Election 2008 - Vote for PUNDAK

I am a proud member of PUNDAK, and here is my manifesto for the coming General Election 2008. (Different from the President's, so this is only for my own 'constituency'...)

If you are a hardcore opposition supporter, I don’t intend to sway your vote here; but those who are not the keen and passionate ‘supporters’ of BN nor the opposition – the ‘silent majority’ – should SPOIL THEIR VOTES on Saturday.

I have 3 reasons for spoiling votes in this election:

1) You should not vote for BN

2) You should not vote for any of the opposition parties as they are today

3) We should all take a ‘multi-elections’ view, to have a collective agenda of shaping the country’s direction through at least 3 elections

1) BN sucks

If you are a regular blog-reader, I don’t think I need to elaborate much.

- MIC exists solely for the purpose of keeping the Indians poor and ignorant, for the ease of control (ultimately by UMNO-putras). Semi-value is seriously out-of-touch and will have to rely on non-Indian votes to remain the taiko of Indians. Pathetic.

- MCA, UMNO’s dog, exists also to keep Chinese under control for UMNO-putras, but by a different approach: keeping Chinese scared and quiet. They have become so ineffective in protecting the rights of minorities that entitlements (e.g. building more Chinese primary schools) have become mere ‘gratuities’ dished out by UMNO, turning full-fledged citizens with extensive rights under the Constitution into beggars for ‘mercy’.

- Gerakan, also UMNO’s dog (like all the other parties in BN, to be honest) and doing the same thing to the Chinese like MCA but worse – they were supposed to be a multi-racial party championing multi-racial agenda, but has now become dominated by Chinese and Chinese issues. A sad example of how multi-racial politics get stifled in Malaysia.

- UMNO basically does the same thing as MIC, except that they are doing it to the Malays. UMNO-putras have hijacked the New Economic Policy, betrayed the Malay trust. Again, they use the same tactic as MCA – fear of minorities necessitating the need for absolute Malay/Muslim unity.

- BN in general is full of crooks, thieves and uneducated, shameless politikus. AAB has totally forgotten his previous manifesto in 2004 to tackle corruption and hunt down the '20 VIPs'. It is very telling that tackling of corruption is no longer a highlighted priority of the 2008 manifesto, and there’s no more ‘VIPs’ to be hunt down.

Above all, BN has systematically allowed the right to freedom of religion be undermined, creating uncertainties and fear among the minorities for their fundamental well-beings. AAB’s standard answer to this sort of controversies is “Everything shall be done according to the law” even though many people are precisely complaining that ‘the law’ is biased towards the ‘Islamic’ religious establishment.

Although AAB has allowed more space for freedom of speech than his predecessor, it is still not good enough and ISA is still used on bloggers (Nat Tan) and activists (Hindraf).

Let’s not forget the traditional ‘bragging rights’ of BN – the economy and material well-being. Our living costs have increased so much in recent years. Further, by refusing to do the right thing (taking away the ‘clutches’) after almost 40 years, BN has created a new generation of ‘bumiputras’ who are allergic to competitions and indirectly dragged the competitiveness of the whole nation down. Our Foreign Direct Investment has even begun to fall behind much less educated, non-English speaking countries in ASEAN like Thailand and Vietnam! Clearly, BN does not have genuine leaders who would drag their followers to do the right thing, but only clowns and tricksters who are good at hiding the truth and realities from a whole nation of ‘boiling frogs’.

So, a vote for BN is a sign of approval for all of the above. Anybody who has a brain could see that.

2) Opposition sucks

- PAS, for me, is the single biggest problem and threat for Malaysia's unity today. Its racist and religiously chauvinistic agenda of an Islamic State is the single biggest divisive factor of Malaysian politics. The fact that non-Muslims can only become a member of “PAS Supporters Club” instead of a full-fledged member of equal standing in PAS itself (and has to stand for election under the banner of another party instead of PAS) should tell us very clearly the obsession of PAS to turn all non-Muslim citizens of this country into dhimmis. (And don't forget their tendency to subjugate women in the name of religion.) Equality for non-Muslim is not what PAS is willing to offer. Any non-Muslim who still harbours any fantasy or delusion that PAS is the answer for a better future should open their eyes.

