March 28, 2013
| Praba Ganesan is Parti Keadilan Rakyat's Social Media Strategist. He wants to engage with you, and learn from your viewpoints. You can contact him at prabaganesan@hotmail.com or follow him on Twitter @prabaganesan |
MARCH 28 — She's often mistaken for a brand. For the regime in power she is the sum of all their fears. Thus, the trials and tribulations of Nurul Izzah Anwar continue for yet another year.
I say more brand than flesh and bones, because to the gazing public the broad tendency of various groups to run her down does not solicit their general empathy.
It's not malicious behaviour, they just don't think a can of Coke or pair of Levi's jeans gets riled up by public relations campaigns against it. They forget at times the person who is the brand is not an inanimate object. They disassociate from the result, and therefore the reality that real people get hurt.
And now, as though the last 14 years have been a walk in the park, on the eve of the general elections several people are threatening to drag her through the mud, damn the consequences. They are just going to throw stuff and not bother to stand around to see if it sticks on the wall.
I concede that Nurul Izzah the brand has benefitted immensely Nurul Izzah the person. But that does not in itself justify a free for all.
There are few in Putrajaya that would deny that one of the most anticipated single races in the election is Lembah Pantai. Fearing the continued rise of a young politician still in her early 30s from a political family, the federal government has gone to war with Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim's eldest daughter.
Stand and deliver
A few tumultuous weeks in 1998 shifted her orbit permanently. From being showered with attention from airport check-in to in-flight service, she had to grab a backpack and catch a ferry to Indonesia, and hope no one noticed her.
She had to get to Jakarta and Manila, to tell men who would listen they need to help get her father out of prison. They could not help and the lights of justice went out in Malaysia for a long time as her father, the former deputy prime minister, languished in prison for six years.
While stepping up to help her mother raise the younger kids, build a political party to change Malaysia's future in those early years was not a choice, choosing to become a first-time candidate for the Lembah Pantai parliamentary seat in 2008 after her dad was already out of prison was not forced on her.
She could have opted out. No one would have blamed her.
Still, it does not excuse the way the system has treated her.
The warzone MP
There was no honeymoon after upsetting three-term Shahrizat Jalil, for Umno was not going to let Nurul Izzah get on with being a parliamentarian.
For the past five years, she has been the only MP in the country who needs heightened security within her own constituency. Not only that, there are areas in the low-cost housing sprawl where her arrival would turn any event into a warzone as Umno saplings get physical.
There have been several instances where she was directly in harm's way because she was just trying to be the parliamentarian for those people.
Lembah Pantai is at the centre of large numbers of voters' registrations and transfers of voters from other districts. Her team has tracked, tested and then informed the Election Commission but they won't budge. There are almost 5,000 voters in the seat who have dubious addresses that cannot be traced.
With only a 2,000 plus majority in 2008, it would be nervous reading for the incumbent. She has filed for the courts to act before polls, but it is unlikely she will get a lucky break here.
The Umno chief for Kuala Lumpur and Federal Territories Minister Raja Nong Chik Raja Zainal Abidin is her opponent, and he has reduced his portfolio to winning Lembah Pantai. At least the good people of Wangsa Maju and Titiwangsa know how Cheras and Kepong residents have always felt — unappreciated.
They say today in Brickfields, a battleground voting district in her seat, the road-sweepers get your chocolate wrappers before you walk into the store to buy the bar. There are police and city hall enforcers camped out there to serve.
Raja Nong Chik is attempting to out-serve the electorate there by leveraging his office. It is beyond doubt that if he wins that the rate of "care" will drop as someone will point to him that as minister and not MP he has to think of all residents of Kuala Lumpur, not just the ones in his seat.
Lembah Pantai is quickly becoming the bellwether for cash versus value and goodies versus principles.
She is not mighty mouse
This column is not insisting or suggesting that Nurul Izzah is the best MP in Parliament, but it does insist that there are forces bent on not letting the thirty-something get on with her job, so denying her the right to fail or succeed on her own work.
This is the tricky part. My opponents will demand that I'm denying their right to fair comment. They misspeak. They may say all they want and say it as loud as they want, within reason. Public officials must accept general scrutiny, but they do not have to suffer fools. Expression works both ways.
People are entitled to suggest her family and father have by association given her advantages many Malaysians don't have. They can peruse her positions, policies and actions with greater rigour. And yes, state her family ties as many times as possible.
Indira Gandhi always pales in comparison when compared to her father Jawaharlal Nehru, he may be more words than policy driver but only one prime minister gets to declare a country's independence. Young president recreating Camelot John Fitzgerald Kennedy may seem to us, but he will never live down being a privileged child from Boston Brahmins and a father who was an anti-Semite.
Children can be derided and forced to walk in the shadows of their bloodline, but they need not be stomped daily for that.
And with the looming video release, it appears her opponents prefer to attempt to publicly humiliate Nurul Izzah rather than force their man and state chief Raja Nong Chik to debate a person almost half his age.
BN, where is your disgust?
In the weeks to come, Barisan Nasional (BN) leaders will comment on the filth produced by "independent" producers but not necessarily condemn character assassinations as pitiful and woeful tactics past their expiry dates.
They will not disassociate themselves from the products and openly condemn such efforts to proliferate uncouth films into our system.
Where is BN's sense of disgust? Are they indifferent or even caustic because in this system as it stands there is little chance of such allegations made against them?
Surely good men with consciences will not stomach their political spectrum being inundated with sleaze?
This is where the presumed leaders of BN have to cross the aisle and say that Malaysia has to be better than this. I'm hoping rather than expecting they will. For I suspect, the opening lines of this column stand, "she is the sum of all their fears." With that in mind, perhaps fairplay can be set aside to edge out a young leader with decades ahead of her who may ultimately become the main bane for their coalition.
Still, I do agree with one part of why so many likely Umno-voters may be heading to Lembah Pantai. Who wouldn't want to have the chance to vote Nurul Izzah to Parliament? More so, how would the affluent, educated and opinionated population of Lembah Pantai feel that they have failed to act enough to help Nurul Izzah have the privilege to serve them again?
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist
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