The Real Reason why Zuraida backtracked from local council elections

Malaysiakini:

PSM blasts Zuraida's 'lame excuse' for backing down on local govt polls





Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) today lambasted Local Government and Housing Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin for backing down on the local government election issue, saying it was sad that she had given up so easily while citing lame excuses.

"This shows that someone who has been so brave previously in breaking party ranks (when in PKR) is now not prepared to do it this time in spite of making all the arguments why local government elections are good," said PSM deputy chairperson S Arutchelvan (above) in a statement.

"While today, they keep talking about racial considerations, the main reason (for opposing local elections) is because these parties want to appoint political loyalists rather than (allow the) people to have elected representatives."

Arutchelvan was responding to Zuraida's announcement in the Dewan Rakyat today that the Perikatan Nasional government would not hold local government elections, saying that both society and local governments were not ready for "the drastic" move of council elections.

The former local councillor for the Kajang Municipal Council reminded Zuraida that far from being a drastic change, local government elections existed in the 1950s and 1960s at a time when the country had fewer facilities and poorer technology.





"Therefore it not a new thing like (that we should keep) debating as if it is something out of the world. A majority of countries in the world have the third vote," he added.

Taking a walk down memory lane, Arutchelvan said local elections were held in the country in 1958 and 1963.

"They were suspended because of the 1964 Confrontation with Indonesia and the Emergency (Suspension of Local Government Elections) Regulations 1965, not because of the May 13, 1969 racial riots."

This had followed a period when the Socialist Front coalition of the Labour Party and Parti Rakyat Malaysia had done very well in local council elections, winning the mayorship of Penang under DS Ramanathan.

kt note:

DS Ramanathan 1st mayor of Georgetown was racially voted in by racist Penang Chinese who years later also racially voted in Karpal Singh in a Chinese "tiger den" seat in Jelutong and then in Gelugor, his sons Ramkarpal Singh, Jagdeep Singh, Zairil Khir, Dr Ramasamy, Kasthuriraani Patto

Meanwhile, racist Ipoh-Perak Chinese racially voted in D.R Seenivasegam and S/P Seenivasegam and years later also M Kulasegaran.

Then racist Selangor Chinese in Klang racially voted in Charles Santiago and those in Puchong voted in Gobind Singh (also Karpal Singh's son)

and many more non-Chinese MPs and ADUNs.

Consider those Chinese voters as racists but stupid ones who couldn't tell Chinese from other races.

The reason why the Sembu***nyi's froggy partner has backtracked from local council elections has been the PN's partner PAS which FEARS such urban elections.

Malaysiakini reported in Hadi refused to accept fact on Malay majority in local councils (26 Dec 2018) (extracts):

PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang has so far refused to accept the fact that Malays make up the current majority of local councillors, according to Foreign Affairs Minister Saifuddin Abdullah.

Taking to Twitter, Saifuddin was responding to comments on Hadi's reported remarks in London, that local elections must be inclusive so that cities are not dominated by just one race.

"The fact is Malays are the majority in most local councils. But he (Hadi) didn't want to believe it," said Saifuddin to a question on how would the local government results differ from the normal general elections in terms of ethnicity as Malays remained to be the majority population.

"We have to rebut him," the Indera Mahkota MP said to another comment on how Hadi was merely spreading disinformation in arguing against the call to reinstate local government elections.

On Christmas Eve, tempers flared at a dialogue session with Hadi in London, when an audience member asked why the former was being "racist" and against local council elections.

Hadi had warned about a possible repeat of the May 13 race riots if only one race was in power and this had incensed the audience member who first questioned him.


The man then responded by verbally abusing Hadi, claiming the latter's following of the Al Quran had caused his mind to be "stuck in 1969."

Faced with a barrage of expletives, Hadi reiterated his belief that local council elections must be inclusive, so that no one race controls the cities, as this can cause tension.





Meanwhile, DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang said he was taken aback by Hadi's latest remark against local council elections as the same arguments on alleged dominance of one race had been countered since three years ago. 

"In fact, the argument that the restoration of local council elections would benefit the Chinese at the expense of the Malays is even more untenable today," stressed the Iskandar Puteri MP.

Lim recalled how three years ago he had cited figures from the 2010 national census which showed that out of the 148 local authorities in Malaysia - comprising three city halls, nine city councils, 37 municipal councils and 99 district councils - only two percent or three of the local authorities have Chinese majorities, namely Sibu (Chinese 63.4 percent, Malay/bumiputera 35.7 percent, Indians 0.4 percent, others 0.5 percent); Kuching Selatan (Chinese 62.5 percent, Malay/bumiputera 36.4 percent, Indians 0.6 percent, others 0.5 percent) and Pulau Pinang (Chinese 56.4 percent, Malays 33.7 percent, Indians 9.5 percent, others 0.4 percent).

On the other hand, local authorities with Malay majorities of over 50 percent of the population numbered 132 or 89.2 percent of the 148 local authorities