Commentary by Kee Thuan Chye
ON nomination day at Kuala Kubu Baru (KKB), I bumped into an old schoolmate who told me he was analysing the data on the upcoming Hulu Selangor by-election. He predicted that if conditions remained the same on election day, PKR candidate Zaid Ibrahim should win by a margin of between 2,300 and 2,800 votes.
That was April 17. It has been some days since and the campaign for votes has been in full flight. Barisan Nasional has been trying to assassinate Zaid’s character to make him appear a flawed Muslim who imbibed alcohol. Despite Zaid’s forthright admission of his having done so in his younger days and his declaration that he has since stopped, this could well stick in the minds of the Malay voters, many of whom are from rural areas and know little beyond their small world and the idiot box that spews pro-Barisan propaganda relentlessly into their living rooms.
If that happens, my old friend’s prediction might yet go awry.
Conditions can indeed change in a matter of eight days, the period between nomination and election, on April 25. Zaid might have started with a slight edge, from getting to compete against a virtual unknown instead of the MIC deputy president, G. Palanivel, who prior to 2008 had been holder of the Hulu Selangor seat for four terms, but Barisan is already throwing everything in but the kitchen sink to ensure victory.
Umno has got Hulu Selangor PKR treasurer Halili Rahmat to defect at a suspiciously opportune time. And he’s singing the same tune as the ex-PKR representatives who left before him – that the party is being run by “little Napoleons”. Suddenly, to Halili, Barisan leader Najib Razak is someone “who wants to meet the needs of the people”. Did Halili think this way just a couple of weeks ago, when he was still being considered a possible PKR candidate for Hulu Selangor? Or has he radically changed his perspective because Zaid was eventually selected over him?
On another front, former Hulu Selangor MIC vice-chairman V.S. Chandran, who had defied his party to run as an independent candidate, has decided to pull out. When he announced his candidacy, he was full of fire against the party leadership for not choosing a local resident as candidate. Now he’s bowed out with a wimpy statement confessing his continued love for Barisan.
The other independent candidate, Johan Mohd Diah, a Shah Alam Umno Youth committee member, has also pulled out. Earlier in the day, he had announced at a press conference that he had chosen the hoe as his symbol and was hoping to win the votes of the agrarian young. Enigmatically, some hours later, he signed the papers to withdraw. No reason has been given, but speculation will be rife. The field is thus now down to just Pakatan versus Barisan, with the latter no longer having to fear the danger of split votes.
Some voters who gathered at Masjid Ar-Rahmah Kuala Kubu Baru
during candidates nomination day
As for the Barisan candidate, P. Kamalanathan, victory has become such an imperative that he has even stooped to defending the Malay right-wing group Perkasa just to court the Malay voters. This is so blatantly obvious that anyone who has half a brain would be able to see through him. What’s insidious about it is that he is following his Umno masters’ lead in playing the racial card, even at the expense of selling out the community his party supposedly represents. If he can be so impressionable, “lightweight” – a word that his own party president Samy Vellu labelled him with – cannot be more apt.
To be sure, losing this by-election is not an option at all for either Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat. It is a test of where both coalitions stand two years after the March 8 watershed general election. In those two years, Barisan has been trying to rebuild its tarnished image while Pakatan, especially component party PKR, has been riven by internal rivalry and reeling from defections.
PKR has more to lose if it loses this by-election. Public perception of it is likely to further diminish. What’s more, it is fielding one of its bigwigs in Zaid, a Supreme Council member and former minister while he was with Umno. To be beaten by a virtual David would be a monumental loss of face for both Zaid and his party. They may never recover from it. Worse, it could spark a new momentum for Barisan, which is also likely to win the next by-election in Sibu, Sarawak.
When Barisan deputy president Muhyiddin Yassin announced Kamalanathan’s candidacy, he was not merely being facetious when he said Zaid was not a “heavyweight” and described him as a “featherweight” instead. Zaid has not really faced a big battle at the hustings. He won the Kota Baru parliamentary seat in 2004 when Barisan was riding high. In 2008, he became minister in Abdullah Badawi’s Cabinet through the back door by being made a senator first.
It might actually be unfortunate for Zaid that Palanivel is not standing against him. At KKB, I found out from local residents that when Palanivel was MP, he was hardly seen in his constituency. The way they talked about him, anyone could guess he would probably have lost.
According to a Pakatan insider, Zaid needs to win at least 40% of the Malay votes plus 70% of the Chinese and 50% of the Indian ones in order to secure victory. This sounds tough when you consider that Saluran 1, which comprises mainly Felda settlers who are terhutang budi (owe a debt) to Umno, will almost certainly vote Barisan.
Some of the younger ones in this saluran may think differently but not the old-timers. A young Malay local expressed to me his frustration at attempting to convince his parents of the need to vote for Pakatan for positive change, but he is unable to get through to them. Their main means to information is the television. Whatever he tells them of the Barisan wrongdoing being circulated on the Internet cannot match the force of the TV propaganda.
Pakatan Rakyat supporters and Police force during the candidates
nomination day
Another Pakatan supporter confirmed this. “Most of the Hulu Selangor Malays do nothing but watch TV when they are off work. You can tell them they need to think about the ills being committed by the Government but it won’t sink in. They have been brainwashed by TV for decades.”
As for the Chinese equation, the Kuala Kubu Baru state seat is being held by an MCA representative, and there are 8,000 MCA members throughout Hulu Selangor. That alone accounts for half of the Chinese voters in the constituency. Already, Pakatan, through its control of the Selangor State Government, has made use of its office to win them over by offering the landless Chinese in new villages a 99-year lease, but will this secure the endorsement of 70% of the Chinese who will be voting?
What about the Indian voters? The test for the MIC now is whether it can close ranks, whether Palanivel’s supporters and those of V. Mugilan, who had been favoured by Umno but was vetoed by the MIC leadership, will throw their support behind Kamalanathan. At the time of writing, only four Hulu Selangor MIC branches have closed in protest. This is a small percentage of the 72 in the constituency of which nearly half had earlier threatened sabotage, so the signs may be hopeful for Barisan.
I asked an MIC supporter at KKB if Palanivel and Mugilan’s supporters were still angry with the decision not to field either of them. He said, “What’s there to be angry about? The seat is still given to the MIC.”
Whatever happens, this by-election is turning out to be the most interesting and the most crucial so far. Both sides need a victory to boost their image and morale. A local Chinese shopkeeper I spoke to sees it as 50-50. “And I prefer to keep it that way,” he added. Interpret the meaning of that how you will. A staunch Umno supporter, however, sees it as 60-40 in favour of Barisan.
A win for Barisan will bring it closer to regaining its two-thirds majority in Parliament. Goodness knows what may ensue when Barisan gets that close. A win for Pakatan, however, would retain the current balance, closer to the 50-50 wisdom of the KKB shopkeeper. A win for Pakatan would therefore better serve the cause of democracy. But whether the Hulu Selangor voters care for that is another matter. And they’re the ones who will decide which side wins.
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