Those damn Chinese!
KTemoc Konsiders
Dr Mahathir: “Maybe I’m wrong—and I admit I am frequently wrong.”
Gasp gawd omigosh, you frequently wrong? Where got one (mana adalah) Tun! wakakaka.
But that’s what The Grand Olde Man said, as reported by The Malay Mail in its news article Dr M: Election candies a waste, voters no longer bite.
Following UMNO’s loss, specifically in the recent Sungai Limau by-election and generally in the May GE-13, he stated the above as a humble* qualifier to his prognosis for politicians in future elections.
* Dr Mahathir humble? my second wakakaka on him.
He pontificated that voters would no longer swayed by election pork-barreling** but rather by ‘the actions of political leaders who show they can help the electorate improve their economic situation’.
** a government appropriation, bill, or policy that supplies funds for local improvements (eg. in the various by-elections in Ijok, Sg Limau, Sibu, Hulu Selangor, etc) designed to ingratiate legislators with their constituents).
Our Malaysian styled pork-barreling have been far more crude, made with just campaign ‘promises’, many of which were not financially sound (including some from the opposition).
He summarized: “Those who do not support, will still not support. The money given is a waste, whether it is the government’s money or not.”
Amin Tun, though you should have said this eons ago.
However, on second thoughts, I may have to disagree a wee bit on pork barreling. Actually Chinese can support BN if two factors are present: firstly, the pork barreling should be about favourable long term educational prospects for the Chinese community as not all Chinese are well off like Vincent Tan wakakaka, and secondly, the opposition (to BN, especially UMNO) in a specific constituency is unworthy or not to be trusted, wakakaka – I’m afraid you have to work that out yourself, but a hint, it’s not a simplistic ABU.
Sungai Limau could possibly (though not probably) have been an above case in point if the election day was not a Monday, a working day. But even then, there was a small but discernible Chinese swing towards BN. Of course MCA and Gerakan would be magnifying the Chinese swing as much as possible while as expected, DAP would be doing the exact opposite, wakakaka. I’ll return to this point later.
Back to Dr Mahathir, wakakaka – No doubt, and in practical terms ‘unnecessarily’, still smarting from UMNO’s loss to PAS in the by-election, he has, to his magnificent credit, refrained from directly condemning the bloody Chinese for failing to come out in full force to support his son’s party, wakakaka.
I toyed with the word ‘unnecessarily’ to describe his smarting at UMNO’s loss because really, to lose in a PAS stronghold like Sungai Limau would not be a shame to Mukhriz’s efforts nor unexpected, if we remember that the state constituency has reputedly been held by the Islamic party for nine (9) terms.
In fact, I’d even go as far as to say Mukhriz and his team did a fairly good job, shaving PAS’ majority down by more than half, to only 1084 instead of the 2774 the Islamic party enjoyed just a mere 6 months ago.
Nonetheless Dr Mahathir must be clenching his fists and gritting his teeth at the thought of just a swing of 543 votes for the UMNO candidate, Dr Ahmad Sohaimi Lazim to win.
But I suspect Dr Mahathir has more than a party member’s interest/regret in UMNO’s loss in Sungai Limau, and I can think of two possible reasons.
One is of course about his son’s standing in the UMNO upper leadership echelon. A victory for UMNO in the by-election, one which Mukhriz had put his heart and soul into the campaigning, including swallowing his pride to woo the Chinese there after having publicly snubbed them, would have endowed Dr Mahathir’s son with very strong credentials as a party strongman on his own merits, an UMNO warlord so to speak.
In this, Mukhriz’s earlier attempt to acquire for himself that heroic warlord status by snubbing the Chinese Kedahans in hostile manner a la his dad and Ali Rustam was perhaps a strategic error, one in which an African saying would be most applicable, that one shouldn’t tease Mother Crocodile until one has safely crossed the river, wakakaka.
Pakatan left no stone unturned in reminding the Chinese of Mukhriz’s snub.
Poor Mukhriz was then flowing along with the despicable mores of most of his competitors in UMNO’s VP-wannabes, hoping that by brandishing the vocal and psychological Panca Warisan, he would be accepted and supported as an ethnic warrior by the party delegates. Frankly, to his questionable credit, he nearly succeeded, obtaining 91 votes to Hishamuddin’s 100, thus losing by just a mere 9 votes but in practical terms, only 5.
Yes, because if Mukhriz had secured that extra 5 votes he would have pipped Hishamuddin by 96 to 95, but alas for him, that didn’t happen. And we also know that he had been the far more popular candidate than Hishamuddin, but alas for him, the UMNO party voting system didn’t favour popularity.
And guess who marshalled those divisional votes to ensure Hisham, for all his worthless incumbency as a VP, fell just barely over the finishing line by a mere 100 votes to Mukhriz 91?
Yup, ’twas KJ and Shahrizat, wakakaka.
From a Chinese, may I on behalf of other Chinese Malaysians, sincerely thank KJ and Shahrizat, not because we want Hisham to win or for Mukhriz to lose, but for saving Chinese Malaysians from being excoriated (once again) by Dr Mahathir, wakakaka. And f**king eat that too, Ali, wakakaka.
Now, the second reason for Dr Mahathir clenching his fists and gritting his teeth at UMNO’s loss in Sungai Limau would be, I suspect, from his bitter memories of his own loss in 1969 in the parliamentary constituency of Kota Setar Selatan, which coincidentally embraced the state constituency of Sungai Limau.
In the 60’s, Dr Mahathir was notorious as an ‘ultra’, one of UMNO’s frightening ‘Young Turks’ and was said to have arrogantly declared he didn’t require Chinese support in the election.
Okay then, in May 1969 he lost to Yusof Rawa (Yusof Abdullah) of PAS by 989 votes.
Guess what? He blamed his loss on the very people he had so arrogantly declared he didn’t require votes from, wakakaka. In 1974 he wisely selected a different parliamentary constituency, Kubang Pasu, wakakaka.
I wonder what Dr Mahathir (and Malaysia) would have become if Tunku had not expelled him from UMNO in 1969. Story was that Tunku wanted to have him arrested for railing against his Administration and for writing his ethnocentric diatribe in a book which you are all familiar with, The Malay Dilemma, but was persuaded from taking that action.
Anyway, the loss by UMNO in Sungai Limau must have triggered bitter memories of his own loss in 1969 to Yusof Rawa in Kota Setar Selatan. Oh, those damn bloody Chinese, wakakaka. Oh, that bloody PAS, wakakaka.
