What kind of BN campaign is this at Tenang?

Just what kind of BN campaign is this at the Tenang state constituency by-election?

The MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek said that the PAS candidate Normala Sudirman wore gloves during her campaign rounds and shaking hands with the voters is a big issue because it symbolize PAS' extremism.

And then Umno deputy president Muhyddin Yassin later quickly told the press that the issue of the PAS candidate wearing gloves while shaking hands with the public was actually not an issue at all.

So, what is what from the BN now? Why isn't BN campaigning as one? Like what they had claimed all this while. How did this get out of the way then?

Does the BN really have two sets of campaigning agendas i.e. one for the Malay, while the other is for the Chinese community? And it looks so, it was true.

The MCA was supposed to go to the Chinese community to inform them on the dangers of Islam and the religious extremism but somehow those so-called "Chinese Only" campaign words went off too loud and leaked out to the neighbouring Malay community.

And because of this, it irked the Umno deputy president into declaring that the "glove case" was not an issue after all in order to calm down the angers from the Malay community.

It is very clear that based on Muhyddin's rebuke on the MCA president's words - Umno is shooting back at the MCA and Dr Chua instead in order to hold on to the Malay words. So, what is MCA's next strategy then?

While Umno is still telling the Malay voters that the Chinese were merely making use of PAS, MCA failed to hit Umno back on that issue. Instead, MCA is just letting Umno to continue its racist moves, reasoning that the campaign is merely referring only to the Malays.

If you lookat this issue in general, we would say that the Chinese community is again being made a scapegoat in the politics played by Umno, while MCA watches hopelessly being unable to defend the community it "represents".

All this while, race has been always an issue in BN agendas and election campaigns. They convey different messages separately to the three major races i.e. Umno for the Malays, MCA for the Chinese while MIC would go after the Indian community. Is this the kind of 1Malaysia which BN is advocating? It sounds like more to 3Malaysia than 1.

The Pakatan Rakyat component parties, PKR, PAS and DAP had indeed demonstrated a good and matured example on how an election campaign was supposed to be carried out.

We often notice that the election campaign machinery ran by these Pakatan parties has always avoided issues that would hurt any races, instead focusing their campaigns on economy, people, performance, achievements and their goals towards Putrajaya.

Everyone knew that what PKR, PAS and DAP are campaigning are all based on what they planned to deliver for the people and the entire nation, and not what they could do for only certain race or community, like what Umno and MCA are doing now.

Therefore, we all should question both Umno and MCA kind of racist campaigns at the Tenang state constituency. Are their action in the spirits of 1Malaysia? It sounds like more to 2 or 3Malaysia concept because there are two to three sets of race-based agendas in the BN coalition.

Both Umno and MCA are talking as a nation in identity but merely focusing on each race they claimed to be representing.

It is up to the voters now whether they want a Malaysian nation or a Malay, Chinese and Indian nations.

Same goes to the next and upcoming by-election in Merlimau, Melaka as well as the soon to be 13th general elections. Stay tune then!