Explain the about-turn 'vote for BN to stop hudud'

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COMMENT How do you explain the conundrum when MCA president Liow Tiong Lai said that voters in the two by-elections should vote BN to stop the implementation of the amendments to the Syariah Court (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act, 1965?

In lighter vein, Gerakan president Mah Siew Kong said that the party would support the BN candidates as an obligation. Similarly, MIC president Dr S Subramaniam gave an assurance that the party would not bring up its objection to the Hudud Bill in the by-elections.

In the immediate aftermath of the tabling of the amendments to the Syariah Court (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act, all three leaders took a tough stand by threatening to resign from their posts if the amendments are passed in Parliament.

The controversy over the Hudud Bill is hardly over, but these leaders of the BN component parties have come together to support the coalition's candidates.

How do you explain this about-turn?

Are these leaders being practical and have come together to save BN from defeat or they are being their “true” selves of being subservient and obedient to Umno?

Or is it simply because their very survival depends on the life-line given by Umno and independently they have no political clout or mass support amongst the communities that they are supposed to represent?

It is not Umno that depends on them, but these leaders depend on Umno to a large extent. In the ultimate sense, it is the very political survival of these leaders and their parties that have alienated them from the rank and file of their respective ethnic communities.

Thus, given this ultra-dependence, the leaders of the MCA, Gerakan and MIC have little or no autonomy to effectively represent their respective communities.

In fact, the last eight years or so, Chinese and Indians have come to support the DAP as the party that can effectively represent their political, social and cultural interests. A fact that is well-recognised by Umno and other political parties in the country.

In the last few general elections, candidates of the BN non-Malay component parties have won not to due to the support from the respective communities, but from the support thrown by Umno.

By capitulating to the designs of Umno, the leaders of these parties have lost their self-respect and dignity to articulate the concerns and anxieties of their respective communities.

Sense of doubt

When these leaders took an “unimaginable” hard stand of resignation from their posts, there prevailed a sense of doubt whether they would keep to their word. While they said they would resign, they never declared to lead their respective parties out of the BN fold.

It was hardly a matter of days and with the onset of the two by-elections, these leaders have shown their “true” calibre. While one leader promised hypocritically that the best way to stop the HududBill was to support the BN, the other two “promised” not to take up the hudud matter during the elections.

There are many reasons as to why the Hudud Bill was tabled in the first instance, but one of the reasons was the complete disregard that the Umno leaders have for MCA, Gerakan and the MIC.

It is the obsequiousness of these parties towards Umno that gave the latter the courage to form a pact with PAS to introduce the Hudud Bill.

If leaders of these parties had been firm, honest and responsible in representing their respective ethnic communities for the last few decades, we would not have arrived at this ominous or intractable political situation.

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P RAMASAMY is Penang Deputy Chief Minister II and DAP Perai assemblyperson. -Mkini