Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News
Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News |
| Master of the polls, ruler of the game Posted: 25 Jun 2013 02:17 PM PDT
And that is the reason why BN continues to win one general election after another. All BN needs to do is very simple – they just look after the interests of these rural folk and maintain a sufficient number of these rural seats and they can win for all eternity. Selena Tay, FMT With the re-delineation of boundaries looming as a possible threat to Pakatan Rakyat's chances of winning more seats in the next general election, PR's strategists must give a thought on how to overcome the great population-divide. Largely there are two types of population-divide: a) the urban-rural divide; and b) the private sector-public sector divide. First of all, the urban-rural divide. It is without doubt that it is the rural folk who had contributed mainly to BN's victory in the 13th general election. A friend of this columnist who went to campaign in the rural areas had related stories about crime in the city and the high cost of city living to the rural folk but they seem disinterested. This is because the rural folk do not experience the difficulties such as inflation, high rental of homes, inefficient and costly transport, burdensome loan repayments and other aspects of city life. The rural folk have their own land, they are self-sufficient and they can just travel by bicycle or an old motorbike from one place to another. To sum up, they are comfortable and the problems of the urban folk are alien to them. But it is they who decide the destiny of the city folk! And that is the reason why BN continues to win one general election after another. All BN needs to do is very simple – they just look after the interests of these rural folk and maintain a sufficient number of these rural seats and they can win for all eternity. This method is also applied to the urban-rural divide in East Malaysia whereby the native folk are provided with sufficient amenities minus the internet and of course they too become sufficiently compliant and contented enough to vote BN. Why not when their life is comfortable and laid-back? So this is how easy it is for BN to win. They have perfected the game by fine-tuning the system from one general election to the next. Truth be told, 65% of parliament seats in Malaysia are located in the rural areas although 70% of the population are in urban areas. According to Bar Council's Andrew Khoo, in the 13th general election BN has captured 112 out of 130 parliamentary seats that are categorised as small seats. BN won about 2.21 million popular votes in these 112 seats. In other words, BN only needed 19.97% of the popular vote to form the federal government with ease. Machiavellian policies This unfair re-delineation is only known to a few informed citizens and therefore the Election Commission is bold enough to re-draw the boundaries to favour their political master. In addition to that, we must not forget about the existence of the public sector-private sector divide which is also becoming increasingly massive.
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| Posted: 25 Jun 2013 02:09 PM PDT
Malaysians are too enamoured with the pedigree of individuals and past glories of leaders who insist on being around long past their prime and relevance. CT Ali, FTM DAP chairman Karpal Singh has called upon former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad to spend more time with his family. DAP veteran leader Lim Kit Siang meanwhile tells us that the police should not be too super-efficient in arresting peaceful Malaysians, including women and children, while being utterly helpless in curtailing the worsening crime situation in the country. And Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim is still going on about the general election that has been over a month ago! "Tak selesai pilihan raya yang lalu. SPR perlu letak jawatan. Yang jelas tipu, yang khianat mesti dibetulkan. Walau apa alasan pun, (kita perlu) pilihan raya semula. Kita tidak akan tolak ansur. Kalau (mereka) padam lampu, hilangkan peti undi, (kita) betulkan, itu tuntutan kita," so says Anwar in front of a 15,000 crowd at the Black 505 rally in Kelantan. If we were to take a snapshot of what our political leaders in Pakatan Rakyat are doing this week, one thing becomes apparent. They all talk of the past and the present. The future for them is too distant a proposition to think about. They are, after all without exception, in their 60's – closer to their 70's. What concerns them is the present. We too are concerned about our present! We know Malaysians are divided on many issues – and all these issues are politically motivated. We know that our future will depend on what our leaders do today – with or without our interest in their minds. Yes they all have issues as to the way the 13th general election was conducted. I suggest that they go do their homework and put together a credible case as to why they think the 13th general election was flawed. Then they will need to submit it through the process – however flawed – of having our courts decide on