SEPTEMBER 5 — The dare ends the argument and produces a mic drop moment. Maybe from a friend or family member to you, to end your incessant blabbering about justice, truth and freedom at dinner.
“If you do not like how things are (don’t like the government), go and contest, and become an MP.”
Altogether, not a crazy idea. On face value. If a person is so committed to change or to do it differently, then he/she should run for office, no?
Let’s go with this then.
In this wild scenario where single-mindedness takes on the establishment.
The independent candidate with great ideas in his crowdfunded campaign defeats both the Pakatan Harapan and Perikatan Nasional (PN) candidate to win a parliamentary seat and heads off to Kuala Lumpur to represent his electorate.
Mr Smith, eat your heart out!
There is one condition though, and not inconsequential.
Even with the most talented candidate — the special someone who is all at once clever, clean, sincere and fire on stage — is there a constituency with enough progressives to ignore logos and just vote talent?
This place in Malaysia where the majority are sensible to a fault and uncommonly brave to back idealism.
Which would that be, Selayang or Lembah Pantai? Jelutong or Seremban?
Or perhaps Selangor’s Sungai Buloh, since it had one of the most striking races of the 15th General Election.
Three-term MP, Covid-19 pandemic’s health minister who procured vaccines, ex-brigadier-general and son-in-law to former prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar faced first time candidate and former MIC treasurer-general, Ramanan Ramakrishnan of PKR.
One a household name and the other PKR members had to scratch their heads to remember. One was BN Youth chief plus sports minister when the other was just another hand from a minor component party. Rifle through old BN press pictures, and find one with Khairy as star and Ramanan lurking in the back. The only segment Ramanan probably outsizes Khairy is in girth.
Oh yeah, one runs marathons and the other probably can spell marathon.
Surely a walkover for the bigger name.
Yet somehow, Ramanan (39 per cent) edged past Khairy (37 per cent) in the vote share.
The rank outsider beats a political darling.
What were the voters in Sungai Buloh thinking?
Thinking about logos and not about names. This is how elections are won in Malaysia, most certainly in the Semenanjung.
Which party wins enough seats to govern Malaysia dominates the thinking among voters, rather than which candidate serves the constituency best.
Those streaming into Sungai Buloh voting centres on November 19, 2022, had either Anwar Ibrahim, Zahid Hamidi or Muhyiddin Yassin taking the oath of office as prime minister in their minds, and soon after picking another inane slogan for national day.
It was not about rejecting Khairy as much as dreading Muhyiddin trumping Anwar or the other way around.
Were they wrong? Apparently not.
It was a race to a simple majority after an election night of indecision and that one seat — in Pakatan’s pocket and not BN’s — offered greater leverage in the power negotiations. For Khairy, his defeat certainly made it easier for Umno’s Supreme Council to sack him two months later.
All the races are proxies for the real battle among the major coalitions, and worryingly less centred around parliamentary candidates. Great candidates for a competitive party can muster a better vote share but ultimately the vote percentage is determined better by who is top of the ticket, the party leader. The decent candidate outdoes the best candidate if the former’s PM nominee flies past the latter’s leader.
Not palatable facts but that is how the cookie crumbles.
Khairy did not help himself by projecting Zahid as less than stellar during the election campaign.
The shape of a nonsense object
So, you are back at the dinner table.
The relative or friend is staring at you for a response.
Gobsmacked, you are!
But if this person does want an answer then he better be ready for a narrative.
There are a trio of requirements to meet in order to get to the starting block. Be a capable candidate, when just working on yourself is already a tall order. But then it gets even harder. Get at least another 150 capable candidates to contest in other constituencies. And finally, you 151 usurpers contest under a single banner.
Patience is necessary as humiliations are unavoidable at the beginning; survival is what matters and success is a medium-term dream, not expectation.
It is less fanciful, is it not?
While established parties’ logos are boring and flat, they are infinitely better than competing as a horse, elephant, tree, house or mangosteen — four of the 28 official independent candidate logos to pick from.
If Khairy contests in the parliamentary race using one of those symbols, I’d recommend the hoe. Play up his everyday man image.
But seriously, even Khairy would struggle to keep his deposit as an independent candidate. Despite three terms as Rembau MP he did not countenance for a second to stand up to Mohamad Hasan as an independent. He felt a chance existed in Sungai Buloh as a BN candidate despite being an outsider but zero chance as an independent in the seat he held for 14 years.
Just no good news for those seeking to challenge the status quo, is there?
At the dinner table, you are better off apologising and shut up. Because even halfway through explaining, the sinking feeling grows too heavy.
Damn, I did not say brace for impact right at the top. Sorry.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
