appears to come from somebody close to the Prime Minister’s Office or from his media and communications management experts.

If that is the case, then “fair enough!” I have no complaint with them or the case that they make on that account.

That is their job.

And, though I may disagree with what they say and in some ways also with how they choose to say it, I can readily acknowledge that they do their job not just dutifully but with some unusual verve and welcome elegance.

Yet I also hope that, on their part, they can see and accept that my role, as a long-time student and observer of Malay and Malaysian society, is not the same as  theirs, nor is the viewpoint that my professional work affords me the same as that which they derive from theirs.

That, I believe, ought to be something that my critics might be able to see and accept, if not in uncomplaining silence, then in good grace and spirits.

In writing what and as I do, I am not politically partisan. I certainly try not to be. But I am not neutral so far as my own principled scholarly commitments are concerned.

My responsibility as a scholar is not to make Umno/BN look good and smell fragrant. Nor is it my job or desire to “do them in”. Equally, my role is not to make the opposition look good or to give them comfort. Nor to wage a polemic against it for not yet having become what it aspires to be. Or might.

I seek to cast my own eye — neither partisan nor objective but my own independent eye and critical sense — on what I write about.

And when I write about Malaysian matters, I seek to do so in my own way, informed by my own historical sense of “where things are now at” and how, over the half-century that I have been following Malaysian developments, they have got to where they now are.

That, for me, is “a matter of choice”, of informed and responsible choice.

It would be good if others, even when they disagree, could bring themselves simply to accept that fact.

That too, on their side, is, or should be, a matter of sound choice.

An afterword

I had barely finished drafting the foregoing reply to the “The Choice” when I learned that a second part to its critique had appeared.

It may be found at: https://www.thechoice.my/iconoclast/64895-kessler-part-two-pure-propaganda-from-the-pro-pakatan-partisan-professor-.

Where the first had seen my work, though disputable, as brilliant, the second now called it “drivel”.

For my part, I had welcomed its first rejoinder as an elegant and stylish exercise in political commentary and debate.

Its second now descends from criticism to caricature, from critique to abuse.

And against abuse one can offer little other than a dignified silence.

But before shutting up, several points are relevant.

(i)  The complaint is made that I have not provided the detailed factual evidence to back up my claim that, through the Malay-language press and media, Umno pitched what was to prove a very successful campaign of ethno-communal fear and outrage to the majority of the Malay voters.

In a brief commentary one cannot provide detailed evidence.

Others may now lay out that evidence, “chapter and verse”, in a specialist research monograph. Perhaps somebody will.

But I indicated what that evidence is and where it is to be found. In distressing profusion.

The evidence is to be found, above all, in the pages of the Umno’s own Utusan throughout the months leading up to the election and in the weeks since then. That evidence merits some detailed expert analysis, both for its content and its rhetorical stylistics. Here I say no more.

(ii)  From criticism to caricature and abuse: a second matter.

“The Choice” brands me as a “Pro-Pakatan professor”. But to stigmatize and then dismiss somebody is not to counter their argument.

What, I ask, can make anyone think that after a lifetime of “being my own man”, often in difficult times and places, I would now sell out and become a “shill” for a political party or grouping that, on my own expressed view, lacked plausibility?

It makes no sense. The claim is simply absurd.

(iii) I am guilty, my recent critic blandly asserts, of “intellectual dishonesty”.

I make no such counterclaim.

I am ready to concede that, even though I disagree with them and it, the writers at “The Choice” are presumably sincere in putting their case, that they genuinely believe what they say.

I do charge them, though, with drawing a clever caricature, with fashioning a convenient straw man or “Kessler soft doll”, to knock down. So much easier to demolish that “pro-Pakatan professor” than to rebut the man’s considered argument.

(iv)  In their second rejoinder, the writers at “The Choice”, charge that I lapse from offering brilliant if controversial analysis to providing simply drivel.

It is easy, when awkward matters are raised, to “shoot the messenger”. It hardly seems worth doing so here. How awful was the message?

It hardly seems so awful a message, meriting vehement denunciation: that Umno/BN could have done a better job during GE13 of living up to its proclaimed ideals, and that Malaysia might be a better and gentler place if did.

How despicable, how disputable, is that claim really?

(v)  In one way, however, my new critics have been honest and lived up to the claims that they make for themselves.

When it comes, not to strategizing and managing the Umno/BN campaign but to giving some account of its conduct and why it succeeded, people thanks to “The Choice” now truly do have a choice.

Between my account and that of my recent critic.

One of us, one of those two opposed accounts, must be from some counterfactual parallel universe, and the other somewhat closer to reality.

Readers may make their pick.

It is their choice.

Before they do, one important point.

My critic’s account asserts that what it says, and that alone, is what happened. It vehemently denies, rhetorically rather than factually, the entire account that I have offered.

My account, by contrast, does not deny but accepts the case that my critic makes.

It simply says that his account is only a part, perhaps one-half, of the story. But there is another part too, it argued, and that other part of the total campaign — which was fought out of sight of those not “plugged into” the Malay media nor attuned to the Malay world — was decisive in “winning the day” for Umno/Bn where it really mattered.

In the battle for bulk Malay votes, for Malay hearts and souls and allegiance, a “no holds barred” campaign was waged. And it was successful. But this triumph of Realpolitiksat very uneasily with, and many of its claims and themes ran counter to, the genteel public campaign embodied in the Prime Minister’s “1Malaysia” exercise.

You do not have to reject my recent critic’s account to accept mine. But to accept his is to reject my argument “out of hand”. Without any grounds or evidence, I might even say.

(v)  Finally, as I have noted, I prefer to think and write about society and culture broadly, not the all too often dispiriting spectacle of politics.

But during a long and protracted “political season” of the kind that Malaysia has recently been through, when virtually everything becomes political, it is very hard to avoid politics in one’s writing. What is central, what is pervasive, cannot be ignored.

But now some relief is perhaps in sight. The high political season is now over. And with its passing I look forward, when I write about Malaysia from time to time, to writing about those broader social, cultural and historical themes and concerns that most immediately interest me, not about the unedifying sausage-making of national political life.

Political writing I happily leave to the writers at “The Choice”.

They can be very good at it. They have both the taste and the aptitude.

The acquisition alongside those qualities of some greater discernment, a capacity for measured argument rather than reckless polemical overkill and wrong-headed abuse, would also be a good thing.

Clive Kessler is Emeritus Professor of Sociology & Anthropology at the University of New South Wales, Sydney.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.

An Artful Exercise In Pseudo-Intellectual Spin

We should like to congratulate The Malaysian Insider. In publishing a piece by Clive Kessler, a professor emeritus at the University of New South Wales and long one of Barisan Nasional’s most committed foreign critics, they have offered one of the most intellectually sophisticated, clever, subtle examples of pro-Pakatan Rakyat propaganda we have seen in some time.

It is also intellectual rubbish. But – again to the Insider‘s credit and Kessler’s – it is exceedingly difficult to make such beautiful rubbish.

The piece, titled “GE13: What happened? And what now?” and which purports to demonstrate that Umno was wildly successful in the recently-concluded elections, relying on racist strategies and lies by omission and commission to gain a dominant hold on Malaysian politics. It is brilliant because it undercuts much of the spin Opposition media and Pakatan have offered since the election, cites a few indisputable facts and then offers a reassuring storyline of cheating, lying, racist Umno for the Insider‘s core readership.

The tiny handful of facts actually present in the piece are these: that Umno mauled PAS in the Malay heartland (except in those heavily-urban centres of Kelantan and Terengganu); that Chinese voters voted overwhelmingly for Pakatan; and that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and BN told anyone who would listen that they wanted to be the Government to all Malaysians.

From there, the entire analysis is a brilliant exercise in pseudo-intellectual fantasy.

There are many ridiculous assertions in the piece, but it is perhaps best to begin with the overarching theme: that by carefully using the local and international press, Najib and his advisers were able to portray him and BN in the most sympathetic terms to different audiences, allowing him to focus on the Malay vote and essentially ignore the Chinese and Indian communities.

Ah, yes. Who can forget how the mat salleh press has gone hammer and tongs after Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim for over a decade? It has been rumoured that of late they have even asked him to restaurants rated with fewer than three stars – a sure sign of their being blinded by BN.

(One might note that Kessler is essentially calling every foreign observer of Malaysia, except Kessler, something of an idiot, although the word he uses is “effete.”)

Insofar as international press has said good things about Najib – and this includes media formerly bitterly opposed to BN – could it perhaps be because Najib has genuinely undertaken transformations and reforms of the economy and of government? Do the repeal of the Internal Security Act, the Printing Press and Publications Act and the Banishment Act count for nothing to Kessler? Because clearly they count for a great deal to long-time observers of human rights.

That shallow analysis hardly stands alone. Kessler also attacks Najib for making a hard play for Malay hearts and. One must ask: why not? It may have escaped his notice that Najib heads a party called the United Malays National Organisation. One would naturally expect him to seek their votes and sympathy, especially in the Malay heartland.

Yet Kessler also claims that Najib and his advisers wrote off Chinese and Indian votes. This is categorically absurd. Whatever Najib’s failings, a lack of desire to bring Chinese and Indian voters back to BN is not one.

We refer to Najib’s non-stop attendance at Indian and Chinese religious and cultural festivals – a first for a Malaysian Prime Minister, and something for which he suffered criticism from within his own party. We refer to the thrust of the 1Malaysia programmes and Najib’s transformation programmes, which were designed to be offered without consideration for race – and which were overwhelmingly directed into the multi-racial cities to help alleviate the cost of living and to show an accountable, responsive Government.

We refer to Najib’s determination to hold off the elections until almost the last moment – something he attributed to his desire to show voters the benefits of a Barisan Government. No one believed Najib was referring to kampung voters in the Peninsular and longhouse voters in Borneo. Najib clearly believed he had a duty as Prime Minister to be the Prime Minister to all Malaysians, and to work to secure their votes.

We also refer to Najib’s demeanour in the wake of GE13, in which he was clearly not only surprised by the extent of the Chinese shift, but determined to re-double his efforts to demonstrate that his is a Government for all Malaysians. In everything from an increased focus on crime and corruption to a renewed pledge to expand his transformation programmes, it is very difficult to argue that Najib believes he need only seize the kampung from PAS.

All of these criticisms should not undercut the brilliance of this work. Since the elections, Pakatan and its captive media have worked at length to dispel the notion that a ‘Chinese tsunami’ was the cause of BN’s losses at GE13, and have suggested that BN’s hold on the Government is the result of extensive and (in the case of the 40,000 teleporting and imaginary Bangladeshis who allegedly came to vote and then vanished) physically impossible cheating.

Yet Kessler implicitly rejects this – a brilliant move, because it then allows him to reinforce a different Opposition belief: Najib is a dirty liar who plays to racists and cares only about Malay votes. As an added bonus, Kessler implicitly calls PAS a group of stumbling incompetents, a belief long held by much of the Insider‘s readership.

The Insider‘s readers do not need to consider the possibility that Najib legitimately criss-crossed Malaysia, reaching out to communities that had rejected BN in 2008 because of the sincere desire, inherited from his father, that Malaysia should be one nation of all races.

They can instead be satisfied that what they have always believed is true, and a foreign academic agrees!

This is a sophisticated exercise in artificially constructed, crypto-intellectual propaganda. Yet perhaps the most telling aspect is that Kessler completely ignores the complete lack of any genuine economic or social policy from Anwar and Pakatan, thus rendering his own analysis a made for measure Malaysian Insider exercise in spin.

We applaud the Insider. Rarely has so little been said quite so artfully.

Perhaps next time, they can match the substance to the form. – The Choice

GE-13: Malay Psyche!

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Melayu

GE13: What happened? And what now? (Part 2) — Clive Kessler

JUNE 13 — The first part of this commentary analysed the paradoxical outcome of GE13. It traced how the election of a reduced Barisan Nasional (BN) presence and increased opposition numbers in Parliament has amplified, not diminished, Umno’s power — here meaning specifically its power within the nation’s government and over the formation of national policy. It then examined the nature of the election campaign that yielded this paradoxical outcome.

A rejection of Perkasa?

GE13 was a less than explicit, and often inchoate, engagement, or contestation, between two rival views of the Malaysian nation, of what it is and where it was, or might be, headed.

On the other side, the Pakatan Rakyat coalition stuck to the terms of the agreement binding together its three partners. In a less than fully worked-out way they insisted that Malaysia was, or must become, a land of and for all Malaysians, and was now ready to do so. Or at least to make a common start on that journey — that quest for a shared future based upon a new national understanding and, under the existing Constitution, a new principled foundation.

That was the choice that was placed on offer to the voters. If it was the campaign that was waged by Umno/BN that won the day, can it be said that the overall election result represented a rejection of Perkasa by the nation, especially the Malay electorate?

Hardly. That is simply not so.

Yes, two Perkasa men who received Umno/BN backing were defeated. But 88 Umno candidates won. And that is more important, that is what matters.

They won on the “Malays in danger, Islam under threat” campaign waged in the Malay media that, as its main election effort, Umno directed at the nation’s Malay voters.

The Perkasa position is in effect, as some put it, “Malays on top, now and forever. That is Malaysia, love it or leave it!”

It is a hard, uncompromising position. But that, too, if in slightly more polite and modulated terms, was the essence of the Umno campaign that was projected daily, with ever increasing determination and with increasingly disquieting effect, by Utusan and its media consociates to the ever more fearful Malay voters in the rural heartlands.

Two outright, upfront card-carrying Perkasa candidates lost, even though they enjoyed Umno support.

But Umno ran, and won handsomely upon, a campaign which can simply be described as “Perkasa Mild”. A Perkasa-type campaign detached from the perhaps dubious or extreme reputation of Perkasa itself. A Perkasa-line not, like the original, angry but one for the somewhat more polite and genteel, and for those gripped by a fearful, and artfully cultivated, collective cultural and political anxiety.

A Perkasa line, it might perhaps be said, for those who might hesitate, not out of fear but even out of basic decency and in good conscience, to be publicly identified with Perkasa.

On the contrary. Perkasa, they might well feel, may be extremists. But Umno is mainstream. And if that is what Umno is saying, if that is the campaign that it is running, well, that line and that campaign, being Umno’s, cannot be extreme. That, for some, was the psychology of supporting “Perkasa Mild”.

