This whole idea of holding elections during the monsoon season is just madness. The monsoon season is a dangerous and destructive time. During the last monsoon season, dozens lost their lives; tens of thousands were displaced and billions of ringgit in losses were incurred.
It is a time when the machinery of government should be focused on preparing to evacuate flood victims, readying plans to provide food and shelter for those likely to be affected. To this end, the King himself called upon the nation to brace for heavy rain and extensive flooding. His message couldn’t be clearer: focus on the monsoon and the welfare of the people, not politics. That’s what responsible governments do.
Already reports are coming in of floods in Selangor, Kedah, Negri Sembilan, Sabah and Sarawak. And this is only the beginning of the monsoon season. It’ll get worse in November when voting will take place. But instead of heeding the King’s plea, UMNO has stubbornly pushed ahead with its plans to dissolve parliament.
Many are asking why on earth would Prime Minister Ismail Sabri call a general election in the middle of a monsoon season? Ismail says he had to dissolve parliament because 11 of his cabinet colleagues undermined his position by petitioning the King not to agree to dissolve parliament. He is simply being disingenuous. Only a few days ago, he insisted that it had not affected his position. The truth is he was too weak to stand up to Zahid Hamidi. He knows people are now angry and is trying to shift the blame elsewhere.
UMNO must think the voters are fools, that they can’t see through this charade. UMNO President Zahid Hamidi has been pushing for early elections for months now. This is the same man who even pushed for elections during the height of the Covid pandemic when people were dying by the hundreds. In fact, he has subjected this nation of ours to months and months of instability and political intrigue. Both he and Najib Tun Razak have gone out of their way to destabilise every government since UMNO lost power in May 2018.
And we know why he’s doing it. He faces dozens of criminal charges. If convicted, he might spend years in a prison cell. His strategy is simple – capture the government through fresh elections and then put his men in all the right positions to make the charges against him go away. He knows, too, that once a conviction is handed down, it becomes harder to dismiss the charges. Time is not on his side. To save himself and his cronies, he must act and act quickly.
But don’t take my word for it. Here’s how Zahid himself described the situation. UMNO-BN, he said in his speech to the MIC general assembly, must win big because if they don’t all of the would be dragged to court. Watch an excerpt of his speech in the video above. There you have it – from the horse’s mouth so to speak.
And that my fellow Malaysians is why we are having this election in the middle of a monsoon season. It’s not about restoring stability. It’s not about getting the economy back on track. It’s not about helping ordinary folk feed their families or about bringing inflation under control. It’s all about saving themselves from prosecution. And they are willing to risk the lives, homes and property of voters to get what they want.
In fact, they are hoping that it will be so inconvenient to vote during the monsoon season that you will not be able to cast your vote. That’s what they want because they know that a low voter turnout will probably favour them.
The question now is how do we the voters respond to this dastardly self-serving scheme by all these unscrupulous politicians who are endangering lives and putting us to great inconvenience just to save themselves.
I say that the best way to respond to Zahid Hamidi and his UMNO-BN cronies is to turn up to vote no matter what. Walk through water, stand in the rain if necessary but go out and vote if you can. Let’s vote out Zahid and UMNO-BN once and for all. We have to let them know that they cannot disrespect us – the voters – this way. - Dennis Ignatius
Banduan ni dok dalam jail atau di rumah
sambil minum Caramel Macchiato???
A vote for UMNO is a vote
for Zahid to become next PM...
Who is the UMNO prime ministerial candidate if they win the 15th General Election? Since Ismail Sabri was pressured by party president Zahid Hamidi to dissolve the Parliament on Oct 10, nobody within the United Malays National Organization knows the answer. Only today, 5 days later, an UMNO division in Kelantan has proposed Sabri as the party’s candidate.
This means the turtle-egg man is no longer the “poster boy” because if he still was, the UMNO division did not need to go into trouble to nominate him. Previously, to trick PM Sabri to dissolve the Parliament and call for an early national election, Najib and Zahid – UMNO Court Cluster – had convinced the party to announce Sabri as the “poster boy”.
But that was before former Prime Minister Najib sent to Kajang Prison. The jailing of Najib means all the bets are off. Najib loyalist Puad Zakarshi has called the poster boy to be scrapped. Likewise, Zahid had instigated thousands of UMNO delegates and members to jeer and condemn Sabri for not interfering with the judiciary system to free their “Godfather”.
With Sabri’s reputation smeared within his party, do you really think he could still become the UMNO candidate as prime minister? Even if Zahid openly declares that Sabri, who ranked only third in the party hierarchy as one of three vice-presidents, is the prime ministerial candidate, there is no guarantee the UMNO president will keep his promise. Only fools will believe the gangster.
It was not many moons ago during the Johor state election when UMNO president Zahid announced that Hasni Mohammad would be nominated for a new term as Johor Chief Minister if UMNO-led Barisan Nasional coalition won. Yet, after it won 40 of the 56 state seats, Hasni was stunningly dropped and replaced at the last minute with an unknown Onn Hafiz.
With UMNO being run based on deceit and lies by a bunch of corrupt and power-hungry leaders, it’s not hard to see why Sabri would not be allowed to walk the corridors of power again. Even if Zahid could not become the 10th Prime Minister, the next qualified man is UMNO deputy president “Tok Mat” Mohamad Hasan – not “Turtle Egg” Ismail Sabri.
After the High Court acquitted Zahid of 40 corruption charges last month, he is on his way to become the next prime minister, or so he thought. Zahid is the only UMNO president since independence who has not become the prime minister, a humiliation he desperately wanted to redeem. However, the question remains if the UMNO gangster is qualified to become a Malaysia prime minister.
