From The Malaysian Insider
Mar 06, 2011
MARCH 6 — I’m fully conscious of how the Barisan Nasional’s (BN) mainstream media (MSM) would demonise and ostracise me for what I’m about to say. I’m nonetheless going to say it in simple and unequivocal term.
Simply put, if I were to call the shots in N28 Kerdau by-election, I would want my party to boycott the election. Period.
The BN’s MSM would then have a field day in making PAS their punching bag and would go to town for weeks on end on this huge political meal. They would be apparently vindicated for all their claims that the opposition is bankrupt of ideas and issues with which to fight them.
On the back of the looming 13th general election (GE), the decision to boycott would arguably be political suicide for PAS and the Pakatan Rakyat (PR). Political analysts might argue that the opposition has finally succumbed to the psychological war of the BN’s “propagandist firepower”. It doesn’t take a pundit to tell you that.
That’s the usual “in-the-box-kind-of-thinking” that invariably ends up in political parties quite unwilling to brace drastic unconventional ideas and manoeuvres. That’s the thinking that underpins the predictable decision of most political parties of whatever ideological persuasions in the face of challenging situation.
What’s my rationale for proposing this drastic action? Am I already conceding defeat at the 11th hour? Am I now perceived as mitigating the adverse impact of another PAS defeat? Say what you like.
I’ve been part of the strategic teams of many a by-election, especially after the 12th GE. Some we have won and others, we lost. The sweetest victory was, of course, Kuala Terengganu and the more bitter defeat was Galas. On both occasions, power changed hands. Quite contrary to the idea of running from defeat, I have a strange feeling that Kerdau is fast making me upbeat especially towards its finishing line. I’m not commenting on Merlimau as I’m not aware of the realities on “ground-zero” in BN’s state of Malacca.
Let me say it again. I’m not looking for an upset in Kerdau but am seriously hoping for a reduction of the majority the BN’s candidate secured in the last GE.
I’m not being wishful but given our campaign “blitz” which put the Pahang mentri besar defenceless to the finishing line, this writer is hardly surprised if the voters so decide to protest against Umno/BN’s decades of malaise and negligence as to give PAS a victory.
No one in his right frame of mind would miss noticing that Kerdau is a “cowboy” town. After 53 years, Kerdau remains off the radar of development. It’s the prime minister’s home state, mind you. So simply said again, I’m not running from defeat.
However, this piece is at best purely academic as far as a boycott is concerned, as polling is well underway for both Merlimau and Kerdau, before this writer could publish or upload this piece.
But I felt the need to say and share it with the entire nation, before the results are announced this evening. I’m dead serious.
If anything this piece, if widely enough read and disseminated, could very well be the genesis of a pending “national revolt”, not quite like the Middle Eastern turmoil now on world stage that Datuk Seri Najib Razak dreads.
What exists here now, in political science, is known as an ‘Electoral Authoritarianism’ (EA). Malaysia is now listed as one by the author of “The Logics of Electoral Authoritarianism”, Professor Andres Schedler (2006).
Simply defined, EA is how governments abuse power to distort and contain true electoral competition, deny equal access to the media by competing parties, and subvert a free and fair election.
In the eyes of increasingly enlightened sections of the Malaysian electorate and citizenry, Malaysia is indeed guilty of perpetuating “electoral authoritarianism” with impunity. For that, Najib and his cohorts please take note!
If Najib et al truly wants to put the “Ben-Ali-Mubarak-Gaddafi-type Revolt” at bay in Malaysia, act urgently to redress and reform the many excesses and sins on “electoral authoritarianism” that has continued unabated for far too long in this country!
My arguments, with respect to a boycott call on Kerdau by-election and now urging immediate reform, are essentially premised on, but not limited to, the following basis and evidences.
1. Najib’s now infamous saying, “We don’t buy votes, but if you support us we can increase your allocation tomorrow or later. But show support for Barisan Nasional first”. Now that could only equal to his atrocious words of “You help me, I help you” in Sibu.
2. Najib began as early as the second day of the campaign period to blitz Kerdau with “goodies”, including RM400,000 for a hall in Kampong Seri Kerdau; RM150,000 for a Balai Bomba; RM100,000 for Hindu Temple; and RM9.25millions on a water treatment plant in Batu Sawar. That’s a hefty RM10.4million, well exceeding the constituency budget allocation. Where are funds coming from? Umno’s coffers or the rakyats’?
3. Misuse of public premises for party political campaign listed below: Public Field in Teluk Sentang, Mosques and Schools in Batu Sawar, Community Hall in Jengka 23 Felda, Broadband Centre for Jengka 25, Community Hall in Kuala Tekal, Kerdau’s Felda office.
4. Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Ahmad Maslan’s announcement that the federal government will settle the CESS payment of RM13,000 for each settler in Jengka 22 next Monday must surely be covert inducement for settlers to vote for BN come polling day for the Kerdau by-election on Sunday.
(CESS payments are monies deducted from the sale of rubber for the purpose of replanting rubber plantations with oil palm. However, when settlers made the decision to switch from rubber to oil palm in 2004, CESS payments worth RM12,000 that each settler had accumulated over the course of more than 20 years were not paid by Felda. Felda had paid the settlers RM5,000 each but the land development authority still owes the settlers RM13,000 each, including interest).
The bone of contention is why only pay those in the Jengka 22 in the N28 Kerdau constituency, while all Felda settlers Pahang have long been waiting for what are rightly theirs!
5. The vicious and baseless attack on Datuk Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man, the director for PAS’s Strategic Centre for the N28 Kerdau by-election by the MSM. The footage was widely covered and repeated by the BN’s TV channels including the “independent” TV3.
This should be the last straw of it all. Seen and perceived by many as failing to respond to all the allegations of a failing Pahang state, Umno took to a smear campaign against him, accusing him of abusing and capitalising on a Felda settler’s financial hardship to his advantage.
All these heinous hate campaigns were fortunately clarified by those involved but weren’t at all featured in the BN’s MSM. Abuse of MSM and denial of opposition’s right to MSM has become more rampant of late.
Based on a snap-shot of the abuses and excesses of a regime that practises “Electoral Authoritarianism”, I for one would not have hesitated to give the Election Commission and now Najib an ultimatum — Respond or face a National Revolt!
For the information of all well-wishers of democracy and in all fairness to us in PAS/PR, we had submitted two memoranda to the EC, MACC and the PDRM to protest these abuses and the subversion of democracy.
It does not take a lawyer to tell you that Najib and his cohorts are abusing the provision of the Election Offences Act of 1954 aimed at curbing abuses and corrupt practices of contending parties in an electoral process.
It is the conviction of this writer that Malaysia may not well see the equivalent of the Middle Eastern upheaval soonest. But if this regime persists and perpetuates “Electoral Authoritarianism” with little or no regards for the demands of reform by both civil society and opposition political parties, Najib is indeed courting a peaceful assembly of 500,000 protestors and well-wishers of democracy prior the 13th GE.
* Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad is a PAS central working committee member and MP for Kuala Selangor.
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