MCLM’s 13th general election manifesto

By Raja Petra Kamarudin

I want to keep it simple.

In 27 words, I want to spell out for you the MCLM Manifesto for the 13th GE:

“End the marginalisation of all human beings, by seizing federal power through the 13th general election and, through the 13th federal government, implement the Rakyat Reform Agenda”.

That’s it.

Why all human beings, and not just all Malaysians?

Well, whether you want to admit it or not, there is a large migrant force in the country and, again, whether you want to admit it or not, they have played and are continuing to play a significant role in the development of the nation. And, like so many marginalised Malaysians, many of these migrants live in sub-human conditions.

The marginalisation of both Malaysians as well as the migrant community must stop. And, in order to do this, the Rakyat Reform Agenda (RARA) must be given effect to. And, in order to give effect to the RARA, we must install a reform-oriented government in Putrajaya post the 13th GE that will use the federal powers at its disposal to implement the RARA.

This begs two questions.

First, how do we displace BN at the 13th GE and install a pro-reform government?

Second, what exactly is comprised in the RARA?

Let’s tackle the matter of taking BN out in the next GE first.

Realistically, Pakatan Rakyat cannot do this on its own. In fact, no one political party can do this on its own. What is needed is a collective of all pro-rakyat, pro-reform political parties working together with the Third Force, made up of reform-oriented NGOs and the rakyat who are ready to work for change.

On Dec 12, 2010, MCLM launched its Barisan Rakyat Independent Candidate Initiative. To-date, we have announced the details of four independent candidates. And we intend to offer 30 in the 13th GE.

Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan have 57 seats in Parliament. As I said in my earlier article, Sabah and Sarawak are critical to our having a chance of forming a reform government in Putrajaya post 13th GE.

MCLM has been hard at work with the Sarawak National Party (Snap) in Sarawak and the United Borneo Front (UBF) in Sabah in trying to build an alliance with forces in Sabah and Sarawak. We hope in the coming days that we will be able to announce the formation of such an alliance.

Should a Snap-UBF-MCLM alliance be successfully forged, MCLM hopes to be able, with its alliance partners, to work out a further alliance with the other non-Barisan Nasional parties in Sabah, Sarawak, and Semenanjung with one objective in mind: to forge a coalition to displace Barisan Nasional in the next election and to install a pro-reform federal government in Putrajaya.

It is hoped that with these alliances in place, straight fights in the forthcoming 13th GE will be assured and that any three-corner contests are Barisan Nasional’s own doing.

Reform agenda

Let me now take you to the RARA.

It has four parts.

The first is about honouring the agreements made by our forefathers in 1963 when the Federation of Malaya entered into agreement with the independent states of Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak to form the new Federation of Malaysia.

Singapore left the federation in 1965, leaving three partners: Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak. Yet, today, Sabah and Sarawak are being treated as the 12th and 13th states in the Federation of Malaysia.

We must set this right.

This is the first reform that must be effected by the new reform government post 13th GE.

Second, the national institutions that were intended to serve the rakyat but which have, for some time now, served their political masters, must be restored to the rakyat. These include the judiciary, the Election Commission, the police force, and the Attorney-General, amongst others.

MCLM has a plan to restore these institutions to the rakyat during the tenure of the 13th federal government but, for obvious reasons, will not disclose the same here. This will be discussed with its alliance partners.

Third, the liberties guaranteed to the rakyat under the Federal Constitution must be restored to the rakyat during the term of the 13th federal government. This means that the ISA, the OSA, the PPPA, the UUCA and the Sedition Act must be repealed. To this end, the MCLM Reform Agenda team is at work drafting the necessary bills to facilitate the repeal of these draconian laws during the first sitting of the 13th Parliament post 13th GE.

Additionally, the MCLM Reform Agenda will also draft a Race Relations Bill and what we are now tentatively calling the Malaysian Social Inclusion Action Commission Bill, which relates to the fourth part of RARA.

Not reinventing the wheel

MCLM proposes that the affirmative action, which was to be carried through and implemented through the NEP and which failed miserably for a host of reasons, be now implemented by a Commission, comprising Malaysians of the utmost integrity, duly elected by the rakyat, and then formally appointed by the Agong.

Their task: to implement a social inclusion agenda that is presently being drafted and crafted by the MCLM Social Inclusion Agenda Team. The MCLM team has been tasked to prepare a program to comprehensively address the economic and social needs of the poorest Malaysians and migrants in the country.

This program is intended to be needs-based and not race-based.

For this program to be as comprehensive as we hope it can be, the participation of as many groups that have been working with the marginalised communities is required so that their expert knowledge may be taken up in drafting this program.

Towards this end, MCLM invites all parties concerned to address the needs of the marginalised communities to get involved in the crafting and drafting of the Social Inclusion Agenda.

That, in a nutshell, and presented in the simplest language possible, is the Agenda as well as Mission and Vision of MCLM. Whatever the political leaning or agenda of the various political parties and movements in Malaysia, there should be no resistance to what we have outlined above because our plan is all-inclusive.

And we must draw attention to the fact that the founding fathers of Malaya plus the architects of the New Economic Policy has this in mind when they came out with the two-pronged program to reduce the gap between the haves and the have-nots as well as that between the various races. All we are doing is to implement what was originally intended. We do not even need to reinvent the wheel.