COMMENT | Confused with GE15? Here’s a guide

COMMENT | Aiyo, so confusing la, who to vote for? Yes, nomination day has thrown up so many parties and candidates. Not to worry, here is a simple guide to help you decide:

Firstly, there are only three “real choices” – Pakatan Harapan, Barisan Nasional (BN) and Perikatan Nasional (PN). The other smaller parties can be ignored.

Why is that so? Only 2 percent of voters wanted “other parties” according to a survey by the respected Merdeka Center. Those in the “others” list are GTA (Gerakan Tanah Air, led by Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s Pejuang), PBM (Parti Bangsa Malaysia) and Warisan.

Two percent means that they basically have “no hope” to win on a national level. This can be seen in PBM announcing its intention to contest only seven Parliament seats. Even then, Edmund Santhara failed to show up at the nomination centre at Segamat to defend his seat. Perhaps he knew it was a lost cause for PBM?

So why are they contesting? After all, candidates who fail to get at least 10 percent of the votes will forfeit their RM10,000 deposits. Is somebody funding these smaller parties just to be “spoilers” to “split the votes”? To allow the real players to gain an advantage?

Or maybe they hope to win three or four seats so that they can play the role of “kingmaker” (which can make exorbitant demands) when the other three main coalitions fail to gain a clear majority?

Anyway, let’s take a brief look at these three sideshows.

PBM - Parti Bouncing Malaysia

This party is full of frogs. Some jumped from PKR such as Larry Sng, Steven Choong and Xavier Jeyakumar. Paul Yong and A. Sivasubramaniam did the double hop from DAP to Bersatu and then PBM.

Zuraida Kamaruddin (and her gang Edmund Santhara and Haniza Talha) also did the double kangaroo from PKR to Bersatu and then to PBM.

With so much hopping around, PBM should be renamed Parti Bouncing Malaysia, or worse, Parti Betrayers Malaysia. The betrayers tag is apt, given the huge fight in October between the current president, Sng, and the so-called new president, Zuraida.

Warisan’s recycled reps

This Sabah party was an ally of Harapan in 2018 but no longer. Instead, it has expanded to Peninsular Malaysia to fight Harapan (and others) by recycling wakil rakyats who left other parties under a cloud. These include: Ong Tee Keat (ex-MCA) Wee Choo Keong (ex-PKR, ex-DAP), Jeff Ooi (ex-DAP), Fadzil Hanafi (ex-Umno), Bryan Lai (ex-DAP) and Ong Chin Wen (ex-PKR).

Warisan is contesting only 26 out of 166 seats in Peninsular Malaysia, which indicates its limited national ambitions.

GTA/Pejuang

Google GTA and it reveals the video game “Grand Theft Auto”. The GTA coalition is led by Pejuang’s Mahathir, and will contest a whopping 120 Parliament seats. How did such a small party get so much money to support all those candidates?

Mahathir, as prime minister (2018-2020) seemed more obsessed with luring over frogs from Umno into Bersatu rather than seriously implementing Harapan’s promised reforms. In the end, he was betrayed by even more slimy frogs during the Sheraton Move. Or was he part of the plot?

Anyway, Pejuang seems to depend mainly on the 97-year-old man’s reputation. Will it be viable after he passes away? Well, Ibrahim Ali, the serial frog and racial provoker of Perkasa (now Putra), says he can also become PM!

Okay, that’s enough time wasted on the “calafare” or sidekicks of these elections. Let’s take a look at the main players.

BN/Umno

This is basically Umno as others like MCA (Make Chinese Angry) and MIC (Make Indians Cry) are just window decorations. Ismail Sabri Yaakob may be the blur-looking, elderly, “poster boy” but his allies in Umno (Shahidan Kassim, Annuar Musa, etc) have been chopped down, I mean dropped, by party president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. So it’s unlikely that he will become prime minister.

