My political thoughts during the Hunger Viratham Day Eighteen 27th March 2013

ARCHIVES 2013

By admin-s On Mar 28, 2013

Today there is still a lot of residual anger against UMNO among the Indian poor. Pakatan is capitalizing on this and is thinking that the votes of the Indian poor have nowhere else to go but to them. This thinking shows in the way they have treated the Indian electorate recently in their Election Manifesto flip flops.

P. Waythamoorthy

This is the eighteenth day of my Hunger Viratham.

In this tenth part I will be penning my thoughts on the option of strategic abstention by the Indian poor in the forthcoming elections.

PART 10

Strategic Abstention as an option for the Indian poor in the forthcoming General Elections.

Pakatan believes they should get a majority of the Indian votes – not maybe as high as the last time, but still the majority. Barisan for their part believe they can buy the Indian vote with the goodies they have planned. Hindraf’s analysis however is this – the urban educated Indians will largely go for Pakatan. Add to that the beneficiaries from the last election who have personally gained and all those who potentially stand to gain in the forthcoming elections. These votes are with Pakatan. Then on the Barisan side, the MIC machinery is preparing to reach out to the local warlords and through them to the poorest among the Indians. They will be throwing a lot of money in the process in doing this

In our estimate all of that will all probably account for 50% of the Indian voters. You can argue about the accuracy of that number, but it surely is in that ballpark give and take a few percentage points.

The leverage for the Indian poor does not come from those foregone votes. When we say leverage, we mean leverage as in getting the politicians to commit to the specific bottom up plans laid out in our 5 year Blueprint for the Indian poor. This is the key point on which the decision as to where the remaining Indian votes will go will be determined. Hindraf will make sure of that. This is the key point that BN and PR should focus on.

We have a few more days left for BN and PR to take their respective positions, either explicitly or by default on the question of the endorsement of the 5 year Blueprint. If they remain silent or ambivalent then we in Hindraf will project it to mean they do not support a program of comprehensive and permanent correction to the socio-economic problems of the Indian poor – that they do not care about the Indian poor. This therefore will form the central message from us to our base.

On the contrary, if either, and I reiterate, if either PR or BN comes up and is willing to endorse the 5 year Blueprint in a clear binding way, our message to the Indian poor will be to throw their support behind them – whoever they are –PR or BN.

What if Pakatan and BN have not endorsed the Blueprint by the time Parliament is dissolved? The message that this sends to the Indian poor is that they both do not have the interest of the Indian poor in their minds. The proposals in the 5 year Blueprint are entirely justifiable. And if they do not want to adopt them and do not show the necessary commitment to implement them, then it does not really make any difference who wins in these elections. We will make absolutely sure that this is the message that the Indian poor will hear.

Under these circumstances, abstaining from voting either BN or PR becomes a real option for the Indian poor. Both PR and BN cannot complain on any count on the adoption of this option by the Indian poor. To the Indian poor, the logic is simple. Neither care, so neither deserves anything in return.

What will be the consequence of this move? This strategic abstention effectively means a pullback in the number of votes for both BN and PR in this GE. What this means in turn is that, all those seats that were won marginally will all be affected. The uncertainty increases. If you take Selangor alone, we see at least (at least) 20 State seats that fall in this category – easily. The same logic and formula apply in Kedah, Penang, Perak, Negeri Sembilan, Pahang and Johore. All marginally won seats in the last elections with an Indian voter population of more than 10% are candidates to come into this category. And not all the Indian poor need to abstain. Even if 20% of the Indian voters abstain, the impact will be significant. Strategic abstention can prove to be quite impactful.

By this strategic abstention, the Indian poor will be determining new winners and new losers. The winners will know they won without those votes and the losers will know they lost without those votes. To both the winner and the loser the significance of the vote of the Indian poor would have become clearer. This adds to calculations for future elections. Will the contenders want to treat the Indian poor vote so cavalierly? Yes they can, but only at a cost. That will become plain.

Extending this logic to the next level, strategic abstention can also be applied to individual candidates in the elections. If they will announce their stand on the Blue print, whether they support it and what specifically they will do in support of the programs for the Indian poor and put it down formally to Hindraf. Hindraf can then endorse some of these candidates in return. The logistics of this has to be worked out, but this is also another option.

My conclusion therefore is that strategic abstention does become a purposeful option for the Indian poor in this election. By this act the Indian poor would have taken the opportunity to show the significance of their votes, whether we will issue the call for it will be determined over the next couple of weeks, depending on when Parliament is dissolved.

Our position is very clear. We do not want to see just changes in faces at the helm of our country; we also want to see real changes in the lives of the Indian poor. And we will take any position that supports our motives.

We will make our decision on what we will do soon as the dust settles for us.