It’s a funny business, this election business

ARCHIVES 2010

By admin-s On Apr 29, 2010

COMMENT In case you missed it, here is the news. On Sunday the assembled and agglomerated might of Federal Government of Malaysia struggled mightily to produce a narrow victory in a parliamentary by-election in the country seat of Hulu Selangor, to reacquire it as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Federal Government of Malaysia’s controlling shareholder Barisan Nasional.

By Gobind Rudra

A combined harvester put together by Federal Government of Malaysia and Barisan Nasional, and driven by the prime minister, Najib Tun Razak, found rough going in trying to steamroll their opponent, the private citizen Zaid Ibrahim, a lawyer.

The effort seemed to have run out of steam, producing a margin of victory of only 1,725 votes. Of that number, 767 were the postal votes of policemen and soldiers. The remaining 958 votes came, it is believed, from elderly agriculturalists and their families grateful to the prime minister’s father, Tun Abdul Razak. Some 2,000 of such settlers work the land on several schemes in Hulu Selangor.

Tun Abdul Razak is widely credited with having settled thousands of landless people on giant land schemes in parts of the peninsula. There they toiled for decades to produce an agricultural behemoth named Felda, now the world’s largest plantation company and part of Federal Government of Malaysia’s sprawling corporate empire of world-beating enterprises.

A return to ‘the true path‘

Jubilant board members and shareholders of Barisan Nasional, the dominant controlling shareholder and also ultimate holding company of Federal Government of Malaysia, hailed the victory as a momentous occasion.

They noted that the figure of 1,725 was an 800% increase over the measly 198 obtained in 2008 by its competitor, an ailing doctor who died recently.

Almost with religious fervour, they noted that the people of Hulu Selangor had seen the light and returned to the true path and the true faith.

No effort had been spared to secure the conversion of electoral deviationists, who had elected a member of the deviant group known as Pakatan Rakyat in a general election in March 2008.

Najib sowed the seeds of victory with personal visits to the length and breadth of the seat showering blessings on the various communities. Federal Government of Malaysia gave timely aid to its controlling shareholder, Barisan Nasional, loosening its Treasury purse-strings to fund various charitable ventures.

Among these were: a RM33mil scheme to build 250 new houses for Felda settlers; a renewed promise of a RM85mil highway interchange which had yet to be built after being first promised in 1994; payment of RM50,000 each, and the promise of RM160,000 an acre, to 100 settlers who had originally been promised RM1mil each in 1994 for handing over their land for private development which later failed; land title for an Indian temple illegally occupying a plot of land; RM3mil for refurbishment of a Chinese school; and various amounts for other community and religious purposes.

Language of reconciliation

In contrast, Najib’s opponent, the private citizen Zaid Ibrahim, could only muster the aid of State Government of Selangor, a subsidiary of noted corporate raiders Pakatan Rakyat. They provided free water supplies and some land titles for a displaced community of descendants of immigrant workers, who have lived as temporary occupants for 50 years or longer.

To counter this, Najib personally visited a Chinese school and spoke to the community in language they would understand.

“Kalau kita menang ini election, lu datang KL carik gua,” he said in the Sinkeh dialect of Malay. Then, reverting to standard Malaysian, he added: “I will write a personal letter to approve the money and it will be transferred to the school board’s account.” He is also believed to have said: “If we lose tomorrow, don’t come.”

On Wednesday, a delegation duly visited the head offices of the Federal Government of Malaysia to receive the promised RM3mil, and to hear Najib announce that “I have paid my dues.” (It was not revealed whether he spoke Sinkeh again.)

The delegation did not reveal if the RM3mil was paid with Najib’s personal cheque as his words implied. Reporters were not allowed to ask if Federal Government of Malaysia had sent a bill for that amount to its controlling shareholder, Barisan Nasional, to reimburse various payment made on behalf of Barisan Nasional.

It is also not known whether the Federal Government of Malaysia would send a bill to controlling shareholder Barisan Nasional for other services rendered on its behalf.