Phew,
he was rescued from ignominy by Ismail Sabri Yaakob who registered one
year and 51 days at the helm. Ismail Sabri ās usual hang-dog, glum look
suits the scuttled what-might-have-been scenario ā 119 days to beat
Muhyiddin, if only he could have held out for the general election in
March, after Chinese New Year, after the rains and high water.
I should qualify my opening line about us choosing a new prime minister.
The
people donāt choose a new prime minister, or retain an old one, when
they cast their votes. The prime minister has been decided by a partyās
elite before the election after any internal squabbling for supremacy
has been squashed.
So if people have no say in the government they want or get lumbered
with, why bother to vote? Well, not voting means you accept whatever is
handed out by whomever for the next four to five years, wallowing in
your grumbling complaints, feeling superior in your sulking. Alienated
in your country. Becoming a grouch. Pathetic.
One vote in millions
may not amount to anything, one vote in a constituency may not amount
to anything but it is a voice, pip-squeak though it may be, your voice
for more of the same old crap, same old faces, or for change.
Okay,
some same old faces in those advocating change too but there are the
imponderable young who will be casting their first āXā about the future
they would like to have.
Streak of rebellion
I
cannot predict how many of the newly empowered young will vote or for
which party they will vote. I can only trust that in every generation of
the young there is a streak of rebellion, a vein of
donāt-talk-down-to-us, donāt cramp our style defiance.
A spirit of
hanging out, letting loose like those kids dancing to live music in
Kedah recently, which led to religious guardians harrumphing about
questionable behaviour leading to immorality, the usual religious stuff.
Or the passionate commitment that moved university students in 1974 to brave the tear gas, truncheons and kanda sticks of the FRU and police for about a week before succumbing to an invasion of superior forces.
The
prediction attributed to King Louis XV of France before he lost his
head to the revolution ā āApres moi, le delugeā ā seems oddly
appropriate.
Firstly, and obviously, itās a reference to the looming dark clouds
of the monsoon and the potential flooding. BN is chanting a comforting
mantra, the monsoon will arrive in the middle of November, so any day
before that will be fine and dry, and the opposition is led by wimps and
ninnies for fearing to get wet.
Here are two possible scenarios
deriving from the weather on the day of the polling day, or days before.
If there is flooding, where will the displaced people be placed? In
schools that have been set up as polling stations? Thatās just one of
the myriad problems that will surface if sodden clouds dump their wet
load on us.
BN will be swamped with a tsunami of vituperation. I
would advise not launching a flotilla of rescue boats bearing BN
candidates handing out bags of goodies with their faces, names and party
logos on them. That would be rubbing it in.
For all that, BN will
survive relatively unscathed. They have long experience of not
listening to or ignoring what anyone else outside their coterie and
cohort had to say.
If it is fine on the day of the election, I
will have to ignore news portals for at least a couple of days to avoid
puerile, juvenile jabs from BN taunting the opposition about being
scaredy-cats.
Selective paranoia
King
Louisā warning about what would come after his removal was, of course,
also triggered by Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidiās viral message of
the dire aftermath should BN lose the election.
His naming the
leaders of the BN coalition had his detractors swiftly hearing the
rattling of skeletal bones as the door to the BN cupboard is opened. Ah,
an insight into a rogueās gallery.
They got it wrong, Zahid says.
The message was of vindictive persecution - selective prosecution
should the opposition come to power.
I see where Zahid is coming
from about selective prosecution. When former prime minister Najib Abdul
Razak was convicted, Zahid said the judgment would have Commonwealth
jurists aghast and bemused.
A few weeks ago, Zahid was acquitted
of a few of the many charges he faced. He was happy that a court of law
had acquitted him when the court of public opinion had āconvictedā him
long ago.
Hang on, what happened to selective prosecution on that occasion? How come the system didnāt get him nailed?
I
hate to piddle on the happy parade but a court freeing a defendant of
charges just invites an appeal from the prosecution, so this aināt over.
By the way, itās the jurors in the court of public opinion who will be voting. You know lah Malaysians, mustnāt lose face, so how many of them will admit they were wrong about you?
Now Zahid is feeling threatened again by selective prosecution.
Whoa, it is beginning to sound like selective paranoia.
I
am not qualified to be a shrink but I read a lot of
psychology/psychiatry texts as background for my Masterās thesis on
poetry and suicide.
The smartest thing I learned about paranoia
was not from those texts, but from Joseph Hellerās satirical novel
āCatch 22ā ā ājust because you are paranoid does not mean you have no
enemiesā.
