NAZRI: MCA AND MIC CAN CAN FUCKOFF WE HAVE NEW GERAKAN IN MAKING TO COUNTER DAP

I wrote in this blog on April 7, 2011 about Anna Hazare, saying, “Perhaps after Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan’s call for sampoorna kranti, … Anna’s fast may be the next most significant mass movement in modern India yet.” Soon thereafter, when the ruling Government seemed to respond to Anna sensibly and sensitively offering a joint dialogue with and say to the civil society for drafting a suitable Lokpal Bill, one thought it a sagacious gesture on the part of the UPA government and a victory for the maturity of our democracy.

Alas, that hasn’t been the case. Of late, with every single passing day, the ruling polity has come out looking increasingly petty, cussed and vindictive, targeting Anna with every gun that it has at its disposal. It has accused Anna Hazare and his Trust as being “seeped in corruption”.  It is questioning the funding of Anna’s website. It is digging up his ancient army records in the hope of finding something – anything – to chuck at him, hoping something may stick.  It is leaning on the weak spine of the Delhi Police to deny him a place to fast, placing uncalled for and unconstitutional limits of time and the size of crowd .  It is not that our politicians have usually stood so tall that we are surprised at how low they can stoop; but to accuse a simple and straight forward soul like Ana Hazare, who is the first major voice against corruption in independent India to stir the conscience of the nation, dwarfs even their pigmy standards.

In a democracy of a billion people, it is understandable to have a billion different views on the issue of the Lokpal Bill versus Jan-Lokpal Bill.  It is understandable if some think PM should be kept out of the ambit of Lokpal. It is understandable if some think civil society (read Anna Hazare) should be more practical and more patient or yielding in their demand or protest.  It may also be understandable if some think that Anna Hazare’s Satyagraha is not to be compared to Bapu’s Satyagraha, or even that inarticulate Anna himself is in no way comparable with the suave Mahatma. It is understandable too if some question the somewhat intemperate language deployed by Anna Hazare in his communication to our straight as sphinx-like Prime Minister.  It may be understandable too if a section of the society is apprehensive about the liberties Civil Society seems to be taking with our constitutional mechanism. For that matter, it may also be understandable if some seem to think Anna Hazare to be a greater danger to our Constitution for seeking “extra-constitutional” remedies to cure our sick society of utter, run-away and rampant corruption, than the malaise of corruption itself.  I even came across a very intelligent, articulate and genuinely sensitive young professional who was “entirely against corruption, but who disagreed with Anna Hazare’s methods”, even if he did not have an alternative to suggest.  In his view, one couldn’t be led into a Bush-like stance – “You are either with us (or Anna Hazare) or against us (or Anna Hazare)”. Well, in short, we can understand all these various views in a democracy, and then some.

While we understand all of the above, we must also understand the low-stoop of the senior Congress functionaries in the personal mud-slinging against Anna for what it is — the last-ditch defense of a political class running scared.  And let us not get it wrong. Let us not believe for a moment as if it is only the Congress politicians who are running scared. The reality is that the major opposition, the UPA politicos, have not comported themselves much better on the ground and in the parliament, beyond opportunistic lip service to Anna.  Thus, it may be equally naïve to believe that even a Jana-Lokpal Bill blessed by Anna, shall sail smoothly through the Parliament, as a simple Anna seems to do. But then, Anna does seem to believe that at least in that case the country would know which parties support or do not support the people’s bill, the knowledge of which could decide the fate of the parties at the next hustings.   I, for one, can understand that.

True, participation of “Civil Society” in a parliamentary process is hardly the standard constitutional process in our democracy. The constitutional process provides only for the Legislature, the Executive, and the Judiciary; it provides for no un-elected Civil Society to play a role.  But this is because the constitutional processes are ordinarily supposed to work. When constitutional processes work reasonably, for example, all citizens are genuinely equal before law, ministers and government servants are accountable to people, parliament functions and passes laws to govern the country rather than being in a perennial state of adjournment for one reason or the other, nor does it take over four decades to pass a law against corruption, justice is available to all and speedily, and 60% of the population does not remain bereft of food, education, health and justice due to large-scale corruption six decades after independence. None of these conditions has been made available under our constitutional processes.  The so-called 9% growth is despite these.

