GE15 will be a nightmare, says PSM’s Jeyakumar

 

PSM chairman Dr Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj says the coming general election will be a complicated one with all parties wanting power.

PETALING JAYA: Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM), which has been struggling to make an impact in the Malaysian political landscape since vying for elections in 2008, expects the next general election (GE15) to be a “nightmare”.

PSM chairman Dr Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj said this will be the case not only for his party but for all parties going by the current political scenario.

“GE15 is a nightmare not only for us but also the country as a whole. It is so complicated that it doesn’t look like it’s going to be easy for any party as everyone is going for power,” he said in an interview with BFM’s The Bigger Picture yesterday.

“However, as a political party, PSM has to take part. It’s going to be difficult to do well unless we are part of a coalition. So we are exploring a pact with Pakatan Harapan (PH) as they were our partners before.”

Three PSM candidates first contested in the 2008 general election – two under the PKR ticket and one as an independent. Two of them won PSM’s first ever political seats, with Jeyakumar turning giant killer by defeating then MIC president S Samy Vellu in Sungai Siput.

PSM’s president, Mohd Nasir Hashim, won the Kota Damansara seat in the Selangor state assembly.

Jeyakumar retained the seat in 2013 also under PKR while Nasir failed to defend his.

In 2018, Jeyakumar and all other PSM candidates lost after standing under the party’s own banner following some differences with PH.

Jeyakumar reiterated that PSM is a democratic party which is “fiercely” independent and does not compromise on its principles.

He said it is not feasible for its candidates to stand as independents because it is not good electorally under the circumstances.

Therefore, he said, it has to be part of a coalition and its best option is PH as they share many things in common although they differ in certain principles. “We are negotiating and it is still work in progress.”

Jeyakumar said PH’s identifies corruption and poor governance as the main issues in its political battle and thinks that if these two issues were resolved, everything would be fine.

“Our vision for society is different from PH. Of course, we admit these two issues are important. But our ideology goes one step further, which involves fighting for the workers who are suffering from negative wage suppression.

“For example, a factory worker in Bayan Lepas is paid one-sixth or one-eighth of a worker in California, who produces the same semiconductor with the same value. This is not related to the measure of productivity. The World Bank will tell you the multinational corporations are not honest with us,” he said.

He said this is the way the global economic system has been structured with the world’s 0.01% billionaires controlling the rest of the world, adding that this chain must be broken.

He said if a US firm wants to outsource its production, it gives them the machines and equipment to manufacture the products and sell them back to them at a price which is as low as 20% of the price it eventually sells to the rest of the world.

“They control the prices and the low wages. And if the local employer here challenges the US boss for higher wages, they will threaten to move to Thailand or Vietnam.

“The Malaysian boss then becomes a cog in this global control chain as he is also controlled by patents and the specific product,” he said.

Jeyakumar said this is what PH and other coalitions fail to address, adding that developed countries are gaining from this wage suppression as a result.

He said a lot of wealth is created by the workers for the MNCs, with the government cutting corporate taxes and giving them other perks which lead to lower allocation for other development as a result.

“The free trade agreements must be changed and parties like DAP and PKR don’t recognise that. I consider PSM as a more hardworking version of PH. We are focused on grassroots,

“The general public does not recognise that we have this in our party aims. We want to tell the people that our vision is different from that of other parties in this context,” he said. - FMT