The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion
The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion |
| Johor tidak lagi simpanan tetap Posted: 19 Mar 2013 04:11 PM PDT
20 MAC ― Bunyinya Datuk Ghani Othman tidak lagi dikekalkan sebagai Menteri Besar jika Barisan Nasional hendak mengekalkan Johor di bawah perintahnya. Nama Datuk Khalid Nordin, Menteri Pelajaran Tinggi yang hampir menggantikan Ghani tahun 2008 dikatakan akan menggantinya kali ini. Pemerhati yang dekat dengan Umno masih percaya Johor akan kekal di bawah BN tetapi kedudukannya tidak lagi seperti sepanjang separuh abad lalu. Nama Ghani mulai mewarisi dua Menteri Besar yang awal dulu iaitu Datuk Hassan Yunus dan Tan Sri Othman Saad sebelum mereka digantikan dengan Menteri lain. Maka bagi memastikan Johor kekal dengan Barisan Nasional walaupun tidak segagah dulu, MB-nya mesti ditukarkan. Itu ikhtiar politik BN. Pakatan Rakyat sangat yakin, Johor bukan lagi simpanan tetap Umno/BN. Inilah peluangnya yang terbaik untuk merampas negeri Datuk Onn, Musa Hitam dan Muhyiddin Yasin itu. Dalam usaha melucutkan kuasa BN itu, PAS menurunkan Salahuddin Ayub yang kedudukan selesa di kerusi Parlimennya di Kubang Kerian kembali ke Johor. Penasihat DAP, Lim Kit Siang, disebut sedia kembali bertanding di negerinya di Johor bagi memastikan negeri BN terlucut dari tuannya. DAP amat yakin hampir 80 peratus pengundi Cina akan mengundi pembangkang tidak kira calonya PAS atau PKR, apa lagilah DAP. Mereka bertanya banyak mana yang mereka boleh tarik dari undi Melayu? Jika undi Melayu boleh berubah antara 30 dan 35 peratus, maka Pakatan di negeri pasti mara ke Johor Baru. Tetapi banyak yang tidak yakin PR dapat meraih sokongan hingga 80 peratus seperti kepercayaan setengah orang Cina. Tetapi sebusuk-busuknya pembangkang tetap menguasai tidak kurang dari 70 peratus undi Cina. BN tetap meraih antara 65 hingga 70 peratus undi Melayu. Kalau undi Cina kepada pembangkang boleh dikurangkan dibawah 70 peratus, maka ia akan kecewakan PR. Dalam PRU 2008 undi Melayu yang bersama pembangkang hanya 18 peratus. PAS dapat dua DUN. Kalau kali ini ia boleh mencapai 35 peratus, selamat jalanlah BN. Saya tanya Mazlan Aliman, ketua ANAK Felda yg juga Jawatankuasa PAS pusat adakah ia boleh dapat 35 peratus undi Melayu. "Tak dapat," katanya. Tetapi tambahnya, "Kami boleh dapat 32 peratus." Adakah PR boleh dapat 80 peratus undi Cina? "Tinggi sangat," katanya. Tetapi ia boleh mencecah antara 70 hingga 75 peratus. Jika dugaan itu benar, semua kawasan Parllimen dan DUN yang lebat pengundi Cina akan jadi milik Pakatan. Mana-mana kawasan yang pengundinya bercampur, ia masih mirip kepada PR. Yang tinggal buat BN ialah kawasan Melayu yang pengundi bukan Melayu kurang dari 35 peratus. Dengan sifir politik yang mudah itu, inilah kali pertama BN merasa tidak selamat di Johor tetapi tidaklah sampai hilang kuasa. Orang Melayu atas pagar yang bercakap dengan saya berkata, keadaan di Johor sudah jadi 50-50 puluh. Dia tidak mahu kata BN akan jatuh. Ia mungkin boleh menang lagi. Tetapi belum pernah di Johor itu boleh jadi 50-50. Selalunya 70-30. * Ini adalah pendapat peribadi penulis | |
| Posted: 19 Mar 2013 04:07 PM PDT
MARCH 20 — It has become increasingly clear that many of our leaders are out of touch with the realities of everyday living for the less monied. When our own prime minister says that RM50 a month is enough money for a family's groceries, you wonder if his accountant is spiking his Kopi O with happy pills. Singleton me spends at least RM50 a week on groceries, not including the food for my two cats. RM50 a month would have me eating nothing but eggs and rice with maybe the occasional can of sardines. But besides the cluelessness about what things cost in relation to average Malaysian salaries, the level of condescension is what irks me the most. In Global Witness' expose Inside Malaysia's Shadow State, a lawyer refers to some money grubbers as "people of substance." That is Malaysia's big problem — that we regard people with money as "people of substance" regardless of where or how they got that money. Riches and power have become the way we measure "substance" instead of integrity or moral fibre. What does that say about us as a nation? The aforementioned lawyer even condescendingly says this of rural, poorer folk: "They wouldn't know how to find a lawyer, would they?" As if somehow it is their own fault for being ignorant, poor and easily used by "people of substance." The huge chorus of "Unite Sarawakians and oust the evildoers" has already started but here's the thing. It is really not that simple. As I have said many times, Sarawak is a complicated state. The people I talk to over here in West Malaysia gloss over certain things — like the sheer size and geography of Sarawak as well as the diverse make-up of its peoples. You cannot compare Sarawak and Selangor directly. To get from, say, Port Klang to Kuala Lumpur, I have the option of taking the bus or the slow dinosaur we call the KTM Komuter. In Sarawak, to journey from one end to the other end of the state in the same day would require travel by air. Even in Kuching, Sarawak's pristine capital, it is not easy to get a decent Internet connection. My friends in Sarawak tell me the quality of broadband is poor though it is far easier to get Wi-Fi now than before. All your angry tweets and social media grouses are not going to reach the nomadic Penan who is far too busy trying to make a living off of land that is being encroached upon by developers. Do you know that many indigenous people in the remotest of areas do not have MyKads, their children without birth certificates? This is because, for them, it is a long journey to the nearest registration centre. It took a foreigner, Swiss-born Bruno Manser, to unite the Penans before the many splintered tribes discovered they could use the courts to find legal redress. That makes you wonder: Didn't anyone in Sarawak care enough to do the same for them then? Why did Manser, an outsider, have to be the one? Why did it have to take a foreign NGO like Global Witness to create a video as damning as theirs? These are questions I have no answers for. In essence, Sarawak's problems have no easy fix. There needs to be more discourse, more openness, more fact-finding before we can begin to think about change in the state. What will help the state move forward is for Sarawak to no longer remain "in the shadows." Until then, let us be thankful that some light has been shed on the darkness that is the reality of life for Sarawak's indigenous people. * This is the personal opinion of the columnist |
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