Screenshots

Dark comedy time again.

April 14, Screenshots cajoled the readers by saying that any YB who dies in office can benefit local communities by bringing in by-election goodies.

Judging from what has been promised to Ijok before nomination day tomorrow, Machap may now look like chicken-feed.

According to Bernama, Selangor Menteri Besar Dr Mohd Khir Toyo announced this morning that the state government has allocated RM36 million for various development projects to be implemented within these two weeks in Ijok.

How much is RM36 million? Just a crude illustration. There are about 12,310 voters in Ijok. RM36 million works out to be roughly RM3,000 per voter that will collectively benefit the local community in a chunk.

A Little Bird who has been setting camp in Batang Berjuntai told Screenshots that the re-surfacing of roads is just about everywhere, literally.

"Last night, they were working on the road right across the Batang Berjuntai PKR operations room, and on the way there from KL," the source said. "There were massive jams caused by tarring from miles away."

Start Bangsa Malaysia from somewhere

Rhetorics aside, Parti Keadilan Rakyat's (PKR) decision to field a Malay candidate to contest in the Ijok by-election, formerly held by an Indian, is a bold move towards eradicating the mentality of race-based politics.

Khalid Ibrahim: Is being a Malay candidate an issue? LensaPress photo by Jeff Ooi

Modern-day electorates are now faced with the precious opportunity to renew their political orientation.

If the plights of the Indian-Malaysians can only be championed by an Indian elected representative, then the particular ethnic group shouldn't complain for their being marginalised as MIC had been there to take care of their interests for the past 50 years.

The same thinking should apply on those who thought MCA should represent the Chinese community, and Umno the Malays.

As it is, delineation of poll constituencies had been done in such a way that non-Umno political parties could never out-pace Malaysia's most dominant (or rather, most domineering) party. Seats shared on the notion of power-sharing are, in real life, ampun kurnia from Umno... dulu, kini dan selamanya. The equation won't change, and Sabah's Chong Kah Kiat is but a recent living testimony.

This is the feudalism of race-based politics. I have stayed in the kampung during my childhood days. My neighbourhood in Pendang had voted in Malay candidates (with winners from Umno and PAS in rotation), and our plight as non-Malays had not tremendously worsened nor acutely improved over the 20 years or so I lived there.

It was the same case when I stayed in Bangsar and Subang Jaya. Whether I was represented by a Malay, a Chinese or an Indian elected representative, nothing fundamental had changed while everybody drifted along the mainstream dictated by Umno politics.

Like Haris Ibrahim (The People's Parliament), I voted for Barisan Nasional in 2004. Hindsight is 202-20, and now, we somehow realise that living in a multiracial country, getting Indians to represent Indians, Chinese for Chinese and Malays for Malays are old-age snake oils that should be chucked away if Bangsa Malaysia is to have any chance to nestle.

Bangsa Malaysia, if ever it developed into being one day, should start from somewhere, no matter it's from the government or the opposition of the day.

I would think that, by fielding a Malay candidate in Ijok, PKR is walking its talk in promoting a non-communal political psyche for Malaysia that it professed to champion. It may run against the old convention of communal politics Malaya/Malaysia had come to be conditioned. But Malaysians should pause a while to ponder to see if this country can take a new approach to avert the polarisation of various races at the level of partisan politics.

Political Rhetorics vs Old Conventions

However, let's not forget that, In Malaysian politics, money talks. And big money talks big.

In an exclusive interview with Malaysiakini, PKR candidate Khalid Ibrahim cited as proof the rise in the BN government's operating expenditure from RM50 billion seven years ago to RM112 billion last year.

He estimated that for every ringgit spent, as much as 50% was siphoned off in payments to the "rentier class."

He also said that the way the New Economic Policy (NEP) has been implemented has resulted in the creation of a rentier class that "just collects payoffs on approvals for projects, licences, what not".

But there is political reality to contend with. Malaysiakini asks:

How will PKR’s evolving stance on the NEP - the party says the NEP is in dire need of review - play in Ijok, especially among its majority Malay voters, inured like the rest of its cohorts throughout Malaysia to a 37-year-old policy of political if not psychological necessity?

Ijok has a spread of 51% Malays, 28% Indians and 21% Chinese in the electoral roll. Can PKR pull off another Lunas 2000 to unseat BN(MIC)?

Will PKR's young personalities -- the likes of people behind AnwarIbrahimBlog.com including Nurul Izzah, Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad (King’s College London), Sharifah Shahidah, Shamsul Iskandar and Nathaniel Tan (Harvard University) -- cast an impact on new voters?

These will be closely tracked in the next few days.

FAMOUS LAST WORDS. The black humour is that, should Khalid lose on April 28, the corporate chieftain that he once was should at least help drum up BN's Ijok by-election goodies to beyond RM120 million, and not stopping short at just RM36 million that the Umno MB had announced so far.

In other words, Ijok folks should make RM10,000 per voter as their asking price since Santa Clause is coming to town in a rare swing.

Meanwhile, let's see if another YB were to die in office elsewhere any time soon.

P/S: PKR's Ijok blog just went up yesterday.