It proved a winning campaign.

A winning campaign, certainly, for Umno. And also, though in a different way, a winning campaign for Perkasa as well.

A winning campaign for Perkasa despite the loss of the two high-profile Perkasa members whose candidacy Umno was supporting.

How so?

In Umno’s 88 victories, Perkasa and its stance were lent an official respectability and “normalised” — and in that way given a kind of vindication. Or at least political and moral absolution.

That is how what some political scientists used to call “ginger groups” — or radical pressure groups operating from outside a party upon like-minded “true believers” and sympathisers within it — operate and succeed.

In France in the 1950s one such group — the forerunner of the Le Pen movement of recent years and today — for a while rode high. The Poujadist movement influenced and infiltrated the ruling Gaullists. As they did, as they succeeded in doing so, their strength declined. Challenged by a journalist that his movement had failed, one Poujadist leader powerfully responded: “Not so! We have not failed, we have succeeded! We have succeeded in ‘Poujad-ising’ the moderates!”

Perkasa, too, may soon be able to make the same rejoinder, the same boast.

With that tune borrowed from Perkasa but played in a minor key, the Umno in very difficult times did not just hold on to what it had but significantly increased its number of parliamentary seats. The costs of its doing so were paid by the plummeting plausibility of its main long-term non-Malay partner parties in BN. They may never recover.

But for Umno it worked well. Umno’s number of seats is up by nine, a number not far short of what is now the combined MCA, MIC and Gerakan parliamentary presence of 12.

BN representation from the nation’s primary zone in Peninsular Malaysia is overwhelmingly an Umno parliamentary presence: 88 of 100. The old partner parties — the MCA, MIC and Gerakan — are now in no position to restrain Umno or to resist its demands. To have its way, Umno has merely to “square things off” with its Sarawak and Sabah allies, operating not as a solid bloc but as a collection of mutually wary contenders who can, if need be, be played off against one another.

From the viewpoint of the practitioners of Umno Realpolitik it is a very satisfactory outcome — even if the party’s “hard men” did not exactly envisage this outcome and plan it down to the last detail.

It is, for them, a very satisfactory outcome that was delivered by the success of their “Perkasa Mild” strategy.

A “Chinese tsunami”?

Recourse to that strategy came, as indicated, with a cost.

It entailed a substantial “writing off in advance” of much of “the Chinese vote” — of the votes of the vast majority of Malaysian citizens of Chinese origins and cultural background. It deprived the leaders of the Chinese partner parties MCA and Gerakan of “face” and credibility and stripped their parties of what was left of their political plausibility.

Yet the movement of voters away from Umno/BN was not, as some have suggested, simply a “Chinese phenomenon”.

The same trend seems to have been characteristic, in greater or lesser degree, of a significant number of Malaysians of all backgrounds who reside in and around the main cities, and in their adjoining semi-urban zones.

It was displayed, that is, by most of those whose lives are grounded outside of the electorally “over-represented” rural Malay heartlands and whose cultural orientations are focused upon concerns that lie beyond where the Umno and Utusan “Malay anxiety campaign” had great cultural reach and political “traction”.

The results of GE12 in 2008 had come as a great surprise to some. While some people had seen it coming, others, including those who then ran the Umno/BN campaign, did not. And, as if it had come suddenly from nowhere, they dubbed it a “tsunami”.

Things were different this time. The Umno/BN side knew that they were in “the fight of their lives”, a fight for political survival. Anti-Umno/BN currents were running strong in 2013. When they showed up in the election results, it could have been a surprise to nobody.

But in politics there are few things harder to resist than a convenient cliché. When the massive falling away of government support became clear, and BN in the peninsula was left looking very much like a club with only one member attended by a few bemused janitors, the official response, orchestrated by Umno and Utusan, was that what had happened was a “Chinese tsunami”.

The Chinese had defected, it was claimed, they had abandoned Umno/BN. The Chinese were to blame. “What more can the Chinese possibly want [beyond what they already enjoy under Umno/BN]” was Utusan’s furious banner headline.

One thing needs to be made clear here.

The expression “Chinese tsunami” is a polite — meaning inexplicit, since it does not use those words directly — way of saying that kaum Cina kita sudah memberontak dan menderhaka, that our Chinese community has rebelled and committed treason.

That is what people who use the expression “Chinese tsunami” mean.

So the issue to be discussed is not whether this second “tsunami” of 2013 was a “Chinese” or a more general and widespread “storm”.

What is needed is to bring into the clear and explicit light of day the underlying meaning of that coded expression and to call to account — for what they mean to say, and what political objective they intend to accomplish by saying it — those who are trading subliminally in this notion of Chinese treason (derhaka Cina).

To react by shouting in exasperation, “how dare they, how dare the Chinese presume to behave disloyally, to indulge in treason!” ignores the fact that those who voted in ways that Umno and Utusan may not have liked were, as Malaysian citizens, fully entitled to cast their votes as they pleased, and to use their votes to say that they did not like what they were seeing — that they did not like the direction in which Umno now seemed determined to drag the country.

The attitude and response displayed by Umno and Utusan are those of a different situation. They are those of the Ottoman Empire. There, every millet (meaning every “encapsulated” national or cultural or religious minority) had the right to manage its own internal affairs autonomously, free from outside interference — so long as they remained monolithically loyal under their own leaders to the sultan and his government.

But Malaysia in Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s time is not the Ottoman Empire in the age of Suleyman the Magnificent or Abdul Majid I.

The point is obvious, but its implications are difficult for some to grasp.

The expression “Chinese tsunami” may be rhetorically evocative. But it is logically and empirically dubious, and its use is politically and morally inexcusable.

What was GE13 really about?

If, as was plainly the case, the Umno/BN campaign pitched to the key, or core, Malay heartland electorate was the “Perkasa Mild” message, how should the Pakatan opposition have responded? What should its central campaign message have been?

If Umno/BN was content to run in effect on the Perkasa stance of “Malays on top, now and forever. That’s Malaysia, love it or leave it!”, then Pakatan should have offered a clear response, a compelling alternative, and a challenge to the Umno/BN line.

It might have said: “Historically and culturally, Malaysia is and of course remains a Malay-centred society. We do not question that. But at the same time we are all Malaysians, Malaysia is all of us. Malaysia as a nation is the common, shared inheritance of the children of all of its citizens, regardless of the path which they took towards citizenship. Malaysia is a state that is made up of all of its citizens and which belongs alike to all of them.”

That was, in effect, the position taken and promoted by Pakatan when campaigning among voters outside the Malay heartlands. But it had to take that position “across the board”, everywhere, as the central plank of its platform.

Certainly, it would not have been easy. It is a more complex position than the Perkasa mantra. And, in these matters, simplicity is what works, while complexity invites misunderstanding, both unintended and wilful. And it would also have been risky.

Running with this formulation would have required Pakatan, and especially the DAP, to make clear that this position was very different from the old “Malaysian Malaysia” notion — an accusation that Umno/BN strategists would certainly have levelled and tried to pin on it as a damning label.

But, hard as it was, that was what had to be done, what needed to be said. For all the dangers, there was no alternative to that kind of courageous political self-definition and self-affirmation.

Instead, Pakatan seemed to hope that by sticking with its familiar themes, it might somehow just get enough votes in the right places and so “fall over the line” to victory. That was unlikely, and even if it had succeeded in getting the basic numbers, it would not have been a convincing victory. Not a basis for assuming authoritatively the reins of national power.

Pakatan needed to put this clear challenge to Umno/BN — on well-prepared ground, as a prospective so-called “game-changer” — in the last week of the campaign. It should have tried in that way to put Umno/BN on the back foot, presented it with a challenge that its people would have had to scramble to address.

Doing that would not have been easy. How might Umno/BN have responded to that challenge?

Either they would have had to say, “yes, we agree with you, that it our position too” — in which case they would have had to distance themselves from Perkasa and dissociate themselves from their own and Utusan’s “Perkasa Mild” line. But if that is now your claim, it might then have been put, why are you not acting consistent with your principled position? Why have you so long failed to do so? Either you have been sincere but have failed, or else you have never meant it, then or now.

Or else they would have had to say, “No, we do not accept that view” and then they would have been forced to live with the consequences. Many Malays, urban and rural, might have been happy to see them do exactly that. But, equally, and most awkwardly for Umno, many of them along with many non-Malays would not have been. These people would have considered it the last straw, if Umno had pulled back from the formulation offered by Pakatan or tried to fudge and bluff their way around it.

Doing so would perhaps have cut their core Malay base off, and even morally isolated the Umno itself, from the rest of the country. That was not a price that Umno would have been wise to risk having to pay.

A courageous opposition that was ready to present a clear alternative and which, by offering it, was able to show that it was ready to govern would have put that clear challenge to Umno/BN.

At GE13 in 2013 the Pakatan opposition did not.

It did not even try. Which was strange.

After all, the entire Pakatan campaign embodied and implicitly sent that message anyway.

Their rallies not only said that, in principle, another Malaysia was possible. They were in effect saying in action, by how they chose to campaign, that Pakatan itself was the proof that that other Malaysia was now coming into being; that they themselves and their campaign were tangible evidence that its time had come.

Yet they did not dare say it directly, clearly, explicitly, in plain words. A strange choice.

In sum

In the final analysis, the Umno/BN side, despite the stupendous expense of its campaign and all its related activities, failed to present any clear argument why it deserved to be re-elected, nor any new vision of common national purpose and direction.

It did everything but that. For some it must have been great fun. For some it must have been very rewarding and profitable. But, even though the election was in the end won, the staggeringly expensive campaign simply did not do the job.

Meanwhile, for its part, the Pakatan opposition gave no sign that it was yet ready to govern: that it was sufficiently cohesive and was of a sufficiently clear and coherent common mind to lead the nation.

The outcome of GE13 sent a clear message to both sides. To Umno/BN, the message was that it will have to do better next time, possibly with far less money and spectacle but far more thought and insight, as well as a deeper appreciation of the good sense of the voters and increased respect for their judgment.

And the Pakatan opposition, or whatever opposition may next take up the baton, will have to demonstrate that it is capable not simply of cobbling together an improvised “no contests, no enemies, amongst ourselves on polling day” agreement that in many ways is no better than the long-tested Alliance/Barisan Nasional model, but of doing more and better.

Which means: generating a new kind of inclusive, democratic Malaysian politics, creating an effective political vehicle to promote it, and devising new policies (and approaches to policy-making) that might give some plausible and substantive reality, were they ever to be elected, to that “new Malaysian politics”.

That is the challenge to the Malaysian opposition. Will it be addressed? Will it ever be mastered? And under whose aegis? Under the leadership of Lim Kit Siang and Anwar Ibrahim? Or under new leaders, some whose faces are already familiar and some who are yet to emerge between now and the next great Malaysian contest for government?

Meanwhile, as after past elections, Umno will just get back to the business of governing, in its own distinctive and (so some would say) increasingly anachronistic way. But, this time after GE13, it is now placed to do so freshly unleashed from some old constraints and able — whether for good or ill remains to be seen — to do far more readily what and as it pleases.

How will Umno use its latest and ambiguous victory? How will it use its suddenly, and perhaps unexpectedly, augmented domination of the nation’s political life?

There are grounds for both fear and hope. As always, the challenge will be to resist opting for the easy thing in order, on principled grounds, to choose to do the right thing.

That is not something that Umno has always found it easy to do. That way of acting has often not seemed to come naturally to its tough-minded strategists. Whatever chances may offer themselves, the hard-headed pragmatists in Umno do not often refuse the dubious ones when they are attractive, seem capable of realisation, and look likely to prove politically rewarding.

In the final analysis, if something appealing can be done, they usually say, let us do it! The ability to get it done itself provides — nothing more! — all the legitimation and justification that may be needed in order to go ahead and do it.

When the opportunities that may present themselves are likely to involve some long-standing objectives and aspirations grounded in the mindset of the exclusionary early and mid-twentieth Malay nationalism, the case for prudent reflection, rather than the hurried seizing of the moment and of whatever easy prizes it may have to offer, will not be easy to make.

Let us hope that it will be made and also heard. — New Mandala

An afterword

Some readers have already asked why I have not mentioned alleged “vote rigging”, manipulation of the election process and the like in my discussion. They add that the analysis that I have provided will be incomplete, defective and misleading if it fails to address those questions.

My account given here of GE13 does not go into those matters.

It does not because so much of the immediate post-election analysis has been about, and indeed has been largely pre-occupied with, precisely those questions.

I saw no need, and see no reason, to go over all that same ground once again here.

More, I chose to omit any discussion of that aspect because, after the continuing focus upon those issues in so much of the post-election commentary and analysis so far, it is now important, in my view, to shift attention to some other matters and some more deeply-seated dimensions of the complex GE13 experience.

But I am not insensitive to the importance of those matters.

For the record, I therefore append here to this discussion two paragraphs from the brief commentary on GE13 (“Malaysia’s election result — no surprise to the knowledgeable”) that I wrote for “Asian Currents”:

“ .. .. .. International press comment often seeks to highlight instances of government skulduggery on election day. Sharp practice clearly occurs, far too often. But Malaysian elections have never been a ‘level-playing field’. And, despite the growth of ‘new media’ that mitigate the government’s long-standing domination of the official media, in other ways things are now less level than ever.

“Yet attention needs to focus not on election-day malpractice but on the nature of the electoral system itself: on the delineation of boundaries and the distortions entailed by the ‘first past the post system’. More, it is not what the Election Commission may or may not do during the course of the election, whether it acts impartially or in a partisan fashion, that is of concern. Before it even begins to swing into action to arrange the polls, the EC is an inherently compromised and flawed body. It is a contradictory beast with a dual nature. It is the statutory body appointed to stage elections with due propriety; but it also operates — by requiring citizens to vote in specific ‘streams’ by age and ethnicity within every polling station — as the producer of a massive ‘national political demography’ database whose findings are not made available to the public or other political parties but which is developed as the primary strategic instrument of the ruling Umno party and its partners. So long as this remains the case, the EC will never be universally seen as impartial and will never enjoy sufficient public trust. It needs not simply to be reformed but replaced, root and branch.”

