Zaid’s imbecile, infantile and arrogant response to being confirmed that he is not so clever after all

Umar Mukhtar

It is a trait of spoiled brats to walk off a game when he finds that he is losing. Maybe daddy will do something to change things that he is not capable of. Who’s daddy now, Zaid? The international community that took decades to help extinguish the apartheid in South Africa?

Zaid’s call to boycott future elections, while dramatic in its militancy, really doesn’t hold much water when one studies his reasoning, which are that of the said spoiled privileged brat. Let’s dissect them, even though we know it’s just a knee-jerk reaction presently prevailing among opposition politicians.

Before you jump at me with accusations of being an apologist, let me say up front that I am very distressed with the results of the recent by-elections. Perhaps more so than Zaid, because I have no personal axe to grind. God knows how many sides of the fence Zaid had been on, and his switching sides when circumstances didn’t favour his personal ambitions.

As someone whose career involved projects worth billions of ringgit in international transactions, I jumped at the first whiff of not so kosher goings-on in 1MDB. I wrote about it in utter disgust in this column. White is white, black is black. If we don’t speak up, who will?

Then Dr. Mahathir Mohamed jumped into the fray after being quiet about it for so long, when he more than others should be aware if something is astray, a long time before that. I quickly checked myself, because Mahathir’s ploys and manipulations always have self-serving goals at the expense of others.

What is it this time? My whole adult political life had been spent sorting out his tricks and traits, from the moment he recruited Anwar Ibrahim till the day he sacked the guy. We did what we can and we hope that the country will one day see him for the evil he is. Just as that time is coming, he found this chance to so-called cleanse himself by jumping onto the bandwagon. And his entry was cheered on by no less than Lim Kit Siang and Anwar Ibrahim.

Both applauded the one-leg-up that Mahathir’s joining the gang can give them. Anwar thought Mahathir will help him get out of jail, and LKS needed fresh ideas to defeat BN as LKS was already bankrupt of ideas. The amateur NGO ladies were too overwhelmed by the opportunity to be in the same room with Mahathir. Mat Sabu needed an additional financier. Azmin Ali wants to be PM and his party couldn’t oblige. PAS, as usual, was in purgatory.

The whole room defined the opposition politics of the times. Such is the state of opposition politics when they made the splintered half-baked effort at challenging someone whom they had deemed to be the biggest rouge of all times. Such incongruity just didn’t make sense. So they lost – big, and without being critical of their own haphazardness, Zaid wants to boycott future elections. Is that funny or what? Mirror, mirror on the wall…..

Zaid made it sound like those who voted BN are so stupid that they did not mind their money being stolen, especially after being bribed BN-style. It never occurred to the educated opposition elite that it is also true that the opposition are the ones who have failed to relate their allegations to the simple-minded folks in the manner, language, demeanour and reasoning they are comfortable with? They heard you alright but you are just not believable!

The alleged thefts are hypothetical in their minds. They don’t even have the opportunity to count money beyond a thousand ringgit, fifty billion ringgit sounds fictional! Jokes aside, it has not sunk upon them because in truth it has not affected them yet! When somebody is sent to jail or the country has to start paying on the guarantees, aha, then it’s a different story. A piece of the national pie will be missing and they will feel it painful enough to rise.

The opposition, Mahathir included, had failed to catch their imagination on the supposedly coming consequences of the thefts. It is still an allegation to them – they are not into high finance! And coming from someone deemed ungrateful, and from people they love to hate, did not help much neither. This last sentence is not fair but it was BN’s song and they sung it well. And the opposition? Let’s sing the victim song, as always. And Zaid wants to boycott!

In short, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. You only – but the cooking goes on. Who are you to decide if these people are worthy of democratic selection or not?

Oh, the election is unfairly conducted? You didn’t know that? Tell me something I don’t know. The Election Commission was biased enough to allow you to win in many states, though. The field is never even, sadly. And it’s the ones well-equipped to ride the bumps that will triumph.

The bumps may not be fair but the ones slowed down by them are the unprepared ones. Go complain to daddy for your own unpreparedness, you blur assholes. Until such time that unfairness at the elections are so obviously blatant and against such a popular cause, don’t ever hope to make it your beef. People know that you went in because you had thought that you could win.

Can the EC be actually neutral? Can the UN, the Atomic Bomb treaty, the Antartica treaty, to name a few? We know they can’t, but we are signatories anyway. It’s rarely about a level playing field, Zaid. Sometimes it’s about water finding it’s own level. And the opposition is at a lost on how to manage that concept in between their constant bickering. And Zaid wants to boycott.

The inequities of our education system have produced educated elites amply rewarded that they can drink their beer in Bond Street, that they have lost the sensitivity and empathy for the actual living marginalised poor which make up this nation. Instead of humbly going down to speak their language, these elites demand that they be understood over such a simple thing for them, lest the unfortunates are called stupid idiots.

Little do these elites know how it feels to receive RM500 on an empty stomach. Sure, the intention of giving the RM500 may be mischievous but it is real money to the poor. Though it should not influence their choices, it is not as if the opposition had shown a dire need to be poor-friendly when it has the chance. As long as it is believed that a housing project for the poor was sacrificed in favour of the rich the party will never be trusted by the poor.

That’s the state we are in now. There is still a lot to be done. One thing for sure, the opposition can’t afford the luxury of being sentimental and keep a know-nothing to head the opposition. This fight is for real. And as for boycotting elections, if Zaid doesn’t want to spill his own blood or his precious children’s, don’t ever go there. It’s a slippery slope.