Opinion
Thursday, 05 Sep 2024 10:01 AM MYTBy Praba Ganesan
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SEPT 5 — The dare ends the argument and produces a mic drop moment. Maybe from a friend or family member to you, to end your incessant blabbering about justice, truth and freedom at dinner.
“If you do not like how things are (don’t like the government), go and contest, and become an MP.”
Altogether, not a crazy idea. On face value. If a person is so committed to change or to do it differently, then he/she should run for office, no?
Let’s go with this then.
In this wild scenario where single-mindedness takes on the establishment.
The independent candidate with great ideas in his crowdfunded campaign defeats both the Pakatan Harapan and Perikatan Nasional (PN) candidate to win a parliamentary seat and heads off to Kuala Lumpur to represent his electorate.
Mr Smith, eat your heart out!
There is one condition though, and not inconsequential.
Even with the most talented candidate — the special someone who is all at once clever, clean, sincere and fire on stage — is there a constituency with enough progressives to ignore logos and just vote talent?
This place in Malaysia where the majority are sensible to a fault and uncommonly brave to back idealism.
Which would that be, Selayang or Lembah Pantai? Jelutong or Seremban?
Or perhaps Selangor’s Sungai Buloh, since it had one of the most striking races of the 15th General Election.
Three-term MP, Covid-19 pandemic’s health minister who procured vaccines, ex-brigadier-general and son-in-law to former prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar faced first time candidate and former MIC treasurer-general, Ramanan Ramakrishnan of PKR.
One a household name and the other PKR members had to scratch their heads to remember. One was BN Youth chief plus sports minister when the other was just another hand from a minor component party. Rifle through old BN press pictures, and find one with Khairy as star and Ramanan lurking in the back. The only segment Ramanan probably outsizes Khairy is in girth.
Oh yeah, one runs marathons and the other probably can spell marathon.
Surely a walkover for the bigger name.
Yet somehow, Ramanan (39 per cent) edged past Khairy (37 per cent) in the vote share.
The rank outsider beats a political darling.
What were the voters in Sungai Buloh thinking?
Thinking about logos and not about names. This is how elections are won in Malaysia, most certainly in the Semenanjung.
Which party wins enough seats to govern Malaysia dominates the thinking among voters, rather than which candidate serves the constituency best.
Those streaming into Sungai Buloh voting centres on November 19, 2022, had either Anwar Ibrahim, Zahid Hamidi or Muhyiddin Yassin taking the oath of office as prime minister in their minds, and soon after picking another inane slogan for national day.
It was not about rejecting Khairy as much as dreading Muhyiddin trumping Anwar or the other way around.
Were they wrong? Apparently not.
It was a race to a simple majority after an election night of indecision and that one seat — in Pakatan’s pocket and not BN’s — offered greater leverage in the power negotiations. For Khairy, his defeat certainly made it easier for Umno’s Supreme Council to sack him two months later.
All the races are proxies for the real battle among the major coalitions, and worryingly less centred around parliamentary candidates. Great candidates for a competitive party can muster a better vote share but ultimately the vote percentage is determined better by who is top of the ticket, the party leader. The decent candidate outdoes the best candidate if the former’s PM nominee flies past the latter’s leader.
Not palatable facts but that is how the cookie crumbles.
Khairy did not help himself by projecting Zahid as less than stellar during the election campaign.
The shape of a nonsense object
So, you are back at the dinner table.
The relative or friend is staring at you for a response.
Gobsmacked, you are!
But if this person does want an answer then he better be ready for a narrative.
There are a trio of requirements to meet in order to get to the starting block. Be a capable candidate, when just working on yourself is already a tall order. But then it gets even harder. Get at least another 150 capable candidates to contest in other constituencies. And finally, you 151 usurpers contest under a single banner.
Patience is necessary as humiliations are unavoidable at the beginning; survival is what matters and success is a medium-term dream, not expectation.
It is less fanciful, is it not?
While established parties’ logos are boring and flat, they are infinitely better than competing as a horse, elephant, tree, house or mangosteen — four of the 28 official independent candidate logos to pick from.
If Khairy contests in the parliamentary race using one of those symbols, I’d recommend the hoe. Play up his everyday man image.
