NO WONDER Johor Mentri Besar Ghani Othman has warned his Umno division heads that Barisan Nasional (BN) could lose at least nine parliamentary seats in Johor in the next general election.
Unlike MCA, at least Ghani is looking at Umno’s bastion state with more honesty and he would thus be more prepared than those who choose to remain in their delusion.
In the March 2008 “political tsunami”, in which BN lost its traditional two-thirds majority in parliament for the first time in a 55-year electoral history, Johoreans had remained loyal to BN.
Unprecedented
Unprecedented losses were seen in all other states in the peninsula – except Terengganu, Pahang, Malacca and Perlis – with Indian votes for BN plunging from 82% to 48%, Chinese votes fell drastically from 65% to 35%.
Malay support for BN remained steady, declining by about 5% to 58%. (Percentages taken from a research paper titled Edging Toward A New Politics In Malaysia by Meredith L.Weiss).
More than four years after, has the political mood for BN improved? The answer is obvious to Malaysians.
All eyes on Johor
Johor being BN-Umno’s bastion state is now shaken. Assuming it has worsened, the swing would have widened by the 13th General Election which must be called latest June.
Your guess is as good as mine whether there is a realistic chance for Malaysians’ power to topple the BN.
With the Chinese in Johor openly showing their displeasure with MCA and the 'liar' Liow Tiong Lai’s limp attempt to do damage control for his party’s reputation, the writing is clear on the wall.
The Chinese now really know how to have the cake and eat it. They go for MCA’s free dinners and then show their rear to the party leaders.
More alert
In fact, Malaysians are now more alert and will accept whatever goodies offered by the BN to solicit their votes.
The goodies do not belong or come from the BN politicians’ pockets – all taxpayers’ money. So there is no need to be grateful to the BN or any government of the day.
The elected government’s business is to govern wisely, fairly and honestly – not run up a federal debt of more than RM502 billion or 1.3% short of the 55% legislated debt ceiling in a resource-rich country, including oil and gas, like Malaysia.
So Malaysians, take whatever sweeteners or peanuts offered by the corrupt BN government but make sure your ballots are cast for change in the next general election.
Here are three stories for a wider read on the mood of Malaysians for the next general election:
'Exodus at MCA dinner not sign of flaccid support'
MCA deputy president Liow Tiong Lai has played down the exodus of attendees at a MCA dinner while party president Dr Chua Soi Lek was speaking.
Liow said this was not an indication of diminishing support for the BN component party, claiming that it gains a lot of support for its "many mega-dinner events".
“In fact, when I was in Kampar last Saturday, there were more than 600 tables. Even though it was raining, the crowd still supported us," he told a press conference today after opening a national stem cell congress in Kuala Lumpur.
“It doesn’t mean that if someone leaves (the event), there must be a serious issue. It doesn’t mean that they (the crowd) are not giving us support.”
'Johor our stronghold'
Asked whether Johor is still MCA’s stronghold, Liow replied in the affirmative.
“Johor is still definitely our stronghold. We are working hard to transmit our message to the people not only in Johor, but throughout the country.”
He reiterated that Malaysia needs stability in order to progress and transform into a developed nation by 2020.
In the last general election, MCA won seven parliamentary seats in Johor, nearly half of its nationwide total of 15.
According to a China Press report today, about 20 percent of an estimated 15,000 people at the dinner - held on Saturday in Kulai, Johor - left when Chua (right) was delivering a speech.
The organisers of the event themed ‘Stability above chaos’ however blamed the exodus on participants leaving early to beat the traffic.
The report said the crowd left, possibly due to the fact that all the courses of the meal had been served.
In his speech, Chua challenged rivals DAP to nominate a Chinese candidate for the Johor menteri besar's post, given that the opposition party has always claimed that Chinese voters are "kingmakers".
Should the DAP announce a Chinese candidate, he added with obvious sarcasm, he would consider casting his vote in favour of Pakatan Rakyat's candidate.
‘Stem-cell research law not required’
In a separate development, Liow, who is also health minister, said there is no need for a separate law to regulate stem cell research.
“The Medical Act is enough to regulate (stem cell) researchers to abide by the guidelines.”
