AUGUST 18 — Where and when will Pribumi hold their candidate selection try-outs? That’s what I want to know. I’m stoked to attend. Pumped. I’m like a racer screaming about looking for his misplaced bicycle and Erythropoietin (EPO) before the start of a road-race.

Sure, I’d only be a spectator — fine, an associate spectator — but the spectacle would be all right wingers’ wet dreams. And fluids don’t lie, I’m medically informed.

I wonder if there would be events like "Trash Talking Non-Malays.” How about best simulation of a lynching? And oh, oh, my favourite, "Safe Hugs” — hugging a random, clearly economically disadvantaged ethnic minority with the intention of showing pity and concern, but not so much massively committed to the cause Malays are slighted that their (theirs alone) leader is too cosy with non-Malays. Just a three-quarter hug, will do.

You don’t want to hug yourself out of being a right proper bigot, no you don’t!

It’s been that type of a week, I’m stirred in my nether regions reading Pribumi’s spiritual guide and true inspiration, Mahathir Mohamad:

"If the new party is to compete with Umno, it must give the people in the rural constituencies and the unsophisticated urban constituencies the kind of comfort associated with Umno’s kind of racism.”

We ain’t ‘Hate Incorporated’

A month’s lapsed since the new party, Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia or Pribumi for short, has bandied itself around town with the value proposition of being a better Umno minus prime minister Najib Razak.

Pribumi, unfortunately so far, has been distracted with presenting arguments on why it is not racist.

I think denying wolf in sheep’s clothing status is so passé that the party should instead focus on its key selling point, racism without blatant corruption. Because an openly racist party putting the effort to not fall foul of today’s universal political correction is turning out to be a series of misinformed clarifications.

It has so far sounded, and this may invariably be a compendium of what their various leaders have articulated, like they are true Malaysians where racism has no place in their hearts, but since they are Malays with better breeding cognisant of nuance, fairness and progress, it is their sensible duty to appear racist enough to a larger Malay electorate in cities or villages or the hills or the caves or other possible dwellings who do need racism in their lives to vote against the Barisan Nasional.

So, real caring racism as opposed to uncaring brutal racism.

If it’s convoluted, then you are where you think you are, in the epicentre of Malaysian politics.

Firstly, a deep sense of Schadenfreude fills me listening to Mahathir explaining how to become an acceptable racist in the 21st century, because the pillars of institutional ignorance and ethnic unease in this country were laboriously laid down by the former prime minister.

Though his wisdom for the new party does amplify which decade of the last century he was born in — when he was reading his dad’s newspaper after school Germany’s Chancellor was a certain Adolf Hitler.

Secondly, who’s verified the claim lower middle and working class Malays can only ever vote for those championing race first? Paraphrasing Sting, don’t the Malays love their children too?

These poor people

The immediate thing to point out is that there are bigots in any class of people. From white drunks sitting on a Melbourne kerb screaming expletives at Asian families walking past for robbing their jobs to the father of the American auto industry, Henry Ford, backing anti-Semitism based on a spurious text, there is incontrovertible evidence that haters come in all sizes and colours.

They unfortunately appear more than their actual numbers because of their loudness. This is not to argue that Malaysia’s ruling class’ prolonged stay at the top of the pyramid has not infused racism into the country’s bloodstream, but rather that most Malaysians do not actually consider race supremacy as a basis for voting as much as the proponents of active racism as a guarantee of long term peace advocate.

It is my contention that there is an inordinate high percentage of passive votes at every election for Barisan Nasional (BN). Passive meaning they did not vote BN because they wanted to but were forced to due to their belief that the other parties serenading as the opposition in various hues are not substantial, reliable or experienced enough to replace the government of the day.

These are "no-choice-lah” votes.

There is no reason why any switched-on party with a positive case willing to work the ground should fail to turn these passive votes to become active votes for the party. If they give the people something tangible to believe in.

Where do so many get off stereotyping millions of Malaysians as only capable of seeing colour and not quality? The middle class intelligentsia has struggled perpetually while backing blue-blooded leaders as the next crop to guide the poorer and less socially mobile voters. The convenient analysis is that the candidates, the top candidates, are qualified and that it is the voters, the backwater voters, who let the country down.

While that observation is interesting reading, it is not proof that the poor cannot understand issues, it may be more accurate that these leaders falsely assume what are critical issue to voters.

I am further insulted because I am from that demographic. Why is it that the whole thing is relegated to the consumer being incapable of appreciating a good product? Can it be on occasions, most times, the product is not good enough for consumers, and it is the job of the salesmen to meet the customer and not the other way around?

As for Pribumi per se, I have asked, how many seats in the peninsula are thoroughly kampong filled with kampong voters in the majority? This throwaway and demeaning method to look at seats is support that ignorance and arrogance belongs equally to both sides of the political divide.

The votes you lose

The departure of ex-minister Shafie Apdal back to Sabah without accepting the number two spot in Pribumi speaks volume of the confidence he and others have in the party’s future in his home-state.

Sarawak parties have objected to Umno ever setting up base in the state, and there is little to suggest they’d change their position.

If Pribumi is part of the opposition coalition, the heavy Malay-first theme of the party together with the Malayanising efforts in the Borneo state already present, will dissuade many from voting for those in the opposition team.

Counter to the over-simplified view that more parties in the coalition will result in extra voters, there is the realisation many passive Pakatan  voters may return to voting for BN, in either side of the Malaysian Federation.

A substantial number of voters are ill at ease to vote for a coalition with openly racist parties. Those who vote for Pakatan because BN is open racistly would have second thoughts. This on top of the Borneo votes deserting whichever version of Pakatan which remains and splitting their votes to Borneo-based opposition parties.

The strategists are considering only the votes gained by the addition of Pribumi without due consideration to the present projected votes they have which they lose because of Pribumi.

Delusion

I’m cheating a little. Of course there would be no actual try-outs in Pribumi, the elite leaders and primarily Mahathir will select the candidates — was it not stated that the new party will mimic Umno in most ways?

I have to admit though, the possibility of Mahathir giving me a safe hug might keep me away from Pribumi events. The old man won’t miss me, his selective reminiscing of the past will retain his support base, even as much as guaranteeing him a win if he contests in his old Kubang Pasu constituency.

But then, what about the other seats and candidates?

The short-term attitude of this party and its capacity to wreck havoc on voting patterns cannot be underestimated.

It’s completely bonkers.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.