MCLM vs PR = Victory for BN!

The recent debate on the Third Force, or some would rather called it the Third Farce, seems to assume the voters are discerning, of the same level of intelligence, and up-to-date with current socio-political affairs; and there is uniformity in their willingness and ability to listen to the finer points of argument. For a start, they are likely to be educated in Malay, English, Chinese or Tamil. Anything in English is likely to be left out by those who read Malay, Chinese or Tamil newspapers. To make matters worse, all the MSM are controlled by BN. Last but not least, of those who listened, are they registered voters?

If you were to ask at random, someone in a coffee shop, you are likely to come across someone who is uninterested in politics, apolitical, unaware of the latest news or any news about what others deem as 'breaking news', or never watch the television except follow serials on Astro or in their DVDs. The biggest problem seems to be getting anything important across to the people. If someone is uninterested, he or she will just turn a deaf ear, even if pretending to be listening. Some may not even know who is the PM!

At each election, time and again, we have witnessed how disparate a group, the voters of each constituency are. No matter how prepared the election machinery of each side, towards the end of a campaign, a simple photo or any unfavourable news could make a big difference to the results. We have also seen, here as well as abroad, the power of personality (eg. Film star) as well as the power of sympathy votes which elevated candidates to become people's representatives.

I admire the relentless work of some activists like Raja Petra, Haris Ibrahim, Bernard Khoo and so on. Each of them strives towards justice and good governance, though their effects might not necessarily coincide. They are quite like political parties PKR, PAS and DAP, working towards a common objective, but having to deal with their differences in party constitutions and policies. The people expect differences to be ironed out before the big battle in the next General Election. Some even expect perfection as in no disagreements and ideal candidates. But like what Margaret Thatcher once said, 'We have highly intelligent people working together, we are bound to have differences.' or something to that effect (trust my memory!).

What the people do not wish to see is while dealing with the differences, including semantics and what have you, we miss out the most important factor - the right candidate, and that means, the winning one. What good is it, with all the right credentials acceptable to party and others, the candidate is unpopular with the people? Yes, we have had winning candidates who were proven disloyal after the elections. But nobody can really tell whether a particular candidate is going to be loyal, unless and until he or she is elected. Even with the best psychological tests, it is impossible to weed out the undesirables because most people still has a price beyond which he or she is open to persuasion. It could be Rm1 million to a certain person, or Rm50 million to another. It could even be because of blackmail, torture or livelihood of a family member.

The people definitely would not wish to see three-cornered fights if we assume they are more for a two-party system to come into fruition first. MCLM and Pakatan should try to work out something to avoid this.

I cannot help using the analogy of when Gerakan Penang argued over who should be the next Penang Chief Minister, the people decided to end their quarrel once and for all by giving it to DAP instead!
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