YOURSAY | ‘With enemies within Harapan and PAS not contesting, the opposition has a chance this time.’

New Malaysia With Progressive Malays: Do not rule out MIC. They may win the Cameron Highlands parliamentary seat by a very slim margin.

Pakatan Harapan has not kept their promises at all. The very fact the infighting is going on could frustrate the Harapan supporters.

The resignation of Umno members who are welcomed with open arms by Bersatu is treachery. The underperforming Education Minister Maszlee Malik and the decision to still keep him in the cabinet is a sore point for Harapan.

PKR’s Latheefa Koya attacking party president Anwar Ibrahim shows that there is no unity in the party, while the false embrace between Rafizi Ramli and Mohamed Azmin Ali is just a wayang kulit (puppet show).

Harapan has lost about 30 percent support. The tsunami of May 9 election is history.

I have a strong feeling MIC might scrape through if BN brings out all its forces including MCA, Umno and PAS.

Kahlil Gibran: Yes, you can criticise MIC but nothing can be worse than Harapan today. The way Bersatu is “stealing” lawmakers from other parties to consolidate its position – even Umno-BN never stooped this low.

I hope MIC wins because Harapan is taking the voters for granted and for a ride. Then it will show Harapan that people are fed up with their behaviour.

Anonymous_c97f73f1: Indeed, with enemies within Harapan sabotaging the leadership and trying hard to spew hatred towards Indians after the temple fracas, and PAS not contesting, the opposition has a chance to win this time.

Anonymous 770241447347646: MIC will disintegrate in the near future. With the full force of Harapan focusing their attention on Cameron Highlands, it will be an uphill battle for MIC to win.

This will mean they will be left with one parliamentary seat. If Harapan can deliver their promises in the next five years, MIC and MCA will be washed out from the political scene.

Anonymous_1527925538: With then BN government, MIC just scraped through and that too with allegations of vote buying.

Now with the Harapan government and it is highly unlikely that anyone would dare to attempt vote buying, good luck!

Anonymous: If MIC can put forward a credible and clean candidate, why not? But if it is the same person, I would not even bother to go cast my vote.

Harapan needs a rude awakening. Do the right thing, MIC. Show that you still have some quality.

The tempo now is right for Harapan to learn a good lesson - either you show some backbone and teach them a lesson or continue to be irrelevant, your choice.

As for me, who I would vote for depends on what’s on the table.

Changing electoral system will see rise of extremists: Tian Chua

Quigonbond: PKR vice-president Tian Chua is wrong. Proportionate representation means minority voices can be heard, instead of minorities being held to hostage without an electoral outlet by majority politics that gave rise to Umno and PAS – and now Bersatu – way of racist politicking.

Whether they are extremist or otherwise is for the public to judge, and part of the check and balance comes from national education policy that must emphasise basic values and critical thinking, entrenching freedom of civilised expression and absence of any kind of political ideological or religious indoctrination.

Chua says these proportionate representatives are less nationalistic. There is no basis for saying so. One example would be, do you mean people like MCA who had to rely on Malay votes are being nationalistic? They are just being pragmatic/desperate.

Politicians will always be politicians. It is for civil society, a more mature public, to call out their nonsense. But don't attribute their opportunism to a faulty proportionate representation system.

In any event, even in a proportionate representation system, it is not like the voters won't have a direct hand at electing a representative.

You are talking about an increase of a handful of additional seats to cater for groups who by virtue of their minority position will never get people to vote for them collectively. Just need to look at Germany to see how it works.

Lodestar: I agree with Chua. A proportional representation system might seem fair, but many countries that have adopted it find that it is very difficult for a single party to get enough seats to form a government.

It generally requires a lot of horse trading between disparate parties and the process can take a long time. One example is Sweden, which is still without a government more than 100 days after their elections.

In the Malaysian context, it will give greater voice to smaller parties like PAS, the reduced Umno and the hotchpotch of self-interested East Malaysian parties.

There will be no strong government and everything has to be watered down. You will almost never get a two-thirds majority to change any part of the constitution and we will be stuck with the status quo, including all the bad parts.

Prudent: Rubbish! Malaysians have been hearing 'extreme' voices since the 14th general election. Let those 'extreme' voices be heard in the democratic market space so that they can be dissected by the rakyat.

There is nothing to fear from extreme voices. But if repressed, they will find an outlet in even more extreme ways.

OMG!: Chua says the proportional voting system will have two undesirable consequences – firstly, it gives a voice to extremists and second, once elected, these lawmakers will not have any 'national' consciousness. He says it was the existing first-past-the-post system that has kept national politics 'centrist' all these years.

Isn't it better to get the proponents of extremism into Parliament where their views can be argued according to rules? Their supporters will see that they have a voice – does that defuse or enrage them?

Were our 49 years of politics, since 1969, ever centrist? Or were they syncretic politics where opponent forces were bribed with positions, land, projects and money, to join the mainstream alliance, except for DAP and one or two others?

And where all the tools of incumbency were blatantly used to force two-third majorities almost always, by hook or by crook.

There is merit in subjecting BN to the kind of tactics they used when they were in power. But going towards the light, I think, is preferable to turning towards the darkness.

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