Voting for morality in Hulu Selangor

By Gobind Rudra (FMT)

COMMENT If perception is everything in politics, as believed mostly by pundits, neither candidate in Hulu Selangor would stand a moral chance of victory in Sunday’s by-election.

On the one hand is a pudgy, successful older man of ideas and ability and substance. But they say he drinks. On the other hand the lanky youthful opponent, unproven but energetic, is eager to please, and all too eager to press the flesh. But they say he grovels, that he lied, that he has no ideas.

Both now stand before the bar of public opinion posing moral questions.

• Did PKR’s Zaid Ibrahim drink liquor as a young man? Should that matter? Is that reason enough to bar him from being a representative of these people, after having once held high office as MP, Senator and Minister?

• Did MIC’s P Kamalanathan grovel before Umno as many believe his party continually does? Did he lie about his academic qualifications? Should that stop him from becoming a first-time MP and from a future in politics?

Trivial by comparison to matters such as development of the district, land titles, education of Tamil children, and the human rights of Felda settlers and the Orang Asli. But they sum up the inherent tensions and conflicts of society, divided between tradition and modernity, between principle and expediency.

It was no surprise that Umno’s supporters seemed to have drawn first blood with a doctored photograph of Zaid seemingly with liquor bottle in hand to tear down perception of Zaid as a man of honour, who took on the cause of five unjustly sacked judges, who stepped down from office on principle, against high-handed use of the ISA.

They needed to take him down, by feeding the public appetite for raw malicious gossip.

Who’s been to the mountain top?

The photo, soon debunked, was never the issue, its worth only to plant the idea of Zaid being unIslamic, of being a hypocrite, of being too well-heeled for the likes of Hulu Selangor. In dragging Zaid down, Umno’s leaders opened themselves to the same questions, and on their supporters, the NEP generation of Thirty Percenters in flashy cars and flashy jewellery.

Who among Umno’s leaders, past and present, have never had a drink? Who among Umno’s leaders speaks from the mountain top? Surely not Dr Mahathir, characteristically stooping to the gutter again last night in preference to standing tall.

Morality is a dubious quest for those about whom there are more questions than answers: questions still unanswered about Altantuya Shaariibuu, A Kugan and Teoh Beng Hock, about billions in arms deals (and billions more spent at the arms show in the capital while the campaign carried on), about dubious contracts and cronies, and about the fiduciary relationship of the MIC and its leaders to its own Maica, Aimst, and MIED projects.

Religious propriety is a dubious quest for those who profited from and have allies in the huge corporate empires built on the buck or two frittered away at the lottery parlours by those of all religions; or for those in administration that dithered out of expediency or turned a blind eye while families were rent asunder on religious grounds.

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