The Emperor with no clothes
The Third Force
After a thirteen-day mudslinging contest against the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN), Parti Amanah Negara (PAN) conceded defeat over the weekend in a twin by-election that was dubbed by many as a ‘referendum against the leadership of Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Razak’.
Last Saturday, BN candidates Datin Mastura Mohd Yazid and Budiman Mohd Sohdi clinched victory in their respective constituencies of Kuala Kangsar and Sungai Besar to send Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohammad a clear message – “You’re a washout.”
Following the polls, the fractured ex-premier, who is reportedly more fractured than ever, is said to be weighing in on an option to establish a new political front to fight BN come the 14th general election. But even more interesting is the fact that the poll results had brought out some very fiery remarks, the most noteworthy among them being those that came out of DAP’s very own Liew Chin Tong’s (LCT) mouth.
Three days after the polls, LCT took off on a trajectory against irrationality when he dismissed the fixation that several quarters had with the need for opposition parties to converge into a single bloc. Not only did the DAP politician find that to be insane, he says it may not necessarily be what the voters are looking for.
“Will the next general election be decided only on the basis of one-on-one contests against BN?”
According to LCT, the ruling coalition, which he said decided the rules of the game and consistently shifted goalposts to suit their interests, was the master of “politics of race and religion.”
By this, LCT implied that the opposition needed to address issues that were closer to the heart of the electorate rather than ride the political roller-coaster with BN, because, as it seems, the opposition is novice to the world of political skulduggery and is nowhere close to BN in the art of deception.
The hard-hitting, Lee Kwan Yew styled rebuke has of late become signature to LCT. Credit must be given where it is due though, and I’ll have to admit that LCT may have some idea – and only some – of what it would take to resolve the many problems that plague the opposition alliance, or whatever is left of it
Now, the first step to resolving any problem is always to admit that there is a problem. LCT got this one right – he admitted that the opposition did have a problem. Right after that, you need to identify the root cause of the problem. And that is where LCT got it all wrong.
While he did lay the baseline to issues that hampered progress within the opposition, he refused to acknowledge that the source of the many ills that plagued the opposition was the very party that he represented, the DAP.
Yes, the DAP.
And here’s the thing – once you refuse to acknowledge the root cause to a problem, there is no point trying to resolve anything. I mean, a drunkard who admits that drinking is a problem but refuses to admit that he is addicted to alcohol will undoubtedly remain a drunkard. While he may have a grip of the problem, if he refuses to come to terms with its root cause, which is the fact that he finds it difficult to lay off the bottle, it will get him nowhere.
The real obstacle staring oppositionists in their faces is their political will to resonate with voters. It’s not too difficult a concept, really – tell voters what they want to hear, convince them that you’re the real deal when it comes to incarnating their ideals, and believe me, they’ll be more than willing to vote you in. You don’t need a rocket scientist or an Einstein to figure that one out.
Truth be told, it’s a fundamental pillar to the electoral concept. In a democracy, the voice of the majority is that which shifts the pendulum at polls. If you aspire to be an elected representative, all you need to do is to make sure your voice resonates with that of the electorate – get your message across the turf, irrespective if the turf is yours or that of your competition.
But sadly, it’s never really that simple.
Come campaign season, your contenders are bound to hit you below the belt with libel or falsehoods. In some cases, a little investigative work by your competition may lead them to the skeletons in your closet, which they would gladly hang in public for all to see. Now, that may swing the pendulum either way, depending really on who you are.
For example, imagine that your opponent discovered you had sex with an underage girl years ago and kept it secret from public by bribing the girl’s parents. If you were Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim and the year was, say, 2013, the public would have sympathised with you and called it a government led conspiracy to destroy your political career.
But if you were DAP’s own Professor Dramasamy – I mean, Ramasamy – your contender would probably have blown the scandal up to high heaven that so much so, the Gods would have thrown bolts of thunder in all fury and cooked your goose.
So you see, sometimes, it really depends on who you are. To be a winnable candidate, not only must you have a rapport with voters or the calibre and charisma befitting someone who’s likely to smite voters with your charm, you need a clean slate to begin with.
In other words, you need to have a good track record and must not have dark and creepy skeletons in your closet which your contender may drag into the public sphere and hang for all to see. Ideally, you could represent a party of angels, where the president of the party is God himself, and you are one of His angels entrusted to bring enlightenment and joy to your constituents.
But this is the real world, and tradition has it that politicians in the real world seldom come with clean sheets, particularly the winnable ones. More to the point, a candidate may represent a party which is as perverse as perverse gets, which, of course, gives plenty of room for political skulduggery and mudslinging to settle in during polls. No matter how good a track record you have, if you were to represent a party that is morally degraded and trades in gutter politics, you’re likely to carry your party’s baggage along with you to the polls.
And that is exactly why PAN candidates Azhar Abdul Shukur and Prof Ahmad Termizi Ramli failed to clinch victory last Saturday against BN’s Mastura and Budiman. Every Chinese and Malay voter in Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar knew that PAN was the new synonym to DAP, such that the two parties were working hand in glove to conceal some truths from voters.
If LCT is sincere, he would immediately come forward to admit that not only is PAN being funded wholesale by DAP, the Islamist party is hell bent on seeing through the amendment of the Federal Constitution to grant Syariah Courts greater jurisdiction.
By that reasoning, the very fact that DAP stood alongside PAN to campaign against Hadi’s Bill of amendments reeks of hypocrisy, and there is no denying it. Last week, Malaysia Today splashed documentary evidence depicting Mat Sabu as openly declaring support for the Bill. Under the circumstances, how does LCT propose that PAN carry the voice of the Chinese through the corridors of power, when in the first place, the Chinese are speaking in chicken while PAN is speaking in cow?
LCT was correct to call it insane for anyone to keep doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results every time. So for a start, perhaps LCT can advise Lim Kit Siang to own up to DAP’s past mistakes and think of mending ties with PAS. I mean, wouldn’t that construe as doing things differently, and wouldn’t that pave the way for a new result, perhaps even a better opposition alliance?
I mean, how would LCT know that it isn’t what voters really want?
Now, we could go on and on citing this and that, but the point has been made – LCT came out last Tuesday as an Emperor who had no clothes on him.
