MGG Pillai Commentary View

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A General Election devoid of principle

NOTHING IN THIS GENERAL Election suggest anything has changed. The National Front (BN) government is in charge, and it continues to restrict the rules that make it all but impossible for its opponents to have a fair fight. Over the years, it has raised the ante to insist upon millions of ringgit in electoral deposits if a political party wants to take the BN head on. This is increased regularly over the years, that it is a financial burden to do that. Now the Election Commission want further deposits from each candidate of RM10,000 and RM5,000, for parliament and state, and returned if he removes the posters he had put up. Nothing has changed that would suggest the BN is prepared to give the Opposition a fair shake in a poll. Parliament and all state assemblies but Sarawak was dissolved yesterday (04 March 2004), the Election Commission met today to decide on nominations on 13 March and polling on 21 March, or a campaign of eight days.

That on that day the second leg of the F-1 motor race would be held in central Selangor is ignored. It would disrupt balloting in the area. But the EC, which wants more people to vote, is oblivious of it. A coalition in office for nearly 50 years has to make sure the Opposition should not be given a chance, that impediments of all kinds be laid before it. That is the mindset. The new regime of Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi does not change it. It cannot. There is too much at stake for a new leader to make drastic changes that could redound on him. The BN should have insisted upon a new slate to reflect the changes Pak Lah has in mind, but he has done little of that. The same tired old faces are in attendance. Men and women who should have retired years ago remain candidates. Dropping a candidate is seen as a great sacrifice. In other words, little changes.

The DAP MP for Nibong Tebal, Mr Goh Kheng Huat, resigns from the party after Parliament is dissolved. Why? He could not get along with some state party leaders "who had ignored and abandoned him". He holds steadfastly to DAP's principles - if he knows what they are, perhaps he should tell us! - and that he resigned now is a sacrifice: he wanted to remain loyal to those voted him in. But one nagging doubt strikes me: did he resign because he is not a candidate in the election? How is it that he did not bring this to the attention of DAP leaders about his predicament? Penang MIC is in crisis and upset because its leader is not a candidate.

The MIC president, Dato' Seri S. Samy Vellu, is dismissive of party leaders who beg and cry to him for seats. He has promised a total revamp of MIC candidates. His definition of new faces is unique: since many of those in Parliament and state assemblymen have had put on false hair and other beauty treatments, they are in fact new faces. As for his own seat of Sungei Siput, he has decided that an MIC candidate there must have served the constituency as an elected member of parliament for at least three decades. Which is why he stands there yet again.

The Election Commission chairman said a few months ago that candidates with criminal convictions could stand so long as the appeals are not over. He reversed it as general election approaches. He said he made the earlier statement before he consulted his legal advisers. When the DAP's Wee Choo Keong, in similar circumstances, stood for the Bukit Bintang parliamentary seat in 1995, he was allowed to contest. He was returned. His MCA opponent challenged it in an election petition, and overturned it, making him the MP instead. The EC allowed it because that was the position then. It is now too. But it had to reverse itself when one of the three KeADILan members not permitted to contest was making political waves by threatening to challenge the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak.

What this shows is the absence of principle in Malaysian politics. No one stands for it these days. The only honorable exceptions are the Parti Rakyat Malaysia (PRM) and the Parti Socialis Malaysia (PSM). One has merged with KeADILan but the new entity is not registered because the Registrar of Societies would not. For all its faults, and it has many, KeADILan has a following but its strength is in the future: with UMNO, the main party in BN, and the Opposition PAS frame Malaysian politics in Islam, those Malays who disagree with this could well go to KeADILan, which plays the role of a multiracial UMNO.

But when Government and Opposition conduct their politics without any principle, the short term the only political goal, is it any doubt that BN has to look over its shoulders constantly? PAS pushes its Islamic agenda, though the framework for it is given constitutional sanction by UMNO, and it chips away at its nemesis by solid organisation in the Malay ground that would not ensure it victory in 2004 or even 2009, but victory it would get. Unless BN and UMNO reorganises itself to meet that challenge. There is no sign of that now. The short term, in its view, is more important than its long term plans. It also knows well that when there is no principle, it is the principal, more often monetary, that takes pride of place.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com