At a time when the country is facing unforeseen global economic uncertainties as a result of the war in the Middle East, two former PKR lawmakers have decided to leave the party whose platform they have used to contest and won in the last general election.
I am speaking as one, like most of you, who thought that in Rafizi Ramli we have a future Priime Minister worthy of our support. However, in recent months, his efforts to destroy the very efforts he had put in to contribute to the Reformasi movement, has caused me to scrutiise his actions.
The last thing both he and his deputy Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad should do is to vacate their parliamentary seats. By vacating their seats, they would most definitely force another two by-elections in the two constituencies - Pandan and Setiawangsa.
Burden to the poeple
That would mean the voters in these two constituencies would have to go to the poll stations again, amidst the economic pressures that they are already experiencing, now both Rafizi and Nik Nazmi’s decisions will add to their daily pressures.
The Election Commissions will have to spend a lot of money now to run the by-elections, which will cost thousands of Ringgit in public funds. The irony here is what many people may not see.
If you put on your thinking cap, you may see what I see as something that is more cynical than what it seems to be just an innocent decision.
People who are familiar with the SWOT analysis being carried out before a decision is made would be able to see the advantages to both parliamentarians outweigh the disadvantages.
Of course, my analysis can be wrong, and, of course, both Rafizi and Nik Nazmi’s decisions are their constitutional rights. After all, they cannot see things eye-to-eye with their former political party; therefore, they would not want to keep the seat that was won using the Keadilan platform.
My reason for writing this piece is because I truly wonder why they chose to make this decision to force another by-election, when the next General Election is hardly 20 - 24 months from now.
Let me breakdown my analysis; then, hopefully you can see what I see. Two years is a short time, and most people will say, “Just close your eyes, and the 24 months will pass by without you realizing it.”
Meanwhile, Rafizi and Nik Nazmi could continue serving the constituents who gave them the mandate. You do not need to be in the government to serve the people. So, I wonder why they are not doing what should make more sense for them as responsible parliamentarians, especially when the country is faced with the global economic uncertainties.
Rafizi should know this better especially since he was the given the post of economy minister.
Why am I cynical?
Instead of doing what makes sense to most of us, it now appears like the two had something more cynical.
They are using the by-election to test their voters in the two constituencies to see if these are safe seats for them.
If they win, they have something to shout about, and they would almost certainly remain in these safe seats more many years to come.
What if they lost? Well, it’s only two years, after all, the next general election may not be any longer than 20 months. It can be called 18 months from now and one-and-a-half year is just the twinkling of an eye.
But what matters to most politicians is their ceramah, which will be picked up by the press. This appears to be the biggest advantage both of them would have now that they are no longer in government. And the by-election platform is the best platform to use to hit out at the prime minister and distract his attention from focusing on the country’s economy.
All politicians are the same. Only very few politicians think about the people. The prime minister in a recent speech had berated even politicians within his coalition who want positions, or to be picked to contest in the general election but when they win, they forget the people altogether. Even they do not have WhatsApp anymore - a remark that apparently targeted at Rafizi who recently said he has removed WhatsApp from his phone (no wonder my whispers to him never reached him).
I don’t think Rafizi and Nik Nazmi are any difference here. For me, it is easy, if I cannot whisper to him that their decision may not be right, I will have no choice but to put it in the public domain with the hope that he would give some consideration to the poeple’s sufferings instead of seeking their own political agenda and using the people’s votes to go against all the good efforts by the government to ensure :
- stateless people are given their citizenship
- Borders are less porous, and corrupt officers are charged
- Subsidies are targeted rather than totally removed as per the recommendations made by international bodies such as the IMF for the past 20 years
- SST is implemented for certain items rather than the broader spectrum that cover all goods and services under the GST system
- The net for corruption has been spread far and wide. Big crocodiles are also caught.
- Recouping of some RM15 billion from seizure of assets and millions in cash
- Many corruption cases previously unheard of have now been charged i in court.