These are the reasons why the call of Anna Hazare has stirred the nation’s conscience. Never mind whether public support for Anna is 50%, 85%, 95% or 100%.  Even if Anna were in a minority of one, it stands to reason that given that our constitutional processes worked by the legislature, executive, and the judiciary have failed us in all these decades, the constitutional mechanism is perhaps already in a damaged condition in any case. Bringing in the “Civil Society” is unlikely to do any more damage to it.

Anna Hazare has offered the nation an opportunity which all the constitutional mechanism and its political ‘leadership’ did not give it since independence. If we are smart as a people, we shall seize the opportunity and lend our shoulders in whatever little way we can to him – not for his sake, but for our own.  But if we are not smart, we can continue to debate the issue to shreds while Anna Hazare acts tomorrow.
Call it the Manmohan Singh paradox: the strength of his coalition depends largely upon on how weak he is as Prime Minister. The glue holds because he has no power over his partners. One minister is caught with his hands in the telecom till and shrugs off accusation with impunity; a second has no time for Cabinet meetings; a third dismisses a portfolio as people-centric as railways with the throwaway line that it does not represent her true identity. All the Prime Minister can do is smile and carry on. The smile is wearing thin.

A fundamental equation has been quietly reversed. During UPA1, the smaller allies were in power because Congress held them up. Now, the Congress is in power because the Trinamool, DMK and NCP hold it up. Since power is central to Congress schemes for the present and future, all parties have, by mutual consent, eliminated accountability from the algebra of governance to create a semblance of stability. Temperament and tantrum can coexist with venality and incompetence.

The casualty is credibility: it began to creep away but the pace has gradually built up to a crawl. If Dr Singh, whose own reputation remains more positive than that of his government, does not act soon, the pace will quicken to a trot and develop into an irreversible gallop.

Weakness is contagious. It tends to debilitate even those limbs of the body politic that are functioning normally. Congress ministers have always known that they owe their jobs to party president Sonia Gandhi, but they showed the requisite deference to the PM during UPA1 because they knew that Dr Singh’s image would be an asset on judgment day when the voter headed for the ballot box. This enormous strength has withered because no one expects Dr Singh to lead the party in the next general elections. Dr Singh admitted as much at his only press conference held, ironically, to project an image of control. Instead, he passed the baton when he said, in his typically honest manner, that he would make way for Rahul Gandhi the moment he was asked to do so. Power is never stagnant. It either consolidates around the leader, or ebbs. Those with longer plans for the future than the Prime Minister are establishing individual markers at the cost of collective cohesion.

The two profound challenges before the government are a turbulent relationship with Pakistan, turned septic by terrorism; and the Naxalite insurrection, spurred by poverty and decades of neglect. There is disarray and dissension within government on both fronts. External affairs minister S M Krishna was clearly, and visibly, disoriented when his colleague Chidambaram, armed with explosive information, lit the fuse under his conciliatory mission to Islamabad. Home secretary G K Pillai had Chidambaram’s permission to reveal David Headley’s testimony about ISI and Pakistan navy aid to Mumbai terrorists, or he would have lost his job. The Prime Minister chose to rise above the drama.

This is useful if you want to buy time, but not effective if you want to run a government.

Dr Singh is burdened by a further paradox. He is presiding over not one but two coalitions. Congress itself is the second coalition, a storehouse of multiple interests that requires dexterous management even during times of serenity. Personal feuds are only a part of the alternative story; there are genuine and strongly held differences over policy. This is healthy, up to a point; when that point comes, the leader must demand obedience to a government decision. An astute veteran like Digvijay Singh would not have berated Chidambaram as a misguided intellectual snob whose single idea was to shoot his way through the Naxalite problem, without tacit support from his party leader. The Prime Minister has imprisoned himself in the rather dubious proverb, that silence is golden. Silence is too aloof an option for democracy.

