My sympathy goes to Dr Streram

Let me declare, at the outset, that I do not know Dr S Streram personally. I have never met him. Before GE14 and his subsequent court challenge for being denied entry into the nomination centre, I had never heard of him.

However, that does not mean I am unable to support a politician whom I know absolutely nothing about. How many voters personally know the candidate they voted for, anyway?

Mine will be a sympathy vote for Dr Streram. Sympathy vote, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, describes an occasion when a lot of people vote for or support a particular person because he or she has suffered recently.

An example: He won the award, but some suspected he got the sympathy vote following his struggle with cancer.

Oh yes, I have a lot of sympathy for Streram. I understand his journey from GE14 till now has not been a bed of roses. He had to undergo multiple challenges, which a lesser man would not possibly be able to handle nor wish to tolerate. He has been bullied, ridiculed and vilified publicly, this past week in particular.

To begin with, he was given a tough seat, Rantau, to contest in GE14. Party bigwigs will normally secure all the prime seats for themselves first, leaving the less winnable constituencies to the lower echelon within the party. Apparently, Streram falls into the second category, being only the PKR Rembau division deputy chief.

The opponent in Rantau was none other than the former Negri Sembilan menteri besar and current Umno boss Mohamed Hasan. Streram would have faced an uphill task, had he even been given the opportunity to file his nomination papers.

Streram took his case to court and only after nine long, agonising months did he secure the verdict which was rightly his.

I wonder what happened to the returning officer concerned for his role in the case. Was he ever reprimanded? He should be barred from ever being assigned the task again, for by his action on that nomination day, he had dealt a great injustice to a bona fide electoral candidate.

A few days ago, Streram was greatly shocked to learn that his party colleague and Segamat MP Edmund Santhara had lodged a police report against him for an unpaid loan of RM62,000.

Unkindest cut from a so-called friend

I doubt outsiders are interested at all in this private lender-borrower deal, but they could surely smell a rat at the timing of the report and how it went public just before the PKR leadership confirmed Streram as the candidate for the coming by-election.

This has to be the unkindest cut from a so-called friend. From the press reports, I think the onus is on Santhara to explain his motive for the move against his friend to whom he had willingly made a personal loan.

As this episode played out, public sympathy was seen to clearly be with Streram. Here was a father who was short and he needed help from a friend to pay his daughter's college registration fees.

The people understand this to be a friendly loan which Streram said had been repaid in full. So, what’s really behind all this?

If the motive is to tarnish Streram’s name and public standing on the eve of a by-election, then it has failed and failed miserably.

Perhaps talk that this is yet another episode of back-stabbing within the two factions in PKR is not totally untrue. Streram must know now how cruel and dirty politics can play out at times.

The day Streram was announced as the Harapan candidate for Rantau, he received another shocker. This time, it was a social media message claiming he was seeking public donations to contest.

Dismissing the message as a hoax, Streram said it was yet another attempt to slander him ahead of the election. Is this yet another evil sabotage attempt from within?

PKR did the right thing to re-nominate Streram as the candidate, never mind whether he is the best choice or not. He deserved the chance he was denied in GE14.

I am glad that Anwar Ibrahim said, “Though there has recently been much rhetoric on the Malay agenda, the coalition wanted to show that it represents the interests of all Malaysians.”

Well said, Anwar. Although fielding an Indian candidate in a constituency with a 53 percent Malay electorate is a risk, it is one well-taken and accepted by the majority of Malaysians, save for the minority extremists and bigots in our midst.

As a voter, let me say this: I am a Chinese and I will vote for Streram, an Indian. The skin colour has no bearing in my decision. If Harapan were to field a Chinese who is a known shady character, I would either vote for Mat Hassan or skip the election.

Unfortunately, I’m not a registered voter in Rantau.

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FRANCIS PAUL SIAH heads the Movement for Change, Sarawak (MoCS) and can be reached at sirsiah@gmail.com - Mkini