The excitement of the chase

 

Do you need to take over the federal government before you can say the right things? Do you need to take over the federal government before you can eliminate abuse of power and corruption in the state government? Do you need to take over the federal government before you can come to a consensus and come out with a common policy?

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

I have friends who like to go fishing. (A couple of people I know also like to go hunting). I asked them as to why they bother to waste so much time fishing. It is also not cheap, mind you. The tackle costs quite a bit of money, especially when you lose the lures (which cost more than the fish). Would it not be easier and cheaper to just go buy the fish at the market? It would be faster too -- fishing ‘expeditions’ can take a whole day.

One day they invited me to join them in their fishing trip. In an hour we caught 56 fish. That is almost a fish a minute amongst the five of us. I must say it was quite exciting. I proudly brought the fish I caught home to show my wife. I did not tell her that that was the only fish I caught, though.

You see, for the first half hour or so, I was flat out on the deck of the boat due to an attack of seasickness (which I suffer from if the boat is not moving and rolls from side to side). I was vomiting my guts out and polluting the sea. Only when my fishing mates carried me over the side of the boat and threatened to drop me into the sea did I stop vomiting. It seems the fastest way to end your seasickness is to get dumped into the sea. I must say it worked. The threat was good enough.

It was then that I understood that the excitement was not in the cooking and the eating of the fish. After all, how could five of us eat 56 fish anyway? It was the excitement of the hunt or the chase, as they say. And that goes for ‘people hunting’ as well. Friends who go ‘hunting’ in the clubs on Saturday night tell me the same thing. It is not about getting the women into bed. If not then they just need to go visit a brothel. It is the excitement of the ‘hunt’ -- to see whether you can ‘nail’ your ‘prey’.

What would you think of that woman if you smile at her and she immediately walks up to you and says ‘you can poke your pecker into my pussy any time’? That would be a turn off. You need to sweet-talk her first -- such as ‘what’s a nice woman like you doing in a place like this?’ or ‘what’s a woman like you doing in a nice place like this?’, etc. Then you offer to buy her a drink, ask her if she would like to dance, and then ask her if she would like to adjourn to somewhere ‘quieter’.

In that same context, we need to make the politicians and political parties ‘hunt’ or ‘fish’ for our votes. They need to ‘court’ us to get us to vote for them. If we tell them that they are guaranteed our votes and come hell or high water we would still vote for them that will make them complacent.

They must not take us for granted. We are not prostitutes. They can’t just throw some money onto the bed and expect us to strip and lie down on our backs so that they can screw us. If they want us then they will need to work hard at wooing us.

As what we told Anwar Ibrahim in London in 2010, in the 2008 general election many of us would have voted for a donkey or a monkey as long as they stood on the platform of Pakatan Rakyat. However, we have since seen what these monkeys and donkeys have turned out to become. Some have deserted the opposition. Some are not performing as we had hoped. Some proved to be as corrupt as the Barisan Nasional people we kicked out. Some are making silly statements that do not help the opposition cause and actually helps Barisan Nasional. Some have demonstrated arrogance. Some are pompous and condescending and talk to us as if they are our betters rather than our ‘servants’.

At this point of my article some of you ‘apologists’ are going to scream that we can’t expect perfection. We can’t expect Pakatan Rakyat to achieve everything in a mere five years. If we can give Barisan Nasional 55 years then why can’t we also give Pakatan Rakyat 55 years before we judge them?

These apologists tend to forget that the leaders and politicians from DAP, PKR, and PAS are not five-year-old politicians. The opposition politicians have been around a long time, as long or longer than those from Barisan Nasional. Some have served as Cabinet Ministers (even some from PAS during the time that PAS joined Barisan Nasional 40 years ago). Some have been Chief Ministers (Menteri Besar). Nik Aziz is probably the second-longest serving Menteri Besar after the Sarawak Chief Minister.

So the opposition leaders and politicians are not ‘new’. Why must we give them 55 years? We must not forget, when they campaigned for our support and our votes, they told us what was wrong with Barisan Nasional and they told us what they were going to do to right all these wrongs. Hence they knew what was not right and they knew what to do to put it right.

They promised us, not we promised them. So it is their job to deliver on these promises.

The other excuse the apologists offer is that Pakatan Rakyat is not yet the federal government so we can’t expect them to achieve much until they take over the federal government. Granted in some cases this is true. But this is not true for everything.