* Clive Kessler is Emeritus Professor of Sociology & Anthropology at the University of New South Wales, Sydney.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.

Emphasis by Alhaj

GE13: What happened? And what now? (Part 1)

JUNE 12 ― In a brief commentary elsewhere (“Malaysia’s election result — no surprise to the knowledgeable,” Asian Currents, June 2013), I have noted one paradoxical but hugely important consequence of Malaysia’s recent national elections held on 5 May.

A paradox: anomalous domination

The remarkable, perhaps “counter-intuitive”, fact is that, while the election result itself ― namely, a fairly close but nonetheless comfortable victory of the Umno-centred Barisan Nasional side over the Pakatan Rakyat opposition ― came as no great surprise, that unremarkable result nonetheless had one quite surprising, even paradoxical, consequence.

From GE13 an electorally weakened Umno emerged politically even more dominant than it had been before. While still embattled in the broader political arena, Umno was delivered a dominant position within the parliament, ruling coalition and government.

By bestowing it with that now dominant parliamentary position, GE13 had delivered into Umno’s hands an ascendancy over the governing BN coalition, government policy, Parliament’s agenda and parliamentary process, and thereby over national political life ― over the nation’s affairs and direction ― of a quite unprecedented and perhaps irresistible kind.

What are the relevant facts here?

The immediate challenge facing Najib Razak, it had been said in the run-up to GE13, was at best to win back the two-thirds majority (or 148 of the 222 seats in the Dewan Rakyat), or at least to improve on the 2008 yield of 140.

More modest and realistic than demanding recovery of the two-thirds majority, some suggested that even 145 would have been a “good result”, good enough to ensure his immediate political survival against critics, adversaries and doubters in his own camp.

In the event, worse even than at GE12 in 2008, Umno/BN won only 133 seats. For those who might be satisfied with nothing less than assured domination ― a constitutionally unassailable and impregnable position ― a shortfall of eight seats had now almost doubled to 15.

Yet ― as I noted in my summary review ― behind all its archaizing ceremonialism and cultural nostalgia, politics and political thinking within Umno is nothing other than Realpolitik of the most ruthlessly pragmatic kind. And realistically, Umno (if its interests, and nothing else, are to be the focus of analysis, as the party “hard men” insist) did not do at all badly.

Why?

Because, paradoxically, its political domination was enhanced, not diminished, by the election result ― despite the further decline in the government’s parliamentary numbers and the opposition’s advances.

Drawing a contrast between the post-election situation of Umno/BN and its Pakatan Rakyat (PKR) adversary is instructive here.

The PKR coalition won a total of 89 seats. The opposition coalition’s parliamentary numbers are reasonably balanced. All three of its constituent parties have a sizeable and, if not an equal then a comparable, presence in the Dewan Rakyat (DAP holds 38 seats, PKR 30, PAS 21). The smallest of the three, PAS, contributes about a quarter of the opposition’s parliamentary numbers, while the largest, DAP, more than two-fifths but less than a half.

Contrast that with the situation on the government side.

Of BN’s 133 seats, Umno now holds 88 (up from 79 in 2008). Its MPs amount to two-thirds of the total BN parliamentary representation.

Umno alone has a parliamentary presence that is virtually the same as that of the combined opposition. Its shortfall of a single seat, if that troubles anybody who matters, is one that might be readily reversed through a by-election victory, the timely defection of an “unhappy” opposition MP, or even a successful appeal against the result in, say, Bachok or some other constituency where the Umno candidate had fallen narrowly short of victory in the election night count.

Now compare Umno’s situation among its governing BN partners with the more balanced situation in the opposition coalition’s parliamentary numbers.

After Umno, the next largest party on that side of the house holds only 14 seats. The Umno’s customary “primary partners” going back to Alliance Party times even preceding independence, the Chinese MCA and the Indian MIC, now together hold only 11 (7 and 4 respectively) and its newer ally Gerakan, 1 ― the decline in their public plausibility and electoral viability coming as the result of, and signifying, the increasing Umno dominance over its old BN partners in deciding national policy over the last decade.

After GE13, more even than before, the Umno’s ability to head a government, and rule over the nation’s core in peninsular Malaysia, now rests disproportionately upon the seats that its fractious East Malaysian partners hold in Sarawak and Sabah (34 seats, together held by 8 different parties, many of them loose, unstable personal alliances of mercurial, opportunistic and “gymnastic” leaders.)

Umno’s task will be to satisfy, appease and manage its increasingly assertive, and at times even restive, East Malaysian partners who now so heavily underwrite BN’s, and hence Umno’s, ability to rule.

But provided it can do that, in numerical and political terms Umno now dominates ― perhaps as never before ― the national government.

Provided it can decide without internal strife what it wants to do, provided it “knows its own mind”, it will be in a powerful position in the years ahead to have its way on all significant political and policy issues, so long as its Sabah and Sarawak allies can be kept “in line”.

In national government, an era of unprecedented Umno domination may now be in the offing.

Umno’s oddly empowering victory

Some indication of the nature and sources of the Umno’s success ― of how it stands to grow greatly in effective power from its diminished parliamentary base ― is suggested by the relative size of the three components within the opposition’s parliamentary delegation.

The Pakatan delegation is reasonably balanced, but not entirely so. It displays one anomalous feature. What is in many ways the most substantial member of the opposition coalition, the Islamic Party PAS, has the smallest parliamentary representation.

This is because, in Malaysia’s imbalanced and “malapportioned” electoral system, PAS unlike its coalition partners competes directly against Umno for “bulk” Malay votes: that is, for support from the core, more traditionally-minded and less cosmopolitan Malay voters in the rural Malay heartlands. They are direct rivals for the support of the core part of the nation’s Malay political core component, the core of the core.

Those rural Malay areas are hugely favoured in the drawing of electoral boundaries ― which is to say in their size, meaning the smaller number of votes that is necessary for them to elect an MP. It is in those parts of the country, in those electorates, that Malay domination of national political life is grounded.

And, of the opposition parties, only PAS competes directly against Umno for those votes.

Their struggle is a “zero-sum game”. It is an “up and down” thing, a constant long-term oscillation. When Umno does badly, PAS numbers increase and PAS political influence grows (and vice versa).

That has always been the basis of PAS’s political strength and long-term strategy. By its ability to win popular Malay support, and so to deprive Umno of the credibility and legitimacy that substantial Malay support ensures, PAS can at times exercise enormous influence over Umno, over its policies and direction, from outside.

But when Umno does well, PAS numbers and its immediate influence upon Umno thinking are diminished. When Umno does well electorally, it denies PAS this important leverage. PAS’s ability to force itself upon its rival’s thinking in the setting of national priorities and direction ― even to set terms that Umno cannot resist ―  declines.

When it succeeds in this way in freeing itself to some degree from the constraints imposed by PAS ― from the strategic stranglehold that in its “good years” results from PAS’s political success and ensuing Malay “moral credibility” ― Umno wins for itself some significantly increased political “room for manoeuvre”.

That is what happened at the recent GE13. The question to ask is why? How was it done?

The winning campaign

The key to the election result, and to Umno’s improbable feat of drawing increased political strength from reduced parliamentary numbers and a weakened parliamentary position, was Umno’s success in its head-on clash with PAS for Malay votes in the Malay heartlands ― for the “core  Malay vote”.

Much has been made of the fact that the two members of the Malay ethno-supremacist pressure group Perkasa whom Umno directly or indirectly endorsed ― Zulkifli Noordin in the Klang Valley “beltway” seat of Sham Alam and Ibrahim Ali in PAS “crown jewels” seat of Pasir Mas ― lost to their adversaries. There was no comfort for Umno in those two results.

This has prompted some commentators to suggest that the GE13 results signal a clear repudiation by the national electorate as a whole, Malay as well as non-Malay, of Perkasa, its approach and what it stands for.

But the matter is not so simple or clear.

The nature of the winning campaign has to be more closely considered.

(i)  The international level

The government’s GE13 campaign operated at several levels. For international consumption, notably the foreign investment and diplomatic communities, one story was developed.

This was the beguiling story of Prime Minister Najib as the heroic but still shackled economic reformer, the eager and available driver of administrative transformation ― and also of taxation reform, in the form of reduced corporate and personal taxation, all to be made good by the reasonably prompt post-election introduction of a goods and services tax (GST).

Glued onto this portrait was another. This was the picture of Najib as the self-proclaimed, and internationally acclaimed, “global moderate”, the champion of interfaith conciliation and the determined enemy of all forms of political extremism, but especially that driven by religious militants and fanatics.

This “international campaign” projecting Najib as a soon to be unbound economic Prometheus and also a fastidious moderate who would “have no truck” with any crude, populist extremism was offered with a clear objective.

Its purpose was to win for the prime minister and his party a sympathetic hearing overseas and, with it, the indulgence of a free hand at home to wage the other parts of their multilevel campaign.

Overseas, that portrait of Najib was reassuring, and people there would be satisfied with it. Nothing more to be asked for. Its plausibility had simply to be upheld. For example, against the free-lance meddling of a rogue Australian senator.

(ii)  The domestic pantomime

While this “image campaign” was offered internationally, the Najib who was seen for months on the campaign trail at home was something different. At home the prime minister cut a benign and ever-avuncular figure as he campaigned up and down the country by recourse to a kind of “Santa Claus politics” (as some called it). Its simplicity was that of a holiday pantomime. Or perhaps a travelling circus: “Every few minutes something new, something different, something dramatic! Something for everybody!”

There was something, something new, for somebody every day, a new inducement or “softener” for yet another interest group or finely drawn demographic category.

This was a campaign to the nation’s socially disaggregated parts, to its separate disarticulated elements, not to the nation as a whole.

It was not a campaign that projected any distinctive concept that the prime minister may have had, and wished to promote, of the Malaysian nation and its evolving destiny.

It was instead a campaign directed to every individual voter and every special interest-group or social element. It was one that encouraged them all to ask “What is in this for me? For us?” ― and which then provided an answer. Concretely and immediately, tangibly. An answer not in words or ideas but in palpable material benefits and ― “just for you and people like you, in your same situation or predicament” ― specified provisions.

Prime Minister Najib offered vast menu of hand-outs and rewards ― at prospectively huge cost to public expenditure, to the national accounts and the government’s coffers ― in the hope of attaching ever more securely to himself his own side’s loyal political followers, and of attracting the undecided to join them in supporting him and his cause.

This was hardly the kind of campaign that international investors, eager to see clear evidence of some sort of advance pre-election commitment to fiscal austerity and economic responsibility, can have been hoping to see  Umno run. Not what they had in mind!

But, though it involved huge public expenditures and costly promises, those promises had been accompanied by assurances of reduced corporate tax levels. So, overall, it may have pleased those foreign bystanders anyway: as a strategy that would make prompt Malaysian adoption of a GST to pay for it all inevitable.

It may have appealed to them as a neat way to make the fickle, imprudent and gullible people pay for all the offered benefits and promises that they had so unwisely and unaffordably chosen to accept. (Significantly, mention of the impending introduction of a GST was no part of the election campaign, neither Umno/BN’s nor the opposition’s.)

So allied to Najib “the great transformer in waiting” and Najib the global moderate was Najib “the great dispenser of treats and inducements” ― who was also, or so it was hoped by some, “the canny, crafty promoter of a GST”, the masterful maker of traps and ambushes who was making the GST’s introduction necessary and laying the grounds for its general acceptance.

“Of course we may all have these benefits. We Malaysians are entitled to nothing less. But we Malaysians too ― who else? ― must pay for them. In doing so we will not only reward ourselves and ensure our government’s fiscal viability from which every citizen benefits. We can make Malaysia, more even than before, the up-to-date model of a developing nation and the envy of the entire postcolonial world”. It is not hard to script the arguments that will need to be made and invoked.

(iii)  The real campaign

Umno/BN’s was a multi-level campaign.

The first level projected Najib’s image internationally as an economic reformer and religious moderate. Here he was portrayed as an intelligent and polished progressive in a land where progressives were not conspicuously plentiful in official circles.

The second was a campaign that kept Najib ― not so much Najib himself as his “simulacrum”, his carefully constructed image ― prominent in the public eye. But only through very controlled and tightly managed situations. It projected him as a man less with a mission than with a wonderful “magic pudding” that might continually, without ever becoming exhausted, be parcelled out and distributed to the people for their enjoyable and cost-free consumption.

This second campaign, in many ways a media construct or artefact, was largely a diversion and a distraction. It was devised to create a plausible appearance of dynamism and momentum to what had become, among the world’s notable political parties, an ungainly, lumbering and sclerotic dinosaur. It was staged to divert unwelcome attention from the real campaign.

It was, of course, those two “show campaigns” that occupied and entirely seized the attention of the international media. Meanwhile, the real campaign was conducted with unremitting determination, even ruthlessness, beneath the “foreign radar”, out of view of most overseas reporters and commentators.

What was the “real” campaign?

The nature of Umno/BN election strategy was clear. Like all intelligent political analysts, those in the party’s “brains trust” and campaign “engine room” could see that the vast bulk of Chinese voters were lost to BN and were unlikely to be won back, no matter what the old ruling party bloc did or promised.

Much of the Indian vote too was lost, but not all of it was entirely beyond recall. Part of it might be won back with some dramatic gestures (most remarkable of which was the Hindraf rapprochement). But while winning back that partial Indian support might do Umno/BN’s political image some much needed good by providing some symbolic rehabilitation for its claims of intercultural accommodation, those Indian votes that might be won over would never be enough to secure an Umno/BN victory.

So the strategy of the real campaign was focused elsewhere.

It was a battle for Malay votes.

Umno/BN saw, as some who were not part of its campaign also understood, that the key to the election was Malay votes. In comparison, nothing else really mattered much at all.

The key question was whether Umno/BN, and especially Umno itself, could win enough peninsular Malay votes, and enough of them in the right places ― meaning in the right local constituencies ― for Umno, in association with its Sarawak and Sabah allies, to secure a clear parliamentary majority.

So the campaign was focused and conducted where it mattered.

It was conducted in Malay terms and directed to a Malay audience. Meaning, the campaign was projected above all in the daily Malay-language press, notably the Umno’s own Utusan Malaysia, and via the Malay-language programming of the television channels with the greatest Malay reach, principally TV3 and RTM.

