Nazri-MIC spat over GE15 seats won’t split BN, says analyst

 

Umno veteran Nazri Aziz has described MIC president SA Vigneswaran as a ‘political prostitute’ for wanting to contest in a safe seat.

PETALING JAYA: An analyst has dismissed any notion that a tussle for seats between Umno and MIC in the run-up to the next general election will adversely affect Barisan Nasional (BN).

Umno’s dominance in BN would ensure that its decision would be final, said James Chin of the University of Tasmania.

“In BN, Umno is the big boss. It’s not like in PH, where the component parties are more equal,” he told FMT.

Chin was commenting on the war of words between Umno veteran Nazri Aziz and MIC president SA Vigneswaran over the latter’s intention to run for the Sungai Siput seat in GE15.

James Chin.

Nazri, the Padang Rengas MP, recently described Vigneswaran as a “political prostitute” for wanting a safe seat.

MIC vice-president A Kohilan Pillay has hit back at Nazri, saying that if his logic was applied, more than half of the current MPs would be regarded as prostitutes, including former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.

Nazri and MIC have been at odds since last week, when the party announced its intention to run for 12 parliamentary seats in GE15.

Nazri likened MIC to beggars and attributed the party’s victories in the Melaka and Johor state elections to Umno’s goodwill.

Chin said BN had long regarded MIC as its weakest member since there are no Indian-majority seats in Parliament.

He alleged that BN was not interested in providing strong backing to MIC as there was no statistical proof that Indian voters had returned to supporting the party in large numbers.

In GE14, MIC won two of the nine parliamentary and three of the 18 state seats it contested.

Anantha Raman Govindasamy.

Anantha Raman Govindasamy of Universiti Malaysia Sabah agreed with Chin, saying elections were often a “numbers game”.

“If your numbers are small, then your bargaining power is weak,” he said. “At the end of the day, MIC will compromise on any decision made by Umno.”

He told FMT he believed MIC wanted to contest in Sungai Siput for “nostalgic” reasons, but added that Umno was more likely to consider the demographics of the constituency. Forty per cent of voters in Sungai Siput are Malays, 30% are Chinese and 20% are Indians.

The seat was occupied by MIC president VT Sambanthan from 1959 to 1974 and then by the next party chief, S Samy Vellu, until 2008, when he lost it to Dr Michael Jeyakumar of Parti Sosialis Malaysia. The current MP is Kesavan Subramaniam of PKR. - FMT