Do you need to take over the federal government before you can say the right things? Do you need to take over the federal government before you can eliminate abuse of power and corruption in the state government? Do you need to take over the federal government before you can come to a consensus and come out with a common policy?

Not everything requires you to be the federal government before you can do it. Many things are party matters. Many things are coalition matters. Many things are state government matters. Many things are council matters. Some things, of course, are federal matters. But not everything is a federal matter.

Is the selection of candidates a federal government matter? That is a party matter and has nothing to do with the federal government.

Is the allocation of seats a federal government matter? That is a coalition matter and has nothing to do with the federal government.

Is the election or selection of council members a federal government matter? That is a state government matter (and decided by the party, mind you) and has nothing to do with the federal government.

Is the declaration of assets a federal government matter? That is a party matter and has nothing to do with the federal government.

Is the distribution of tithes (zakat and fitrah) a federal government matter? That is a state government matter and has nothing to do with the federal government.

Is the building of low-cost homes for the homeless a federal government matter? That is a state government matter and has nothing to do with the federal government.

Is the allocation of state land to the landless a federal government matter? That is a state government matter and has nothing to do with the federal government.

Is the abolishing of negotiated tenders and the implementation of an open tender system for state contracts a federal government matter? That is a state government matter and has nothing to do with the federal government.

There are many things that are party matters, coalition matters and/or state government matters. You do not need to wait until you form the federal government before you can do something about them.

Take the Islamic State and Hudud matter as another example. Do you need to be the federal government before DAP, PKR and PAS can come to an agreement on that issue? You do not even need to be the state government before you can come to an agreement on this.

Barisan Nasional would not dare announce their candidates until the morning of Nomination Day. This is because Barisan Nasional does not trust its own members and they know that if they announce their candidates too early then there would be a genuine danger of internal sabotage. Hence they wait until the eleventh hour to announce their candidates to reduce the danger of internal sabotage. Even then it still happens, as Barisan Nasional recently confessed.

But why does Pakatan Rakyat not announce its candidates early so that these candidates can start working the ground and the voters can get to know them early instead of finding out who they are at the last minute on the morning of Nomination Day? Well, for the same reason why Barisan Nasional does not dare announce its candidates early, plus for an added reason -- to avoid Barisan Nasional buying them off.

Hence Pakatan Rakyat does not trust its own candidates plus it does not trust its own party members. Pakatan Rakyat is worried that if the candidates are announced too early then it may suffer internal sabotage and/or the candidates may get bought over.

What, therefore, does this say about the candidates? Are these the people we want? If ‘A’ is chosen to contest instead of’ B’, then ‘B may sabotage ‘A’ or Barisan Nasional may buy off ‘A’. And if ‘B’ is chosen instead, the same thing may happen as well. Hence do not announce yet whether it is ‘A’ or ‘B’. Wait until the last minute to make the announcement.

Is this because Pakatan Rakyat is not yet the federal government? Would none of this happen once Pakatan Rakyat is already the federal government?

Pakatan Rakyat needs to convince us that it is worthy of our vote. Pakatan Rakyat must work for our vote. If we tell Pakatan Rakyat that we are definitely going to vote opposition never mind what they do or do not do, then we are going to have a very complacent and very lazy Pakatan Rakyat.

There are no guarantees in life. There is no guarantee that every one of you reading this article is going to still be alive tomorrow. If you do die tonight, there is no guarantee that you are going to go to heaven or to hell. In fact, no one can give you a money-back guarantee that heaven and hell even exist.

So how can we guarantee Pakatan Rakyat our votes? In the first place, should we even be giving anyone this guarantee?

If you want me then come and court me. Bring me flowers and chocolates. Take me out to dinner. Come meet my parents and bring me to visit your parents. Then I will decide whether you are going to get into my pants. If you merely want a wham bam, thank you ma’am, then go visit a brothel.

And if you are a prostitute and are prepared to prostitute yourself, well and fine. But don’t expect me to do the same just because you are doing that. If you can’t convince me to vote for you that is your problem, not mine. If you don’t know how to win my vote then you do not deserve my vote. That is the long and short of it all.

I am not here to serve the politicians. It is the politicians who must serve me. So serve me. And convince me that you are worthy of being my servant. I need not convince you of anything because the vote is in my hand, not yours.

As the boy said to the girl when he dropped his pants to show her his dick: I have this, which you need. And the girl dropped her knickers to show the boy her pussy: ah yes, but with one of these I can get ten of those.