Morning after: What does Hulu S’gor augur?
To crush the PKR candidate Zaid Ibrahim, the Umno-led BN political campaign adopted a tripodal-style strategy.
By Ktemoc
The dictionary defines ‘bellwether’ as “a person or thing that shows the existence or direction of a trend”.
I have stated that the outcome of the by-election in the Hulu Selangor parliamentary seat would be the bellwether for the next Malaysian general election. And my observation that it would be déjà vu the 2007 Ijok by-election has come to pass.
Notwithstanding the BN victory in this by-election, I still believe the first salutary lesson is that no candidate can win solely on ethnic appeal.
Najib Razak has played the game well by having an Indian candidate in a Malay majority area a la Ijok. Shades of Ijok also brings us to the second lesson of Hulu Selangor, that by-elections in Malaysia means the party with juggernaut-sized political machinery (including those ‘public institutions’ in name) and deep pockets can focus all its resources on one locality in the very short span of time of official campaigning.
To crush the PKR candidate Zaid Ibrahim, the Umno-led BN political campaign adopted a tripodal-style strategy.
Unprecedented buy election
The first of the tripodal attack was sheer raw pork barreling worth tens of millions of ringgit, so much so that it’s a wonder there was no complaint by locals of porcine presence in the area.
Hulu Selangor enjoyed a festival medley of Raya dinners, Christmas presents and Chinese New Year ang pows inclusive of walking ATM facilities. Grandiose promises galore were made to an extent that prompted Lim Kit Siang to challenge the MACC to investigate Najib’s guarantee of RM3 million to a Chinese school in Rasa.
No doubt also, another outcome of the (covert aspect of) pork barreling had been a ‘coincidental’ surge in political defections from PKR, comprising its erstwhile Malay members who have returned to Umno.
Same old race-religion cards
The second prong of the campaign strategy was a relentless assault on the personal character of the PKR candidate Zaid Ibrahim, using a mix of ethnocentric accusations against him and pointed questions about his propriety as a Muslim. Previous and newly recruited defectors from PKR were fully employed to rubbish Anwar Ibrahim and thus vicariously Zaid.
One of the more sublime examples of such ethnocentric insinuations had been Malay mainstream media showing Zaid surrounded by Chinese aides talking to the Chinese in Hulu Selangor while by contrast the BN’s candidate Kamalanathan was photographed together with Malay voters and Umno bigwigs.
The communal message was clear and would have done Perkasa proud. Ironically the ultra-nationalist NGO joined in the campaign for MIC’s Indian candidate to the delight of Kamalanathan who had earlier defended Perkasa and subsequently hugged the movement’s president Ibrahim Ali himself.
While the tactics of character assassination and pork barreling would be considered BN norms in Malaysian elections – recall 2007 Ijok and its infamous 600 Janome sewing machines and then-Works Minister Samy Vellu’s boast of compressing 10 years of public works into a month – the most questionable of its strategy has been its third prong, the use of the Election Commission (EC).
Read more at: Morning after: What does Hulu S’gor augur
