Say no to Uthayakumar's threat

Malaysiakini’s HRP to Pakatan: Give us 15 parliamentary seats reported that HRP has issued an ultimatum to Pakatan Rakyat to back out and allow the Indian-based party to take on BN in straight fights in 15 parliamentary seats and 38 state seats in the next general election ...

... or else the opposition coalition will find itself in three-corner fights in the constituencies.

Parliamentary seats that HRP demands are:
1. Padang Serai (Incumbent: PKR - N Gobalakrishnan)
2. Batu Kawan (DAP - Ramasamy)
3. Sungei Siput (PSM - Dr D Jeyakumar)
4. Ipoh Barat (DAP - N Kulasegaran)
5. Bagan Datoh (BN - Ahmad Zahid Hamidi)
6. Cameron Highlands (BN - SK Devamany)
7. Hulu Selangor (BN - P Kamalanathan)
8. Kuala Selangor (PAS - Dzulkefy Ahmad)
9. Klang (DAP - Charles Santiago)
10. Kota Raja (PAS - Siti Mariah Mahmud)
11. Rasah (DAP - Anthony Loke)
12. Teluk Kemang (PKR - Kamarul Baharin Abbas)
13. Alor Gajah (BN - Fong Chan Onn)
14. Tebrau (BN - Teng Boon Soon)
15. Lembah Pantai (PKR - Nurul Izzah Anwar)

It's a wonder Uthayakumar didn't ask for the Pakatan leaders to kiss his feet as well.

To give my take on his atrociously avaricious demand let me first provide a brief discussion of what happened in the Australian state of Victoria recently.

In Australia there are two major parties, Labour and the Liberal-National Coalition, the latter known as just the Coalition. In recent times the Greens have emerged as a powerful 3rd Force. There are also a sprinkling of Independents, most being former Coalition members. The major parties realize that the minor or so-called 3rd Force parties (Greens and Independents) have been using their minority strength to extract disproportionate gains.

Senior civil servants have now emerged to complain that because of the Greens and some Independents (who have joined Labour to prevent a ‘hung parliament’), they (the civil servants) have far greater workloads than before. It's due to the minor parties insisting on being briefed separately on almost everything. Such briefings have doubled or tripled the workload of the civil servants, distracting them from the important tasks.

So, in the recent state election in Victoria, the Coalition has decided to bite the bullet and avoid ‘preferential-ing’ the Greens, risking even defeat. The Australian voting system has the ‘preferential votes’ system where parties can do deals and ‘preference’ the votes they received (when they are no longer in the running as a potential winner) to another party. Traditionally Labour and the Coalition preference each other last, meaning they won’t ever benefit from each other’s preferential votes, for obvious reason. So what the Coalition did was unprecedented, preparing to even lose in order to eliminate the Greens. They preferenced Greens last, meaning they were willing to have their main rival, Labour, benefit from their preferential votes. But the Coalition won.

While we don’t have a preferential voting system, the time has come for Pakatan to be brave (like the Victorian Coalition Party) and destroy HRP once and for all, even at the loss of a few seats. My reasons are as follows:

(1) Never give in to a threat, or you’ll forever be a slave to it. It’s better to lose in those threatened 3-corner fights than to have a blackmailing demon riding on your shoulders in each and every election.

(2) Don’t trust Uthayakumar as he is likely to jump over to the BN. This man is pompous, hubristic, self centred, and cannot be reasonably dealt with. Pakatan can’t and mustn’t do business with him.

(3) Giving in to his threat is far worse than fighting in out in 3-corner fights. Surrendering to Uthayakumar means losing those seats even before the election begins.

(4) Thus why cringe and provide Uthayakumar an easy ride.

(5) Most importantly, while HRP may do some damage, it’s not as significant as Uthayakumar has pompously presented. In reality the '27 Nov 2007' Hindraf has already disintegrated. For example, Thanethiran has taken his Makkal Sakthi and a host of Indian supporters over to the BN, while Ganabatirau and colleagues stay true with the DAP. Furthermore it’s known that most Indians have returned to the BN fold. So, what’s really there left of the old Hindraf or HRP, and thus of the real effect of Uthayakumar’s threat of 3-corner fights.

Ignore Uthayakumar and HRP. Don’t allow him to dictate to Pakatan even if some seats may be lost. Destroy this potential ‘Old Man of the Sea’.