‘Financial strangulation’ for Pakatan voters
Usually, the PR MPs of that area will fork out their own money to pay private contractors to clean up the area. They also need to fork out their own money to help out flood and fire victims, donate schoolbags to underprivileged children and pay for other activities requiring financial handouts.
Selena Tay, The Rakyat Times
Fifty-two percent of the rakyat who voted for Pakatan Rakyat (PR) in the 13th General Election are at the losing end because the PR MPs have not got their rightful allocation for their constituency’s welfare.
This allocation amounts to RM1.5 million per year.
Therefore, it is difficult for PR MPs to get things done. Many times this writer has heard of constituents complaining that the roads are not being repaired, the parks are not well-kept, and a host of other complaints, including the lack of cleanliness in their locality.
Usually, the PR MPs of that area will fork out their own money to pay private contractors to clean up the area. They also need to fork out their own money to help out flood and fire victims, donate schoolbags to underprivileged children and pay for other activities requiring financial handouts.
Many a time, the opposition MPs are out of pocket due to unforeseen expenses. There are many cases of constituents showing up at the MP’s service centre to borrow money when they become jobless for one reason or other. Many times too, the constituents just want to borrow money to tide over the weekend as they are unable to make ends meet.
This writer did voluntary work at a PKR service centre in 2009 and is writing from first-hand experience. There are all sorts of problems faced by the service centre staff but mainly, they are financial problems.
Take, for instance, the Segambut MP Lim Lip Eng of DAP. He has organised and paid out of his own pocket English tuition classes for the children of his constituents in Sg Penchala. This shows that a PR MP needs to be generous with his monthly pay packet.
This method of ‘financial strangulation’ of the Pakatan MPs shows that the government has failed to respect voters’ choices.
“Does this mean that we have a controlled democracy here?” questioned a neutral political analyst who opined that the financial strangulation of PR MPs is tantamount to coercion to influence the rakyat’s voting pattern.
“Is this the ‘model democracy’ claimed by our Prime Minister when he is speaking on the world stage? If so, then it is a really weird sort of ‘model democracy’ when voters are discouraged from voting according to their choice.
“It also means that the Pakatan MP needs to have deep pockets in order to be able to take care of his constituents’ needs and also the constituents must be sufficiently well-to-do in order to withstand the ‘financial strangulation’ suffered by their MPs,” remarked the political analyst.
This being the case, will the rakyat put things right in the 14th General Election? Will the rakyat be resilient enough to fight back against the financial strangulation and not capitulate to such undemocratic tactics being used to influence their votes?
