Will Samy Vellu fall from grace?

The Indian community, led by Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), staged street demonstration in the capital last month. This was to highlight the perception that the community are being marginalised, lack of a meaningful stake in the economy, opportunities to progress in education, employment and business and its disproportionate representation in crime statistics. This has put the MIC and especially its president Datuk Seri S Samy Vellu under tremendous pressure. This is because Samy Vellu had been the president of MIC for the last 30 years. Deputy presidents had come and gone, with each departure due to disagreement with the president himself. Now the Samy had been jeered and shackled by the Indian community each time he was on his campaign trail. He is currently defending his parliamentary seat and has said that this will be his last election.

This seat must definately be one of the most watched. Will the president supremo be shown the door and fizzled out of politics disgraced or will he win another term in defiant of the hostility shown by some of the Indian community? But how important has Samy Vellu been to the Indian community?

This question will be difficult to answer but his importance may be induced from an incident which occured a many years ago. During the time, there was protest against the Ministry of Education's decision regarding Chinese education. (Unfortunately I cannot recall what the issue was but it involved the then deputy president of MCA, Datuk Lee Kim Sai). This had lead to Dong Zhong Jiao (United Chinese School Teachers Association of Malaysia) and the Chinese community issuing protests against the Government decision. Tension was rather high. The Government contained the incident by arresting many Chinses Opposition political leaders under ISA. And interestingly, the President and Deputy President of MCA and Gerakan, both Chinese-based party within the governing National Front, left the country. This in effect had cause a void in the leadership of the Chinese community. Fast forward to last month, when the Hindraf demonstrated in the streets of KL. Samy Vellu was still in Malaysia then. There was no need for him to take leave out of the country. The real reason may never be known but the implications are there.

So will Samy Vellu make a graceful exit after 30 years at the helm of MIC? Will he shown the door unceremoniously? Sungai Siput constituents will have the power to decide. And only time will tell.

P.S: If anyone can remember the then incident, please elaborate

12th Malaysian General Election

The nomination for the 12th Malaysian General Election was just completed 3 days ago. A few interesting points surfaced from the nominations.

Firstly, the nomination of candidates. This involves both the NF and the Oppositions. There seems to be a lot of unhappiness in the selection process. Incumbents seemed to be sidelined arbitrarily. New faces are selected, to run in constituencies held by the incumbents; not because incumbents are not serving their constituencies well but because they have to make way for national leaders. There is even a term coined for these candidates - parachute candidates! Then there are cases where party is held ransom because their chosen candidate was not selected initially. This is examplify by the case of Perlis MB who needed to 'consult' the PM and DPM repeated for the few days leading to the nomination. This was accompanied by the threat of his supporters to resign en mass if he was not fielded. The sad thing, of course, was that he was fielded eventually.

What these events implied is that the selection process seemed rather arbitrary. Of course I will never know what happened behind closed doors but the implication is that there is no clear and transparent way of choosing a candidate. Because if there is a transparent way, then I am sure those that are not selected will not feel cheated and resort to threats and blackmail to get back their seats.

Secondly, the integrity of some of the candidates. There are candidates who party-hopped so as to be a candidate, just because they are not chosen to stand in their previous party; and then there are those who just changed their mind about standing although they had vehemently proclaimed that they will not stand again because of differences with their party. All this makes one wonder where is their principles as far as politics is concerned. Do they really standby what they said or they just said what they said just to get votes?

Thirdly, PAS fielding a non-Muslim in Johor state seat under the PKR banner. I personally find it strange that PAS can field a non-Muslim when party constitution says that only Muslim can be a member of PAS. What is even more intriguing is that this non-Muslim candidate is a female. This is because from past speeches by PAS leaders, women had been portrayed rather negatively and was even dissuaded from working. Intriguing choice indeed. On top of that, this candidate runs under PKR but the seat if won will belong to PAS! Privately, this is possible but in practice, how can a candidate that run under PKR banner be counted under PAS banner? If this can be done then partyhopping should not even be an issue.

As of today, BN has already won ten parlimentary seats uncontested. There is no doubt that BN will win the election again, it is just the margin of victory that is in doubt. The Opposition looked more united this time round and most likely they will not do too badly given that there are few issues plaguing the Government eg inflation, Hindraf, etc. It will be interesting to see how MIC will do in this election.