What is the difference between paying RM100,000 and RM10m for leaving a party?

 

SAY you are an aspiring MP, and as an aspiring MP, you must obviously believe in some agenda or ideology that you wish to forward for the country.

You might, for example, believe that the politics and the economy of the country is in need of reforms. You might advocate that the wealth of the nation needs to be released from the clutches of the T15 and be spread across the B40 and M40 and you might also believe that such things as corruption, cronyism and nepotism needs to be eliminated.

Believing as you do, you might choose a political party that is in tune with your agenda or ideology to pursue your goals of being an MP.

Thus, you might choose to join a party like PKR because you might believe that it is under the PKR banner that people who share the same agenda and ideology as you will congregate, and it is under the PKR banner that you will be best able to forward your agenda and cause.

Once you join the party, the party will obviously have to screen you to see if you are a suitable candidate to represent the party’s cause and agenda.

It will, for example, need to check whether you have a criminal record or whether you have been declared bankrupt or have an issue with drug addiction or whatnot.

After that, the party will also likely require you to show that you are the best person to represent the party’s cause and agenda.

To prove that you are the best person to represent the party, the party will likely require you to compete with the other candidates to get the approval of the other members in the party.

If you should succeed, then the party should accept you as its candidate for MP in the next general election.

If you were to win the election and become the MP, but later on, for some reason or another, you were terminated from the party or decided to leave the party, what should not be in question is your commitment to the party’s agenda and cause.

You might have differences in opinion about how best to forward the party’s agenda, or you might have problems with the leadership of the party or you might be found to be supportive of some foreign organisation that your party disapproves of vehemently but whose cause you believe in.

This might require you to leave the party, but just because you have left the party, it doesn’t mean you have abandoned your common cause or agenda.

Seeing that you have only left the party but have not abandoned your common cause or agenda, it is probably reasonable to expect that you forfeit just a portion of your salary as MP to the party to cut both your losses.

Considering that it is a five-year term, to ask you to give up one year worth of salary to your party to reimburse them for the election expenses should be reasonable.

After all, despite your other disagreements, both you and your party still believe in the same core agenda and ideology.

That being the case, if your monthly salary as a MP is RM10,000, then to expect you to pay back the party RM120,000 or RM100,000 if you intend to leave the party only fair.

But what does it mean if the party expects you to pay RM10 mil if you were to leave your party?

Well, if you have to pay RM10 mil to your party if you were to leave it, it means that you or your party, or both, have no cause or agenda.

All that the both of you are likely interested in is simply to gain power for power’s sake or using the power and position you previously gained to forward your respective self-interests and prospects.

The only reason that your party accepted you as its election candidate is likely because you have pledged to toe the party line.

Rather than sharing a common belief as the party, you were likely just herded in as the party’s candidate because the party assumed that being creedless you will just do what the party tells you to do with the likely aim of forwarding its self-interests and prospects.

That said, if you leave the party, you probably did not leave due to a clash in opinion with other party members but because some other party had promised to take better care of your self-interests or prospects.

(Image: Harian Metro)

It is only under this condition that the party should charge you RM10 million to punish you for “eating alone”, or making sure that your own prospects and self-interests are fulfilled at the expense of the party’s self-interests and prospects.

With this scenario in mind, it is probably well and good that the Court of Appeal had ordered Datuk Zuraida Kamaruddin to pay only RM100,000 to PKR rather than the RM10 mil that the High Court had ordered her to pay previously for leaving PKR in 2020 after winning the Ampang parliamentary seat under the PKR ticket in 2018.

It is well and good as this sends a signal to political parties in the country that it is better for them to have a cause and an agendaa and only choose candidates who have proven that they believe in the party’s cause and agenda as their election candidates.

If political parties have no other cause or agenda other than to forward their own prospects and self-interests and thus chooses election candidates who do not believe in anything outside of their prospects and self-interests as well, they will have nobody but themselves to blame if their candidate dumps them after winning the election.

In fact, all that they can expect to get back for all their troubles is just RM100,000, even if they had spent RM10 mil to help their traitorous candidate win.

Nehru Sathiamoorthy is a roving tutor who loves politics, philosophy and psychology.

The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of  MMKtT.

- Focus Malaysia.