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.