Not only does PAS incite hatred and resentment among non-Muslims, it’s biggest threat is the indirect effect of its very existence and strength – forcing UMNO to engage in an ‘out-Islamicization’ contest. If not because of PAS, UMNO would have less pressure to demonstrate how ‘serious’ they are in defending ‘Islam’ and in oppressing non-Muslims. Not to mention PAS’s tendency to say utterly stupid things (Valentine’s Day celebration could lead to promiscuity; educated women should not work because they can marry rich husbands, so leave the jobs to ugly women; cinemas should have the lights on to prevent fondling and kissing in the dark, etc) – and take pride in their own stupidity. PAS is therefore a constant source of embarrassment and disgrace - as well as threat - for Malaysia.

I’ll give credit where it is due, though – the fact that no PAS ‘big shot’ had yet been implicated in any corruption scandal (despite the monopoly of vast political, legal and economic resources by BN) would suggest that PAS politicians are clean, very clean indeed. But if we were to elect leaders based on who is more innocent and innocence alone, I would argue that Buddhist monks and Catholic priests who keep the vow to a celibate and frugal lifestyle are much better candidate at controlling their ‘nafsu’ (lust and desire) for worldly temptations than PAS ulamas who advocate polygamy of up to 4 wives and hell-bent on dominating/subjugating women.

- Keadilan is only the ‘loser version’ of UMNO/BN. A party facing the threat of survival could still get into power struggles (Ezam, Nalla have quit the parties as a result) is incredible.

I do welcome Keadilan's apparent agenda of a multi-racial politics which puts unity first. However, many suspect that most politicians in Keadilan – including Anwar himself – is only waiting to get elected and then jump back into UMNO/BN. The fact that Anwar himself has not apologized for/disavowed his past actions/complicity when he was a top leader (up to being the heir apparent) in BN (e.g. apologize for all the corruption, undermining of judiciary, suffocating of Chinese education etc) is very telling, again not correcting people's (especially minorities') perception of him being "all things to all people". It only strengthens my suspicion that he is not prepared to burn all his bridges, and is just waiting for the ‘opportune time’ to return to UMNO. (I don't think he has ever sworn that he would not do what Semangat 46 did - by returning to UMNO a decade or so later.)

If Anwar is a true statesman – as opposed to just another politician – he would have had the courage to say sorry, to put history behind and to chart a new vision and course for the nation as a whole. (Can't wait to call himself a 'de facto leader' only strengthen Anwar's image of being a power-hungry, opportunistic politician, rather than a visionary, intellectual statesman.) I don’t expect him to be like Nelson Mandela, but he is not even a Lee Kwan Yew. So, frankly, I don't trust Keadilan.

- DAP is becoming like Gerakan, turning from a multi-racial, socialist party (yes, let’s not forget that!) which is supposed to fight for all the poor, into a Chinese-dominated dynasty dominated by 1 ageing Chinese Emperor and his Indian puppet (Karpal Singh). Many good people have been driven out of the party, and nearly Fong Poh Kuan too. This is a very sad example of how politics without power could still corrupt. Truly amazing...

So, personally I do not think any of the opposition parties is electable at all. To vote for them is to encourage them to remain opportunistic, petty, obsessed with trivial matters and sexual control and domination, and to advance personal egos.

3) ‘Multi-Election’ Agenda for Malaysia's Future

Therefore, I propose that YOU – the ‘silent majority’ who feels that if there is no good, electable opposition, so you should vote BN by default (because you 'have to' choose the 'lesser of 2 evils') – to SPOIL YOUR VOTE this coming election. And for those who do not wish to participate in the electoral process at all because "there seems to be no choice" - please believe that you still can vote, even though you don't have a choice - by SPOILING YOUR VOTE.

