Umno’s latest enemy

That DAP had the gumption to field a Malay candidate has Umno going berserk looking for avenues to brainwash voters against giving the opposition party another term.

COMMENT

If experience was so important, we’d never have had anyone walk on the moon. – Doug Rader

The country’s largest and equally racist political party Umno is having the shivers and for obvious reasons: a young gutsy Malay female representing opposition party DAP might just make history by becoming the youngest MP should she win the Teluk Intan by-election come May 31.

The DAP candidate currently loathed by Umno is a 27-year-old Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) law degree holder, Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud.

Dyana faces veteran politician Gerakan president Mah Siew Keong, also a law graduate, both vying for the parliamentary seat which fell vacant after the death of DAP’s Seah Leong Peng on May 1 from cancer.

Not only has Umno lost sleep knowing that its candidate for the predominantly Chinese-led Teluk Intan by-election is being challenged by a non-Chinese, the former feels humiliated that a Malay i.e. DAP’s Dyana, had the audacity to challenge the ‘establishment’.

That DAP had the gumption to field a Malay candidate has Umno going berserk looking for avenues to brainwash voters against giving the opposition party another term.

Indeed, politics in Malaysia continue to ‘excite’, this time thanks to the brouhaha surrounding the Teluk Intan by-election.

Instead of welcoming rival DAP’s candidacy in a matured manner, Umno and the Barisan Nasional-led government turned vicious, condemning and heckling Dyana for “showing her true colours”.

Dyana came on board as DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang’s political secretary after the May 5, 2013 general election, and unlike her mother who is an Umno member, the youngster decided to break tradition and join forces with DAP.

The fact that Dyana was with DAP never rankled Umno, not until she spoke her mind and ‘called a spade a spade’.

And when the DAP decided she was the best choice for the Teluk Intan by-election, Umno Baru was at best dumbfounded.

Compared to Mah, the odds certainly are against Dyana; she has no real time experience, politically speaking.

That however is no reason for Umno to rebuke the newcomer and doubt her ability to serve, for to quote Oscar Wilde, “Experience is the name everyone gives to his mistakes.”

Still, Umno is in no mood to make good on sense of any kind. Instead, it prefers to stay true to its reputation of being a bully by berating the DAP candidate.

Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad when asked about DAP’s move to field Dyana brushed her off as a “window dressing” and as one who would make no significant contribution.

Unfortunate indeed that the country’s longest-serving premier failed to seize the chance to impart wise counsel to a fledgling candidate, the party represented regardless.

Umno’s ‘unprecedented’ attack

That DAP’s decision to nominate a female and that too a Malay has resulted in an ‘unprecedented’ backlash from Umno.

Umno veteran Mustapha Yaakob wants Dyana’s mother Yammy Samad to be expelled from the party for supporting and helping her daughter in the Teluk Intan by-election.

Umno sycophants are very angry that Dyana dare pledge allegiance to a ‘Chinese’ party like DAP. But then why must the young woman profess loyalty to Umno?

Must obeisance to this ‘Malay only’ party be ‘inherited’, passed on from generation to generation?

Clearly, DAP’s Dyana has decided otherwise, which has left the ‘elders’ in Umno fuming and clamouring for her demerit.

Mahathir has decided to push the racial envelope, accusing DAP of ‘duping the Malays” via Dyana.

Equally vengeful is Wanita Umno chief Shahrizat Jalil, once the Women, Family and Community Development Minister. Rather than appreciating a fellow female’s decision to take the political leap, Shahrizat opted to join the ‘conspiracy theories’ of her ‘political masters’ and hold Dyana to ransom.

Shahrizat unabashedly berated Dyana, warning the youngster not to be a ‘traitor’, reasons being that Dyana’s parents are staunch Umno supporters, and that Dyana had obtained her law degree from Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM).

Incidentally, Dyana had earlier on called upon UiTM to open its doors to students of all races, a move which infuriated the establishment and left Dyana with the tag ‘traitor’.

In other words, Umno is sending out the message that being an UiTM graduate means one has to endure a lifelong pressure to kowtow to Umno, something which Dyana refuses to do and for very good reasons.

Umno’s lame excuses

Also using the UiTM lame excuse was BN state rep for Teluk Air Tawar, Jahara Hamid who wants Dyana to be ‘indebted’ to BN by virtue of her being a product of its education system.

In the process of castigating Dyana, Umno conveniently disregarded the fact that democracy for all intent and purposes is still breathing in Malaysia.

Umno’s incorrigible childish rants continue to backfire and have made the party a laughing stock. And any tampering with the nation’s democracy will further make the rakyat despise Umno and BN.

The focus is not DAP’s Dyana or Gerakan’s Mah. Rather, the spotlight should be on the people of Teluk Intan, their woes and needs, for it is they who will deliver the verdict on May 31.

But then Umno has never ever got it right, has it?

In the meantime, both Mah and Dyana could take a cue from the no-nonsense Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first female prime minister, otherwise known as the Iron Lady, who summarised politics as:

“If you want something said, ask a man…if you want something done, ask a woman.”

Jeswan Kaur is a freelance writer and an FMT columnist.