the right or wrong of what they alleged. Resisting change If they talk about the future, it means they have to talk about what will happen to their relevance within a coalition that has to start to make itself ready for the future now. This means they have to start the process of identifying new leaders from the present second tier Pakatan leaders. Then they must make ready these new leaders for the role they must undertake by the time of the 14th general election. In the process they make themselves redundant. None of them are big enough to be able to do that by themselves even if the need to do so shouts at them deafeningly. This is true of Pakatan, and it is also true of Umno and BN. They know change is needed to bring their political entity up to speed with what many Malaysians now want, and yet none of them want the status quo to change. Why? It is simply this! In Malaysia the capability/delivery system by which the government and politicians deliver their services to the people is held together by corruption and bribery. Policy are made and implemented taking this into consideration. Accountability within government and politics allows for the proliferation of this abuse. Any change is a threat to that delivery capability. Any change will mean a change of status quo of the participants in the chain of the delivery system and they are all uncomfortable with what that change may bring. So change is not welcomed. Anybody at any level within politics and government understand that their "periok nasi" depends on maintaining the status quo. Today the demand for change from Malaysians can no longer be ignored. It is relentless. At times it will make concessions to race and at times it will accept the need to take a different route with different partners – but always the movement advances.
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| Posted: 25 Jun 2013 01:46 PM PDT
MCA is a party that has been used to being in government since even before independence. Now that it's not, it would naturally feel lost and disconnected. Indeed, one of the fundamental dilemmas it now faces is, what is the role it should play? Kee Thuan Chye Post-GE13 (13th general election), the MCA is looking more lost than ever before. It is like the partygoer who is all dressed up with nowhere to go. Except that in its case, its dress is somewhat tattered and its face rather bruised after the beating it took at the polls. From the 15 parliamentary seats it held prior to GE13, it now has only seven – and for this poor showing, it has had to heed the call of its president, Chua Soi Lek, to refrain from taking positions in government, including the Cabinet. Way before GE13, Chua had taken the ill-advised stand that if the MCA did not get enough voter support, it would play no part in government. He had expected then that the Chinese community the party claims to represent would largely abandon it, and in order to win them back sought to make them fear that a government without MCA representation would be disastrous. Too bad for him and the party, the strategy didn't work. Simply because fear-mongering and threats don't go down well with Malaysian voters any more, especially if they can think for themselves and opt to do the right thing. Besides, the Chinese already knew that MCA participation in the government was little more than endorsing whatever big brother Umno decided, rather than fighting for the community. So they dealt the MCA its biggest blow. Now, because of Chua's hubris, all and sundry among the MCA leaders have to abide by his foolish stand. And, naturally, this is bound to cause disgruntlement among its ranks. And likely mutiny. Already, in Johor, Tee Siew Keong has defied the order by accepting an executive councillor position. In response, the party's presidential council has suspended him for three years. It did not go so far as to sack him, but its action is enough to cause uneasiness. Last week, vice-president Donald Lim Siang Chai reportedly said Chua should admit he was wrong about his stand and call for an extraordinary general meeting to review the order. But this drew Chua's ire – apart from insisting that the decision was a collective one made by the party's central committee, he lashed out at Lim for having been one of those who endorsed it. Lim, however, maintained that Chua was the "key figure" behind the decision, and that no one in the central committee had dared to object. Since then, only a few days ago, a high-ranking party leader who declined to be named has publicly acknowledged agreement with Chua that the decision was made collectively, but he also said it was a "collective mistake". "And we must collectively correct that mistake," he added. Chua must be a poor student of human nature not to have seen this coming. No one who has experienced being in a position of some power before would want to give it up without rancour. Not if they feel they are entitled to it as leaders of a senior component party of the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition. Read more at: http://my.news.yahoo.com/blogs/bull-bashing/mca-nowhere-080314855.html |
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