Between the Snobs and the Opportunists; Penangites Are Caught Between a Rock & a Hard Place
Khoo Kay Peng
I feel sorry for my fellow Penangites. The 13th GE is going to be one of the hardest elections for them to decide on the winners and the losers. It is hard because we are caught between the snobs and the opportunists.
On one hand, remnants of the past regime, through the control of federal power, still act like the state government is in their firm control and they are merely punished by the voters by temporarily handing over the administration to the Opposition. They never get down to accept the reality that they had been outvoted by a large majority.
As a result, the person whom they had chosen to lead the charge to retake the government in the next GE is himself enjoying the grandiose of being a leader of the ‘ruling regime’. He is a man for the big occasion. Instead of going to the ground humbly to ask for a chance from the voters he chose to spend millions to bring in a superstar, believing foolishly that the entertainer was able to win him support and favour. He failed to understand that Penang is not Bollywood.
This is the tough part for the newly appointed ‘CM designate’ and leader of the BN coalition in the state. He is given a large war chest and resources to support his task to retake the administration and he believes that by throwing his resources around through handouts, dinners, activities and advertisements he would be able to fulfill his task and objective.
Without being an elected representative is another barrier and disadvantage to him. He cannot directly control the behaviour of members on the Opposition bench who come from a senior partner in his coalition. The eleven members of Opposition are not able to frame the context of their political response and responsibility to embrace all ethnic representation because the coalition is not able to function this way. The interest of a particular ethnic community is always been taken care by a race-based political party. Without a multiracial representation means, the interest of other ethnic communities may not be given the right attention.
Civil and constructive critical opposition is also something alien to them. As a result, a number of bad or poor policies were not thoroughly debated in the state assembly. The only thing they can do best is to send a group of noisy supporters to the state administration office every friday to hold a meaningless protest or demonstration.
These people especially leaders and supporters whom I have describe above are the snobs that we have to tolerate on one side.
The fact that Penangites, largely the middle-class, hate and dislike them so much that they will continue to reject these snobs in the next GE. It has come to a point that we are willing to lower our expectations and increase our tolerance of the state government.
It has never happened in Penang that our NGOs are so one-sided that most of them would choose to still support the state government for fear of allowing these snobs to come back to power too quickly. We are determined to overlook the state government’s faults and weaknesses (intentional or not) so that we do not appear to be overly critical.
Leaders of NGOs who are not satisfied with some of the major policy decisions made by the state government have been very careful to choose their words when voicing out their displeasure. I was at one of the forums discussing issues concerning the controversial RM6.3 billion roads and underwater tunnel project and observed that the speakers were quick to remind the audience after each criticism that they still support the ruling regime and the Chief Minister.
The quantum of the policy decisions is nothing less that what would have triggered a mass protest of these NGOs if the same decisions were made by the past regime.
Important questions regarding a controversial land sale, Bayan Mutiara, were never answered by the state government but the NGOs were surprisingly quiet and understanding. Until today, the state government hasn’t confirm if the bidder has fulfilled their commitment to pay for the land or not. It has chosen to stay mum over a number of questions posed to its administration. In the past, these NGOs would have gone to the streets to show their displeasure, the Opposition (now the Government) would have worked hand-in-hand with these NGOs to organize fiery speeches and forums to criticize the government and the people would have been so worked up and angry.
Because of these snobs, the people are facing a hard time to stand up against the newly minted state government under the populist leadership of an opportunistic leader. The opportunistic leader is now using our dislike and aversion against these snobs to push through controversial projects like the Bayan Mutiara land sale and the RM6.3 billion infrastructure project in Penang.
By making these projects political and by linking the opposition to these projects as an opposition against their rule and governance, Penangites cannot help but to choose these projects instead of seeing the return of the snobs.
Between the snobs and the opportunists; Penangites are caught between a rock and a hard place.
