Between hypocrisy and expediency

Pakatan Rakyat is even weaker than Barisan Nasional. Even a united Pakatan Rakyat is not good enough to march to Putrajaya. What more a Pakatan Rakyat that does not understand the meaning of working together as a united coalition like what is happening in the Bagan Pinang by-election.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Sometimes it is very difficult to reconcile between what politicians say and what they do. It is a sort of ‘tradition’ that politicians must always do the opposite of what they say. In layman’s terms this would be called hypocrisy. In political terminology, however, it is called expediency.

The Muslim Middle East regards the United States as a Jewish ‘tool’. The US is the ‘Great Satan’. It is the US, after all, that is propping up Israel. If not, Israel would have been destroyed long ago. And day in and day out we can hear verses of the Quran being chanted in the two holiest mosques in the Muslim world, Mekah and Medina, cursing the Jewish enemies of Islam.

There is no mistaking it, as far as Muslims are concerned. The Jews are the lifelong enemy of Islam. They must be exterminated from the face of this earth. But when it comes to the oil money, the Muslim Arabs do not trust their fellow Muslims. They would rather hand over the trillions in oil money to the Jewish banks in Europe and the US.

Where is the so-called ‘Muslim brotherhood’? What happened to the ‘Jews are the sworn enemy of Islam until doomsday’? It appears that Muslims prefer Jews to fellow Muslims when it comes to making money. And even Malaysia as early as the 1970s appointed the Jewish banks to advise Petronas on what to do with the oil money. Yet Umno claims it is the largest Islamic party in the world, far bigger than PAS.

Umno screams Ketuanan Melayu. They spread fear amongst the Malays that without Umno the Chinese would inherit the country. Only Umno can guarantee that the Malays would not become slaves in their own country (hamba di negara sendiri).

But Umno can’t rule without the Chinese and Indians and East Malaysians. Umno, alone, can never win enough seats to form the federal government. Maybe, at best, Umno can form state governments in the four or five northern states in West Malaysia. In the rest of the country and at federal level Umno would be in the opposition aisles.

MCA, MIC and PPP are in turmoil. Would it not serve the ‘Malay agenda’ if all these non-Malay parties collapse? Then Umno would need not to ‘share power’ with the non-Malays. Umno need not allocate any seats to the non-Malays. Umno can contest all the 222 parliament seats and the more than 500 state seats.

But no, Umno is worried. It is worried that if MCA, MIC, PPP, Gerakan and all the other East Malaysian parties collapse or leave the ruling coalition called Barisan Nasional then Umno can never form the government. Umno needs the non-Malays. Without the non-Malays Umno is out of power. Even Tun Dr Mahathir said yesterday that if Barisan Nasional were to become weak then Umno would be in trouble. So they need a strong MCA, MIC, PPP, Gerakan and whatnot so that Barisan Nasional can also be strong and which would mean Umno will remain in power.

So what Ketuanan Melayu are we talking about? And how does Umno serve the Malay agenda when it needs the non-Malays more than it needs the Malays to remain in power? Only half the Malays support Umno -- slightly over 50% to be exact. The other 50% support the opposition. And Umno can do nothing to bring back Malay support. So Umno needs the non-Malays more than it needs the Malays if it wants to remain in power.

See what is going on in the Bagan Pinang by-election where the voting is going to end soon. It is Malays who are whacking Malays. Fights have erupted and heads are being broken. Malays are spilling Malay blood. Umno regards the fellow Malay PAS as its greatest enemy. And PAS too regards its fellow Muslim Umno as its greatest enemy.

So it is Malay-Muslim Umno versus fellow Malay-Muslim PAS. Without the heavy presence of the police, by now there would already be a few bodies in the mortuary. The only reason no Malay-Muslims have killed fellow Malay-Muslims in Bagan Pinang is because there is no opportunity to do so. Withdraw the police from Bagan Pinang and see what happens. The mortuaries in and around Port Dickson would be stacked with bodies, all Malay-Muslims killed at the hands of fellow Malay-Muslims.

