GE13: A marathon, but a race for ‘sprinters’
The writing “was clearly on the wall” the day after GE12 in March 2008. Umno/BN would have to reinvent and position itself as a genuine “centrist” party if it was to “recover lost ground” next time — and certainly if it were to have any serious chance of a convincing victory by 2013.
Clive Kessler, TMI
In two recent published political commentaries, I have drawn two perhaps fanciful comparisons.
First, I remarked that the underlying form or structure of the Malaysian “body politic”, beginning with the Constitution, was basically sound.
But, I added, that the body now needed some “good tailoring”, a new “suit” of “political clothing” — some new arrangements that might enable that body to appear respectably, and with dignity, in public.
Next I suggested that the predicament of Umno/BN today, on the eve of GE13, is a bit like that of a sailor whose good fortune has recently deserted him.
Like a sailor who has long been accustomed to sailing with the wind behind him, pushing him with its great power in the direction that he wants to go
Suddenly the world has changed, the wind had shifted. Umno/BN now needs to “do things tough”. It needs to sail across, and even to learn to “tack” into, the wind.
That is hard sailing.
And that kind of “political sailing” is not something that Umno people know how to do. Nor is it a challenge that they are happy about having to face, a skill that they are eager now to master.
It goes beyond what they know. It is beyond their “comfort zone”.
Let me now introduce a third parallel, another “kias”, a new “ibarat”.
In Australia the great sporting event of the year is the Melbourne Cup. It is a distance race, over two miles. It is a race for stayers, not sprinters.
Everybody hopes that the race “is run truly”.
Meaning, that it is a tough and keenly contested race all the way.
If it is, a good stayer wins.
That is how it is supposed to be.
But sometimes it is not.
The horses “loaf along” for a mile and a half, with no horse or rider keen to “make the running”.
Then, suddenly, for the last half-mile it is a mad rush.
A mad rush and a disappointing spectacle.
Disappointing because a sprinter, not a tried and proven stayer, will win if the race is competitive only in its concluding stages.
Malaysian elections, and especially this long awaited GE13, are a bit like that.
The nation has been “in election mode” for five years.
The writing “was clearly on the wall” the day after GE12 in March 2008. Umno/BN would have to reinvent and position itself as a genuine “centrist” party if it was to “recover lost ground” next time — and certainly if it were to have any serious chance of a convincing victory by 2013.
But, as it dithered, and as hard-line Malay ethno-supremacist groups like Perkasa seized the initiative, Umno lost its chance to do that.
It flubbed. It “wimped out”.
It decided, under that hard-line Malay pressure, to “shore up” its Malay base first.
Moderation could come later, much later — if at all, if ever.
Prudence, inspired by a sense of weakness and fear, not courage prevailed.
And ever since Najib Razak succeeded as prime minister, he has had his “weather eye” keenly focused on whether a favourable moment might present itself for him to call an election: to gain a personal mandate, give his leadership some real popular legitimacy — and to refresh that of Umno at the same time.
But the favourable moment never came.
As it failed to arrive, Najib temporized.
Sure, he launched his alphabetic onslaught to suggest a dynamic agenda, to create the appearance of some genuine momentum.
But it was all stodgy, “top down”, prosaically managerialist stuff that did not fire the popular imagination — and could hardly have been expected to do so.
So now we find ourselves five years on from GE12 and almost five years on from when the current parliament first convened.
Its automatic expiry date, its democratic “use-by date”, is almost nigh.
At long last, the election has been called.
And now that it has been, it will be a “12-day wonder.”
A bit like the English summer. You go to the cinema one afternoon, see a movie, and when you come out you find that you have missed it.
So after being on an election footing under Najib’s “watch” for almost four years, we find that the race has yet again become a test not of true political “stayers”, not the marathon that it seems, but once again a hectic sprint.
A mad last-minute rush to the line.
A rush that here works massively to the advantage of the contestant who knows when the rush is to begin – because that contestant alone has the ability to trigger it.
So what kind of election will it be?
There are many aspects, many dimensions to note, and different commentators highlight different features.
The dirtiest ever, say some.
The most keenly contested of all time, say others.
The most difficult to fathom, because of the unprecedented role to be played by new voters and new media, say others.
All these ideas and characterizations have merit.
To end this brief comment, I wish to suggest something else — a view or idea that comes from taking “the long view” of modern Malay politics and Malaysian political history.
Back to the stayers’ race.
