Which Type of Malay does Zaharin's UMNO help?

The MP of Bayan Baru says UMNO and BN have changed. UMNO is the only party that can help the Malays. He says he was duped into believing that PR will help out the Penang Malays.

We will let Zaharin Hashim and others like him continue in that belief. That belief is bought. He tried to sell his kind of allegiance and loyalty to Guan Eng a few years back and when failed, left PR. He must have succeeded to sell that kind of allegiance and loyalty to Najib and gang. That tells a lot about Najib’s kind of leadership. It’s a leadership that thrives on conspiratorial deals and intrigues. The leadership constitution of Guan Eng and Najib is vastly different.

In other words, allegiance to UMNO is allegiance bought and is provided by people like Zaharin Hashim. In Zaharin’s case it was probably bought for a few million Ringgit and access to Najib. In the case of many more, by the RM 500 BR1M and various other kickbacks.

Allegiance bought is flimsy and fluid. Allegiance founded on beliefs and conviction and tied to a cause and mission is more rock solid. Hopefully the majority believe in a cause and the loyalty of those which was bought is minimal.

We have 2 groups of people who crossed over to support PR in 2008. Hopefully a majority of the 3.7 million Malays out of 5.7 million who supported PR did so because of beliefs and conviction. The fears of the Malays before they switched allegiance have always been the same and that did not stop them from supporting PR. It shows that Malays are pragmatic enough to believe that any government can do as good or as bad as UMNO can. So they are indifferent to the promises that UMNO made because, the same promises can be carried out by others beside UMNO. All that is needed are the instruments of power and resources. What UMNO lacks is the management.

UMNO no longer enjoys the exclusive privilege in saying they can do what they say they can.

One group changed allegiance because of fluid reasons such as momentary unhappiness, protest, denied some favors asked and so on. The other group changed allegiance because they believe in a common cause to rid this country of a corrupt government. The nature and quality of the respective allegiances are different. The one with the first group is ephemeral. It is easily given as soon as the source of the protest is sorted out, the favors asked granted and immediate relief is given.

The allegiance of the other group is firmly embedded. It’s not easily recovered by the usual means of solving problems. In 2008, the average swing of votes to the opposition was just below 13%. Let’s allow a 5% recovery rate by UMNO because it has given out huge amounts of money directly. It has also bombarded the public with daily propaganda.

Which means the antics of people like Zaharin and others like him is not a cause for worry. It will not erase the bigger number of people who crossed the Rubicon in 2008 to support PR. For 55 years, all UMNO has been able to do is to cause the income disparity between the rich and poor Malays to get wider. Income disparity among Malays is bigger than income disparities among the other Malaysian communities.

The rich Malay is represented by the son of the soil who is able to to set up the largest Ferrari showroom outside Italy costing RM20 million. The rich Malay is represented by the son of a famous panadol peddler who can buy a Bugatti Veyron costing a few million Ringgit. The poor Malay is represented by the anonymous Malay who faces the daily daunting tasks of buying Ikan Kembong at RM17 per kilo. The poor Malay is represented by the anonymous Malays who weigh the decision to buy Tenggiri at RM40 per kilo, sugar at RM2.50 a kilo, rice which is getting more expensive by the bag.

Posted by sakmongkol AK47