APRIL 11 ― Under 20,000 voters in a Negri Sembilan hamlet on Saturday get to nudge race relations in Malaysia, in one direction or the other.
Barisan Nasional-Umno’s Mohamad Hasan and Pakatan Harapan-PKR’s S. Streram are locked in the closest by-election since the general.
The ex-MB and now Umno boss has on his shoulders the fate of his teetering party as his predecessors face multiple court cases — holding out for a quick change in government to radically alter their predicament — and other leaders desert the party, partly to avoid prosecution and mainly to resuscitate their political fortunes by casting their chips with Bersatu Pribumi.
Though bleeding leaders, Umno is not short of support, as a shrinking economic pie for the Bottom(B)-40 and race baiting has kept his party desirable. For now.
How about Streram? A man the media starts and ends with by referring to him as a medical professional. Indeed the banners flung across the constituency herald him as the “People’s Doctor,” whatever that means.
Other than that, it’s party boss Anwar Ibrahim managing the heavy lifting for the candidate by endeavouring a speaking marathon all over the constituency.
Toxic battle
It’s raining hate in Rantau.
Umno intends to barrel home with all of the Malay votes and a percentage of non-Malay votes. Every issue is given an ethnic treatment. Whichever way they can emphasise “race and religion” are under threat.
There is no restraint, no decency, it is win at all cost.
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and Anwar are incensed — well, they claim to be — by the bigotry; however they owe their careers to the same clichés.
Till now, when needed, they speak about the need to prioritise Malays. So, they too have to keep their liberal harmony rhetoric in check; for one runs the country and a race-exclusive party, and the other seeks to replace him by guaranteeing a Malay-led PKR.
It is no more, no less chickens have come home to roost.
To casual observers it is all about degrees of permissible racism inside government. On how much hate to add to the dish for taste. They both want their dishes to have the same flavour.
It’s demented. Both sides unwilling to cede a race ranking protocol — correlating actions, policies and principles by race first — in politics and government, and then both claim the other side is destroying the fabric of our multiculturalism.
This is hypocrisy on steroids. Though one outcome is worse. The mid-term implication of an Umno win would be they’d ratchet up the race bombast even further. It’s bleak, the prognostic.
Water
It appears no leader quells the political heat, they pander to it so as not to be left out.
An emotional electorate does not need its leaders to scream with it, at times, perhaps most times, it needs leaders to calm them down, reassure them with reason and not with race assurances.
That’s the script in Rantau, which does not flatter our political fraternity. The campaign has been shallow and crude.
If to underline it further, the home minister says yesterday only three Israelis have been allowed into Malaysia in Q1 2019, as opposed to 33 throughout 2016. Does Home Minister Muhyiddin Yassin feel he’s empowered the Malay community by shutting tens of Israelis out, are these our real challenges? Does it embellish his party Pribumi Bersatu’s attractiveness to young Malays, that the door is almost completely shut to Jews?
Another minister states — coincidentally with polling day nearby — the B-40 cash handouts are already released. A mild reminder that when they go to vote, they have handout money in their motorcycle tanks?
Justify and spur the hate, and remind recipients the cash is an electronic transaction underway, leaves Pakatan only X-ringgit better than Umno, and that’s the real shame of the situation.
What they don’t say
The country has problems, but it’s not because one party won the election last year, or another can set it right by winning back Parliament.
The country has problems, Rantau like most struggling towns needs jobs. The plantation days are over, and the people want futures.
Their futures, or lack of it, is far removed from the realities of the candidates.
Mohamad is a former state mentri besar with a corporate career prior, and Streram is an anaesthesiologist. While one will lose, both would likelier send their grandkids to private education. It’s inside their financial means.
The rut in Rantau does not impact them.
By-elections are avenues to draw the government into an active debate about the future. Both sides have opted out of the debate.
Yet, there are two faces to Rantau.
One, from the past struggling with the present. People sitting in the coffee shop staring at shuttered shops, and seeing their children leave after secondary education.
The other, in Bandar Sri Sendayan, where homes of the future are built which most locals can’t afford. Mohamad and Streram can.
The media will see it too, as the main tallying centre is SJKC Bandar Sri Sendayan. The new development borders the newish RMAF air base, and has an impressive campus, Matrix Global International School.
With time the social distance between Rantau town and Bandar Sri Sendayan, inside the same seat, will grow insurmountable.
This is the larger conversation the country needs, for Rantau and the other Rantaus out there. Negri Sembilan is not coasting as an economy.
Unfortunately, this election ends with neither candidate offering a vision.
In politics it’s easier to use hate to win votes than ideas. The candidates, their parties and their coalitions have succumbed to hate as a way to outdo their opponent.
In a short while, if they stay this course, they won’t be able to distinguish themselves from their rivals, except they are for winning and against losing.
In Rantau, there’s SMK Dato’ Akhir Zaman (school), translated means “Chief End of Days.” Not sure who’ll be chief, but the politics has been the variety pertaining to Armageddon.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
