Constantly lying

#UndiRosak is about sending a message, not about ‘change’

By Hafidz Bharom

Our rights as voters is to just not vote for them or spoil our votes to make them change within themselves.

I thank Chew Jian Li for clarifying his gender in his letter, “A spoilt vote will not bring you the change you want”.

I remained neutral in my letter to his earlier reply, to keep from giving offence by using the wrong pronouns. I am honoured that he has read up my pieces on waste-to-energy technology in Malaysia, which I still support.

I am sorry to hear about your mother’s business, but yes, I still back the GST rather than the SST.

That being said, I wonder whether Chew thinks only one side is offering “dedak” or animal feed – an offensive word coined by Dr Mahathir Mohamed himself to describe direct transfers of welfare by this government which was done in lieu of granting blanket subsidies in the form of the 1Malaysia People’s Aid (BR1M).

For those unfamiliar, BR1M is similar to the implementation of Bolsa Familia in Brazil.

Now, the problem with Pakatan Harapan in this instance, after calling it bribery (as labelled by Azmin Ali in December 2016), after Mahathir called it dedak (June 2016), is that it decided to continue the programme.

That hypocrisy is self-evident. So, if we disbelieve in giving dedak and bribery as these two labelled it, and they themselves have U-turned from this decision as per their manifesto, do you actually believe they have changed?

Let us not forget, Mahathir was a fellow who wanted to remove Ambiga Sreenivasan’s citizenship over Bersih (Feb 2013), which led to DAP leader S Ramakrishnan calling to revoke his citizenship over “Project IC” (Feb 2013).

There are a million and one contradictions to Mahathir that are somehow being whitewashed right now – the latest one is him denying even owning The Loaf which just shut down, as if we couldn’t just access the Companies Commission and show him lying.

Latest: Mahathir informed Singapore Straits Times he owned The Loaf, and tried to sell his lifestyle bakery and bistro in order to raise funds for the 14th general election.

This is the biggest problem with our former prime minister – he lies too much. From saying he “never abused the ISA”, to saying, “he wants to continue tolls” and then backtracking in the PH manifesto, to only apologising for using a certain word due to backlash and fear of losing the Malaysian Indian vote.

While Chew is correct that I’ve omitted mentioning Mahathir, it’s because I don’t see him as the saviour Chew does.

After all, Chew forgets the multiple failed projects of Mahathir such as the Plaza Rakyat, the Bank Negara Forex loss, Perwaja Steel, BMF Holdings which even Lim Kit Siang wrote a book against it and is now mum about it, independent power producers (IPP) with jacked up prices, MISC, the Bakun Dam project and many more.

Plus, I do believe Chew forgets that PKFZ was done during Mahathir’s time. It started in 2002.

Of course, for PH altogether, there’s also backtracking on free education and yet offering “free EPL” and the lack of funding a shadow cabinet, but let’s not go there.

For sure I’m unhappy with Barisan Nasional as well, but while you are focused on the racial and the loss of billions, along with the rape of the environment for natural resources, mine is again on the economic side.

For example – I’m none too keen about microcredit schemes, nor am I keen on having RM500 million allocated to fund Integrated Building Systems (IBS) when we already have such factories in place.

At the same time, yes, I’m critical of giving money to Felda settlers in the form of a RM7,500 grant for every hectare for replanting – which happens in 20-year cycles, and settlers should have focused on saving for that. What happened there?

Now, Chew, allow me to correct one misinformed belief of yours. #UndiRosak won’t just be an issue with PH, but also an issue for BN as well. The only difference is PH supporters are more vocal on social media – yet many do not understand this.

Consider the following – just recently Wangsa Maju Umno rallied against the seat landing in MCA’s hands. What do you think would happen if this continues? Surely, the BN people might not vote for their own candidate by boycotting the election altogether or doing what we advocate in spoiling their votes.

Read also: Interesting development for Bandar Tun Razak constituency.

Thus, those of us keen to spoil our votes will keep saying this – our votes will favour nobody, not PAS, not BN, not PH. They will have to win without our votes and rely on the other voters. If they fail to even convince other people to vote for them, that is their problem, not ours.

This is our right in democracy and if Chew believes we need political maturity in this nation, then this will either drag all political parties to do so, or they can disregard it and continue to watch the growing disinterest among voters in continuing elections.

And let us be frank, everyday Malaysians are at the mercy of political parties in which we have no direct say who should be the candidates in state assembly, in Parliament or even as prime minister – the way it works in Malaysia is that these are all in the hands of political parties.

Thus, if political parties want to continue being little fiefdoms of keeping the same old, same old leaders who have lost general elections time and time again, that is their right – our rights as voters is to just not vote for them or spoil our votes to make them change within themselves.

Finally, I would like to just clarify with Chew one final point – #UndiRosak is not about change, it’s about sending a message.

We voters are sick of the hypocrisy of all sides of the political divide. We are sick of the easiness of all sides to just turn the cheek in order to try and win the election. We are sick of old fossils dominating politics while the young and talented leaders are denied their chance to lead.

If the only “change” that PH can market is letting a constantly lying 93-year-old former prime minister to take centre stage rather than their own leaders who have toiled for 20 years denouncing him, then they don’t deserve my vote.

As for wanting their victory, I stand by my statement on a certain “Live” video – I can wait another five to 10 years until they fix themselves up.

I will reconsider my vote when they grow up in 2023, but for this year, I believe many more will spoil their votes out of the disappointment with both sides unable to cater to our needs and wants thoroughly, either by economic policies or even structural reformation.