The National Front Dissembles Yet
Again Over Lunas
The irony is
missed. The deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, is also home
minister. He also led the National Front election team in Lunas. One it lost
last week to shake it to its foundations. Only it believed would not happen. So,
accusations and allegations came in fast and furious. Everyone was at fault but
the National Front: The police, the opposition, the voters, the Chinese
educationists, Suqiu, the fellow down the road, you name it they were. The 12
busloads of phantom voters -- followed by a truckfull of Kentucky fried chicken;
food being so scarce as to be brought all the way from Kuala Lumpur! -- were stopped,
brought to the police station, after a standoff, escorted out of Lunas. Why do I say
they are phantom voters? The PJ Selatan Residents' Society president Mohd Umar
Peer Mohamed says (New Sunday Times, p2) he joined 400 others to campaign for the
National Front (MIC) candidate, S. Anthonysamy. Some one forgot to tell him and 399
others that under the law all campaign stops at midnight on the 28th; they came to
"campaign" on the 29th, so we are now told, when campaigning is disallowed.
They are angry that the police denied them their constitutional right to be phantom
voters. They are caught out. The least the National Front could do to make
their case even worse is to tell them to shut up. They did not come to campaign,
and no one in his right mind would come to campaign in an election on polling day, when
it clearly disallowed. Nor did they come on a holiday.
The Prime Minister
even suggests the fellows were opposition supporters. They were not. Ask Mr
Mohamed Umar Peer Mohamed. Why did the UMNO secretary-general, Tan Sri Khalil
Yaakob, rush to the station to sort out the mess? The MIC president, Dato' Seri S.
Samy Vellu, is angry with the police. So was everyone in the National Front camp.
They were letting out their frustrations at having lost. They could not openly
attack the deputy prime minister, so they attacked the police, and by extension its
minister, who is one Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. The reality sunk in a few
days later, and now Tan Sri Khalil believes the polie did a smashing job. His
explanation for the turnaround does not convince. The police did a good job, he
says, because the crowd was menacing. Was it the hungry 400 or the crowd that was
menacing, Tan Sri? So, they escorted the buses out of Lunas. It is more than that.
Many who oppose UMNO now were once in its fold. They know how the National Front
react in elections, and took steps to stop the phantom voters. Tan Sri Khalil
realises that to prolong the discussion is to raise more questions of ill-intent.
Meanwhile, if the National Front does not want its electoral practices the subject of a
court action, it should tell the holidaymakers to shut up and lick their wounds.
Mr Mohamed Umar has lodged police reporters in Lunas and Petaling Jaya. He
obviously believes the police would act quicker if more than one report is filed.
If it comes to court, he would no doubt be asked to justify his statement that he and
his 399 compatriots came there to campaign when they cannot.
Lunas is important
in that it was a direct confrontation between the ghost of the Prime Minister and of He
Who Must Be Destroyed At All Cost. The only problem is that this fellow refuse to be,
though his accuser is. Until this is resolved this electoral bleeding is not over.
If KeADILan was on the skids, and it was, even after Teluk Kemang, it is not any more.
It proved it could bring in the Malay ground, and now the Chinese, to its side in this
fight for the Malaysian cultural ground. Its eminence grise is still a crowd
puller as his nemesis is not. KeADILan must, in its next challenge in the Malay
heartland, field a non-Malay in a traditionally Malay seat. It is a possibility
that sends shivers down the spine of National Front leaders. It does not matter if
KeADILan is returned, if the non-Malay can attract the bulk of the Malay votes, it
should return into the middle ground in Malaysian politics as firmly as it not long ago
was on the way out. The coming changes in the party leadership would provide that
extra "oomph" (apologies to Boh Tea!) in its battle for hearts and minds.
A cabinet minister I put this view to is shocked beyond belief it could. But he
agrees with me that so long as UMNO regards Dato' Seri Anwar as a nobody, it awaits a
bloodier nose in the future.
The National Front, especially UMNO, looks upon
byelections as if the world is about to collapse if it lost it. When it should be
treated for the everyday occurrence it should be, it heightens it to a national tamasha,
with cabinet ministers and mentris besar fallowing each other to campaign. Too
many cooks spoil the broth. As in Lunas. Where they forogt the spices.
It annoyed the local National Front organisation. All we were told is what the
carpetbaggers from Kuala Lumpur did or threaten to do, alienating the locals who knew
not only where the voters were, but also where the skeletons of the opposition were
hidden. But the National Front, which incidentally is registered and diffused as
the Alternative Front is unregistered and focussed, was more interested in the form and
not the substance of the campaign. The Malay ground was not there. The
Chinese dissension was burnished by the confusion over the Vision Schools, which MCA
sidestepped. But I do not see a change in the horizon. So long as the Anwar
affair is unresolved. Until then, the National Front would throw the baby out with
the bathwater. All this has nothing do with race and religion, which the National
Front, more than the opposition, indulged in.
M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my
