Open letter to voters in Sg Buloh

KHAIRY Jamaluddin admitted to the voters he was trying to court in Sg Buloh that he has to fight for a seat to contest in this General election and chose this constituency.

Not that he has any affinity to the people of Sg Buloh, or he really cares about the people there specifically. He has already revealed that the President of his party actually has no seats for him to contest. Even his seat in Rembau was taken away and given to the Deputy President of the party to contest.

Thus, if he wants to remain relevant in politics in the country, either he leaves and joins another political party like what some of his members did when they found out they were not nominated or he offers himself to contest in a `black seat’, a term used to describe seats that are unwinnable for a challenger that aims to challenge an incumbent who has been continuously reelected by the voters to the same seat.

No aspiring candidates with leadership ambition will offer themselves to contest in a black seat as it is deemed a suicide mission. It will immediately cut short the aspiration of any would-be candidate for leadership in any political party.

It is a known fact that in seats where support for Pakatan is strong and their candidates are voted in repeatedly at every General election, any party or coalition unwilling to give a walkover to the incumbent will nominate an unknown candidate to contest.

This unknown candidate normally offers only token resistance in the polls. Vice versa, aspiring candidates from Pakatan will not offer themselves to contest in black seats that traditionally voted in candidates from UMNO.

If he is so bold, why didn’t Khairy choose Seputeh or Segambut, widely regarded as opposition strongholds too?  Moreso, his residence in Bukit Damansara falls under the Segambut constituency, wouldn’t it be easier for him to address any issues posed by the residents? It is definitely much nearer than travelling 10 minutes to address the voters’ concerns in Sg Buloh as he proclaimed he could.

And looking at the population composition in the constituency of Sg Buloh, he must have made a thorough assessment to determine that of all the seats that are deemed not winnable by his party, this seat offers an opportunity where he could possibly swing it, tacking on his credentials in rolling out the vaccination program and the hospital in Sg Buloh being the anchor hospital for the pandemic.

Lack of government support during MCO

Voters in Sg Buloh and Subang should remember that businesses in Sg Buloh and Subang were shut down during the first MCO and the declaration of the Emergency. Those who carried on were doing it illegally and ran the risk of being fined and shut down.

The majority of these businesses were SMEs. Most of them did not survive past the pandemic. Any government assistance was limited, sufficient only to address salaries for employees during the first MCO. 

Plea for the government’s assistance to instruct the banks to offer waiver of penalty interests fell on deaf ears with the excuse that the government cannot intervene in how banks deal with their borrowers.

Compounded with the pandemic, Sg Buloh which has been plagued by traffic congestion and flooding for a long time was one of those areas that were severely affected by the worst flooding that hit the country in 2021.

Khairy was also a Minister in the Cabinet then. Did he discuss with his colleague in the Cabinet, the Finance Minister how to assist these SMEs suffering from the MCO, Emergency and flooding?

Realizing Lifelong Ambition

Khairy is not offering nor would he be able to offer any solutions to the people in Sg Buloh on their long-standing problems. But he wants the voters in Sg Buloh to help him in realizing his lifelong ambition of becoming the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

This was not the first time that Khairy had publicly stated that he wanted to be the country's Prime minister. Years ago, when his father-in-law was still the Prime Minister, Khairy was famously quoted to have said that he hoped to become the country's Prime Ministery by the time he reached 40. Presently, within his party, Khairy is now fighting his own little devils inside and outside the party.

Khairy presented himself publicly that he represents the future. Yet, his recent ceramahs, which are so self-absorbed, are still stuck with a Malay nationalism that has been dominating the Malaysian political scene for the last two decades creating an image that is fearsome for Malaysians of other races to encounter. If the voters in Sg Buloh were to vote for him, it would only strengthen the return of the kleptocrats to govern the country.

Even then, whether the President or the poster boy for the Prime Minister post from his party will reappoint him to the Cabinet is questionable as it appears that there is already bad blood between Khairy and the President of the party. 

If UMNO does not obtain the mandate to govern, then whatever promises he made to the voters in Sg Buloh will be restricted only to being an effective check and balance against the government of the day and the voters will be left to rue and wait for recycled promises in anotherfive5 years.

Khairy is now in the basement of Umno politics.  If the kleptocrats were voted in as they firmly believed they will, the country would slide further down to obscurity before Khairy is in any position to reform his party as he represented the voters, let alone become the Prime Minister of the country.

And he needs the voters of Sg Buloh to keep his dreams alive. 

The voters in Sg Buloh can decide whether they want to help one person’s promise of a reform for his own ambition or a reform of the country of 32 million people. Maybe Khairy will be consigned to take over the mantle from Anwar Ibrahim as the Prime Minister that Malaysia should have but never had. - DagangNews.com

DISCLAIMER :  The opinions expressed within the content are solely the author's and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of the DagangNews.com editorial.