Tajuddin Abdul Rahman, one of UMNO warlords, revealed in June after he was dropped as the party Supreme Council member that the party chief was still eyeing on becoming prime minister at that time when Zahid was still facing corruption charges. Tajuddin mocked and ridiculed his useless party president as not qualified to lead UMNO, let alone as prime minister.
On Monday (Oct 10), the same day the Parliament was dissolved, Mr Zahid said something incredibly stupid. At a Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) assembly, the UMNO president had described the upcoming national election as “the mother of all general elections”. Worse, he reminded many other Barisan Nasional leaders that they would be slapped with criminal charges if UMNO loses.
In a video clip that has since gone viral, Zahid turned to his deputy Mohamad Hasan, followed by UMNO minister Hishammuddin Hussein, MIC president S.A. Vigneswaran and deputy president M. Saravanan, as well as Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) president Wee Ka Siong, reminding them that they would be prosecuted if Barisan Nasional lost.
Zahid’s comments, although were laughed by the audience during the MIC gathering, was a brutally frank admission that all the top leaders named were involved in corruption. The only reason they have not been charged is because the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has been ordered not to prosecute them. But if Opposition Pakatan Harapan wins, they would be in trouble.
Even Perlis Mufti Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin, a known hardcore supporter of UMNO and Barisan Nasional, was incredibly stunned. He said – “Stunned after hearing how a politician can openly admit that their intention to win the general election is to avoid corruption charges against them in court. If that happens, this country will become a haven for corruption.”
But those Barisan Nasional crooks were not the only one warned by the Prime Minister Wannabe to win next month’s election by hook or by crook. Disgraced Najib Razak, who is currently serving a 12-year jail term and is disqualified to contest, has submitted his name to contest in the coming general election. This is the first time in history that a prisoner has shamelessly put forward his own nomination.
Najib’s desperation was so spectacular that his notorious lawyer, Shafee Abdullah, is vigorously seeking the Prison Department’s permission to allow Najib to campaign in the general election. It seems that all the UMNO crooks are throwing everything, including the kitchen sink, to win the national polls so that they can form a new government to save them from corruption charges.
Zahid’s open admission that Barisan Nasional leaders need to win to escape prosecution could be the last straw that broke the camel’s back. Malay voters, turned off by Najib’s thievery and had initially praised Sabri’s refusal to intervene in the judiciary process to free UMNO crooks, are now pissed off after learning that turtle-egg Sabri has been just another coward with no balls to face Zahid.
With the high prospect of Zahid becoming the next premier, some conservative Malay fence sitters might flock to former PM Muhyiddin Yassin’s party – Bersatu. At the same time, the pulse on the ground shows young voters have started engaging with opposition Pakatan Harapan, a dangerous development that could shock UMNO and deliver a repeat of the 2018 General Election defeat.
Yes, UMNO is not only rudderless after the jailing of Najib, but is increasingly toxic to Malay voters after Zahid forced PM Sabri to dissolve the Parliament during the monsoon season. While the Malay nationalist party hopes for an easy victory, a snap election during rainy season could backfire because the Malays are the one mostly live on lower ground and vulnerable to flood disaster.
True, the last time a general election held in the month of November was in 1999. Then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, Asia’s longest serving leader, scored a decisive re-election victory, securing more than a two-thirds majority. However, it’s also true that Mahathir had won largely due to ethnic Chinese votes that swung in favour of Barisan Nasional.
Government-controlled news media was used to spook Malaysian Chinese of a repeat of May 13, 1969 bloody racial riots following the May 1998 riots in Indonesia. The Indonesia riots saw at least 10,000 people were killed and at least 168 cases of rape – most of the victims were ethnic Chinese. Business owners had to pay local thugs to protect them from the anti-Chinese violence because security forces were largely absent.
As a result, the Malay tsunami due to the sacking and arrest of Anwar Ibrahim, then-deputy prime minister and UMNO deputy president, failed to topple Mahathir. The overwhelming support from Chinese voters had saved Mahathir. MCA, a component party of Barisan Nasional, actually won 29 parliamentary seats, while opposition DAP (Democratic Action Party) grabbed only 10 seats.
PAS Islamist party, then part of opposition Barisan Alternatif (Alternative Front), won 27 parliamentary seats, cannibalising UMNO, which lost 17 seats despite winning 72. Beginning 2008 general election, followed by 2013 and 2018 elections, the Chinese voters have basically left MCA and never returned. The ethnic Chinese have learned to stay united – under DAP.
It was already bad that UMNO cannot leverage on its traditional Chinese votes to tip the scales when it needed them the most. It becomes worse when the majority of the conservative Malay votes are now split three ways – UMNO, Bersatu and PAS. It would be a disaster if opposition PKR could swing some of the Malay fence sitters to Pakatan Harapan.
And it certainly didn’t help that PAS has decided to stick with Bersatu as part of Perikatan Nasional to fight UMNO. While some arrogant UMNO warlords might not think the “disappointment” expressed by the King after he was pressured by PM Sabri, who in turn was pressured by Zahid, to consent to the Parliament dissolution was crucial, it actually matters to many Malay voters.
UMNO would pay the price for disrespecting and ignoring the Malay Monarch’s advice to prioritize people’s well being instead of an individual’s selfish desire to hold a nationwide election at a time when floods are ready to strike. The Malays might not be as clever as Zahid, but they don’t need a rocket scientist to tell that it’s idiotic to go to the polls during the monsoon season. - FT
cheers.
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