Say no to dirty and corrupt polls

The BN government must understand that it can push our people just so far with what they do to win this 13th general election.

COMMENT

It is arguably not an exaggeration to say that today in Malaysia, politics and crime is one and the same thing. The difference is in the amount thieved.

Criminals are routinely arrested and convicted of their crimes. Some are beaten to death while in custody. Some are killed in shootouts with the police. But I have yet to hear of any Barisan Nasional politician killed in a shoot out with the police while trying to escape to parts unknown with the proceeds of their crime.

Infact, most of the time they are under the protection of the police.  The banks will facilitate the transfer of their ill gotten gains to a destination of their choice and the immigration will close one eye and shut the other when they are leaving Malaysia for exiled to enjoy their money elsewhere.

Is that not the most insulting of behavior? They take your money in Malaysia and they spend it elsewhere!

Aiyah that’s why the illegal outflow of money out of Malaysia totalled RM200 billion in 2010.

Najib Tun Razak deludes himself that he has delivered on a number of economic and government transformation programs that he had set out to do.

Phrases like “Malaysia is bucking the trend”, “no country in the world”, “solid track record”, “and the best is yet to come” flows off his tongue glibly unconstrained by any thoughts that he is telling a lie, at best a half truth or more likely he is just being delusional.

He has an answer to every question asked – be it why he lied when he first denied having met Saiful to giving excuses over how over 200-armed insurgents could have ‘invaded’ Sabah.

Why has he not done anything about Global Witness’ exposure of Taib Mahmud’s corrupt ways? He tells us due process must take its course. He will leave it to MACC to investigate.

Huh! Like they are investigating Altantuya’s murder? But politics is perception, so Najib thinks!

If he can link Anwar Ibrahim with sodomy, make the people believe that DAP is a threat to Islam and the Malays, and brand PAS as being a traitor to Islam because of their coalition with DAP, then he thinks he will have the people on his side to win the 13th general election.

What he cannot work out is that perception works both ways.

Like Najib?
Najib is seen as the other half of Rosmah Mansor. Queen control may be too harsh a word to use here to describe Najibs domestic situation. Let us just say that Najib does not wear the trousers in their house.

He is seen as being a man without honor in the manner he chose to take back Perak from Pakatan Rakyat in 2009

He is seen to be a corrupt man when he did the “I scratch your back and you scratch mine” thing with Sibu voters.

He is seen as coward who did not front up at the Altantuya murder trial to clear himself.

He is seen as a traitor to Abdullah Ahmad Badawi when he conspired with Dr Mahathir Mohamad to oust Pak Lah before Pak Lah’s term was over.

He is seen by many as to not have the guts to debate Anwar Ibrahim so that the rakyat can see for themselves if Najib could stand for himself against a worthy opponent.

He is seen as a liar who promised to repeal the ISA and PPPA only to replace them with equally draconian legislation that had the same effect.

He is seen as being a weak prime minister who will respond to a situation rather than lead. He is seen as a dithering prime minister who has not been able to decide on when the 13th general election should be called.

He acted against Shahrizat Abdul Jalil only after NFC had been in the public domain for ages.

Against Deepak Jaikishan, the late P Balasubramaniam and now Taib, he pulls the blanket over his head and runs screaming to Rosmah as if he is in a nightmare.

Now after all that, I dare you to like Najib!

Rakyat’s tipping point
The BN government must understand that it can push our people just so far with what they do to win this 13th general election.

This BN government must understand that we will no longer tolerate a general election that is not open, fair and untainted by money politics.

And if they intend to test the people’s ability to tolerate any more of their abuses in order to stay in power, just ask themselves how far our people are from the tipping point!

The tipping point is when the rakyat will take it upon themselves to confront the BN and all the powers that be, and make their point clear to the Umno-led BN by any means at their disposal that enough is enough.

The fight will be the people and politicians. Politicians that are corrupt, arrogant and totally without remorse and shame at what they have done to enrich themselves.

This time the people know that if they do not succeed in ridding themselves of this corrupt government, they know that Umno will take the opportunity to unleash upon our people and our country another 50 years of what we have endured so far.

And if BN is equally adamant in holding on to their tainted political power, then we know that we are in a battle for ourselves and the outcome of that battle will be decided by the ferocity of how this BN regime is prepared to hold on to their grasp of power however undeserved it may be and the ferocity of our people to prevent it.

I hope it will not come to that. But people who no longer feel that there are no other means of making their point across to powerful forces they perceived to be against them, are prone to resort to any means available to them to make that point.

I hope that BN will stop to think the possible consequences of what they do in these last few days before the 13 general election, and ditto for Pakatan Rakyat too.

Some will say that anything and everything should be done to rid ourselves of this repressive and corrupt BN government and there will also be some who will say that anything and everything should be done to prevent Pakatan Rakayat from taking government.

You be the judge because we will all have our thoughts on this, but what I think we will all not tolerate is for any political entity to claim any undeserved victory, use any unfair and insidious tactics to win election and do anything to undermine the honesty of the electoral process.

They test our resolve at their own peril.

CT Ali is a reformist who believes in Pakatan Rakyat’s ideologies. He is a FMT columnist.