Me…back blogging with a vengence

There was a rally in the city a yesterday that was organized by BERSIH, an organization comprises of non-governmental organization and opposition that calls for a fair and free election for the country. A friend of mine has been talking about it for weeks and come that day, damn, I missed it! Gosh, I hate it when I’m out of civilization.

I’m not much of a political activist or extremist to tell you the truth. Consider me a political observer. Well, I thought of going because I wanted to see it with my own eyes the fact that the political situation in our country has become quite volatile. It may seem very much so even for an outsider (by outsider, I mean a “politic outsider” like me). Quite honestly, I don’t remember seeing the federal government led by the Barisan Nasional to be in such an unfavourable position since the short-lived Reformasi in 1999 led by the then newly-sacked Deputy Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim.

Yes, I think even the government is feeling so. The UMNO General Assembly concluded a few days ago too, and for the whole duration of the Assembly, the UMNO delegations and politicians had swayed away from touching any controversial and racial issues (notwithstanding, for some, Hishammudin kissing the keris, which I don’t see much of a controversial in there). It was far cry from the last year’s assembly; there was no repeat of the ketuanan Melayu debate this year. The reason?  

Two words: GENERAL ELECTION

Unless you have not been watching local news, you would have known that there is a talk about the Parliament being dissolved to make way for the polls early next year. The last general election was in the first quarter of 2004 (forgive me, hazy memory; I don’t remember the exact month), of which the BN won a landslide majority. Since the life of each Parliament is 5 years, that would make the next election to be in early 2009. Nevertheless, it would be highly unlikely that the government will wait until the 5^th year for the Parliament to automatically dissolve before calling for the election, because the standard practice is normally four years. This of course brings us to the first quarter of 2008, but it’s not absolute, I must say.

Why not the first quarter of 2008? Imagine that you are in a football match, and you are down by 1-0; wouldn’t you want extra stoppage time after the 90 minutes is up? The government has become quite unpopular due to the doing of its own men (Nazri’s antics, Khairy’s rhetoric, Syed Hamid’s BBC stint etc.). The current issues of the “judiciary in crisis” and the independent of the judiciary have further put them into a bad light. Of course, their action, or shall I say inaction in resolving that issue has not help them at all. The government would want to regain the confidence of the public first before going into the election.

Why the first quarter of 2008? Well, this could be the flip side of the football match analogy as above. Imagine that you are up by the slight margin of 1-0 and your opponent is playing their best bit of the game in the final 10 minutes; wouldn’t you want the game to end as soon as possible? Although the government is unpopular, I must say that they still hold the majority of people’s support, however slight it is. The presentation of the Budget 2008, and the launching of the Southern and East Coast Economic corridors have at least earned them some dignity, notwithstanding what people may tag them as “political agenda”.

Of course, what concerns me of course is not “when” but “who”. Who do I vote? I would like to say that this is between me and (hopefully), the Electoral Commission. Yes, I admit it; I’m a fence-sitter. People have been pestering me to vote for the opposition. There was this one speaker who came to our college a few months ago to speak about freedom of press in Malaysia. She had pointed out that the freedom of press has been more curtailed now under the current Prime Minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi compared to the era of Mahathir Mohammed, to the extent that there is nothing such as the freedom of press in Malaysia now (of which I vehemently disagree). The way that she spoke about it was as if we are in Pakistan, under the command of General Musharraf. One of the audiences than asked if such was the case, what are the remedies? Her replies was, “What’s going to happen this year? The general election. Vote for the opposition.” Bang! Immediately, any respect I had for her went down into the drain. What a cheap way to get support!

I guess what she had done highlighted the fact why I do not vote for the opposition. I know, politics are hypocrite; but what the opposition is doing is bolding and underlining the word hypocrite into their code of practice. We have an opposition leader, supposedly their saviour, who only a decade ago is the champion of the New Economic Policy and an extremist for Malay rights, now condemning the very principles of NEP, and asking non-Malays to support him. How pathetic! We have an opposition leader who vehemently claimed that they want Malaysia as a secular nation, not an Islamic nation, but overlooked the fact that they have, in the past general election formed a coalition with the very opposition party that is fighting for the full Islamisation of Malaysia. Double the pathetic! And don’t get me started on the debate on how our dressing can entice people to rape us.

As for the government, I cannot bring myself to vote for them too. While I’m a self-confessed fence sitter, friends back in high school would have known me as someone who is slightly pro-government rather than pro-opposition. Nevertheless, as I venture out from school, I have gained a more holistic view of the whole political situation in the country, and this has made me what I am today, a fence sitter. The issue of lack of transparency has made me lose so much confidence in the government (e.g. the Auditor General report). What more is the rhetoric of the government’s MPs in Parliament (Dear Bung Mokhtar, to say that I come from the same state as you do is an insult to me, as it is to the people of Sabah). How could I vote for people with IQ less than George W. Bush? Furthermore, their “sweeping under the carpet” skills, I must say is of the highest.

So, here’s my dilemma. I do not think that neither the BN nor the opposition will make a good government. Isn’t it great if we are like the United Kingdom, where they have always a very strong ruling party and a strong opposition (Labour v Conservative) or United States (Republican v Democrats)

My advice to my friends who will be eligible to vote in the next general election? Do not be prejudicial from the start. When you get an e-mail saying that Khairy is siphoning the country’s oil money, do not immediately fall for it (I got one such e-mail recently, as much as I do not like Khairy, I do not agree with this kind of slanderous stuffs). Conversely, if the same thing that was done to the opposition, do not believe it outrightly too. Evaluate the whole political situation, listen from both sides and decide who you want to vote for, and not who people ask you to vote for.