It was a campaign conducted for the votes of Malays, mainly for those of the great bulk of the more “traditionally-minded” Malays, in the Malay rural heartland areas.

The Umno campaign was simple: “all is at risk!” There is no protection, it kept hammering away, for you and your family, for all Malays, for the Malay stake in the country, for Islam or for the Malay rulers who are the ultimate bastion of our Malay-Islamic identity and national primacy ― other than us here in Umno.

It was a campaign that appealed to their sense of themselves ― to their sense of Malay identity and of Malay centrality to national life. It was a campaign that sought to suggest how tenuous the basis of Malay identity had now become in national life, how insecure the Malay grip upon the Malay stake in the nation had become. Everything that was distinctively Malay about Malaysia, it was suggested, was now under threat.

It was a campaign that both cultivated and then also appealed to a Malay sense of political and cultural peril, even crisis. It was a campaign that consisted of a managed panic: that the Malays were now beleaguered in their own land, the Tanah Melayu. Their historic stake in the nation was being whittled away and was now in jeopardy.

It was a campaign that sought to suggest that, as political currents were now running, it was not fanciful but realistic to imagine that Malays might one day soon “hilang di dunia” (in the words of the classical formulation), that they might disappear from the face of the earth.

It was a campaign of controlled communal panic. Malays and their way of life are beleaguered, and, central to their way of life, Islam was in jeopardy. Malay historical primacy and political leadership, the religious ascendancy of Islam, and the constitutional position of the Malay state rulers as their “untrumpable” guarantors had become the sacred trinity of the Umno campaign.

Everything that mattered to the Malay majority and its conventional loyalties was now at risk, it was suggested. It was threatened by the opposition Pakatan Rakyat coalition ― of which of course, the Islamic Party PAS was a key component. In the division of political labour between the Pakatan partners, it fell to PAS to wage the direct contest against Umno for votes in the nation’s Malay heartlands core.

So, above all else, the national election ― an election that would decide the prime minister’s and his party’s future ― turned upon a contest for “the national Malay soul” between Umno and PAS.

That was the real campaign.

It was the campaign that won the election for Umno/BN.

And it was a campaign that the many overseas reporters and commentators who flocked to Kuala Lumpur for a week or two simply did not see or “read” or understand.

It went beneath their radar, it was beyond their social, professional and imaginative reach. It was outside their range of cultural accessibility ― and also that, to be fair to them, of the vast majority of “like-minded” and “sympathetic” young urban Malaysians whom they were delighted to meet: who captured their attention, won their sympathy, and shaped their view of Malaysian society and politics.

For many of those intelligent, persuasive and globally-networked young Kuala Lumpur cosmopolitans, the Malay heartlands and those who live there are just as foreign and remote a world as they certainly were to the visiting journalists. The young sophisticates with their congenial “discourse” and “narratives” were nice people, but a very poor guide to what the election was really about ― how it was being conducted where it really mattered.

But, to those who were running the “real” campaign, that inattention was no problem. On the contrary. Let the foreign press write the stories that might please them, that seemed to centre upon the overseas journalists’ own effete concerns, not those of the rural Malay voters. Let them chase after stories that led them away from the real story, the main action.

After all, the “real campaign” for Malay votes in the heartlands ― for a firm place within and a hold upon the Malay soul ― would prosper best if it went unrecognized and unreported by the meddling and opinionated visitors of the international press. Let them meddle instead where their own interests and sympathies were engaged, not where their intruding curiosity might prove inconvenient, even embarrassing.

(To be continued in Part 2). — New Mandala

* Clive Kessler is Emeritus Professor of Sociology & Anthropology at the University of New South Wales, Sydney.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.

Najib a Deficit Leader?!

On election petitions — Art Harun

UMNO needs a strong leader

In his speech, Zaid gives Tun Mahathir high marks for his strong leadership of UMNO, Barisan Nasional, and our country. The Tun never claimed to be a democrat. He is someone who is tough and decisive when it comes to defending our national interest, especially   the plight of Malays. As Zaid says, “he had a long history of protecting Malay interests without talking too much about it”.

I am also intrigued by his comments about Anwar Ibrahim, de facto PKR leader and Opposition leader. He expresses a view about him that I share and that is, to quote him,

“On the side of the Opposition, I can only say that I am somewhat disappointed by the attitude shown by the Opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim. His combative and uncompromising attitude in not wanting to accept the result of the general election is regrettable. We are all disappointed with the result, but the right thing to do is to continue seeking peaceful means on how the shortcomings of the electoral process can be overcome…He may indeed be a good orator and popular with the people, but what he needs to show is his Parliamentary prowess. We still need to see more of his abilities in policy deliberations and offering specific policy initiatives.”

The question before us is rather straightforward. How do deal with this serious leadership deficit in our country? There is not much we can do about it in the short term since Malaysian politics is not attractive to our new generation.

As far as UMNO is concerned, the decision must rest with its membership body, especially the delegates to the UMNO General Assembly. But it is good to remind them that their choice of the next leader, if it comes to that, will determine the fate of our country. UMNO cannot fail as too much is at stake for stability, and national unity.– Din Merican

UMNO is without a Strong and Focused Leader

by Zaid Ibrahim*

After the most closely contested general election in our history, many of you probably want to know what will happen next. What do the results of GE13 mean for Malaysian politics, and for us? It’s a big question to tackle over lunch, so I have decided to address it from a limited perspective, and that is: what kind of leadership is in store for us after this past election?Since I am no longer involved in politics, some will say I am not the best person to answer this question. However, my being away from the front line of politics actually helps me to see things more clearly and objectively than a party member. I have no allegiances to service, no agenda to serve. What I say is based purely on what I see and understand about the inner workings of these political parties within the context of the larger political landscape. Najib is weak , UMNO and Country suffer.

Four years ago in my speech at this same hotel, I said that Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Razak was not a suitable man to succeed Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. With such deep-seated problems of corruption, intensified by distrust amongst the different races, coupled with the glaring weakness of the Police force to address the question of security and the deaths in Police custody, I believe that the country needs a strong leader.

Since the election, we are further faced with the terrible truth about the inefficiency and partisan behaviour of our own Election Commission, the irresponsible and provocative behaviour of UMNO’s media apparatus in maligning those they felt had not supported Barisan Nasional, the spate of arrests and charges against students and political leaders – all these matters have contributed to the present state of helplessness and anger amongst the people. Will the Prime Minister tackle these issues head on?

UMNO cannot function when its leader is weak, and neither can the country. The many years of indoctrination, including the inculcation of fear of threats from other ethnic communities, require that UMNO have a strong leader. This leader is someone who doesn’t fear his own family or the UMNO warlords, and who can employ the strength of his convictions and intellect to push his economic and social agenda successfully.

Mahathir is a strong and decisive leader

More importantly, UMNO requires a leader who at heart is someone who will not let the Malay community down. He is someone the Malays can have implicit trust to take care of them. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is a classic example of a strong UMNO leader. He committed some errors during his years as Prime Minister and gave a number of projects to his non-Malay friends, but the UMNO Malays trusted him to always take care of their interests. He had a long history of protecting Malay interests without talking too much about it.

Although lately he was rather harsh on the Chinese community for rejecting the BN and making the most unfortunate remarks in his blog, he was never like that when he was the Prime Minister. In fact, the Chinese community was always supportive of BN under him. He was a strong Malay leader who was acceptable to most non-Malays.

Perhaps that’s why he was strong enough to replace the NEP in 1990 with the National Development Policy, and was also able to come up with Vision 2020, which articulated a future in which Malaysians of all races could live together in harmony in a developed Malaysia. That’s why he was strong enough to get the school children to learn English through science and mathematics. There was no Utusan to mock or attack him and his policies, and there was no backlash from UMNO businessmen because he had the foresight to distribute the country’s largesse fairly.

During his tenure, there was never the kind of racial incitement or extreme posturing amongst the races. Relations between the Chinese and the Malays were good except for a brief moment during Operasi Lalang in 1987. He was able to do what others could not. That’s why he was able to sign a historic peace deal with the Communists. If he was the Prime Minister today, Chin Peng would have been allowed back home. Dr Mahathir would have honoured the agreement and Utusan and the ultra Malays would not have bothered him. That’s what a strong UMNO leader is capable of.

I am prepared to revise my opinion about the current Prime Minister if he would address the three main issues facing this country.  One, he has to stop racial polarization by making a clear and unequivocal stand on the matter. He must show he is able to control Utusan Melayu from further provoking the Chinese community.

Second, he has to address the endemic corruption and abuse of power in the country, with particular emphasis in revamping the entire Police force. Third, he has to work on a race relations legislation so that we can have better race relations; where there is no place for “hate politics” between the ethnic groups in the country and thus save this country from turmoil. These are big steps to take but that’s what a leader is for.

At this point in time, Najib does not fit into this frame of what is being described as “strong leader” at all. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He is cosmopolitan and lives the life as that of the rich and famous. I would imagine he is the type that relishes being flown by private jet, say to watch the sunrise in Sydney before jumping on the same jet to fly to New York to see another sunrise for the New Year! He is not perturbed by his family’s spending sprees, even though many Malaysians are still languishing in the low-income bracket. He has never been a natural leader known for his beliefs and convictions.

That’s why his so-called reforms and transformation plans seem so dangerous to UMNO Malays. He has no history of doing enough for them and so they are worried his transformation plans would  be to their detriment.

As I have said, Dr Mahathir might have been described as an ultra but in my opinion, he was fair to the other races; which is why the non-Malays had supported Barisan Nasional when he was Prime Minister. He had strong convictions and would not waver in the face of objections; and this gave the people comfort. He would not have the government fund movies such as Tanda Putera or a television series for the novel, Interlok.

During his tenure, you would not hear of Utusan regularly attacking the non-Malays as they do now. That can only be explained in this way: the UMNO Malays were assured that Dr Mahathir would always take care of them, despite being generous with the non-Malay towkays.

The question then is: can Najib convince the Malays that he will never ditch them for the sake of his so-called reforms and transformation plans. You see, only a strong and trusted UMNO leader can espouse and implement real and much-needed reforms or transformations.  Similarly, any rapprochement or reconciliation amongst the races can only be facilitated by a strong leader. If carried out haphazardly by a weak leader, then it will be seen as selling out and will inevitably fail.

Is there anyone who would mount a challenge to Najib? Insiders say that Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin would prefer to wait for the durian to fall without having to shake the tree. It’s also true that waging an UMNO contest entails spending a lot of money, and having spent so much already during the General Election, not many supporters have the appetite to submit to another round of “donations.” Some of the big donors who are usually prevailed upon to supply election war chests are strapped for cash. Even if they are inclined to support the challenger, they remain wary of Najib. The Prime Minister can easily make the call to the banks and these industrialists would be exposed to some serious recall of their loans.

If Najib can display strong leadership by tackling current problems with determination, perhaps he may be the preferred choice of UMNO delegates. And by the definition of “strong”, it does not mean threatening words or unleashing the keris, but one where the people of all races can be assured that he would stand by them in any circumstances.

So perhaps the challenge may not come after all or it may come from someone who is a proxy. We all remember that the same tactic was used against former Prime Minister Tun Hussein Onn when someone lower down the ranks, namely Sulaiman  Palestine, was put up as a challenger. He did well enough to embarrass Tun Hussein Onn, who then later resigned. This may well be the scenario that we will see unfolding come this year’s UMNO elections.

Anwar Ibrahim’s Uncompromising Attitude regrettable

On the side of the Opposition, I can only say that I am somewhat disappointed by the attitude shown by the Opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim. His combative and uncompromising attitude in not wanting to accept the result of the general election is regrettable. We are all disappointed with the result, but the right thing to do is to continue seeking peaceful means on how the shortcomings of the electoral process can be overcome.

His reluctance to talk about specific proposals on what should be done to improve the Election Commission whether by Parliament or the government is telling. This is in contrast, say with Lim Kit Siang, who mooted several options on how the Election Commission should be structured.

Recently, Anwar’s unwillingness to submit questions to Parliament certainly reflects badly on Pakatan Rakyat as the Opposition leader; as if he wishes to boycott the entire Parliamentary process completely. He may indeed be a good orator and popular with the people, but what he needs to show is his Parliamentary prowess. We still need to see more of his abilities in policy deliberations and offering specific policy initiatives.

What will all of this mean for the country? A strong leader is what the country needs from whichever side he comes from. He will be able to better control the excesses in the country’s politics (including his own party), which means incidents of harassing the other side – be it the Opposition or Government– will be reduced.

Unnecessary arrests by the Police for sedition or that of making racial threats through the party organs or newspapers will lessen. Such a leader, having been selected by the grassroots of the party, will face less pressure to behave as if he is the champion of one particular group since he is more assured of his position. The stability and unity factors will be harnessed and the national focus will go towards implementing good policies for the country.

For now, I believe a strong leader in UMNO will go a long way towards bringing stability to the country. I repeat, by “strong”, it does not mean ruthlessness and having no regard for the law. Being “nationalistic” towards your own ethnic group does not mean you have to antagonize, discriminate and hinder the progress of other communities.  “Strong” means you are clear in your mind as to the boundary of where and how all ethnic groups must conduct themselves towards one another.

Any effort towards genuine national reconciliation and taking steps to improve racial harmony can only happen when UMNO has a leader who is assured of himself, as well as that of his position.

On the other hand, those who are unsure of themselves or of their position in the party will pull all sorts of tricks to camouflage their weaknesses. In doing so, they will attack the Opposition, jail their opponents and do whatever they believe is necessary to show how “strong” they are. Equally, the Opposition camp must also play its part not to unnecessarily aggravate the schism, which can lead to the rupture of our social fabric and harmony. Responsible leadership is thus required from both sides.

Malaysia is facing the most difficult moment in its history. To allow the problems to continue unattended is most irresponsible. It is so urgent we find a suitable leader to lead us. Whether it be Najib or Muhyiddin or someone else, the people will expect nothing less than real leadership from that individual. – zaidforrakyat.com

Speech at the Rotary Club of Pudu at Shangri-La Hotel, Kuala Lumpur on  June 

Emphasis by administrator

Election Petition – a note to Rafizi

June 12, 2013

FMT LETTER: From Art Harun, via e-mail

I refer to the FMT report, ‘Impossible To Win Election Petition’. I have written before on the standard of proof in election petitions. Thus I will not comment on YB Rafizi’s statement on the same subject. I wish to however address two issues.