A helpless Prime Minister induces a hapless government. Drift, as the term indicates, is never in a hurry. A government can float a long way before someone realizes that it has lost direction. Drift does not threaten a government’s survival, but it saps the people’s patience.

The third paradox may seem puzzling but is easily comprehensible. It is always much more difficult to run a weak government than a strong one. The latter has a command structure, purpose and enough discipline to induce confidence in the ever-watchful voter. A weak government is great news for a newspaper, and even better fodder for television; but that is where its limited entertainment utility ceases. During his first five years, Dr Singh was an anchor that was powerful enough to keep the ship steady through heavy turbulence in the final 12 months of its journey. Victory in 2009 could have made him master of a cruise liner. If, however, he continues to do nothing, he could become captain of a paper boat.

In electoral science, statistics are illustrative, interpretation is critical and everything is fluid. Politics is evolutionary, and evolution – even Darwin’s – is a theory, not a fact. No election is an echo of the past, let alone a mirror of the future.

The statistics of this year’s general elections do not justify the self-evident depression that has overtaken Sharad Pawar’s NCP. He got as many votes (19.3%) as the Congress (19.6%). Moreover, he added support: NCP was up from 2004’s 18.8%, while the Congress lost 1.5% of its votes.

And yet, the seats went in the opposite direction. Congress led in 79 assembly constituencies in 2009 as against 69 in 2004 while NCP went down from 71 to 55.

The shock is that Sharad Pawar could not read the internal map of every constituency as well as he once did. Congress confidence lies in its brilliant management of the most important gene in democracy’s biology. It consolidated its vote, while Pawar dissipated his support. Congress has become the natural recipient of the non-Marathi and Muslim vote, both of which have well-defined geographies and therefore, tip their candidates into the lead. Congress strength in the next assembly election, too, will hinge around 40-odd seats within the Mumbai-Pune-Thane cluster. If there is any further dispersal of the NCP vote — and do remember the ‘if’ attached – then its seat-slippage will continue.

Statistics across the partisan border are no less fascinating. Why is the BJP considered the junior partner of the saffron alliance when it got 18.2% of the vote against the Shiv Sena’s 17% in May? In the five years since 2004, the Sena lost 3% support, while the BJP increased by 4.5%. But, again, the seats were disproportionate. Both were ahead in 62 assembly constituencies. If the Sena had held on to its 2004 vote, the count in Parliament would have been substantively different. You can see the Raj Thackeray effect: he took 3% from Sena and 1% from other parties. Since the damage was not even, it rose to a decisive 20% in many areas. Despite these negatives, the difference between the two alliances is only 10 seats plus to Congress-NCP. Neither side has a majority in assembly-terms in May: it was 134 to 124.

The four big parties have nearly equal support, at least on paper. They should stop worrying about one another so much and take a look at the smaller parties consolidated into ‘Others’ on charts. ‘Others’ got 17.8% in May, and will fetch more in October since the Republicans have left Congress-NCP and are spearheading a separate front. If you add independents to ‘Others’, as one could, their vote share goes up to 25.9%. Madhu Limaye, the socialist veteran who passed away too early, had a theory that a political party began to convert votes into seats at geometrical progression only after its base crossed 23%. This figure will vary a little depending on circumstantial factors. Small parties tend to self-destruct through micro-rivalry, and independents are obviously individualistic.

The obvious, and key, question is whether the Republican-led front will damage Congress-NCP more than Raj Thackeray hurts Sena-BJP. If ‘Others’, including the persistent Mayawati, and independents cross the 30% mark they could skewer results into freakish numbers and produce an assembly with too many satellites and not enough planets. The argument against this possibility is that voters have tended to tilt sufficiently towards stability. A half-hearted endorsement is unusual. The sceptic may well ask how voters could possibly be full-hearted about a government that has driven Maharashtra down with relentless consistency, and an opposition that has driven itself into irrelevance with equal zeal.