Imagine the scenario when there are more spoilt votes than the number of votes obtained by the 'winning' candidate – BN or opposition. E.g. BN Candidate 3,000 votes, Opposition Candidate 2,700 votes, Undi Rosak 10,000 votes. With all those spoilt votes staring at them, both winner and loser would blush with embarrassment. This is especially humiliating for BN, because they would definitely use phantom voters; and if even after including the phantom votes, they still get LESS votes than the number of spoilt votes, they would know they are really in deep shit...

After the election, both BN and opposition would be thinking hard about how to woo all these ‘silent majority’ voters, and therefore how to behave and upgrade themselves to meet the taste of the increasingly fussy and demanding electorate. Neither of them could take us for granted anymore.

We the people, by casting spoilt votes, would be sending a loud and clear message to them that “We don’t like either of you, please fuck off” as well as “Come and get us IF you want!” We will be able to turn the table and tell them, we have a THIRD CHOICE between black and white, and being less evil/bad than your opponent is no longer good enough for us. We want the top of the class to be a Grade A student (and the No.2 a Grade A- student), rather than just a Grade E student (and the No.2 a Grade F student). Raise your standards – BOTH OF YOU – or we will not play the game of ‘lesser of 2 evils’.

On the other hand, to vote BN by default (because you don't think the opposition is electable) or opposition by default (because you are not happy with BN) might send out the wrong message - both of them could misunderstand our real intention, and think that they are being rewarded for their behaviours, because a vote in favour is still a PLUS - but a spoilt vote is a NEGATIVE FOR BOTH.

CONCLUSION

So, to sum up, the ‘multi-election’ agenda works like this:

2008 – Eliminate substandard, Grade E’s and F’s parties. (Especially PAS – if it is a straight fight between PAS and UMNO, vote UMNO, so that PAS will be severely weakened if not totally eliminated. This (eliminate PAS at all costs, even if it means voting for Son-in-Law) is the only exception to the ‘spoilt vote agenda’.)

2012 – Keep spoiling the votes if they still do not improve. I expect them to take at least 2 elections to get/'confirm' the message. (Again, to eliminate all traces of PAS.)

2016 – Hopefully, genuinely electable and up-to-standard opposition and ruling parties and candidates would have emerged by now, in which case we could bring ourselves to pick 1 of them. Otherwise, we’ll still do the same for the next few elections until they finally ‘get’ what we are trying to tell them.

Emphasis: If the winning party gets less votes than spoilt votes, it would be a MINORITY government by any definition – but very, very embarrassing indeed. Whoever wins, they would be very embarrassed for the next 5 years – whereas the loser would regret why s/he did not behave properly or else s/he would have captured all those spoilt votes.

Question 1: What if, say, by spoiling our votes, the worst happens – say, PAS wins? Sure, I wouldn’t like that, but even then, PAS is only the minority government, and they would know damn well that they have to behave properly to stay in power. If BN wins – they are still a minority government and they would have suffered a very serious blow because they know they could no longer take us for granted. Whoever wins, they know they would have to come and get us next time.

Question 2: Why can’t we just refuse to turn up to vote? No, that is not a strong enough message, because by making the effort to travel to the polling station, queue, and then spoil your vote, you are telling them that you are willing to go out and make a point. Whereas staying home would be sending out a more equivocal message, could be interpreted as “weather no good” or “busy because of school holidays” by the politicians.

I know BN will still win this election, but it is time we ‘vote’ with a longer term perspective than just 5 years/1 electoral cycle. It is time we tell them loud and clear:

I WOULD RATHER SPOIL MY VOTES THAN WASTE IT ON YOU IDIOTS - BOTH OF YOU. NOW, COME AND GET ME IF YOU WANT, OR JUST FUCK OFF.

The POWER (to spoil the votes) is, and has always been, YOURS.