Hulu Selangor by-election - Déjà vu Ijok?

The Malaysian Insider’s article title Pro-Mat Taib campaign begins in Hulu Selangor says it all – Mike Tyson wants back in.

His supporters screamed: “For the sake of unity we want Tan Sri Dato’ Hj Muhammad Bin Hj Muhd Taib as a candidate for Hulu Selangor.”

'... sake of unity ...'? What about MIC? wakakaka.

“His name is very popular here. Hulu Selangor used to be a sleepy hollow, but not anymore when Tan Sri Mat Taib served as mentri besar.”

Ya, but what has he done since then, other than to tell Australian Custom he didn’t understand English? This calls for another wakakaka.

Well, the local Umno leaders have been demanding that a Malay candidate be the candidate for the by-election which has understandably panicked the MIC, a devastated party post-March 2008 and which is now desperate to put its deputy party president back into the cabinet.

Poor Palanivel is not only fretting about his nomination but also about intra party backstabiing leading him to state to Malaysiakini that he is the one and only MIC candidate that his party will or has forwarded (?) to the BN Chairman for consideration.

One can’t blame Palanivel for frustratingly fighting a battle on two fronts, against competition from Mike Tyson (or another UMNO bloke) and his own party because the MIC was previously said to have submitted several names to the BN chairperson for the Hulu Selangor by-election.

Anyway, if we recall, the Hulu Selangor by-election situation is exactly like the Ijok by-election.

One - Hulu Selangor demographics tell us that its voters are made up of 53.9% Malays, 19% Indian and 26.7% Chinese (see MKINI's chart below), while Ijok has more or less the same ethnic make-up with only the Chinese and Indians switching percentages – 52% Malays, 28% Indians and 21% Chinese.


Two – It’s likely that despite the Malay majority in the constituency, Najib will nominate Palanivel unless of course Samy Vellu interferes with that, by either putting his own name in (toupee and all wakakaka) or selecting someone who isn’t likely to be a greater threat to him than poor Palanivel. This is not inconceivable of Samy’s manoeuvring, manipulating Machiavellian mischief in order to remain MIC's No 1 for another zillion years.

Three – PKR will once again pick a Malay, and perhaps shows its lack of daring compared to the BN in nominating a candidate without considering the ethnicity of its candidate - I am of course assuming that BN will pick poor worried Palanivel. But if Selangor UMNO succeeds in pushing Mike Tyson’s candidature, or Najib wanting to play safe in Hulu Selangor by nominating a Malay candidate, unlike in the Ijok by-election then wakakaka, Najib has no confidence in his own 1Malaysia.

Incidentally, on the other side (PKR), this time I don’t hear appeals from the Indian sector of PKR or NGOs or other Indian leading personalities like Premesh (Malaysiakini), except from Manoharan of the DAP, for PKR to nominate an Indian candidate. See my April 2007 post Ijok Indians racially marginalised by PKR? where I wrote (extract only):

Well, it seems Premesh Chandrean’s advice to the PKR, published in malaysiakini, has not been taken up ...

PKR is likely to nominate a Malay candidate, Khalid Ibrahim, for the Ijok by-election. The PKR Youth vice-chief S Manikavasagam has expressed his unhappiness, pointing out a couple of things to the PKR top echelon, namely (1) notwithstanding that Ijok is a constituency with 50% Malay voters, the Barisan Nasional (BN) is fielding an Indian candidate, so why not PKR? and (2) Khalid Ibrahim is a political ‘parachutist’, having just joined the party less than a year ago while there are capable PKR Indian members who have been in PKR for years and could well be the nominated candidate for the by-election.

As for Manoharan’s proposal please see my earlier post Uthayakumar for Hulu Selangor?

Mind you, Manoharan’s rather radical proposal for PKR and DAP to swap Hulu Selangor (allocated to PKR) for Batu Kawan (allocated to DAP and currently held by Dr Ramasamy) has more to do with mollifying Uthayakumar and getting him onside with Pakakan

So … let’s see whether Palanivel will be nominated as the BN candidate.