No, there is no Malay brotherhood. There is not even Muslim brotherhood. In spite of the rhetoric from the Malay-Muslims from both Umno and PAS, Malay-Muslim brotherhood does not exist. Umno as well as PAS need the non-Malay ‘infidels’ to win elections. And they spill the blood of fellow Malay-Muslims just to win the election.

While on the subject of the Bagan Pinang by-election, and since the voting is almost over, let me reveal that this by-election is probably the opposition's worst managed by-election since the March 2008 general election. Has the opposition become too arrogant or become over-confident? Does Pakatan Rakyat think it can win elections without trying? Just because the opposition rallies (ceramah) attract ten times the crowd that Barisan Nasional rallies attract does not mean you are assured of a win.

We have been saying this for the last 20 years or more. Opposition rallies or ceramah always attract huge crowds. But in many cases the opposition loses that constituency when it comes to votes.

Many of the people who attend these rallies are not even registered voters in that constituency. Most are outsiders. And many attend these rallies just for entertainment purposes. They love to hear the speeches of the better orators from the opposition. Many within the crowd of spectators are even Umno members who come to get entertained but will never vote for the opposition.

Gauging your chances of success by the crowd you can attract to your rallies is foolhardy. And we have been saying this for more than 20 years but the opposition never listens. Embarking on a voter registration exercise instead of wasting your entire resources organising rallies or ceramah would be better. Don’t forget, only 50% of eligible voters actually vote. And 60% of the 50% who do not vote are not even registered to vote.

Only eight million people come out to vote when those who are eligible to vote total about 15-16 million. So we do not need more people attending ceramah, especially if they will not be voting in that constituency. We need more people coming out to vote. Why can’t the opposition get this through its thick head?

In Bagan Pinang, the opposition is so disorganised. There are allegations that Kuala Lumpur has taken over the Bagan Pinang election campaign while the locals from Negeri Sembilan are being sidelined. It was not until the fourth day after Nomination Day when PAS invited the other component members from Pakatan Rakyat for a meeting. In the end, PAS did their own thing while PKR and DAP, who were left out in the cold, organised their own programmes independent of PAS. PAS did not even arrange for the Wakil Rakyat from PKR and DAP to speak at the ceramah.

We would have imagined that after the March 2008 general election, and the many by-elections since then, the opposition would improve itself because of the experience it has gained. This does not appear to be so in Bagan Pinang. It appears like they have gone backwards and act like this is their first election.

What has happened to Pakatan Rakyat? The Bagan Pinang by-election is not a PAS by-election. It is a Pakatan Rakyat by-election even though the candidate is from PAS. And how can Kuala Lumpur just walk in and take over while sidelining the local Negeri Sembilan boys?

Maybe it is good that PAS loses this by-election. Maybe this is what is needed to wake them up. Umno cannot make it without the other 13 component members of Barisan Nasional. What makes PAS think it can make it all on its own without PKR and DAP -- and worse, without the involvement of the local boys on the ground?

I would not be too disappointed if PAS gets massacred good and proper later today. Maybe they need this wake up call. But what hurts is the fact that they would get massacred not because Umno is strong but because Pakatan Rakyat conducted themselves like a bunch of amateurs.

Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat both realise that only through group effort can they make headway. The turmoil in MCA, MIC and PPP worries Umno. They know that a weak MCA, MIC, PPP, Gerakan and so on will result in a weak Barisan Nasional and which, in turn, will result in a weak Umno. So they scream about Ketuanan Melayu but they know that Ketuanan Melayu will not send them to Putrajaya. Umno needs MCA, MIC, PPP, Gerakan and the rest more than the non-Malays do.

The Indians and Chinese do not care a damn what happens to MCA, MIC, PPP, Gerakan and the rest. But Umno does because Umno needs their non-Malay partners to be able to stay in power. Umno, alone, can’t do it. They can never win enough seats on their own. Without the seats from MCA, MIC, PPP, Gerakan and the rest Umno can never form the government.

Pakatan Rakyat is even weaker than Barisan Nasional. Even a united Pakatan Rakyat is not good enough to march to Putrajaya. What more a Pakatan Rakyat that does not understand the meaning of working together as a united coalition like what is happening in the Bagan Pinang by-election.