Pakatan’s seats allocation conundrum
Forming a single unit of Pakatan campaign managers is crucial for the pact to remedy what had happened prior to GE13 on matters of seat allocations.
Kuo Yong Kooi
What has clearly emanate through before GE-13 to a political observer was that the component parties of Pakatan Rakyat were squabbling over their “territorial seats”. Once the seats were allocated to that particular component party, the task of allocating the right candidates for the squabbled seats were then given to their own party boss(es).
In a situation where there are disputed seats between component parties, last minute meetings was held to remedy a situation where there are not enough time to print election leaflets and campaign materials, let alone do the campaigning. This is a clear case of lack of cohesion amongst the top brass of the component party members on deciding over the seat allocation matters.
PKR meetings with PSM over those disputed seats was dragged till the last days before nomination day. This process and practice of seat allocation need to stop immediately.
Forming a single unit of Pakatan campaign managers is crucial for the pact to remedy what had happened prior to GE13 on matters of seat allocations.
The questions of who is the right candidate to run at a particular constituency should be dealt with in a total “free and frank” atmosphere amongst the “Pakatan seat allocation strategists”.
Potential candidates should be chosen and agreed upon by the “team” as early as possible to allow time for the potential candidates to immerse themselves in their electorate. This is to avoid the parachuting candidates practice which can cause backlash from disgruntled potential local candidates and their followers. Parachuting candidates might be acceptable in urban electorates but is a disaster if applied to the rural constituencies because the “Balas Budi” culture is still strong in rural areas.
Eric C Thompson in his article GE 13 and the politics of urban chauvinism; http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/sideviews/article/ge13-and-the-politics-of-urban-chauvinism-eric-c.-thompson/ noted that in rural district of Selama, Perak, voters rejected a PAS candidate whose main qualification was that he was the son-in-law of the PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang. He had been nominated by PAS amidst significant protests and at the expense of a local PAS leader with deep local roots. Hadi’s son-in-law lost by a little over 600 votes.
The same can be said when Pakatan sidelined PSM in the Jelapang and Semenyih seats. Although Pakatan has the upper hand in decision making, their actions caused a fatal rippling effect on the election result elsewhere.
PSM do have members around the country. No matter how small they are, every vote counts. BN won a paper thin margin of 80 votes in the seat of Cameron Highlands. PSM has got a local member working at the Cameron Highlands constituency for many years. I am sure some PSM members and sympathisers there did not turn up to vote or at worst voted against Pakatan because of what Pakatan did to PSM during the seat allocations negotiations.
Giving the individual component party boss(es) the overriding power of allocating candidates on the squabbled territorial seats is a “disaster waiting to happen”. The particular party boss(es) have the potential to act according to their personal interests above the party’s and national interest.
Azmin Ali allocated seats to all his henchmen and discarded PKR president Dr Wan Azzizah is a classis example of how the seat allocation strategy adopted by Pakatan has failed us. If a team of Pakatan election strategists is involved, the team has to agree (unanimously or by majority) that Dr Wan Azzizah is definitely a winnable candidate. It does not matter which Party she belongs to, a seat is to be allocated for her on that merit alone is a clear way out of this conundrum.
The team of election strategists effectively acts as a buffer to a potential concentration of a power block lead by an individual who oversea the seat allocation matters.
If blogger Raja Petra Kammaruddin assertion is true about Azmin Ali’s possible defection to the BN camp then Malaysia will be in deep trouble because BN might just have the two third majority needed to sail through the delineation process due at the end of this year.
To Azmin Ali’s credit, this has not happened yet but that do no strike out the plausibility of future defections lead by a high profile Pakatan leader with his/her team over to the BN camp. That thought alone send shivers to the spine of Pakatan supporters.
There are no legislation against party hopping in place at the moment. That gives further impetus for Pakatan to reconsider their seat allocation strategy.
On hindsight if a Pakatan “war room” team existed long before the GE-13, Azmin Ali would need to convince the team that Dr Wan Azizah is not a winnable candidate. Azmin Ali would also need to discuss with the team on S Arulchelvan’s candidacy in the Semenyih seat. The team would have easily decided on choosing Arulchelvan on the basis that he is 100% defection proof. He was and still is loyal to the Pakatan cause. Unfortunately Azmin Ali had shown to defy this logic.
PAS President Hadi Awang would not have been able to act unilaterally to field his own favoured candidate in Kota Damansara which forces a three cornered fight and cause a Pakatan seat loss.
The tussle of who’s right to nominate the Selangor Mentei Besar is another example indicative of Pakatan’s need to form a cohesive collective unit to deal with matters electioneering. The Menteri Besar matter would have settled by the team long before the campaign commences. The decision were made collectively based on merits not based on which party wins the most seats.
Kuo Yong Kooi
