It’s about ‘what’s in it for me?’

 

Whatever it may be Pakatan Rakyat admits that it needs to bribe the voters and to make them promises to be able to get their votes. ABU, good governance, transparency, accountability, etc., are not enough. The voters would not give you their votes just because you promise them a better government. What is more important to them than a better government would be what’s in it for me?

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

PKR eyes swing voters in cheaper cars campaign

(The Malaysian Insider) - PKR is banking on its promise to lower car prices to win support from fence-sitting voters ahead of what is expected to be tight race for power in the next general elections.

The party has promised to make cars cheaper by slashing the triple tax burden imposed on cars if the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) opposition pact takes power after the next elections that must be called by April next year.

“From what we see, online or when we go down (to the ground)...you see the crowd is not normally political or partisan being very interested ... making queries ...” said PKR communications director Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad.

“It shows that we reach to a new audience, a new group, which is the fence-sitters.”

“We get people who openly claim they are Umno, (but) in this campaign, they are fully behind us.”

PKR will have its first ‘Turunkan Harga Kereta’ forum at the Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall at 8pm this Thursday.

The forum will be moderated by Nik Nazmi and will feature PAS’ Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad, DAP’s Tony Pua, PKR’s Rafizi Ramli and think tank IDEAS’ Wan Saiful Wan Jan.

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Now PKR is talking. I have been trying to tell you for some time that those of you who visit Malaysia Today may be ABU screamers, but that does not mean that all 14-15 million Malaysians who are registered to vote are also the same.

In fact, probably about 4-5 million registered voters may not even be going out to vote in the coming general election. And probably another 3-4 million eligible voters did not even register to vote. Hence we may see roughly only 10 million Malaysians voting in the 13th General Election with about 8 million or so ‘abstaining’.

This means only 55% or so of Malaysians care while the other 45% do not care a damn. How else can I put it?

Okay, so I can expect to see about 5 million or so of you (around 10% or so of those who probably read Malaysia Today) voting for Pakatan Rakyat come the next general election. That would mean 13 million of you who are eligible to vote would definitely not be voting for Pakatan Rakyat.

Do you think with only 5 million votes Pakatan Rakyat can get to form the next federal government?

If 10 million people come out to vote then Pakatan Rakyat will need around 6 million of those votes if it wants to march into Putrajaya. If it is only 5 million votes then Barisan Nasional is going to remain in power.

So how is Pakatan Rakyat going to get more than 5 million votes? How is Pakatan Rakyat going to convince an additional 1 million voters to not just stay home but to come out to vote and, more importantly, to vote for Pakatan Rakyat?

Well, if you just want to see a strong two-party system in Malaysia and if you want to see Pakatan Rakyat become that strong opposition then just continue doing what you are doing. Pakatan Rakyat can probably win 85-95 seats in Parliament and at least three state governments -- with Barisan Nasional’s majority in another three state governments reduced drastically.

But that is about it.

To do better than that you need to reach beyond the ABU screamers. You need to reach the middle ground and fence sitters. These people do not care a damn whether Najib Tun Razak or Anwar Ibrahim is the next Prime Minister. They do not care about Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat. They only care about Numero Uno.

Pakatan Rakyat is beginning to understand this. Phew…and it took a lot of bashing before they would wake up to this fact. Now they are talking about the very large atas pagar or fence-sitting group. Now they are talking about how to bribe the voters. And this is basically what it is, how to bribe the voters.

And Pakatan Rakyat is offering these voters cheaper cars. Well, that probably works in Malaysia. In the UK that won’t work because cars are already cheap. In Malaysia, a car like a BMW 3 Series costs the equivalent of 20-25 years salary for the basic wage earner. In the UK, it is only 2-2.5 years salary for the equivalent salaried worker. So how cheaper do you want cars to be? Anyway, not many people need cars in the UK considering that the public transport system is very efficient, unlike in Malaysia.

But would the promise of cheaper cars be enough to get these ‘don’t care a damn’ people to vote for you? What about housing? Some people worry about housing more than about cars. How about the cost of living and minimum wage? How about quality of life? How about the very worrying crime rate? How about education and health?

Yes, cars are not all that there is to life. When you already have everything else then cars become important to you. But when you do not have a decent home or access to a quality education, etc., cars are not at the top of your priority list.

Whatever it may be Pakatan Rakyat admits that it needs to bribe the voters and to make them promises to be able to get their votes. ABU, good governance, transparency, accountability, etc., are not enough. The voters would not give you their votes just because you promise them a better government. What is more important to them than a better government would be what’s in it for me?

Now Pakatan Rakyat admits that voters need to be bribed and that all those people who talk so much are actually just a load of bullshit. I mean, even many who post comments here in Malaysia Today are a load of bullshit. They accuse this person or that person of being bought while they post comments under anonymous names so that they are safe and will not get detected/arrested and lose their jobs, etc. These people are more concerned about their comfort/security and they have the gall to accuse other people of that very crime they are guilty of.

I know many of you are now going to accuse these types of voters as having no principles. Come on! Even you vote based on what you can get. Would you vote for someone just so that you can help that person get into power with no benefit to you? You vote for someone because you want something. No one votes for nothing. It is just that you are in denial mode and will not admit it.