Fri, 03 May 2013 02:45:00 GMT
| By Kee Thuan Chye
GE13: Are you ready for change Malaysia?
The spirit of ubah is now strong, the wave for change is gaining momentum. Will you swim with it or will you be left stranded behind?
On May 5, the day of the most crucial general election we are about to face, which coalition will you vote for? Will you vote for the same old dinosaur or will you vote for change?
The spirit of ubah is now strong, the wave for change is gaining momentum. Will you swim with it or will you be left stranded behind?
Here are only a few reasons for going with the flow:
Healing the nation
– If the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) is retained, there will be strife for another five years. People are now angry with it, they will get even more angry. If Pakatan Rakyat wins, we get the chance to start on a new slate. Its leader, Anwar Ibrahim, has spoken publicly of forgiveness and reconciliation, the way of Nelson Mandela. With the country being so divided now, this is what we need.
Reform
– Our system has been abused, polluted, sullied, thanks in large part to BN, starting from the time when Mahathir Mohamad was prime minister. We need to cleanse it. Will BN do it? Why would it? It’s been benefitting from the rotten system for decades and rotting it further. We need a new government to do the necessary. We need an end to Mahathirism.
BN chairman Najib Razak has had four years to bring reform as prime minister, but he has given us only half-measures. He has been more adept at giving out cash to bribe the people into voting for BN. What has he done about corruption? Cronyism? Under Najib’s watch, Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary continued to get huge slices of pie.
Pakatan will bring reform. Its manifesto promises to abolish business monopolies and repressive laws, like the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA), the Universities and University Colleges Act (UUCA), the Peaceful Assembly Act. It also promises to reinstate public confidence in institutions like the judiciary, the police, the Anti-Corruption Commission, the Attorney-General’s Chambers by freeing them from political control.
Race-based politics
– BN, comprised of race-based parties, will continue to politicise the issue of race – and with it, religion. Even now, we can see how fervently BN is playing up racial issues in its election campaign. Mahathir has been the biggest hate-monger. His most unfair statement is saying without any basis that if the DAP’s Lim Kit Siang were to win in Gelang Patah, it would lead to racial confrontation.
Najib has stooped to race-baiting as well. He said sometime ago that if the DAP were to win big, the Malays would find their survival in peril. How will that be so? This is just the straw man argument that BN conjures – to the Malays, it says a vote for PAS is a vote for the DAP and the loss of Malay privileges. To the non-Malays, it says a vote for the DAP is a vote for PAS and the setting-up of an Islamic state. How do you reconcile the two? BN can’t even be coordinated in its spinning. In the end, it just looks like nothing more than a scare tactic.
On the other hand, Pakatan is moving away from racial politics. It has proposed affirmative action that is needs-based rather than race-based, which will be unlike the New Economic Policy (NEP) upheld by BN.
Liberation of the Malays
– BN has been deliberately keeping Malays intellectually backward and deceiving them with constant reminders that they cannot compete or survive on their own abilities. It has been dumbing them down through the education system and conditioning them through various means, including Biro Tata Negara (BTN) and TV-disseminated propaganda.
Pakatan is not going to do the same. It will ensure academic freedom for scholars, thinkers, staff and students in all academic institutions.
Two-coalition system
– Voting BN out of government will strengthen our democracy because it will ingrain in Malaysian minds that the two-coalition system can be a reality. It has to happen for them to accept it. Too many Malaysians have already been psyched into thinking that the government and the country are the same, so they must be loyal to BN. A change in government will make them realise this is not so.
Besides, we will gain from BN getting the experience of being in the Opposition, without the benefits and kickbacks they enjoyed before. Only then will BN really reform itself. And when BN has done this, perhaps we’ll begin to have both coalitions realising that governance does not mean trying to kill each other off to take all the winnings, but working together for the good of the country.
The economy
– Under BN rule, there has been much wastage and leakage and cronyism and rent-seeking. In 1980, our GDP was higher than South Korea’s but today, ours is only half theirs. Singapore’s GDP is almost five times ours.
Najib aims to take us to high-income status with a per capita income of US$15,000 by the year 2020. If that comes true, we’d still be lagging far behind South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. In 2011, according to the World Bank Group, South Korea’s per capita income was already US$22,424, and Singapore’s US$46,241. As for Taiwan, its per capita income is projected to reach US$29,000 in 2020, double that of ours then.
Meanwhile, Pakatan has pledged that it will plug the wastage and leakage so that the savings from this can be used for development and helping the rakyat. It will scrutinise dubious contracts which the government under BN signed with private companies. It will bring back the open tender system that could potentially save the government billions of ringgit.
Petronas
– Our country’s golden goose is answerable to the Prime Minister’s Office instead of to Parliament. Why does the prime minister have so much control over an asset that belongs to the rakyat? We’ve heard about Petronas’ money having been abused by BN leaders, and in 2011, the oil company reported that since 1974, it had given the Government a total of RM529 billion. How was the money spent?
If not for anything else, you should consider voting Pakatan so that the truth may be revealed.
Free media
– In its current election campaign, BN has been saying all kinds of negative things about Pakatan. But it doesn’t give the latter a chance to rebut. Pakatan doesn’t even have access to state-owned TV stations. BN puts in advertisements in newspapers saying things about Pakatan that the latter cannot defend with counter-advertisements because these newspapers will not accept them.
The electoral reform group Bersih fought for and won the Parliamentary Select Committee’s nod to give the Opposition fair access to the media, but BN offered Pakatan only 10 minutes on RTM to tell people about its manifesto. Meanwhile, BN hogs the TV stations – RTM and those operated by Media Prima, which is BN-owned. It can run its own propaganda on these TV stations 24/7.
Furthermore, the Home Ministry has absolute say in deciding who can start a newspaper. This means that the Opposition has been unable to start a mass-market newspaper because its applications are automatically shot down by the ministry. Is that fair?
On the other hand, PR has promised that if it comes to power, it will abolish the PPPA and therefore take away the power of the ministry to decide who can start a newspaper. More important, the media will finally be given the freedom it badly needs to do its job properly.
Justice
– We need healing and reconciliation, but we also need to see that justice is done on those who have caused severe damage to our country – either through corruption, stealing the people’s money or inciting racial hatred.
Mahathir has been all too obvious in desiring to see Pakatan lose. He has been behaving irresponsibly in saying all kinds of things to sabotage Pakatan, some bordering on sedition. Perhaps he has much to lose, perhaps he has much to hide. So if there is one strong reason to vote for Pakatan, it is to reject Mahathir. More than that, it is to make his worst nightmare come true – his own public persecution. Which is something he truly deserves for all the repulsive things he has done, all the vitriol he has vomited to drive the races apart.
At the very least, you might get to see what could happen to those who have been committing slander, fabricating untruths, taking money that didn’t belong to them, cheating the rakyat, killing people … the list goes on. Wouldn’t it be a great feeling to see justice done?
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