Firstly, allow me to state the reason for the high standard of proof which is required to win an election petition. To understand the reason for the standard of proof, we need to know – and understand – the basic premise of an election petition.

The premise of an election petition is an electoral result which is being challenged.

To put it simply, there has been an election. And there is a result of that election. That result is born out of a democratic process which takes the form of an election. That result therefore represents the WILL OF THE MAJORITY as expressed through the election process. The candidate which is preferred by the majority is therefore declared the winner in the election.

Now, what is being challenged in an election petition is actually the will of the majority expressed in the election. Being so, in order to sustain that challenge, sufficient reasons must be shown to unseat the will of the majority. Those reasons proffered by the challenger must thus satisfy a high legal burden. Otherwise, the will of the majority could easily be defeated in the Election Court. That would make a mockery of democracy.

Take this scenario as an example.

Candidate A won an election by 3,000 votes. Candidate B files an election petition showing that 300 voters had managed to wash off their so-called indelible ink immediately after voting. Videos of a bus full of people who looked like Bangladeshis parking itself at the voting centre were also produced.

Here, it is not sufficient for candidate B to just show those evidences. He must demonstrate how those things affect the result of the election. In respect of the 300 voters who washed off the ink, it must be shown that they had, in addition to washing off the ink, managed to vote twice. In relation to the bus, it must be shown that those people were indeed foreigners who were not entitle to vote and they did vote.

If the laws were to permit the result to be vitiated just by showing 300 people had washed off the ink and a bus full of Bangladeshis was parked at the voting centre with nothing more, what that would mean is that the will of the majority could be over-ridden and set aside by the minority. That would be undemocratic. I am sure in such event – of that happens to a Pakatan Rakyat’s candidate – the PR would be complaining of how undemocratic the laws are!

In the above scenario, any complain in respect of the procedural non-compliance must therefore be supported with evidence that at least 1,500 votes were affected by the non-compliance. If that is done, then candidate A could not and should not have been the winner. Therefore, the result would be vitiated and another election must be called.

That is how it works.

The second issue which I would like to deal with is this.

The aforesaid report in FMT goes on to say:

“On that note, the Pandan MP said that the electoral laws in Malaysia are skewed to allow and tolerate discrepancies, unless it hits a criticial level that can alter the election results.”

I do not know as a fact whether YB Rafizi did say that. On the assumption that he did say that, I would like to respond to that statement.

It is NOT CORRECT and NOT TRUE that electoral laws in Malaysia are “skewed” to allow and tolerate discrepancies.

Our election rules are mainly contained in an Act called the Election Offences Act 1954. This Act is mainly based on the Common Law principles and the provisions of the United Kingdom’s Representation of the People Act 1948 (which later became the Representation of the People Act 1983). The provisions of our laws are not only similar to the UK provisions but also to the Indian provisions.

So, our electoral laws are not peculiar to us. In hearing election petitions, our Election Courts are normally referred to authorities and judicial precedents from the UK and Indian Courts. Sometimes we refer even to the Canadian and Australian cases. If our laws are said to be skewed to tolerate discrepancies, then the UK and Indian laws are also skewed as such!

In a report dated Dec 11, 2012 by a Law Commission in the UK, consisting of eminent jurists, namely, The Rt Hon Lord Justice Lloyd Jones (Chairman), Professor Elizabeth Cooke, Mr David Hertzell, Professor David Ormerod and Frances Patterson QC, the Commission among others, states:

“In our consultation paper we summarised the jurisdiction of the parliamentary election court as:

i. reviewing the votes in a scrutiny, potentially declaring another candidate elected as the person having the most lawful votes; or

ii. examining the validity of the election, potentially resulting in an MP being unseated and a new election being called. Here, we distinguished between:

(a) invalidity for breaches of the rules by electoral administrators;

(b) a successful candidate’s corrupt or illegal practice; and

(c) a successful candidate’s disqualification from office.”

That is precisely what our Election Courts are empowered to do too. Section 32 of our Act says:

“32. The election of a candidate at any election shall be declared to be void on an election petition on any of the following grounds only which may be proved to the satisfaction of the Election Judge:

(a) that general bribery, general treating or general intimidation have so extensively prevailed that they may be reasonably supposed to have affected the result of the election;

(b) non-compliance with the provisions of any written law relating to the conduct of any election if it appears that the election was not conducted in accordance with the principles laid down in such written law and that such non-compliance affected the result of the election;

(c) that a corrupt practice or illegal practice was committed in connection with the election by the candidate or with his knowledge or consent, or by any agent of the candidate;

(d) that the candidate personally engaged a person as his election agent, or as a canvasser or agent, knowing that such person had within seven years previous to such engagement been convicted or found guilty of a corrupt practice by a Sessions Court, or by the report of an Election Judge; or

(e) that the candidate was at the time of his election a person disqualified for election.”

As we can see, the provisions are identical. (The power of “scrutiny”, ie, to recount votes is contained in section 50 of our Act.)

The Law Commission further states:

“Administrative breaches

How a breach of a rule pertaining to administration of the poll should affect its validity involves a balancing act between giving teeth to the rules and achieving a certainty in electoral outcomes. The law has therefore placed some restraints on the consequences of breach. As our consultation paper explained, a challenge based on ground 2(a) above is essentially founded on the breach causally affecting the outcome of the election. In contrast, a candidate’s corrupt or illegal practice or disqualification vitiates the validity of the election irrespective of the effect on the result.

The law’s restraint is judicial in origin. Section 23(3) of the 1983 Act states that no UK Parliamentary election shall be declared invalid if it appears that: (a) the election was so conducted as to be substantially in accordance with the law as to elections; and (b) the act or omission did not affect the result.

Considering identical provision in the Representation of the People Act 1949, Lord Denning MR in Morgan v Simpson re-stated its wording in positive form; a breach of the rules must affect the outcome of the election in order to result in its nullity. An election will be held not to have been conducted substantially in accordance with the law as to elections if there was a “substantial departure” such as to make “the ordinary man condemn the election as a sham or a travesty of an election by ballot”. The bar was thus set very high for an administrative breach to invalidate an election irrespective of its impact on the result.”

Again, that is PRECISELY the position in Malaysia. In respect of procedural non-compliance, we need to prove that such non-compliance must affect the result or outcome of the election. Please see section 32 (b) as reproduced above.

In so far as corrupt or illegal practices are concerned, these are divided into two categories:

a) where the corrupt and illegal practices were committed by the candidate himself or his agent, or with his knowledge or consent, the result is automatically vitiated regardless of whether such acts affect the result or not. (section 32 (c)).

b) where the corrupt and illegal practices have so extensively prevailed, the result would only be vitiated if they may be reasonably supposed to have affected the result of the election. Here, we do not have to show that the acts were done by the candidate, his agent or with his knowledge or consent.

What is being emphasised under sub-paragraph (b) above however is “reasonableness.” The question is, after looking at the totality of the evidence, is it reasonable for the Court to suppose that the result has been affected by the acts.

In respect of non-compliance of the rules or procedures, the question, as Lord Denning puts it in Morgan v Simpson:

Was there “substantial departure” such as to make “the ordinary man condemn the election as a sham or a travesty of an election by ballot”. The bar was thus set very high for an administrative breach to invalidate an election irrespective of its impact on the result.”

That IS the position in England and that IS the position here.

Our election laws are not skewed to tolerate discrepancies. Our laws are based on the English laws as well as other respected jurisdiction within the Commonwealth.

In fact I dare say that our election laws are even better than the English laws. That is because here, we have an automatic right to appeal against any decision of the Election Court to the Federal Court (where at least 3 Judges will sit). In England, the decision of the Election Court is not appealable. A judicial review may however be asked for. But that is not automatic as judicial review may only be invoked if the High Court grants leave to do so.

When our laws place a high burden on us and do not always work in our favour or do not support our cases, it does not speak well for us to say that our laws are skewed.

Now, numerous election petitions are filed. Pakatan Rakyat is challenging many election results where the Barisan candidates had won. Conversely, Barisan Nasional is also challenging many results where the PR candidates had won.

I will bet my last dime that the Pakatan Rakyat lawyers will argue the same thing as the Barisan Nasional lawyers’ would in defending the results of the election which favour the PR candidate. In other words, all the above arguments which I have set out, will also be used by PR to defend the result of the election where the PR candidate had won.

Now, doesn’t that give new meaning to “fair is foul and foul is fair?”

Also read:

‘Impossible to win an election petition’

Petronas and Oil!

Tags

Petrol

Facts that Anwar, Lim Guan Eng, DAP and RBA Will Never Want You To Know

Oil Facts Issue

1. Bloomberg listed Malaysia as 9th Cheapest Price of Oil Country in the World

(http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2012/05/highest-cheapest-gas-prices-by-country)

2. Even United States was rank at 12th in the world they already claimed that they are among the cheapest in the world. If 12th dare to claim they are among the cheapest then what about Malaysia which rank at 9th ?

( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/15/united-states-low-gas-prices_n_1518169.html )

3. Malaysia is rate at $3.30 per gasoline while United states at  $4.19.

( this exclude the latest Malaysia BN government who reduces our RON 97 by 20 sen per liter and most importantly Anwar only PROMISE while BN deliver it despite not being in BN Manifesto after winning in GE 13 )

Oil Exporter Issue

4. DAP and Anwar allegations that Malaysia is oil exporter country therefore the price should be cheaper ? Facts no 1 we not even recognize by OPEC as an oil exporter country . The REAL oil exporter country will be invited to be part of OPEC. Facts no 2 will be 90% of the daily oil that Malaysia produces already uses for local consumption. In this case we actually only export 10% of our oil.

U.S. oil output rose 14 percent to 6.5 million barrels per day last year — a record increase. By 2020, the nation is forecast to overtake Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest crude oil producer. At the same time, U.S. gasoline demand has fallen to 8.7 million barrels a day, its lowest level since 2001, as people switch to more fuel-efficient cars.

5. Price of oil in Malaysia is even cheaper than many other REAL OIL producer and exporter countries like Iraq , Sudan and etc etc.

Free Education

6. Anwar Free Education policy ? Norway is unusual in that it’s the only major oil producer with expensive gas. Instead of subsidizing fuel at the pump, the country uses its oil profits for services, such as free college education, and savings for infrastructure improvements. A country like Norway who do not give their citizens oil subsidy end up giving them free education. As in Malaysia , the educational loan interest rate is only at 1% and 80% of the entire cost in public University already subsidized by the government. This include OIL Subsidy from Malaysia government.

Tax

7. Malaysia tax rate is at  Malaysia 27% while compare to United States tax rate at 40%. Means every RM 100 American is earning then RM 40 will be given back to the government. Yet the citizen and politicians including the oppositions never promise to reduce price of oil , free education and free this and free that. Malaysian who pay just 27% of tax thinks that they are the BOSS while people in United States thinks that the country is the boss. They belief in not what your country can do for you but WHAT CAN YOU DO FOR YOUR COUNTRY – John F Kennedy

Unemployment rate

8. US Unemployment rate at 7.3% vs Malaysia 3.3%
( In economic theory unemployment rate at 5% is normal and below 5% is good )

9. Since DAP and Anwar always ask us not to compare with country that is worst than us then why not we just compare all this with 1 of the top and best country in the world which is the United States ? Some call it AMERICA .

Debts

10. United States national debt is at USD 16 TRILLION vs Malaysia at USD 132 Billion. When Mitt Romney fought against Obama he never politicized this issue to claim that US will go bankrupt but instead selling to the Americans what he can do to reduce the National Debt. In Malaysia ? Just at RM 500 billion while ignoring the facts that our national debt is at 53% GDP ( normal ) and earning more than RM 200 billion a year after PM Najib took over and yet people like Anwar , Lim Kit Siang and Red Bean Army can spread that our country is going to go bankrupt ? Worst many Malaysian students who are ECONOMIC GRADUATE and study economy during SPM and STPM can even belief such a fake lie.

Anwar and DAP had never tell you how they are going to reduce our national debts. They only tell you how they going to SPEND our country money to give YOU this and That Free and abolish this and that .

BN vs PR State Debts

11. BN rule Kedah for 55 years and the state debts is only at RM 1 billion. Pakatan Rakyat rule less than 4 years ( after Mac 2008 ) they state debt had increase to RM 3 billion in just 4 years time ! Penang state under DAP is a surplus state ? DAP transfer 90% of their state water debt to the Federal. Since Federal is under BN then the surplus credit should actually goes to BN.

Corruption

12. Corruption ? After PM Najib too over Malaysia World Corruption Perception Index improve by 6th ranking from 60th to 54th over the last 4 years. – http://1sya.com/?p=7047 

Emphasis by the administrator.

PRU-14: Ekslusifiti UMNO untuk Ahli UMNO, Berpolitik Bermatlamat Mencari Kekayaan dan Rapuh Semangat Melayu Bakal Menjahanamkan UMNO dan Barisan Nasional!

Tags

Melayu

Umno dan masa depan politik negara — Mohamed Mustafa Ishak

9 JUN — Umno dan Barisan Nasional (BN) sangat bernasib baik kerana terus diberikan mandat memerintah negara dalam Pilihan Raya Umum Ke-13 (PRU-13) lalu.

Dengan BN memperolehi 133 kerusi dan pakatan pembangkang 89 kerusi, maka hanya 23 buah kerusi sahaja yang memisahkan pembangkang daripada tampuk kuasa dalam Parlimen yang mempunyai 222 buah kerusi. Jika tidak kerana sumbangan besar daripada para pengundi di Sabah dan Sarawak, BN dan Umno mungkin sudah menjadi pembangkang di Parlimen hari ini.

Demikianlah realiti pahit yang harus dihadapi oleh Umno dan BN hari ini. Justeru kemenangan yang dicapai Umno dan BN, walaupun sudah mencukupi untuk membentuk kerajaan, akan tetapi ia bukanlah suatu kejayaan besar yang terlalu boleh dibanggakan sangat.