Instead, Zahid will probably become PM if Umno wins. Yet, he faces 47 corruption charges of stealing from his own “charity” yayasan. Despite all the fancy promises of the BN manifesto, he doesn’t sound like someone who will solve the key problem of corruption. Instead, he led Umno to an emergency meeting to “continue the fight” for the convicted criminal Najib Abdul Razak.

So, after white elephant projects like Najib’s East Coast Rail Link (ECRL), will Umno’s priority be on more useless, over-priced projects, such as the 120km Malacca-Sumatra bridge? Projects which political parasites can suck the lifeblood of Malaysia from?

PN - National Bondage

PN, led by Bersatu, was central to the Sheraton Move betrayal and the #KerajaanGagal or “failed government” policies of Muhyiddin Yassin’s 17 months as prime minister. Who can forget those dark MCO (Movement Control Order) days, when poorly thought and confusing policies led to thousands of Covid deaths and economic havoc? And when support dropped, Muhyiddin resorted to declaring an emergency to stop Parliament from meeting!

Another unsavoury Bersatu leader is Azmin Ali, who as MITI mInister lacked real ideas to revive the economy. Just compare it to the flood of proposals given by people like DAP’s Ong Kian Ming.

And there’s Hamzah Zainudin. Former inspector-general Abdul Hamid Bador revealed that this home minister tried to appoint his “boy” to turn the police’s Special Branch into a political tool.

The other key partner of PN is PAS, which instead of finding ways to improve people’s lives in Kedah, had its menteri besar dismissing those who raised the white flag when they were desperate for food aid during the Covid crisis.

And instead of leading the country forward, PAS leaders seem to be more busy scoring cheap political points on issues like Timah whisky and banning Muslims from Bon Odori. The worst of the lot is Abdul Hadi Awang, the forked-tongue “holy man” who used to praise DAP but now calls them “communists” and “iblis” (devils)

With all this baggage, I prefer to translate the name Perikatan Nasional as “National Bondage”. Because those who vote for them will be "ikat" (tied up) in bondage to very dubious leaders.

Pakatan Harapan - best hope despite flaws

Harapan didn't complete the job it got in 2018. Basically, Harapan was handicapped by Bersatu’s leaders who seemed reluctant to do genuine reforms for the country. Perhaps too many old skeletons would be exposed, and too many entrenched “deep state” interests would be compromised by reforms.

This was probably why Mahathir’s close buddy Daim Zainuddin was chosen to lead the Council of Eminent Persons and recommend reforms – which were ironically then classified as an “official secret”.

Leaders from DAP, PKR and Amanah also lacked national government experience and it took them some time to get to grips with the deeply conservative and fossilised federal government system. And then the Sheraton Move happened.

While struggling to reduce the costs of mega projects like LRT3, ECRL and MRT2, perhaps some Harapan leaders forgot that they had won only a minority (around 30 percent) of Malay votes. The mindset was perhaps to treat Malaysia as a company to be run efficiently, rather than a country where the majority of voters needed comforting handouts.

Whatever their shortcomings, Harapan leaders have endured being in the opposition for years (indeed decades). Anwar Ibrahim, Lim Guan Eng and Mat Sabu have all served jail time for their political beliefs. So at least, their hearts are in the right place.

Harapan leaders now have federal experience and have probably learned from their mistakes. And they are now strengthened by the return of dynamic Rafizi Ramli. He and other Harapan leaders (plus Muda) have many good ideas to take the country forward.

It’s for this reason that I believe Harapan is the best “hope” of saving Malaysia from eventually becoming a basket case like Sri Lanka.

First-time voter? Check out our GE15 guide

Who are your GE15 candidates? Find out here

ANDREW SIA is a veteran journalist who likes teh tarik khau kurang manis. You are welcome to give him ideas to brew at tehtarik@gmail.com.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

COMMENT | How Harapan can motivate disillusioned urban voters

COMMENT | Why Harapan should promise goodies galore

PODCAST | GE15 is finally here - What should we expect?

COMMENT | Five issues to consider for GE15