OCT 2 — The whole time I was in Malaysia this year, I was constantly bombarded with propaganda — 1 Malaysia this, 1 Malaysia that. Rakyat didahulukan, pencapaian diutamakan — people first, performance now. But if this is the key plank of Barisan Nasional’s campaign to regain the hearts and minds of Malaysians, why do they so blatantly give lie to it by nominating Tan Sri Isa Samad to contest for them in Bagan Pinang?
To be fair to Barisan and Umno, Isa is a safe choice of sorts. He is popular with the Umno grassroots (who these days increasingly bear little relation to the Malaysian grassroots). The selection of a candidate unpopular with the local party members was another nail in Barisan’s coffin the last time it contested a by-election. Isa is a known quantity; he was the mentri besar of Negri Sembilan, so he has the political chops necessary to contest and lead a campaign.
But still, is Barisan out of its mind? In this case, they have blatantly put the interests of the party ahead of the people, and put political performance ahead of statesmanship. Is this what 1 Malaysia means?
Barisan touts itself as a wiser party, one willing to change and heed the people. Isa is a vote-buyer and carries a history of corruption — corruption so blatant that even Umno could not ignore it, and suspended him from the party. If there’s one thing Malaysians are tired of, it’s corruption — it’s why we voted so strongly in Pak Lah’s favour in 2004, and why we voted so strongly in Pakatan Rakyat’s favour in 2008.
To be precise, we’re tired of the government dragging its heels when it needs to act on corruption. That’s why we so furiously gave Barisan the boot in 2008 — we’ve given up hope on sweet-talking liars who promise one thing and give us another. And in Isa’s case, this is no mere foot-dragging.
Barisan is compromising its entire platform of reform by nominating Isa, in the hope it can win this one by-election. It is nominating a known money politician to represent itself to the people of Bagan Pinang and the people of Malaysia. It is basically telling us that Barisan stands for corruption.
In his defence, Isa says that he has served his suspension, and that other top leaders have been found guilty of similar crimes in the past. But that’s not the point. It is said that in naval tradition, a captain whose ship sinks while under his command will never be given command of another ship again.
That is an extreme not worth going to, but here is the point: we need to draw a line in the sand. Corruption is a plague upon our country, which has cost us billions of ringgit; Khairy Jamaluddin, one of Isa’s defenders, himself has admitted in the past that as much as RM1 out of every RM10 the government spends is wasted on euphemistic “leakages”. We cannot tolerate corruption among those who hold offices of public trust, and we have every right to expect our leaders to take corruption very seriously.
Barisan wants to win the battle of Bagan Pinang, and maybe it will. But it fails to see that by nominating Isa to represent it there, it has conceded a bigger war. Come next election, the people will remember all these times Barisan has had a chance to take a stand against corruption and injustice, and opted instead to take the side of the corrupt and the unjust.
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