Jika tidak kerana kerja keras Perdana Menteri dan Presiden Umno, Datuk Seri Najib Razak dan Timbalannya Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin menjayakan pelbagai agenda transformasi kerajaan dan politik semenjak mengambil alih tampuk kuasa pada tahun 2009 yang lalu, prestasi Umno dan BN mungkin jauh lebih buruk daripada itu.

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad dalam entri blognya pada 4 Jun lalu dengan tajuk “UMNO DAHULU DAN SEKARANG”, menyebut:

“Mungkin kita boleh tepuk belakang kerana Umno masih menjadi parti yang menang terbanyak dalam PRU-13. Tetapi ini bukan kerana orang Melayu masih sokong Umno. Sebenarnya kemenangan Umno dalam PRU-13 disebabkan mereka tidak ada pilihan. Mereka amat takut kalau-kalau Anwar Ibrahim menang bersama dengan DAP. Akan hancurlah harapan orang Melayu sama sekali.

“Seburuk-buruknya Umno, ia masih berbau Melayu, masih lebih mungkin memelihara kepentingan orang Melayu. Justeru itu tidak ada pilihan bagi orang Melayu jika tidak sokong Umno. Namun demikian dalam PRU-14 Umno tidak boleh harap keadaan ini berterusan. Jika Umno tidak bersihkan dirinya dari rasuah dan kepentingan diri, orang Melayu mungkin mencari jaguh yang lain.”

Kesimpulan Dr Mahathir bahawa orang Melayu amat takut Anwar menang bersama dengan DAP dan membentuk kerajaan yang akan mengubah nasib dan kedudukan mereka di negara ini mengikut acuan DAP dan PAP di Singapura adalah sesuatu yang benar-benar dirasai oleh majoriti orang Melayu yang keluar mengundi pada 5 Mei lalu dan mereka sekali gus menolak Anwar dan pembangkang.

Justeru itulah berlakunya polarisasi kaum yang amat ketara dalam PRU-13. Sementara kaum Cina yang termakan dan berjaya diumpan oleh DAP dan Anwar bahawa pembangkang akan menang dan akan membentuk kerajaan mengikut agenda ‘Malaysian Malaysia’ dan membawa negara ini menuju ke arah sistem pemerintahan ala republik, nekad memberikan sokongan tidak berbelah bahagi kepada pembangkang. Sebaliknya, orang Melayu, (kecuali ahli-ahli PAS dan penyokongnya), pula yang bimbang akan masa depan mereka dan nasib yang bakal menimpa mereka jika Anwar dan DAP menang, terpaksa terus terus berpaut kepada Umno dan BN kerana tiada lagi parti lain yang boleh mereka harapkan bagi melindungi mereka.

Namun pertanyaan Dr Mahathir bahawa apakah hanya atas alasan ini sahaja sudah mencukupi untuk Umno dan BN terus bertahan dan menang dalam PRU-14 akan datang adalah sesuatu yang harus direnungi dengan mendalam oleh Umno khususnya.

Sesungguhnya perubahan bersifat kosmetik dan penggilapan imej dan persepsi sahaja tidak mencukupi buat Umno dan BN. Umno perlukan penggilapan dan pengukuhan nilai-nilai murni perjuangan parti itu. Bersihkan Umno daripada semua unsur negatif yang membelenggu imej parti itu selama ini. Umno perlu menjadi parti yang bersih dan kaya dengan nilai-nilai perjuangan untuk terus memelihara agama, bangsa dan tanah air.

Ahli-ahli Umno mesti memilih hanya mereka yang bersih sahaja untuk menjadi pemimpin di semua peringkat. Hanya mereka yang terbaik sahaja yang harus diangkat ke saf kepimpinan Umno. Umno juga harus membuka pintu seluas-luasnya dan memberikan tempat yang sewajarnya kepada semua orang Melayu yang ingin berjuang dalam parti tersebut. Janganlah mereka ini dianggap sebagai orang luar yang ingin merebut kedudukan dalam Umno.

Kebolehan

Umno tidak boleh terus menjadi eksklusif hanya untuk orang Umno dalam cawangan, bahagian dan Majlis Tertinggi sahaja. Umno harus mempelawa dan menjemput seramai mungkin elit Melayu berkebolehan dari pelbagai latarbelakang serta mereka yang jauh dari Umno supaya menyertai dan mendekati parti tersebut.

Di sinilah keikhlasan kepimpinan Umno di peringkat cawangan dan bahagian dituntut. Kalau mereka hanya terus selesa dengan eksklusiviti Umno hanya untuk orang Umno sahaja, maka jangan salahkan orang Melayu kalau parti itu terus ditolak oleh generasi baru orang Melayu sedikit demi sedikit sebelum Umno ditolak sepenuhnya oleh orang Melayu dalam PRU-14 yang akan datang.

Buktikan bahawa orang Melayu belum lagi meluat dengan Umno dan parti itu masih lagi relevan untuk orang Melayu. Buktikan bahawa Umno masih lagi berjuang untuk semua orang Melayu dan bukan hanya untuk orang tertentu dan orang Umno sahaja. Buktikan bahawa Umno berjuang bukan untuk jawatan dan pangkat, untuk memperkayakan diri, untuk sagu hati, untuk poket sendiri.

Inilah sebetulnya agenda Umno hari ini yang perlu dihidupkan kembali dalam parti tersebut oleh setiap peringkat kepimpinan Umno. Pemilihan parti Umno yang akan datang adalah untuk menjayakan agenda ini. Inilah agenda untuk merejuvenasi parti yang Umno tiada pilihan, melainkan melakukannya dengan penuh keikhlasan, dedikasi dan komitmen padu.

Justeru, yang paling diperlukan Umno ialah modul latihan ahli yang mantap dan berkesan. Sehingga kini Umno masih lagi teramat miskin dengan modul latihan pemantapan perjuangan parti untuk ahli-ahlinya. Ramai daripada ahli-ahlinya termasuk sebahagian besar kepimpinan Umno di peringkat cawangan dan bahagian sudah lama atau tidak pernah langsung melalui proses latihan dalam parti untuk sekian waktu.

Bagaimanakah Umno ingin menjadi parti perjuangan dan bukan parti untuk orang mencari peluang menjadi kaya kalau ia amat miskin dengan latihan untuk ahli-ahlinya.

Bagaimanakah nilai-nilai perjuangan ingin dipupuk jika program latihan tidak dibangunkan dan dilaksanakan di dalam parti? Sebuah pasukan bola yang hanya diberikan seorang pengurus pasukan yang baik tetapi tidak melaksanakan program latihan yang secukupnya pasti kecundang dalam mana-mana pertandingan getir yang disertainya.

Tentera yang hanya diberikan senjata dan makan minum yang cukup tetapi tidak pernah diberikan latihan yang berkesan tidak akan berjaya dalam peperangan yang dihadapinya.

Tidak perlulah untuk membandingkan Umno dengan PAS dan puluhan atau ratusan usrah, tamrin, nadwah dan proses tarbiyyah yang dijalankan oleh parti tersebut untuk ahli-ahlinya. Hasil daripada latihan-latihan yang diberikan, ahli-ahli PAS sangat kental semangat perjuangannya dan patuh kepada semua arahan pucuk pimpinannya termasuklah apabila disuruh menjadi penampal poster dan pengibar bendera roket dalam pilihan raya sekali pun.

Justeru, ahli Umno sememangnya ramai. Tetapi yang berkualiti adalah terlalu sedikit dan semakin kurang hari demi hari. Jadi jangan salahkan ahli sahaja. Kepimpinan Umno juga turut bertanggungjawab kerana gagal menyediakan modul latihan yang mencukupi, mantap dan berkesan untuk ahli-ahli dan kepimpinan Umno. Umno nampaknya mengandaikan bahawa semua yang menyertai Umno itu sudah faham dan menghayati serta sebati dengan falsafah dan agenda perjuangan Umno. Lalu agenda latihan dan pembangunan jiwa di kalangan ahli tidak lagi menjadi keutamaan dalam Umno. Maka parti semakin kehilangan satu rencah penting yang menjadi pemangkin kepada agenda perjuangan Umno.

Jika proses pendidikan politik atau pentarbiyyahan ahli dan kepimpinan Umno tidak berlaku di dalam parti itu, bagaimanakah Umno ingin menerapkan dan melahirkan barisan kepimpinan yang berwibawa dan kental dengan semangat perjuangan di dalam parti itu? Kalau Umno terus dengan sindrom penafian, maka teruskanlah dengan cara sekarang dan berdoalah banyak-banyak semoga Umno terus kuat di masa-masa yang akan datang.

Nasi belum lagi menjadi bubur buat Umno dan BN. Tapi nasi yang ditanak itu masih lagi mendidih dan airnya semakin kering kerana apinya kuat dan sedang marak. Namun, jika Umno hanya menambah air sahaja dan tidak mengawal api yang kuat itu, maka nasi itu sudah pasti sama ada menjadi bubur atau pun terus hangit akhirnya.

Bagi mengawal api politik perkauman yang sedang marak ini Umno, BN dan kerajaan yang mereka pimpin dengan mandat yang sah dan mencukupi dari rakyat, harus menjadi sebuah kerajaan yang berani dan berwibawa.

Bertindaklah dengan penuh bijaksana tetapi penuh keadilan bagi menyelamatkan negara ini daripada pertembungan politik kaum yang sedang di bawa oleh puak cauvinis dan ekstremis dalam DAP yang disokong padu oleh Anwar dan PKR. — Utusan Online

* Ini adalah pendapat peribadi penulis dan tidak semestinya mewakili pandangan The Malaysian Insider.

PKR, DAP dan PAS Tidak Memiliki Psyche Memimpin Malaysia!

Tags

Chauvinism, Jumud, Pluralisme

How DAP hurt Pakatan’s chances

FMT Staff

June 6, 2013

ANALYSIS: Pakatan Rakyat would have won more rural seats in the recent general election if DAP had played ball on issues that are dear to the Malays.

Its intransigence with regard to the hudud and “Allah” issues practically ensured that rural voters would vote Umno against the Malay candidates fielded by PAS and PKR.

The two predominantly Malay parties suffered heavy defeats in rural and semi-rural areas, especially in Johor, Malacca, Negeri Sembilan and Pahang. Indeed, their overall performance in Malay-majority areas last May 5 was worse than their 2008 showing if one were to take Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu out of the reckoning.

Initial analyses of the results by PAS offices in the affected constituencies indicated that rural Malays were generally influenced by the Umno propaganda about DAP calling the shots in Pakatan even in matters of Malay and Muslim interest.

In a statement that was particularly devastating to Pakatan’s hope of increasing its Malay support, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng declared in his 2012 Christmas Day message that his party was against giving Muslims the exclusive right to use “Allah” as the name of God.

Subsequently, PAS leaders Abdul Hadi Awang and Nik Abdul Aziz Mat announced that their party would not oppose the use of “Allah” by non-Muslims although they cautioned against its misuse.

This turned out to be a virtual signal for Umno to begin a relentless campaign through the mainstream media to portray PAS as a tool of the predominantly Chinese party.

To their credit, Hadi and other PAS leaders tried to back their stand by quoting verses from the Quran. But the damage had been done and there was no way that Pakatan could match Umno’s media reach among rural folk.

Lim’s statement gave the impression—even among Pakatan activists and supporters—that DAP was not bothered about voting support from the Malays and did not care about a possible Muslim backlash.

It is not difficult to see why. DAP’s candidates were contesting in Chinese-majority constituencies. Malay votes did not matter to the party.
It should not surprise any observer that PAS won one only seat in Penang—Permatang Pasir, the same state seat that it won in 2008. That win could also be attributed to the constituency’s location within Permatang Pauh, one of the strongest PKR fortresses in the country.

Hollow claim

Lim claims to be chief minister to every race in Penang, but that claim sounds hollow in the light of PAS’ failure to make inroads in Malay-majority areas in the state. In fact, Seberang Jaya, which is also within Permatang Pauh, was the only Malay seat that Pakatan added over its 2008 victories.

DAP chairman Karpal Singh must also take some blame with his insistence that PAS should declare that it would not introduce the hudud provisions of Islamic law if Pakatan were to take over Putrajaya. He harped on this even during the official election campaign period.

One could question Karpal’s political wisdom in his treatment of the hudud issue in light of its recent loss of traction among non-Muslim Pakatan supporters.

Putting aside Kedah, where the PAS-controlled government failed to establish a good track record, PAS candidates received solid support from Chinese voters, including in those rural constituencies where the community was in the majority.

If hudud really was an issue for the Chinese, they would have rejected all PAS candidates.

Chinese voters as a group tend to be more realistic than emotional in their voting choices compared to other Malaysians. They know that PAS could not amend the Federal Constitution without support from DAP and PKR. They are more interested in electing a government that respects democratic principles and values and has the determination to fight corruption, reduce the crime rate and open up educational opportunities.

DAP definitely has a long way to go to dispel the notion, especially among rural Malays and even a significant portion of Indians, that it caters primarily to Chinese interests.

For example, it needs to explain why it delayed announcing the candidature of M Manogaran and S Ramakrishnan for the parliamentary seats of Cameron Highlands and Labis. Both lost in their contests because they had too little time to prepare their campaigns. In the case of Ramakrishnan, he knew he was a parliamentary candidate only on the eve of nomination day.

By contrast, Lim Kit Siang’s candidacy for Gelang Patah was announced 22 days before nomination day. Teo Nie Ching and Liew Ching Tong were announced as candidates for Kulai and Kluang four days before nomination day.

Kit Siang, Teo and Liew received extensive backing from DAP’s campaign machinery, but the same assistance was not given to Ramakrishnan in Labis. This made little sense because Chinese voters were more predominant in Gelang Patah, Kulai and Kluang than in Labis.

Knowing that 50% of Indian support had returned to BN long before the 13th general election and that Umno’s campaign among rural Malays was relentless, DAP must explain why it made so little effort to disprove the allegation that it was nothing more than a party for the Chinese. – Free Malaysia Today

Blackout 505 Memperalat Pemuda Menanam Budaya Polarisasi PerkaumanTidak Sihat Bagi Malaysia!

Pembangkang merakyatkan sikap biadab — Juhaidi Yean Abdullah

Blackout 505: Jaga-jaga… ada udang disebalik batu

(Agenda Daily) – Ramai yang bersuara, “Sudah kalah…kalahlah” tapi Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim dan kumpulannya nampak payah terima hakikat tersebut. Sejak hari pertama BN diumumkan menang PRU13, Anwar tak habis-habis meracau.

