PR losing its ‘mojo’ with Indians
Fractured Pakatan Indian leadership is trying to woo back the Indian voters, but it is too little too late.
Indian voters now have a choice between the indecisive and fractured Indian leadership in Pakatan and a resurgent Barisan under a reform-minded Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, aided by a MIC without former president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu at the helm.
By Baradan Kuppusamy, The Star
DAP’s Buntong Assemblyman S. Sivasubramaniam is one very upset young man because he and his compatriot, former speaker and Tronoh assemblyman V. Sivakumar, were not invited for a meeting of Pakatan Indian leaders in Penang last week.
About 20 leaders from five states with a large Indian population attended the meeting chaired by Penang deputy Chief Minister and nominal Indian Pakatan leader, Prof Dr P. Ramasamy, to discuss how to reverse a serious drift of Indian voters to the Barisan Nasional.
The discussion revolved around why Indian voters who had rallied behind the Pakatan banner in 2008 and helped Pakatan to win Selangor, Perak, Penang and Kedah were drifting back to the Barisan.
“I don’t know about the meeting. I was not invited, nor was Sivakumar,” Sivasubramaniam told The Star.
“We are Indian leaders, you know, and should have been invited.”
His angst is one of the key reasons why Indian voters are drifting back to the Barisan – infighting among Pakatan Indian leaders and serious lack of decisive leadership.
Indian voters now have a choice between the indecisive and fractured Indian leadership in Pakatan and a resurgent Barisan under a reform-minded Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, aided by a MIC without former president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu at the helm.
A more open leader in Datuk G. Palanivel is reforming the MIC to win back Indian support for Bari-san.
Both Sivasubramaniam and Sivakumar are political rivals of former Perak DAP deputy chairman S. Kulasegaran who figured prominently in the Penang meeting.
The two helped to defeat Kulasegaran and his compatriot, Teluk Intan MP M. Manoharan, and Sungkai assemblyman A. Sivanesan in the Perak DAP elections last year.
In fact, Sivakumar got Kulasegaran’s job as deputy Perak DAP chairman in the new post-election pecking order in the state.
It is ironic that the losers were invited to the Penang meeting and the winners were not.
One doesn’t need to be a rocket scientist to know why Sivasubramaniam and Sivakumar were not invited along with other top leaders, like former ISA detainee and Kota Alam Shah assemblyman M. Manoharan.
Manoharan, who is close to Hindraf founder P. Uthayakumar and, therefore, suspected by Pakatan, expressed shock and sadness that he was not invited to the Penang meeting.
“I could have made many useful suggestions. I went to jail for the Indian community,” he said.
Indian support, although a minority, had been decisive in helping Pakatan win in Perak, Kedah, and Selangor, and even in Penang, political experts said.
They cite Selangor as an example where 18 of the 36 seats won by Pakatan were victories made possible by support from the Indian voters.
“We can lose Selangor if 65% of Indians in Selangor vote for Bari-san Nasional in the next general election. The scenario is the same in Kedah and Perak,” a senior DAP leader said, adding that the party was worried and had started serious discussions on how to reverse the trend.
Even PKR and PAS have realised the drift and are beginning to raise Indian issues like poverty, lack of jobs and shortage of land for temples and Tamil schools, Manoharan said.
“One Malay assemblyman even spoke passionately about the lack of graveyards for Indians in the recent Selangor assembly sitting,” he said, adding that the best solution for Indian woes was to see it as a Malay-sian issue to be solved by Malaysian representatives.
“It should not be dumped on Indian leaders — Pakatan or Barisan,” he said.
Senator S. Ramakrishna, a rising leader in the DAP who attended the Penang meeting, estimated the Indian drift at about “15 to 20%.”
“This is a serious drift and we are worried, but it is not irreversible provided we act now,” Ramakrishna said.
He said the Penang meeting was informal and was called at the last minute and that’s why some Indian leaders were left out.
To win back Indian voter support, the meeting resolved, among other measures, to press Pakatan to appoint an Indian liaison officer in each Pakatan ruled state, campaign hard to revoke the Interlok novel and provide more jobs for Indians in municipal councils.
However, the fact is, no matter how much Pakatan Indian leaders try to reinvent themselves, it is not an easy task to reverse the Indian drift because nearly three years have passed between the high promises of March 2008 and the failure to deliver on election pledges.
To even gather to discuss what to do after three years of Pakatan rule is, in itself, an embarrassment.
In the intervening years, much has changed — a new national leader in Najib has won praise from the Indians for proactive measures to help the community, Samy Vellu has departed and a more open and considerate MIC is taking shape.
Change is catching up and undercutting the Pakatan, which won big in 2008 on a change manifesto, but lost steam thereafter.
Indian voter disillusionment runs deep, not just over the indecisive and fractured Pakatan Indian leadership, but also at the half-hearted measures, thus far, to resolve longstanding Indian woes.
