The final and most crucial 48 hours remains. This is that time before the 64,500-odd voters in Hulu Selangor flock to the polling booths in the vast rural north-east constituency along the Selangor-Perak border. Their long under-valued individual ‘X power’ will collectively seal the fate of the parties in this keenly-fought no-holds barred bruising battle of a by-election.

Every vote counts but it appears that the Barisan Nasional (BN), at least, will have none of this thinking. They are too focused in their economics on the collective, playing to the gallery as usual, name-calling, ignoring the individual who cannot be persuaded to buck the trend.

NONE It’s much easier to keep on digging the same hole even if there’s no gold – read substance over form - rather than climb out before it’s too late and scout around for another place to dig. But it was never about the gold.

Former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad shamelessly excuses all these on the grounds that ‘everything is fair and square in love, war and politics’. Is that how he got his ideas for Sodomy 1 and Sodomy 2?

And so the scam continues, living in hope, in much the same way that the British Raj pulled off a global scam that defied the popular imagination for a century and a half. Then, poetic justice, they ran out of excuses to prolong their nauseating presence. The white man in colonial garb was a paper tiger and ye, he stinks to thy kingdom come in ways that none of us, hopefully, ever will.

But guess again. We were wrong. It has been just so much entertainment on the cheap so far, patently from the BN, to pull the wool over the eyes of the more unsuspecting, the na ï ve and the gullible among the largely rural voters. These are generally not credited by the ruling elite and their fat cats in tow with having much intelligence in such matters.

Otherwise, how do we explain the continuing scam over the last 50-odd years when a single block of parties managed to rule Malaysia? Do they again expect in this manner of cheap theatrics to gloss over their eternally-long public record of unbridled corruption and moral-depravity over the last half century and more? The sheer nerve of it all! Tapi apa boleh buat ? (What to do?)

NONE Meanwhile, the moneybags linked to the powers-that-be and other DDT (Department of Dirty Tricks) operatives bid their time, like the vultures they are, to make their grand entrance in the last minute desperate push to wrest victory from the jaws of certain defeat. They have done it before, and yes, they are convinced that they can pull it off yet again unless Hulu Selangor proves to be a different kettle of fish. There’s always a first time as they say. And there are always the surprises.

It’s at this juncture that the moneybags usually appear mysteriously from the depths and dark recesses of their murky world, like latter-day slave traders, to prey on the vulnerable and swing the odds in favour of their political masters. They will be compensated many times over for their relatively modest ‘investments’ with lucrative opportunities to steal the people’s sweat from the public treasury for a fee.

There are no prizes for guessing who these people are as their handiwork was very much evident in the recent Bagan Pinang by-election. Here, they even threw every caution to the wind and openly paraded in highly vulnerable areas clutching their ill-gotten gains brazenly in front of the enforcement authorities.

They doled out in any way they saw fit...a fistful of ringgit here and there duit tambang (bus fare they called it to cover the shame of the recipient), a bicycle here for the starry-eyed young man, something there and more. This was supposed to demonstrate that Hindraf Makkal Sakthi and the political tsunami that they helped unleash in 2008 was just a flash-in-the-pan. The law shamelessly looked the other way, yet again, to mortgage the future of their children for yet another term.

Buck new trend

Will the Orang Asli and Indians in particular fall by the wayside in Hulu Selangor and be found wanting again as they were in Bagan Pinang? Orang India muda lupa (Indians forget easily). Will Hulu Selangor, a parliamentary seat unlike Bagan Pinang, buck the new trend towards outright electoral fraud which emerged in the latter fight?

Both the men in this epic struggle have wearied early as they emerge shellshocked with the tell-tale signs of wear-and-tear in a one-way finger-pointing exercise that has degenerated into personal animosities. Zaid Ibrahim’s very person has been mercilessly bludgeoned in a deliberate BN-engineered process oblivious to the principles and priorities that in fact should matter very much to any self-respecting electorate.

NONE But if Malays can be easily ‘bought’ as Mahathir believes in one of his calculated insults while forgetting his own weaknesses in the issue, why should the Indians be any different?

With the BN holding the three state seats in Hulu Selangor, the ever-pragmatic Chinese would not want Hulu Selangor to fall into BN hands too.

Zaid Ibrahim is Umno and a long repentant one at that. In the ultimate analysis, with the legions of sinners and would-be sinners in Hulu Selangor, is that what really counts in their eyes?

Turning to that eager-beaver P Kamalanathan, what’s his excuse for entering the fray? Is it privately the same as that of the PKR lady defector who shamelessly confessed on national television that she had nothing to show for herself after being with the party for ten years? Did she expect a ticket to riches? How shallow the politics.

Does the fact that Kamalanathan is allegedly related to lifetime MIC president S Samy Vellu qualify him to whitewash the sins of the party and Umno against the Indians for the last more than five decades? Kamalanathan has denied being related to Samy and even if this is accepted to give him the benefit of the doubt, the fact remains that he comes from the same Tamil caste as his party boss.

Indian messiah

None of the betting syndicates are putting their ringgit on the MIC candidate. Kamalanathan mouths a lot of hot air and means nothing in the usual public relations hype that he’s familiar with as he zoomed his way into the candidacy out of nowhere. The spin doctors in MIC are even putting it out that he’s a potential party president. As if that’s supposed to reassure the Indians.

For starters, Kamalanathan wants to know what Pakatan has done in Hulu Selangor in the last two years. Sheer rhetoric. Why doesn’t he explain what MIC, Umno and the BN have done in the constituency over the last 50 years and more? If they have indeed done anything at all, have they all been wished away in the last two years?

Kamalanathan is all form and no substance in the usual MIC, Umno and BN format. Where are the issues? He avoids the land for the Tamil schools issue like the plague. It takes someone like PKR vice-president Jeffrey Gapari Kitingan to lobby the issue in Singapore, Sibu and Kuala Lumpur on behalf of his comrade in arms Zaid Ibrahim. Kamalanathan should be ashamed that Kitingan is doing something that he should be doing.

samy vellu pc 160409 01 MIC Deputy President G Palanivel candidly forecast Kamalanathan’s chances in Hulu Selangor when he admitted that he was glad that he wasn’t standing this time. Sour grapes? Having lost once before, Palanivel fears that a repeat of history will kill his political career for good ‘especially now that he’s poised to be party chief’. Haha. Fat hopes.

Let there be no mistake. Hulu Selangor is not about Zaid Ibrahim, or the other two Ibrahims – Anwar and Khalid, PKR or PR. Hulu Selangor is a barometer of collective Malay and Indian hatred for Samy and the MIC.

The Malays blame Samy and the MIC for the emergence of Hindraf Makkal Sakthi and the subsequent nose-dive in their collective pride and dignity. Only Samy’s departure in all its forms from the scene will soothe the ruffled feathers among the Malays and persuade them to ever consider backing the MIC again. Even this may be a case of too little, too late.

Times appear to be changing. If the people muda lupa (forget easily) they deserve their slavery under Umno and MIC every bit. Ultimately, the people get the government that they deserve.

The Indians, especially the underclass behind Hindraf Makkal Sakthi, see Samy and the MIC as being in cahoots with Umno in their continued exclusion from the mainstream in return for some crumbs for themselves from the main table where the fat cats gorge themselves rich.

MIC leaders are too busy fighting each other off for the dubious privilege of the scraps to bother about the fate of the Indian community. How low have Indian leaders fallen since the days of the great Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the one they call Mahatma. He must be turning over in his grave over the fact that Indian leaders are willing to sell their souls to even the devil for a few extra ringgit in their pockets.