From Gantang Hill to mountain
The key to any genuine reform by Umno is not about treating non-Malay Malaysians and non-Muslims better. Umno must do that at any rate, or it will be buried by the non-Malay Malaysians. Indeed, appealing to the constituency that punishes you is the given in the perverted logic of Malaysian politics.
By Wong Chin Huat, The Nut Graph
IT is furthest from the truth to declare that the results of the triple by-elections on 7 April 2009 are about the status quo being maintained. Such an analysis, which focuses only on the number of seats each political party has, would fail to see the forest for the trees.
What has or will be changed because of 7 April, at least in Bukit Gantang, is the dynamics in party competition. The two contending parties, Umno and PAS, and their respective coalitions, the Barisan Nasional (BN) and Pakatan Rakyat (PR), are now officially in a new ball game.
The resounding victory of the Pakatan Rakyat's Perak Menteri Besar (MB) Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin over his Umno opponent, Ismail Saffian, with an even greater margin than in 2008 is a clear verdict on the Perak coup.
The majority of voters in the Bukit Gantang parliamentary constituency have made it clear that they do not condone a coup or mutiny. So, unless coup plotters can avoid or abolish elections forever, they will be punished once fresh polls are held.
Political parties should not expect the people to accept the fiat accompli of a palace coup or emergency rule and then reward a party with an electoral landslide. This is 2009, not 1969.
The message from Bukit Gantang — and Bukit Selambau — should therefore deter future coups, not only in Perak but in other states and at the federal level.
