JUST WHEN WE THOUGHT WE WOULD SAVE SOME MONEY

So, who is going to end up paying for this RM250 million just so that PKR can win back a seat that they already owned in the first place? I will give you one guess and no prize for the right guess. 

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Anwar in Kajang to secure Selangor against Umno if Najib falls, says Rafizi

(TMI) – PKR is putting Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim in Kajang to defend Selangor from being taken over by Umno if the ruling party unseats party president Datuk Seri Najib Razak, party strategist Rafizi Ramli said today.

He said it was an open secret that moves to remove Najib has begun and once it was done, Umno will unleash every “unscrupulous attack and schemes” to take the state back “by hook or by crook”.

“As a party strategist, I cannot rule out the possibility that once Najib is removed and Umno falls to the ultras led by the Mahathir Mohamad faction,” he said today in a statement while apologising to the public especially the voters of Kajang for the by-election. (READ MORE HERE)

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That was the statement issued by master-strategist Rafizi Ramli who came out with the plan to vacate the Kajang state seat and then re-contest it to save Selangor. I am not yet too clear regarding how vacating the Kajang state seat and then re-contesting it can save Selangor but I am sure I will be able to figure it out given a couple of years.

One thing that most Malaysians are by now fully aware of is that general elections every 4-5 years cost about RM3 billion in total while by-elections can cost between RM150 million to RM250 million depending on how high the stakes are. And considering that Anwar Ibrahim is going to contest the Kajang seat we can probably regard this seat as a high-stake seat.

The direct cost to SPR is not the main thing. That would be less than RM5 million. Then we add in the other agency personnel costs like the government machinery, security services, and whatnot, and that will come to another RM15 million to RM25 million.

The ‘campaigning’ costs — which will include ‘development’ expenditure and promises for more development after the by-election — could easily touch RM100 million. The final bill will depend on how badly Umno wants to defeat Anwar and I suspect they would want to defeat Anwar very badly. Hence I will not get a heart attack if the final bill exceeds RM100 million.

Finally we have the party machinery to take care of and this would come to not less than RM100 million for Barisan Nasional and probably RM20 million or so for the opposition. (The 2013 BN election manifesto alone came to RM100 million for printing and distribution cost).

All in all, the country would be burning about a quarter billion Ringgit or so in direct, indirect, and hidden costs — ‘evaporation rate’ included, if you know what I mean.

Yes, that is how much it costs the nation every time we hold elections. And this is how Malaysian politics is played. It can be summed up to just three words — money, money, money!

Of course, we can always blame Umno for this. And Pakatan Rakyat would definitely blame Umno, no doubt about that. This is all Umno’s fault. Umno wastes too much money.

However, don’t tell me that Anwar does not know this. When he took on Tun Ghafar Baba for the number two post in Umno in 1993, Anwar spent RM200 million just in Sabah. Ask those Umno Sabah people who have since joined PKR. They can confirm that each of the 20 Umno divisions (now Sabah has 25 divisions) was given RM10 million.

And that was 20 years ago in 1993 when a Mercedes Benz or BMW cost only RM100,000 and not RM300,000 like now.

So, yes, elections in Malaysia are a costly affair (in fact, it is costly anywhere in the world). And while we can always blame Umno for wasting so much money just to win the Kajang seat, we must remember that we knew it was going to be costly and that it was PKR and not Umno that vacated the Kajang seat for no rhyme or reason other than to make sure that Selangor does not fall (whatever that means).

So, who is going to end up paying for this RM250 million just so that PKR can win back a seat that they already owned in the first place? I will give you one guess and no prize for the right guess.

Oh, and one more thing. The Umno boys love elections. This is when money flows like water. And considering the water crisis in Selangor, it will probably flow faster than the water in your homes.