Hope, desperation and fear in Hulu Selangor
The “change” that the BN has sought is for voters to reject true political change and stick with the tried and trusted. But there has been no change in their methods: money has poured in to persuade voters that there is no profit in political change.
By Gobind Rudra (FMT)
COMMENT As voters cast their ballots in Hulu Selangor today there will be renewed hope among those who seek political change in the country, almost as much as among those who wish merely for business as usual.
Curiously, the business-as-usual crowd, that of the Barisan Nasional, have jumped on the bandwagon and also adopted the vocabulary of change.
They have no choice: the BN lives in fear of real change.
Political power has been profitable for Umno-BN and its followers and the easy-money class of rent-seekers around them do not want the gravy train to be derailed.
The “change” that the BN has sought is for voters to reject true political change and stick with the tried and trusted. But there has been no change in their methods: money has poured in to persuade voters that there is no profit in political change.
It shows how much desperation, frustration and fear now exists among BN leaders. March 2008 has shown that the people can have a will of their own, that “people power” is not empty rhetoric, and that the tried and trusted have been tried and found wanting.
A simple question of trust
Trust is the quality that is on trial: which of these parties can earn common trust, which of the candidates will safely bear the keys to the future of the common man and that of his children?
Trust is what led to the choice of the two candidates.
Zaid Ibrahim and his stand against the unbridled use of the despised Internal Security Act, loved only by policemen, has been presented as the candidate that voters can trust to stand up when it counts.
The BN’ s choice of P Kamalanathan speaks of a different approach, a crude, cynical and manipulative approach: that voters can be swayed by the illusion of a fresh face, of youth untainted by scandal, of energy, and the promise he can be trusted to deliver. But deliver what? His own promise was merely to deliver Hulu Selangor as a gift to his political master.
Read more at: http://freemalaysiatoday.com/fmt-english/opinion/comment/4912-hope-and-fear-in-hulu-selangor