A statistical approach to national elections is more likely to provide accurate predictions than to regional polls. A critical mass has now formed for a stable government at the Centre, but interest groups and legitimate demands in large states like Maharashtra have become too diffuse for coherent analysis. Maharashtra is now effectively a combination of four electoral zones with widely differing economies. In theory, good governance should ensure an inter-flow of resources and opportunities to create a better whole. In practice, there is uneven development, and sharp tensions not only along traditional urban-rural lines, but also big city-big town competition. It is a myth that votes gel or splinter only along a single dimension; there are variables even in the support that goes to Raj Thackeray. This is why opinion and exit polls have lost their excitement. The eventual truth tends to be far more exciting.

If you want to know who will form the next government in Mumbai, you will have to check with either God or Mayawati, and neither seem very communicative on the subject.

The media has been abuzz following the Sin Chew Daily interview with Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz and his notion that DAP should join the Barisan Nasional.

The question of DAP joining the Barisan Nasional to replace MCA does not arise at all.

DAP is not a Chinese party fighting for Chinese rights but a Malaysian party fighting for the rights of all Malaysians whether Chinese, Malays, Indians, Ibans, Kadazans or Orang Asli as common Malaysian citizens who are entitled to an equal place under the Malaysian sun.

DAP leaders have toiled and sacrificed for their political beliefs in the past 45 years, persecuted and prosecuted in court, detained under the Internal Security Act for as long as four year and nine months, jailed and disqualified as MP and barred from elective office for five years for standing firm and steadfast on a matter of principle to fight for the rights of all Malaysians transcending race and religion – all these sacrifices not just for the DAP to replace MCA in the Barisan Nasional.

Right from the beginning, the vision and commitment of DAP leaders is for a Malaysia where all Malaysians, regardless of race or religion, can unite in a common Malaysian patriotic endeavor to form an efficient, clean and transparent government to build a just, democratic, progressive, prosperous and competitive Malaysia.

DAP must always act not just for the Chinese but for all communities in Malaysia.

Only a new politics and a new national compact, breaking completely away from the politics of “divide and rule” along ethnic lines, subordination of public interests to private greed resulting in destruction of independent national institutions, rampant corruption and cronyism where privatization has become piratisation and NEP an instrument to foster Umnoputras in the name of bumiputras, can save Malaysia.

DAP is fully committed together with PAS and PKR to ensuring Pakatan Rakyat success in 13th general elections to restore the constitutional rights assured to all Malaysians regardless race and religion and bring about fundamental changes so that a new start could be made to fully develop Malaysia’s potentials particularly our human resources and talents to be an united, successful and great Malaysian nation.

- Lim Kit Siang is the DAP advser and MP for Ipoh Timur

Paranoia has hit the roof at the MCA, with president Chua Soi Lek rushing to assure all and sundry that an invitation from Nazri Aziz, the minister in the PM’s Department, to the DAP to replace MCA in the BN was his personal opinion.

But whatever bravado that Soi Lek may try to muster, there s no way he can hide the humiliation to himself and his party. The news rang out loud and clear throughout the nation – even UMNO, the BN boss, no longer wants the MCA. It has become a burden, a liability that Chua and team have failed to turn around.

It was the same story for Gerakan president Koh Tsu Koon, who thought his protection was adequate because he was cocooned within Prime Minister Najib Razak’s department. But that has not stopped the UMNO-owned Utusan newspaper and a group of BN-aligned Independent lawmakers from taunting him as a ‘useless’ leader and telling him point-blank that it was time to go.

In a move akin to mercy-killing, DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang has issued a statement, declaring that the question of the DAP joining BN “did not arise at all”.

“DAP is fully committed together with PAS and PKR to ensuring Pakatan Rakyat success in 13th general elections to restore the constitutional rights assured to all Malaysians regardless race and religion and bring about fundamental changes so that a new start could be made to fully develop Malaysia’s potentials particularly our human resources and talents to be an united, successful and great Malaysian nation,” Kit Siang said in a statement out on Friday.