- A pathway now created for UEC students to enter public universities, beginning with four subjects.
In fact, I think both Rafizi and Nik Nazmi were too hasty in leaving the cabinet. While I can understand that Saifuddin Nasution Ismail wears the hat as the home minister; therefore, he would not agree for children born to foreigners to be dumped in Malaysia because they end up being adopted into families that can take better care of them (to the point that many Sabahans are against automatic citizenship given to children adopted from the streets whose parents are unknown), which is why the original amendment had this clause to deter such dumping of babies, especially at provinces at the borders with Thailand, Indonesia or the Philippines. But from Loke’s speech, it is apparent that the Madani government still believes in the votes instead of suppressing the DAP’s voice as with the past governments where the DAP was in the Opposition.
If Rafizi and Nik Nazmi were sincere to serve their constituents, they could do a lot more by speaking to Anwar about their constituencies. Anwar is known to be open to the needs of the B40 community, regardless of whether they are Bumiputra, or any other races. He said that MITTA, for example, is only given RM100 million, but if people approach him nicely and let him realise the people’s sufferings, he would give more allocations to help improve the fate of the poeple long neglected in the past, which was clearly demonstrated during his recent visit to Pulau Banggi (read postscript below), where he allocated RM31 million in funds to improve the infrastructure especially the education opportunities provided to the young people in that is and off Sabah, long forgotten and neglected by all governments in the past.
So, with this i want to end by asking Rafizi and Nik Nazmi, where are your priorities: the poeple or your own political future?
Anti-hopping law
Introduced in the wake of the Sheraton Move, the anti-hopping law—enshrined under Article 49A of the Federal Constitution—was designed to add legal teeth against political defections. It penalises lawmakers who win a seat using a party’s machinery and resources, only to switch allegiances post-election. So whatever it is, defectors cannot keep their seats yet becoming a member of another political party. That is why I think Rafizi and Nik Nazmi should first fulfill his obligations to their voters first so they would not be frustrated with the duo. This is what Wong Chen has indicated because Wong knows the implications of the bond he had signed with his party and the High Court’s decision against former minister of housing and local government Zurauda Kamaruddin. It will be interesting to see what will happen to Rodziah Ismail and others who choose to remain as MPs under Keadilan, although they are aligned to Rafizi. It is not possible for their own grassroots to accept their party MPs who are aligned to a third party — they would surely want them to resign. After all, winning an election is not a lone ranger’s efforts; it involves the party’s entire machinery which involves many hundreds of manhours by grassroot supporters. This is what every lawmaker should fully understand instead of defecting at their whims and fancies, triggering unnecessary by-elections.
I urge all lawmakers to learn from history and put the voters’ interest first, especially after the election is done. No one is a hero or indispensable in politics.
PostScript:
Let me put out a little test. For almost half a year, I have appealed on behalf of Kasih Segamat, a charitable organisation that runs about eleven homes for the underprivileged, orphans, abandoned senior citizens former drug addicts, abused women and children, for their pertrol and diesel subsidies. The deputy Minister of Domestic trade and industries, Fuziah Salleh had also appealed to the Treasury to look into this oversight that they forgot even charitable organisations are using diesel and petrol vehicles /vans sponsored by companies to ferry the sick to the hospitals.
Even Fuziah was frustrated that the staff at the Treasury did not respond to her appeal.
I have also written to the Minister of Finance II, which I doubt even if his staff had shown him the email, as till today, this appeal has gone into cyber obsolescence.
In this blogpost, if someone would be kind to personally highlight to Anwar, although this is just a wishful thinking, I will make a simple request to the Prime Minister himself to see if he would expedite things as simple as issuing the fleet cards to Kasih Segamat. I believe he has no issue with it, since the amount is so small by comparison to any other allocations he had announced in the past. If he had announced the inclusion of diesel subsidies for fishermen, I believe he would no issue with helping the charitable organisations which depend on diesel and petrol vehicles to run their operations.
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