He said the current four guidelines are sufficient to protect patients in stem cell treatment and research.
He also announced that the Health Ministry is providing 80 postgraduate medical sub-speciality fellowships in collaboration with the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland in 2013.
Sure signs of MCA’s terminal disease
If anyone still needs to be convinced that MCA is in its death throes, then the loud talk, the sabre rattling and the tasteless pomp at its 59th annual general assembly should do the trick.
The weekend meeting gave unmistakable signs that MCA is in denial about its loss of relevance as a political organisation representing Malaysian Chinese and its inability to regain their support.
All this became evident the moment Deputy President Liow Tiong Lai opened his mouth last Saturday to address the party’s youth wing. He profusely thanked Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak for “wooing back” Chinese support to “Barisan Nasional and MCA” through his transformation programme.
Liow’s tone embarrassed many delegates to the assembly. Some were heard whispering that it was a virtual admission that the party was now so impotent and so lacking in good leadership that it had to depend on Umno for its lifeline.
President Dr Chua Soi Lek, who spoke on Sunday, was even more sycophantic. After his usual attack against Pakatan Rakyat, including unsubstantiated remarks about the failure of Pakatan-rule states, he proceeded to pour praise upon Najib, to the point of mistakenly describing him as a “democratically elected leader”. He even tried to show a fondness for abbreviations and acronyms, which Najib is known for.
The Star, of course, maintained the tone of adulation. Reporting on Najib’s speech at the assembly, it described it as “inspiring, honest, clear” and spoken “from the heart”.
To their credit, Malaysian Chinese are not so easily bought by such gimmicks. They see today’s MCA as a hypocritical and pretentious party, full of contradictions and addicted to doublespeak. It did not escape the notice of assembly delegates that these characteristics were reflected in the decorations at Dewan San Choon, in the change of uniform from white to the BN blue, and in the orchestrated cheering and applause.
Nothing happened at the assembly that could convince the average voter that there has been any credible move to correct fundamental weaknesses in the party and its leadership.
As one delegate put it, “It’s the same old sandiwara”—a yawn-inducing prolongation of the frivolous press releases and the bitter vitriol against Pakatan that the party’s publicity department has been churning out since Dr Chua became party president.
Another critic said the party leaders, while pointing an accusing finger at Pakatan, were pointing the other fingers at themselves for their lack of political finesse and sticking the thumb into an unmentionable place to rebuke themselves for failing the credibility test.
Lesson not learned
Party members and erstwhile supporters admit that the politics of patronage and adulation had been part of MCA culture even before Dr Chua came to power, but they are appalled that the current leadership has failed to learn a lesson from the debacle of the 2008 general election.
Although there has been much talk of the need to change, there has been “zero transformation” under Dr Chua’s leadership, in the words of a delegate to the weekend assembly. His spinners have simply manufactured new slogans and concocted more half-truths and lies to cover up the weakness of his team.
The superficiality of the show of confidence and gumption at the assembly did not escape the notice of even the reputably impressionable Najib. He expressed a hope that the blueness of the delegates’ T-shirts was less important than a unity of minds and hearts.
The Prime Minister has often spoken of the coming election as a “war” needing the dedication of a “united army”.
Can the party win the war with new T-shirts, meaningless slogans, expensive dinners and a prospectus of rhetoric against its rivals? Are members of the public so dumb that they cannot see through the noisy talk and the pretensions of preparedness for war?
“MCA promotes peace,” says one slogan, as if no one is aware that it has a long record of leadership and factional fighting.
Another slogan, proudly displayed at the meeting hall, accused Pakatan of inciting hatred, as if it would not serve to remind the delegates of Dr Chua’s recent rhetoric against Islam.
Indeed, there are many hard-hitting questions that MCA leaders should ask themselves before launching scathing and ill-conceived attacks against the opposition.
If Pakatan is deficient in its practice of democracy, as Dr Chua and other MCA leaders have alleged, then what can one say about BN’s hijack of Perak? And what about Najib’s unelected presidency of Umno?
If BN is so democratic, why does MCA have to continually struggle for “bargaining power” in the coalition, as so many of its leaders have said publicly, especially when campaigning for positions in the party?