Perhimpunan demi perhimpunan diadakan kononnya untuk membantah keputusan PRU13. Yang terbaru 15 Jun ini yang mahu diadakan di tengah-tengah Kuala Lumpur.

Hakikatnya benarkan perhimpunan tersebut sekadar bantahan biasa, atau seperti kata pepatah ‘ada udang disebalik batu’.

Ramai yang percaya ‘Blackout 505′  mempunyai matlamat yang lebih jauh daripada hanya untuk mencela SPR yang mereka dakwa bertanggungjawab menyebabkan berlakunya penyelewengan dalam pilihan raya.

Bernama melaporkan beberapa pemimpin politik dan pakar strategi percaya perhimpunan yang diadakan di pelbagai tempat itu juga merupakan suatu usaha untuk membentuk minda anak muda Malaysia yang akan mencapai usia 21 tahun dan layak menjadi pemilih pada tahun-tahun akan datang.

Harapan mereka ialah untuk menarik golongan muda supaya memberi sokongan kepada pakatan pembangkang ‘untuk memperbetulkan’ keadaan tidak seimbang dan sistem pilihan raya yang tidak adil di negara ini, seperti yang mereka dakwa, memandangkan kebanyakan yang menghadiri perhimpunan itu terdiri daripada para belia.

“Ini merujuk kepada kemunculan kira-kira tiga juta pemilih baharu dalam masa lima tahun akan datang. Apabila mereka dapat membentuk pendapat golongan muda ini, mereka (golongan muda) akan mendaftar sebagai pemilih dan menyokong parti terbabit pada pilihan raya akan datang,” kata anggota jawatankuasa pusat MCA Datuk Ti Lian Ker.

Satu lagi perhimpunan bagi menyuarakan perasaan tidak puas hati tentang tuduhan berlakunya penyelewengan dalam PRU13 dirancang diadakan pada 15 Jun di ibu negara sebagai lanjutan kepada perhimpunan Black 505, yang mula diadakan tiga hari selepas PRU13 pada 5 Mei.

Ti berkata parti pembangkang, terutama DAP, berjaya meyakinkan ramai pengundi Cina supaya menolak MCA dan BN pada PRU baru-baru ini dan mereka akan terus berbuat demikian hingga PRU akan datang.

“Mereka (pembangkang) memang handal dalam perkara ini. Mereka tahu siapa yang patut dijadikan sasaran, bagaimana untuk mencari sasaran dan bagaimana untuk mengekalkan sokongan yang diterima. Bukan setakat menganjurkan perhimpunan untuk menarik orang ramai supaya menyokong mereka. Ia merupakan strategi yang menggunakan serampang dua mata dan banyak mata,” katanya.

Beliau berkata sebelum berlangsungnya PRU, strategi utama DAP ialah memastikan rakyat Malaysia, khususnya masyarakat Cina dan golongan muda, percaya bahawa pakatan pembangkang mampu membawa perubahan dalam kerajaan dan inilah puncanya kebanyakan pemilih daripada kaum Cina memberi undi mereka kepada calon pembangkang daripada DAP, PAS atau PKR.

Apabila pakatan pembangkang gagal menawan Putrajaya, katanya, mereka menukar strategi dengan memberi tumpuan terhadap tuduhan kononnya keputusan PRU13 adalah tidak adil berikutan sistem pilihan raya yang diguna pakai sekarang dan membuat heboh bahawa mereka memperoleh lebih banyak undi popular.

Ti berkata parti pembangkang juga mendesak rakyat negara ini supaya menuntut agar sistem pilihan raya sedia ada diubah dengan mencadangkan ia menggunakan sistem ‘satu undi seorang’.

Katanya pakatan pembangkang juga memanfaatkan media sosial untuk menangguk sokongan.

“Mereka menggunakan akaun Facebook, Instagram dan Twitter masing-masing untuk menyebar mesej tersebut. Sasaran mereka sekarang ialah Pilihan Raya Umum Ke-14,” katanya.

Seorang pakar strategi politik yang enggan dikenali berkata “banyak keputusan mengundi dibuat dengan menurut perasaan” apabila fikiran mereka telah dibentuk kepada siapa mereka patut memberi undi.

Menurutnya, pemikiran seseorang akan terbentuk apabila orang berkenaan terlalu taksub dan melihat banyak maklumat melalui gambar, video YouTube dan komen dalam Facebook, Twitter atau mesej yang dihantar melalui WhatsApp.

“Pemikiran mereka sentiasa dibentuk hingga emosi mereka menjadi begitu cenderung kepada sentimen parti politik. Apa yang diperlukan hanyalah alat seperti visual, audio dan perasaan.

“Inilah yang berlaku pada perhimpunan Black 505. Strategi mereka ialah menyiarkan gambar (visual) perhimpunan, komen (perasaan) dan ucapan (audio) kerana mereka amat sedar bahawa pihak yang menggunakan kaedah itu secara bijak dan habis-habisan akan mendapat lebih banyak manfaat, walaupun majoriti rakyat tidak menyukai mereka,” kata pakar strategi itu.

Penganalisis politik Dr Sivamurugan Pandian dari Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) pula berkata pakatan pembangkang yang terdiri daripada DAP-PKR-PAS menggunakan strategi yang menampilkan tentang perlunya rakyat menuntut hak masing-masing.

“Masalahnya ialah apabila seseorang itu memberi gambaran bahawa segala yang ada, salah belaka. Mereka boleh bentuk minda orang, terutama golongan muda, yang kononnya mereka perlu bangun untuk menuntut keadilan dan menentang perkara yang tidak betul,” katanya.

Beliau berkata strategi itu berjaya kerana kadar celik politik dalam kalangan penduduk masih rendah. – Malaysia Today

Pembangkang merakyatkan sikap biadab — Juhaidi Yean Abdullah

8 JUN — Sekitar pertengahan 1980-an, Tun Musa Hitam menyaran orang Melayu menjadi sedikit kurang ajar dalam keberanian bertanya atau menyoal. Konteksnya ialah keperluan untuk merubah status quo atau membuat perubahan yang perlu bagi kebaikan.

Sejak lewat 1990-an, seorang lagi pemimpin mengajar orang Melayu menjadi kurang ajar. Bezanya, kurang ajar yang disaran oleh Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim bersifat total – mencabar dan melanggar undang-undang tanpa peduli, melawan autoriti sedapat mungkin, menghina seteru berterusan, menabur fitnah tahap maksimum dan mengapi-apikan sentimen penyokong. Lawan tetap lawan adalah slogannya. Tak kira sama ada ia rasional atau tidak. Hari ini, ada sebahagian masyarakat, terutama golongan muda begitu terpengaruh dengan ajakan sebegini. Mereka menjadi berani tidak bertempat, mengganggu ketenteraman awam, tidak toleran kepada pandangan berlainan sama ada dalam perbualan, tulisan atau media sosial dan secara umumnya bersikap anarkis. Mereka tidak lagi menghormati institusi seperti polis, tentera, sistem kehakiman dan kerajaan. Mereka tidak bangga jadi Melayu, malah mufti dan ulama pun mereka caci.

Semua maklum bahawa puncanya ialah kegagalan Anwar untuk menjadi Perdana Menteri yang diidamkan sejak 15 tahun lalu. Pelbagai cara dilakukan, namun tidak berjaya. Gerakan Reformasi, Deklarasi Permatang Pauh dan Janji 16 September 2008 adalah antara bukti kegagalannya.

Sebagai orang tengah yang menjadi ‘gam’ kepada dua parti bercanggah ideologi yakni PAS dan DAP, Anwar menubuhkan gabungan pembangkang yang sudah empat kali cuba menawan Putrajaya (PRU 1999, 2004, 2008 dan 2013) tetapi gagal. Baginya seolah-olah tidak ada cara lain – jika tidak berjaya dengan cara demokrasi, maka tindakan radikal atau revolusilah kaedahnya. Justeru, diadakan Perhimpunan 505 di beberapa negeri dan menyokong rancangan mengadakan protes jalanan membabitkan jutaan penyokong untuk mengguling kerajaan.

Trend anak muda Cina 

Dalam kalangan masyarakat Cina pun sama. Seorang teman peringkat umur 50-an dari Pulau Pinang memberitahu penulis beliau bimbang dengan trend dan sikap anak muda Cina di negeri itu. Padahal masyarakat Cina Pulau Pinang umumnya adalah aman, mudah berkira dan mesra menjalani hidup dan berniaga dalam kalangan masyarakat bersama orang Melayu, India Muslim dan kaum lain sejak sebelum merdeka. “Saya bimbang melihat perangai anak muda Cina yang semakin liar hari ini. Mereka berani dan sukar dikawal. Mereka tiada rasa hormat atau malu. Dalam blog dan Facebook, interaksi mereka penuh dengan kata nista dan cercaan terhadap orang lain. Agong, Sultan dan Perdana Menteri pun mereka hina. Ini tidak patut dan sangat bertentangan dengan cara hidup orang Cina Pulau Pinang selama ini.”

Menurut beliau, anak muda Cina Pulau Pinang banyak dipengaruhi oleh cara dan sikap Lim Guan Eng. Walaupun bergelar Yang Amat Berhormat, Guan Eng tidak memiliki gaya atau tatasusila yang dilihat perlu ada pada seseorang ketua menteri.

“Stail dia macam gangster. Tingkah laku dan cara cakap kasar macam pejuang jalanan. Orang ramai melihat pemimpin mereka begitu dan ikut sama. Patutlah bekas timbalannya panggil Guan Eng samseng,” kata beliau. Guan Eng saling tidak tumpah perangai bapanya, Lim Kit Siang, seorang pemimpin cauvinis yang sekian lama mempengaruhi cara aktivis DAP berfikir dan bertindak.

Turut dibangkitkan ialah kehadiran ramai anak muda Cina di perhimpunan pembangkang di Pulau Pinang, Kelana Jaya, Petaling Jaya, Kuantan dan Johor Bahru, April lalu kerana tidak berpuas hati dengan keputusan PRU-13.

“Majoriti mereka awal 20-an, sama ada pengundi kali pertama atau pelajar di bawah umur mengundi. Mesej yang ditanam dalam kepala mereka yang hadir hanya tiga: Satu, bahawa Umno, MCA dan BN adalah bodoh dan rasuah. Dua, mereka menipu dalam PRU-13. Tiga, Kerajaan BN sedang tumbang dan pakatan pembangkang akan menang.”

Nasib negara kita 

Persepsi yang ditanam ini adalah satu bentuk membasuh minda. Penyokong dan aktivis muda pembangkang diajar untuk tidak menerima realiti pakatan pembangkang kalah atas alasan mereka menang undi popular. Alasan yang dangkal ini diketengahkan walaupun pemimpin pembangkang memang tahu bahawa sistem pilihan raya yang digunakan di Malaysia sejak 1950-an lagi berdasarkan kemenangan bilangan kerusi.

Andai benar pembangkang yakin dan mahu menggunakan keputusan berdasarkan undi popular, kenapa mereka tidak laksana di Kelantan? Dalam PRU 2004, misalnya, undi popular berpihak kepada Umno-BN tetapi PAS tetap menubuhkan kerajaan negeri walaupun hanya dapat meraih 261,000 undi, yakni lebih rendah daripada 269,000 undi yang diperoleh Umno-BN. Berdasarkan undi popular yang diperoleh pada PRU-13, Umno-BN sepatutnya mendapat lebih daripada 12 kerusi dalam DUN Kelantan. Mahukah PAS serahkan tujuh atau lapan kerusi lagi kepada Umno-BN?

Sikap kurang ajar, tidak toleran, tidak sopan, tidak menghormati pihak lain, suka menghina dan kefanatikan melampau golongan ini jika berterusan hampir pasti akan menimbulkan rasa tidak senang di pihak yang diprovokasi. Jika golongan muda pihak yang diprovokasi mengambil sikap dan berperangai sama dengan golongan membuat provokasi, apa akan jadi kepada negara kita. — beritaharian.com.my

* Ini adalah pendapat peribadi penulis dan tidak semestinya mewakili pandangan The Malaysian Insider. – The Malaysian Insider

GE-13: Drawing Chinese Away from BN By Depicting MCA as UMNO’s Lackeys Proves More Than Ever DAP’s Chinese Chauvanism !

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Racism

RACIAL POLARIZATION

June 6 2013

1. After Parliament was dissolved on the 13th April 2013, I was interviewed by a BBC journalist. He appeared quite convinced that race-based parties such as those in the National Front would be rejected by a more liberal electorate which believes in democracy, freedom and non-racial politics. Also the idealistic young would reject the BN.

2. I had to disagree with him as I believed that racial polarization in Malaysia had become more pronounced now than ever before. I may not always be right but after 60 years involvement in Malaysian politics I felt strongly that the race factor will continue to dominate the politics of the country.  The quality of the candidates or parties, the ideologies and the desire for change will always be secondary to race.

3. The election results showed that I was right. The DAP playing on racial sentiments drew the Chinese away from BN by depicting the MCA as lackeys of UMNO. The DAP won 38 seats, reducing the MCA’s seats from 15 to 7. The Gerakan won one seat out of two. All the DAP Chinese contested in Chinese majority constituencies.  A few of the MCA, Gerakan and MIC candidates contested in Malay majority constituencies.

4. Although the DAP claims to be multiracial, it is in fact a Chinese party with mainly Chinese members and leadership. When it held elections to its Central Committee recently other than Karpal Singh all the members elected were Chinese.

5. Hatred of the Malays was whipped up through the slogan “Malaysian Malaysia”, implying that Malaysia is for the Malays only while other races were discriminated against and alleged to be second class citizens.  Advocating meritocracy, the extremists Chinese in the DAP charged the BN Government  of discriminating in favour of the Malays even though they were inferior and less qualified for places in the universities, awards of scholarships, contracts, licences and positions in the Government.  The Malay leaders were not as able as the non-Malay leaders who possess greater merit.

6. Whenever Government policies such as the NEP were defended, the defenders whether in the Government or NGO’s are labelled racist.  The Malay parties in the election pact in Pakatan were tolerated because they were useful for election purposes.