Soi Lek and Tsu Koon have to bear full responsibility

Nazri had made the comments in an interview with Sin Chew Daily on Sunday, saying that DAP should be invited to join the coalition. Nazri said this was not anything new as Gerakan too joined the BN, then known as the Alliance, after winning Penang in 1969.

Sad to say, Nazri did not mention that it has been downhill all the way since for Gerakan.

But essentially, both the MCA and Gerakan have themselves to blame for the current sorry state that they are in. To be precise, the grassroots have Soi Lek and Tsu Koon to blame. Experts had warned both leaders in the wake of the 2008 general election that it was crucial to quickly regain the confidence of the Chinese community. Yet both men insisted they knew better. For the sake of cushy jobs and high positions, they continued to close an eye to UMNO’s abusive behaviour.

Yet, neither MCA nor Gerakan were without bargaining chips then. MCA has 15 parliamentary seats and DAP 2. But due to the short-sightedness of Chua and Koh, neither dared to use this leverage. In the end, it was UMNO who has turned the tables on them. These 17 seats are no longer worth a sen.

Should MCA and Gerakan pull out now, it will not change the power equation in Parliament. The 3-year period for by-elections is already over and in the coming General Election, the Gerakan and MCA brand names are seen to be so worthless that the candidates they field will surely lose their seats.

“They have painted themselves into their own corners and it serves them right. I am not talking about the ordinary members but the top pleaders at MCA and Gerakan, who must now take responsibility. Don’t blame anyone except their own avarice and lust for powerful jobs. Even now, if Nazri were to thaw just half a degree, both Koh and Chua would rush over to shake hands and curry favour as they have been doing all these years,” PKR vice president Tian Chua.

End of the road for UMNO too

However, despite Nazri’s tough talk, it  the writing is also on the wall for UMNO. The difference is that it holds many more seats than Gerakan and MCA combined and the party has played its cards better than Soi Lek and Tsu Koon.

UMNO’s red-hot aggression is seen by pundits as final evidence that the party has reached the end of its tether. Only emergency rule or a police state remain as viable options for UMNO to stay in political power if the DAP or PAS refuses to join the BN.

“UMNO should also beware. The way it is behaving is quite shameful. Honourable people do not behave like this. Honourable men do not kick others when they are down even if they deserve it. If Kit Siang were to say, DAP will consider, I am sure all their grassroots will ask him to think twice. The most poisonous animal in Malaysia, the one with most deadly disease, is now the UMNO elite. Who would dare mix with it? It is because the UMNO elite is really desperate that they are acting like this. But it is a shame and such a bad example to our youth. The Malay community cannot be feeling proud at this display of churlishness,” said Tian.

PAS: Welcome to the club

PAS leaders too laughed at the latest turn of events especially at Soi Lek, who has actively painted the Islamist party as extremist group that all Chinese should avoid. Soi Lek’s implicit message to the Chinese community was that they should vote for the MCA so that the BN could protect them from zealots such as PAS.

Najib has also tried hard to get PAS to merge with UMNO or to join the BN, but he has been rebuffed in no uncertain terms by the Islamist party, which has been disgusted at the way that he has ruled the country, bringing disgrace, scandal, and increasing Malaysia’s profile in the corruption indices.

“As they say, he who eats chilli feels the heat. Chua and Koh must think very carefully because they may be the last presidents of their parties. When UMNO started to use Perkasa to stir up racial feelings, that was the signal for the MCA and Gerakan to leave BN. But for reasons only they know, they didn’t. As for DAP, it faces the same pressure as PAS. UMNO will chase and hound them. But anytime it is better than being chased out like MCA and Gerakan,” PAS MP for Kuala Krai Hatta Ramli told Malaysia Chronicle. -    Malaysia Chronicle

Related story:  Question of DAP joining BN to replace MCA does not arise: But is it a denial?

The minister in the Prime Minister’s Department was reported by Chinese daily Sin Chew Daily to have made the offer yesterday, which led Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek to chide the Umno leader for saying that his MCA had lost Chinese support.