Is it a good idea to let political parties sue their candidates who betrayed them?

By admin-s On Aug 3, 2024

If a party is so doubtful about the characteristics of a candidate, that it requires them to sign a SD or a surat aku janji before it can give them a seat to contest, that candidate should not be forwarded as the party’s candidate, even if they sign the SD. If the party itself is doubtful of a candidate’s character, why propose them to lead the nation?

Nehru Sathiamoorthy

Umno is currently saying that it will initiate legal action against Rembia state assemblyman Datuk Muhammad Jailani Khamis after he declared his entry into PAS.

According to Umno secretary-general Datuk Dr Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki, Jailani had violated the Barisan Nasional agreement for the 15th Melaka State Election, signed in the presence of a commissioner for oaths and witnesses.

“Muhammad Jailani has violated his sworn statement which he signed, stipulating that every candidate representing Barisan must pay RM100mil as stated in Clause 6.2, in case of party-hopping or switching allegiance from supporting Barisan, Umno, MIC, and MCA, including becoming an independent representative.

“It is signed by each candidate, including Muhammad Jailani, in his own writing and includes a sworn statement in his handwriting.

“It has been stamped under the Inland Revenue Board and signed in the presence of a commissioner for oaths and witnesses,” Asyraf said.

Umno’s action is not without precedent.

According to Asyraf, Jailani’s action was similar to a suit filed against former PKR Vice President Datuk Zuraida Kamaruddin jumping out of PKR, which resulted in the high court deciding that Zuraida had to repay PKR RM10 mil for her action.

My question however, is whether we should approve of this sort of arrangement, where an assemblyman or a parliamentarian is forced to sign an SD, to forcibly make them stay with their party come hell or high water, before the party will accept them as candidates in a general election.

Not all contracts are binding. I can make you sign a contract to say that if you don’t return the 10 ringgit that you borrowed from me, you must be my slave for life, but just because you signed it, I can’t enslave you when you are unable to return the 10 ringgit you owe me.

In the same way, just because a candidate is forced to sign a SD that says that he or she will never leave a party in order to be accepted as the party’s election candidate, should the contract be considered valid and be honoured?

I will argue that this kind of contract should not be considered valid because it upends the democratic process.

An elected representative is supposed to serve his or her electorate, not his or her party. This kind of contract however, will make an elected representative serve their party, or more precisely, their party leaders, more than they serve their electorate.

A person with a sense of dignity and honour will never enter into this sort of contract, which will require them to cast aside their conscience and sense of shame and duty, and toe the line of party leaders. The only people who will accept this sort of agreement are the desperate, greedy or base lot, who only seek power and position, regardless of how it debases them. If we legitimise this sort of contract, where a candidate will have to pay RM10 million or RM100 million if they decide to leave a party, then all we will have as our representatives are base characters who do not mind stooping so low as to act as a yes man for their party leaders, just tobbe given power and positions.

A country that elevates this sort of deplorable people to the highest position in the nation has nowhere else to go but down.

There is a reason why our representatives in the government are called “Yang Berhormat.” They are called Yang Berhormat because they are supposed to be people who have a strong sense of honour, duty, shame and compunction.

Remember, the parliament and state assemblies are amongst the most revered institutions in the country. This means that there are no external bodies that are able to supervise and regulate what happens in these institutions. These institutions are expected to be able to supervise and regulate themselves, and they can only be expected to do this if they are made up of people who have a high degree of dignity, shame, compunction and honour.

A person who signs a contract that deprives them of their sovereignty, blunts their conscience and impedes their ability to perform their duty just so that they can be given a seat, is unlikely to possess much dignity, shame, compunction or honour.

What dignity, shame, compunction or honour can you possess, when you are willing to forfeit your soul for the sake of the world?

Warren Buffet has observed that “you cannot make a good deal with a bad person.”

According to Warren Buffet, if you think you can make an iron clad contract that will compel a bad person to act in good faith, you are bound to regret it, because there is no contract in this world that can make a bad person act in good conscience.

Some problems can only be resolved before they occur. Once we put a bunch of base people in a high position of power, we are doomed, because there is no way to fix the problem. How are we going to fix the problem, when the very people we have empowered to find the solution to the problem, are the people who are the source of the problem? The only way to ensure that we are not ruined by having base people lead our nation, is to prevent base people from leading us in the first place.

To prevent base people from leading us, we have to come up with a candidate selection method that will turn off base people and attract honourable people to serve the nation instead of legally sanctifying a selection method that will only attract base people, and turn off honourable people.

It is the duty of the political parties to choose the ones amongst them who possess a high degree of honour and dignity to represent them in an election.

If a candidate has any sense of dignity and honour, they don’t need an SD or a fear of being fined for millions of ringgit to stand by their conscience and principles. They will do it on their own accord.

We have over 30 million people in this country. An election only comes once every 5 years. There are only 222 people who sit in the parliament. Surely, a party shouldn’t find it so hard to find 222 honourable people to stand as its candidate, when it has millions of people and 5 years to choose.

There are surely many people in our country who will consider it a privilege to be able to serve their nation with dignity and honour, but the problem is, our arrangements, such as this “sign SD for seat” arrangements, tend to repulse them, and instead attract the more degenerate segment of our society, who have no problem discarding their principles for the sake of their self-interest.

If we want a better quality of leaders and representatives, we should change our arrangements.