7. If more proof is needed of the role of Chinese racism in the 13th GE, the demonstrations accusing the BN of fraud and cheating in the elections, despite being organised by Anwar and the PKR, are largely attended by Chinese, especially the young. Within the Country and abroad, Chinese youths wearing black shirts and masks made up most of the demonstrators. Usually Malays make up the majority of the demonstrators.  The lack of respect for the national flag was shown by Chinese young people in Taiwan holding it upside down. Although DAP and PKR participated in these demos, PAS members were noticeably absent. In fact PAS leaders dissociated themselves from the agitation to overthrow the Government through street demos ala Arab Spring. The protests seem to be mainly a Chinese affair.

8. The indisputable fact is that the DAP has succeeded in destroying the collaboration or sharing between the different races as exemplified by the BN coalition. The Pakatan is not a true coalition. It is simply an election pact between the parties opposed to the BN. This pact clearly benefited the chauvinist Chinese in DAP most, while PAS the most Malay of the Pakatan parties benefited the least, winning only 21 seats against DAP’s 38 and PKR’s 30.  Actually although PAS contested in more constituencies than DAP, it lost two seats more than in 2008.

9. If today the schism between the races is deeper it is because the DAP reject the Malay/Chinese/Indian “kongsi”. The DAP wants the Chinese who already dominate the economy, to dominate Malaysia’s politics as well. It is clearly racist and reject inter-racial sharing of power and wealth as advocated by the BN. Racial polarization has become more pronounced as a result.  It will become more so in the future. – Tun Dr Mahathir

Tinggal Kenangan, Masa Tidak Memihak Lagi Kerpada Anwar Untuk Jadi Perdana Menteri!

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Pakatan Rakyat

Failed To Become Prime Minister; The West Is Abandoning

Written By Nur Eisha Fatihah on Tuesday, June 4, 2013 | 4:03 PM

After finishing his nationwide tour to protest the 13th General Election, Anwar Ibrahim now knows that he is being abandoned by his allies. Formation of the Penang and Kelantan state government after the results of the election was announced shows that the PAS and DAP leaders were against Anwar’s action.

Anwar was having a nervous breakdown when he lost his last chance to become the Prime Minister. This however differs for PAS and DAP as although they failed to take over Putrajaya, all of them were quite satisfies with their members overall performance in the last general election. Now Anwar Ibrahim seems to be swirling into the political abyss while only being helped with one or two PKR leaders that is still rooting for him. The same song is sang by Anwar Ibrahim. He keeps on blaming the Barisan Nasional and the Election Commission for his failure in the last election.

It can be clearly seen that 97% of Chinese voters were cheated by Anwar Ibrahim. They were voting for the DAP without bearing in mind that the Malay voters are seeing this as a traitorous act. Younger Chinese still attends illegal rallies organized by Anwar even though they knew that they have been cheated by the former Deputy Prime Minister himself. Ironically, even as one of the major party in Pakatan Rakyat, there are only a few PAS members and supporters   inclined to join the rally.

Anwar Ibrahim did not only lie to his followers but also he lied to his western allies. Looking at the current situation in Malaysia, the western media and Jewish lobbyist that before this was a strong supporter of Anwar sinister agenda are gradually withdrawing their support. Indonesian former Deputy President, Jusuf Kalla exposes Anwar Ibrahim’s lies by saying that Anwar himself has broken the promise that he made with the Prime Minister of Malaysia Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Bin Tun Abdul Razak, shows to the west that he is not an honest person, and he is definitely not the one who would help the west to obtain their agenda in Malaysia.

Anwar’s attitude of not keeping his promises made it difficult for the west to continue their support in his “struggle” to become the prime minister of Malaysia. It can be said that Jusuf Kalla’s action of exposing Anwar Ibrahim in the Wall Street Journal has an implicit message to the west.

Jusuf actually telling the American and all other western countries that it is time to leave Anwar Ibrahim with his fantasies of becoming the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

The western agenda to ensure Anwar Ibrahim becomes a living puppet that can be exploited to their whims has come to an abrupt end. For the west, Anwar Ibrahim has now become more of a liability then a benefit to the westerners.

Maybe the message that was conferred by Jusuf is understood by the westerners. After the interview he did with the Wall Street Journal, the Economist that is know as the mouthpiece of the western world stated that, at the age of 66 years old, time is not on Anwar’s side for him to be the champion of the western world.

The Economist even predicted that Anwar’s political future is getting bleak when he failed to lead the opposition to overthrow the Barisan Nasional government. The west seems to be using Anwar’s failure in the 13th General Election as evidence that the hope that they have given Anwar in the last 40 years proves to be nothing.

Since 1998, when Anwar Ibrahim was banished by Tun Dr Mahathir, the west was seen as a very strong ally of Anwar. The west was openly stating their support in Anwar’s “reformasi” movement and Anwar was even known as “the west best friend”.

Maybe in that time the west was underestimating the calibre of Barisan Nasional under the helm of Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad. They were confident that Anwar Ibrahim was able to overthrow the government through street demonstration.

However the west was wrong as Anwar was directly thrown into Sungai Buloh Prison, but they were still sure of that their golden child will succeed in taking over the government. After being released from prison in 2004 and getting back in the political saddle in 2008, Anwar Ibrahim continues his promises to the west that he will become the Prime Minister eventually but in 2013 his last attempt failed.

This is his last attempt and after this he would not have any other chance to realize his dream. Maybe the west is currently seeking the next puppet in the opposition that can be groomed to help them secure their interest in the country, but surely that person is not Anwar Ibrahim. – Malaysia News

“Tidak ada yang lebih menyayat hati dari melihat bangsa ku dihina dan ditindas oleh orang” – Pepatah Melayu

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Melayu

UMNO DAHULU DAN SEKARANG

1. Pada 11hb. Mei 2013, UMNO merayakan hari penubuhannya yang ke 63 dengan sembahyang dan tahlil, ucapan bersemangat dari Presiden Najib Tun Razak dan majlis makan malam. Tetapi UMNO pada 2013 ini bukanlah sama dengan UMNO 1946.

2. Pada 1946, pengasas UMNO yang berkumpul di Johor Baru bersemangat untuk menyelamatkan bangsa Melayu dari kehilangan bangsa mereka, dari kehilangan tanahair mereka, dari menjadi rakyat sebuah tanah jajahan British dan hilangnya Melayu di dunia.

3. Perjuangan pemimpin dan ahli pengasas UMNO pada masa itu ialah untuk bangsa, agama dan tanahair. Tidak ada tujuan lain yang menggerakkan mereka, sudah tentu tidak ada kepentingan diri atau niat untuk jadi pembesar negara merdeka dengan upah yang lumayan.

4. Oleh kerana itu mereka dihormati, dialu-alukan dan disokong oleh hampir semua orang Melayu. Mereka adalah pejuang dan jaguh dan orang Melayu datang berduyun-duyun untuk menyertai parti UMNO yang ditubuh oleh mereka.

5. Maka bersatulah Melayu, tanpa mengambilkira pangkat dan darjat, tanpa mempedulikan berpelajaran Melayu, Inggeris atau agama. Mereka semua Melayu samada dari negeri-negeri yang berlainan, dengan raja yang berlainan, atau apa-apa lain yang membezakan mereka.

6. Dan berbaris padat dan rapatlah mereka untuk perjuangan yang suci, perjuangan untuk menyelamatkan bangsa mereka, agama mereka dan negara mereka. Mereka tidak takut, tidak gentar dalam menghadapi kuasa besar British.

7. Dan berjayalah mereka dengan menewaskan Malayan Union, usul satu penjajah terkemuka, satu dari pemenang perang besar dunia. Dan terdirilah negara bangsa Melayu yang merdeka yang dikenali secara rasminya Persekutuan Tanah Melayu. Nama Federation of Malaya ialah terjemahan kepada Bahasa Inggeris dan dianggap oleh orang Melayu sebagai bukan nama rasmi.

8. Itulah UMNO enampuluh lebih tahun dahulu. Mereka disanjung, didukung oleh semua yang berbangsa Melayu di negeri-negeri Melayu dan di mana-mana ada orang Melayu.

9. Tetapi tidak pada hari ini. Sekarang UMNO tidak lagi dipandang tinggi dan tidak lagi disokong seperti dahulu. Sesungguhnya ramai orang Melayu meluat dengan UMNO, anggapnya tidak lagi relevan dan perlu ditolak pun.

10. Kenapa?. Kerana UMNO tidak lagi berjuang untuk bangsa, agama dan tanahair. UMNO ternampak dan memang pun benar, berjuang untuk kepentingan orang-orang tertentu dalamnya dan ahlinya sahaja. UMNO berjuang untuk jawatan dan pangkat, untuk memperkayakan diri, untuk sagu hati, untuk poket sendiri.

11. Untuk ini mereka berusaha mengurangkan kemungkinan diri mereka dicabar, kurangkan kemungkinan diganti oleh sesiapa yang lebih layak. UMNO adalah hak ahlinya, hak pemimpinnya yang sedia ada dan bukan hak orang Melayu. Setelah mereka mendapat tempat jangan benar orang Melayu lain, terutama yang memiliki kebolehan tertentu, menyertai UMNO. UMNO adalah untuk pemimpin dan ahli semasa, dari ketua cawangan kepada ketua bahagian. UMNO tidak perlu tambahan ahli, tidak perlu penyertaan sesiapa lagi kerana ahli yang sedia ada perlu memelihara habuan mereka. Jika terlalu banyak ahli, habuan perlu dikongsi. Dan habuan yang dikongsi tentulah tidak sebanyak sebelum berkongsi.

12. Apa itu perjuangan untuk bangsa, agama dan tanahair! Bukankah yang sudah ada dalam UMNO, sebagai pemimpin atau ahli biasa terdiri dari bangsa Melayu, yang beragama Islam. Perjuangan untuk diri mereka bermakna perjuangan untuk bangsa mereka, bangsa Melayu, agama mereka, agama Islam. Oleh itu perjuangan untuk bangsa, agama dan negara sedang diteruskan, tanpa penyertaan Melayu lain.

13. Kesannya ialah hari ini ahli tidak bertambah selaras dengan pertumbuhan jumlah orang Melayu. Dan mereka terutama yang berkebolehan, yang berbakat tidak dibenar masuk UMNO lagi.

14. Yang boleh menyertai hanyalah yang kurang berkebolehan disbanding dengan yang sudah ada. Oleh kerana penyertaan dalam UMNO mestilah melalui cawangan, yang boleh masuk UMNO ialah yang kurang berkebolehan dari ketua cawangan.

15. Ketua cawangan manusia biasa yang boleh diserang  penyakit, bahkan boleh mati pun. Satu hari ketua cawangan terpaksa lepaskan jawatannya. Penggantinya tentulah orang yang memiliki kebolehan yang kurang darinya. Dengan itu kebolehan ketua cawangan akan merosot sepanjang masa, tiap kali pengganti mengambil alih.

16. Dan ini akan terjadi dalam keseluruhan parti. Semakin lama semakin kurang pemimpin UMNO yang berbakat. Semakin lama semakin kurang ahli yang berbakat dan layak untuk menjadi calon dalam PRU. Calon payung terjun yang berbakat akan dikalahkan.  Dengan itu pemimpin Kerajaan juga akan terdiri dari yang tidak berkebolehan.

17. Di mana pergi mereka yang berbakat ini?. Mereka pergi ke mana mereka di terima, tentunya parti lawan.

18. Melihat UMNO hanya berjuang untuk diri sendiri semata-mata, dan tidak lagi untuk bangsa, agama dan tanahair, orang Melayu tidak lagi nampak kenapa mereka harus sokong dan jayakan semasa PRU orang yang utamakan kepentingan diri sendiri sahaja. Jika ada sahaja parti lain, mereka akan sokong parti itu. Hanya jika parti lain lebih buruk baharulah sokongan kepada UMNO diteruskan. Inilah yang berlaku pada PRU 13.

19. Mungkin kita boleh tepuk belakang kerana UMNO masih menjadi parti yang menang terbanyak dalan PRU 13.  Tetapi ini bukan kerana orang Melayu masih sokong UMNO.  Sebenarnya kemenangan UMNO dalam PRU 13 disebabkan mereka tidak ada pilihan.  Mereka amat takut kalau-kalau Anwar Ibrahim menang bersama dengan DAP.  Akan hancurlah harapan orang Melayu sama sekali.  Seburuk-buruknya UMNO, ia masih berbau Melayu, masih lebih mungkin memelihara kepentingan orang Melayu.  Justeru itu tidak ada pilihan bagi orang Melayu jika tidak sokong UMNO.  Namun demikian dalam PRU 14 UMNO tidak boleh harap keadaan ini berterusan.  Jika UMNO tidak bersihkan dirinya dari rasuah dan kepentingan diri, orang Melayu mungkin mencari jaguh yang lain.

20. Demikianlah riwayat dan sejarah sebuah parti politik yang lupakan usul-asal dan sebabnya ia ditubuh. Demikianlah berakhirnya perjuangan yang lari jauh dari matlamat asalnya. Dahulu lain, sekarang lain.  Sejarah dan kecapaian dahulu tidak akan meraih sokongan selama-lamanya. Dahulu dahulu, sekarang sekarang. Hanya berharap kepada kata-kata hikmat Hang Tuah, “Tak akan Melayu hilang di dunia” tidak mencukupi. Mungkin Melayu tidak akan hilang di dunia, tetapi apakah jenis Melayu yang tidak hilang ini. Apakah mereka terdiri dari pencuci kasut, pemandu kereta, kuli yang terbongkok-bongkok menyembah bangsa lain yang menjadi Tuan mereka. Dan apakah nasib UMNO? Ia akan jadi cerita dongeng dalam buku kanak-kanak dizaman akan datang.

21. Inilah masa depan yang menunggu UMNO. Inilah masa depan sebuah parti yang cemerlang tetapi sudah hilang kegemilangannya. Inilah masa depan bagi yang tidak mahu sedar dan tidak mahu membetulkan diri.

22. Kata seorang penulis sajak di zaman dulu, “tidak ada yang lebih menyayat hati dari melihat bangsa ku dihina dan ditindas oleh orang”. –Tun Dr Mahathir