But seriously, even Khairy would struggle to keep his deposit as an independent candidate. Despite three terms as Rembau MP he did not countenance for a second to stand up to Mohamad Hasan as an independent. He felt a chance existed in Sungai Buloh as a BN candidate despite being an outsider but zero chance as an independent in the seat he held for 14 years.
Just no good news for those seeking to challenge the status quo, is there?
At the dinner table, you are better off apologising and shut up. Because even halfway through explaining, the sinking feeling grows too heavy.
Damn, I did not say brace for impact right at the top. Sorry.
Penang's History, My Story | By Wong Chun Wai
He was the people’s Choy-ce
Undefeated: Choy celebrating after being the only Independent candidate to retain his seat (Pengkalan Kota) in the 1978 election
JALAN C.Y.CHOY
IF THERE is one thing that Penangites are noted for, it has to be their independent streak. Penang remains the only state that has voted out every single one of its chief ministers.
It started with its first chief minister, the late Wong Pow Nee of MCA, then the late Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu and his successor Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon, both of Gerakan.
The state has produced numerous outspoken opposition leaders activists and journalists.
But one person stands out above the rest — the late Choy Chee Yew, or popularly known as C.Y. Choy.
He was part of the Socialist Front and had the distinction of being the third and last mayor of George Town. It became a city by a royal charter granted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1957.
True to his route: Jalan C.Y.Choy remains a place with a working class community and home to various traders who have been doing business here for generations.
The Socialist Front was a coalition of the Labour Party of Malaya and the Parti Rakyat Malaya, which was formed to contest against the Alliance comprising Umno, MCA and MIC.
Historian Tan Kim Hong wrote in his research paper that in 1953, 16 intellectuals including D.S. Ramanathan, Tan Phock Kin, N. Patkunam, Lee Kok Liang, C.Y. Choy, Tan Chong Bee and V. Veerapan of the Fabian Society of Penang joined the Pan-Malayan Labour Party (PMLP).
“These professionals and teachers, all social democrats, moved to immerse themselves in politics, offering analyses, recommendations and political participation vastly different from those of the moderate trade unionists favoured by colonial officials.
“By early 1954, PMLP had come to resemble the British Labour Party, advocating gradual economic nationalisation and a welfare state.”
Choy won a city election in 1964 as a candidate of the then Socialist Front but ceased as mayor when the Federal Government suspended local elections two years later as a result of the Indonesian Confrontation.
Today, a road has been rightly named after him but ironically by the Barisan Nasional state government under Dr Lim, who had faced Choy in many political battles.
According to a newspaper report, Choy, who worked as an office assistant, was such a populist figure that when he walked into the streets, the people came out to shake his hand.
The Socialist Front later disbanded after its partners, the Labour Party and Parti Sosialis Rakyat Malaya, went separate ways due to the political upheavals of that time.
Refusing to join any other party but still wanting to serve the city folk, he took part in the 1969 general election as a candidate contesting the Pengkalan Kota state seat and won easily.
He remained an assemblyman until his death in 1980 at the age of 73 and Bridge Street, the main thoroughfare of the constituency, was re-named Jalan C.Y. Choy.
Choy’s symbol during his campaign was a set of keys. It was symbolic with independence as he won the seats under that banner.
The Pengkalan Kota constituency has always been a working class area.
His humble and down-to-earth approach reportedly endeared him to the voters.
Local historian and publisher historian Khoo Salma Nasution described Jalan C.Y. Choy as a former working-class quarter of the Hokkien community which once supported a triad society.
“The shophouses along the whole length of Bridge Street are strikingly regular – most were rebuilt in the late 19th century, replacing houses of wood and attap which had been repeatedly set on fire by the rival society.”
Despite having no official position after the Socialist Front deregistered, he still commanded the support of his constituents.
He often went around the constituency, stopping at five-foot-ways with a typewriter to write petitions and letters to the authorities.
His mostly-illiterate voters called him ‘the father of hawkers’ and by 1974, Choy retained his seat with a 5,000 vote majority. By then, he was nearly 70 years old.
Jalan C.Y. Choy still remains very much a working class area, with its hawkers, traders and blue-collar community.
Every state assemblymen for Pengkalan Kota; from Teoh Teik Huat (DAP), Lim Kean Siew (MCA) and Lee Hack Teik (MCA) has all tried to emulate Choy’s populist image.
They have all come and gone but none will be able to match Choy’s legendary ways and legacy as the fighter of the downtrodden.
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