As expected, PM Najib and his cabinet members descended upon Hulu Selangor as soon as the previous MP was laid to rest.

Although campaigning should not start until the nomination day, both BN and Pakatan Rakyat has started lobbying hard for votes. Their understanding of campaigning rules is limited to not putting up posters and banners until the nomination day. Everything else is not forbidden.

BN leaders, who has to attend parliament and also to other commitments, managed to make frequent ad-hoc visits to Hulu Selangor. Pakatan Rakyat MB Khalid on the other hand, relocated his whole exco team to Hulu Selangor in order to campaign and work at the same time. He is using Kuala Kubu Bahru district office as his own, so do his team members.

BN, with Najib’s visit, has, as expected, is playing Santa Claus, throwing in the goodies for the local voters with the announcement of a housing project for Felda Settlers. Not to be outdone, the Selangor state government announced land grants in various forms (lease, TOL) etc for the local folks.

Not surprisingly, the goodies dished out are based on race, more than anything else. Despite the regular claims and utterances of ‘multi-racial, ‘inclusiveness’, ‘Malaysian first’, both Pakatan and BN’s campaign strategy is very much based on race and nothing else.

PKR’s Indian ‘mandore’ (a ‘title’ given by Hindraf’s P Uthayakumar) Xavier Jeyakumar, has been busy. He is the most popular Indian PKR leader in the country. Not a day goes by without news reports of him dishing out grants to Tamil schools and temples around Selangor. Even the MIC-owned Tamil Nesan , which in recent months has been trying to revive it’s flagging circulation, gives Xavier regular coverage.

Xavier, two days ago, presented mock cheques, few millions in value, to various schools and temples in Hulu Selangor. This received wide coverage in the Tamil Newspapers. Hindraf had for many months dismissed Xavier’s tokenism and asked Pakatan to provide land for Tamil school and temples. Strangely, Pakatan, despite the state government’s power over land matters has not been doing this.

A friend pointed out that what the Indians want is not only land but permanent annual grants and not piecemeal handouts like what is being dished out by Xavier. A case to point is the Johor government providing the state Hindu Sangam with land for their office and a RM200,000 grant for next seven years. With these, there is no need to beg the state government every year.

S Samy Vellu and G Palanivel, on the other hand, have been going to same places visited by his Pakatan counterparts but the duo are often ridiculed and shouted at. There was also a local man almost beaten up by MIC members for questioning Samy openly during a gathering at Sg Choh last week. A temple there even refused Samy’s pledge for funds, saying that they are being taken care by PKR.

The Indians here in Hulu Selangor claim - at least from what I hear from an influential local PKR leader in Serendah - that local leaders are being enticed by both PKR and BN with money, promises of grants, contracts, lands etc. He says that PKR is of no short of funds for the campaign. When asked for the source of their funds, he says both Selangor government and PKR have ‘enough’ funds to run a campaign in equal measure with BN’s although we all know that they cannot match BN’s federal government promises on projects.

The consensus amongst Indians here is (apart from some hardcore party loyalists from both sides) take whatever that is being dished out, no matter who is giving them but vote for who you like. Sounds like a good idea.

Before the last general elections, Pakatan Rakyat cried foul over massive indirect vote buying by BN. I am astounded that MB Khalid now openly says that he wants and is doing exactly the same. No one from the other Pakatan component parties denounced such indirect vote buying practices. Such hypocrisy. Another case of Malaysians muda lupa .

I am quite bewildered with the silence from the Election Commission. After the announcement of the nomination and by-election dates, there has been a complete silence from them. Why aren’t they chastising both BN and Pakatan over the early campaigning and indirect vote buying?

Whatever happened to Coalition for Free and Fair Elections (Bersih)? Why don’t they take to the streets condemning the vote-buying by both sides? Why also the silence from all those ‘credible’ NGOs such as Aliran, Suaram and like minded BN critics and bloggers?

Why did Lim Kit Siang not post an article on his blog with a kilometer long title ‘ SPR should request the King to form royal commission of enquiry to investigate massive indirect vote buying activity in Hulu Selangor by both Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat’?

Kit Siang or rather Anwar Ibrahim (who is an expert now in writing to the King) should write to the King on this or might as well admit that he is such a hypocrite, unlike MB Khalid whose honesty deserves either praise or condemnation, depending on which side you are aligned to.

Perhaps, Pakatan’s candidate, Zaid Ibrahim should explain if vote-buying even before nomination day is to be a common policy adopted by Pakatan Rakyat. As for the Hulu Selangor residents, there cannot be a better time to celebrate and enjoy the goodies and still vote for whom they like.