Freudian slip
When Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin rebuked MCA for behaving like an “abused wife” in its protestations over being treated unfairly by BN, many saw it as a Freudian slip, and party members were dumbstruck by the silence of their leaders.
There have been many other insults directed at the MCA leadership and the Chinese community from Umno and organisations affiliated with it. Most of these the MCA leaders have chosen to forget, thereby deepening the impression that they have lost both their backbone and their moral compass.
If only they were wise enough to realise that their real enemy is not any opposition leader or party, but themselves.
But wisdom and hypocrisy cannot exist in the same person, at least when you consider wisdom as defined in classical Chinese thought.
Chua is on record as being critical of political control of the press. “The problem is that many political parties own controlling stakes in the press, MCA included,” he wrote in his blog in the run-up to the election that installed him as party president.
Speaking of MCA, he said: “It has controlling stakes in both the Chinese and English press.
“As such the editors and journalists working for those particular papers are beholden to their political masters and would have to toe the line or risk facing the sack. With this in mind, how can the press truly be free?”
Our question is: Why did Chua appoint one of his core supporters, Dr Fong Chan Onn, as the Star’s chairman and why did MCA recently acquire a weekly Chinese paper, The Tomato?
The current party leadership has failed to keep many of its promises, including rectifying the lopsided ethnic composition of the civil service, police and armed forces. It has also neglected to ensure adequate Chinese representation in statutory bodies and government-linked companies and, of course, a reasonable share of political power.
However, the truth is that many voters today are no longer inspired by race-based politics, which makes MCA and the other major parties in BN irrelevant to them.
As for MCA members, it would be good for them to remember the Persian proverb that a former party president once quoted: “The rotting of the fish begins from the head.”
Is MCA facing extinction? Or, if it survives the next general election, will it continue to exist as a parasitic burden to Umno?
Perhaps, as many party members are hoping, MCA only needs to go on a five-year vacation to free its leaders from governmental responsibilities so that they could address their own weaknesses and thereby place the party on the road to recovery.
Johor MB expects to lose nine seats
Johor has always been touted as the bastion of Umno, but one wonders if it really is so, given the inroads the opposition made in 2008.
In the 2008 general election, there was a 14% swing to the opposition. What has happened to that swing? It is increasing and getting stronger.
And this has got the menteri besar worried, intimating to his Umno division heads in one meeting that he expects at least nine parliamentary seats and up to 16 state seats to fall to the opposition in the 13th general election.
That means he has not discounted fully the swing to the opposition.
He has acknowledged that, at best, with all the efforts and the bribery that Umno has carried out, the party has only managed to claim back some 5%.
That means there is still around a 9% swing with the opposition.
Based on that conservative assumption, the nine parliamentary seats are indeed in jeopardy.
My personal view is that Pakatan Rakyat can win the nine parliamentary seats and more.
Umno and Barisan Nasional is dicey in at least six more seats – Tanjung Piai, Gelang Patah, Pulai, Pasir Gudang Tebrau, Simpang Rengam and Parit Sulong.
Which really means, Pakatan could end up with between nine and 15 seats.
Will Shahrir contest?
Having said that, there is also the Johor Baru seat to consider. JB has a sizeable Chinese population which should prove to be a boon to Pakatan.
The determining factor here would be Umno’s choice of candidates. If Shahrir Samad chooses to retire, then JB will fall to Pakatan.
Shahrir can only be persuaded to stand if the Umno people can stoke his contempt for Anwar Ibrahim.
Shahrir himself is not that confident. He has said privately that most of the faces he sees in JB are not familiar to him.
The other seat which I am interested to see is Pulai. It’s currently held by UDA Holdings Bhd chairman Nur Jazlan Mohamed Rahmat.
Nur Jazlan is a decent fellow but has recently been the victim of Umno’s habit of practising infanticide. It kills off its young talent.
When Nur Jazlan came up with a strategy of raising money for UDA with the redevelopment of the Pudu Jail area, he became a victim to the ravenous appetite of Umno warlords ever on the lookout of using government to make tons of money.
And that has not gone down well with him and his supporters.
MAILBAG
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