8 March 2008 - A Year After!!
This is what I wrote on the 7th March 2008:
"Like for instance I am rather certain Barisan Nasional will hold on to more than 50% of the seats contested for Parliament..."
Yes they did. But they lost their two-thirds as I had also conjectured then..
I also did say then, the GE was only a precursor to the battle within UMNO which was really the one to watch. It was to be Najib's opportunity to get to the PMs seat now rather than wait for Badawi to retire or die!
Now, these things have happened and is happening.
Then at about noon on 8th March I wrote:
A quote from Abdullah Badawi on the NST of that same day : "quote from Abdullah Badawi. He says "You have to vote for our future... our children. What will happen if there is chaos and instability?..."
God knows what kind of chaos and instability he was talking about. Was it the kind that happened on May 13?
Or was it that he knew, if only BN lost their sacred two-third majority in parliament they'd be like headless chicken flapping away until they eventually fall and die!
They ended up losing not just the two-thirds majority, they even went on to lose 4 states. Something I completely had lost sight of when making my earlier predictions.
A Year Later
Well, they have managed to reclaim Perak. Or so they say!
But just take a look at how they have got about to achieve what they have achieved in Perak. Or have they achieved anything yet?
Yes they have. Quite surely Sultan Azlan Shah must be thinking that he has been had by Najib Tun Razak. Believing that everything was alright the Sultan went ahead and did what he did to appoint the BN man Menteri Besar and asking the Pakatan man to resign.
He satisfied himself that BN had the confidence of the majority in a way that he felt satisfied. But now, he might be thinking, maybe it was not alright.
Does not matter, let us take it the way the Sultan determined that the confidence of the majority was now with the BN, was alright and he waited for the BN to send in their Malay Adun to be conferred the MB of Perak. But just see who walks in. That alone should have made the Sultan feel a little silly as less than a year ago we hear the Sultan had insisted the MB has to be a Malay even if the majority party in Perak was DAP with non-Malay Aduns.
Nevermind that, I would suppose when a political leader goes to see the Royalty for his favour and his endorsement, surely the least any citizen may assume is that the political leader has everything wrapped up and when the Sultan grants that favour and endorsement, as he did in this case, that the Sultan will not subsequently see that the favour he has granted or the endorsement that he has made is frustrated like in the way it has been now by the Speaker of the House.
Is the speaker being disloyal to the Sultan? I don't think so. He is afterall only doing the job that he should be doing as a Speaker employing all the powers and authorites that are vested in him according to the state constitution.
Najib, with all his bravado, has conducted himself just like a headless chicken. A headless chicken runs about with no rhyme or reason until it drops dead.
Maybe it is this that Abdullah Badawi was quoted as saying as reported on the 8th March 2008.
Of course many believed that by chaos and instability that would mean the collapse of any kind of system. The collapse of many of the institutions of government. The collapse of the administrative machinary. But has it really?
Sure, the police don't seem to know who they are supposed to be working for. Same with many of the government servants at the various State departments under Pakatan Rakyat.
There is confusion of course. The BN and government were synonymously and interchangeably used as referring to the one and the same. Even opposition political leaders while campaigning and even till today keep referring to the poltical BN and the Government administration as one and the same. So you can't really fault the government servants who think that their allegiance should be to the BN leadership. Pakatan is still the stranger and a temporary guest in the house.
BN leaders are so used to having their word to be final. Mainstream Media too fall over each otehr to quote these leaders. But hey, Toyo is just an opposition ADUN. He gets more coverage and his statements are coloured in the most favourable way so that it seems suthoritative and final. Unlike the statements made by Selangor MB Khalid which come off looking suspect and weak. Toyo's denial of any allegation of corruption somehow looks more authoritative than Khalid's accusation of him which seems to be rather, pleading.
The by-elections so far have proven one thing to UMNO. Their claim on behalf of the Malays that they are the "tuans" under the ketuanan Melayu mantra have fallen on deaf ears. Teh Malay vote has left them and if they have been found bleeding in the elections, the taken for granted Chinese and Indian votes too have left them in a very big way. They probably have also determined that it is going to take a lot more longer time to redeem the non-Malay vote. And this means they have to get the Malay vote all the way back to them.
How? PAS is stronger than before. Keadilan takes the urban Malays. So what and who is left for UMNO? They now resurrect the Allah issue. They can easily achieve the victory they want. Stop Christians using it. And what can that be marketed as? An example of ketuanan Melayu maybe? Or better still, a jihad won only by the Malays within the Muslim world! UMNO did it. Not PAS!! So UMNO are really the defenders of the Islamic religion. After all PAS is divided on this issue. Better still as a result of this division PAS breaks up.
Yes there is chaos and instability. But mostly only those orchestrated by UMNO and to benefit UMNO. Perak is a great lesson for Pakatan. Its brought out heros like Nizar and Sivakumar. They must surely be the champions for a majority of the Chinese in Perak. And UMNO would have us believe that we can only find our heros from within our own racial communities.
I would like to look at Perak positively. I would like to think that Perak has forced upon the three parties in Pakatan to come closer and to see how one depends on the other for strength and security.
But more importantly, Perak has also shown what UMNO and Najib are prepared to do to achieve their evil aims. Evn if it means deceiving the Royalty. With over 51 years of experience in governmning the country as well as the states they cannot now claim they did not know about the powers of the Speaker of the House.
There is also the bigger job of having to further move the Anak Bangsa Malaysia agenda. Since 8th March 2008 I have this believe that we look at ourselves as well as our other country men as Malaysians. Less of Malays, Indians and Chinese and others. Hope this will grow on us. Of course this is not exactly what might be good for UMNO and its BN formulae. Already they can see that they are not able to order around their partners in BN as they used to before. No doubt MCA and MIC have far less seats in parliament today. So what? As long as the Malay vote remains divided, UMNO now has learnt the bitter lesson that they need teh Chinese and the Indian votes more.