Neo-liberal capitalism, globalisation, open borders and privatisation has had its most damaging and exploitative effects on the working class in countries around the world and has only enabled giant corporations in the U.S. and imperialist western nations to buy up and gain control of the economies of economically and technologically weaker, less developed nations, especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America, as well as in Eastern and Southern Europe - taking over their public utilities, telecommunication utilities, railways, banks, resources and so forth, whilst preaching "democracy". "individual freedom", "free press", "free speech", "human rights" and so forth, in what is be SUGAR-COATED NEO-COLONIALISM WITH A SMILING FACE.
Many amongst the educated, English-literate, quite often overseas educated, urban, generally pro-Pakatan Harapan middle class looked upon the neo-liberal IDEAS and Wan Saiful Wan Jan as if he were Moses, having descendeth from the mountain, tablets with divine inscriptions in hand.
However, on this occasion, Wan Saiful Wan Jan is saying what I have oftentimes said about the various pro-Pakatan or anti-BN non governmental organisations (NGOs), about Pakatan Rakyat and now Pakatan Harapan parties, especially DAP and PKR, whose support base is primarily amongst the educated, English-literate, quite often overseas educated, urban middle-class.
In his article below, Wan Saiful Wan Jan criticises his own cohorts at an event hosted by the non-profit G25 at the exclusive Bukit Kiara Equestrian & Country Club in Kuala Lumpur, that they should get out of what he calls their Bangsar Bubble - an echo chamber in which the converted preach to the converted, and to roll up their sleeves and come down into the real world to connect with and put their message across to poor people in the remote areas or the lower income working poor in places such as Kerinchi in Kuala Lumpur and to try and understand their problems.
So on this occasion - kudos to you, Wan Saiful Wan Jan, for saying what I had been saying all along about why Pakatan politicians have never been able to swing the rural and low income urban vote behind them, then blame 40,000 Bangladeshis being flown in on 100 Boeing 747's to illegally vote for BN in the 2013 general elections.
In the run up to the 2018 general elections some commentator on social media claimed that an Antonov 225 cargo aircraft which landed in KLIA was there to fly in 40,000 Bangladeshis to illegally vote for BN. Whilst being the largest aircraft in the world today, with a maximum payload of 551,150 pounds (249.997 kilogrammes), each Bangladeshi would have had to have weighed 6.249 kilogrammes - the weight of a newly born baby.
So if that Antonov 225 were to fly in 40,000 Bangladeshis to illegally vote for BN, those 40,000 voters would have had to be 40,000 newly born Bangladeshi babies.
Now do you see how ignorant and mentally lazy social media "politicians" are - with their faces buried in their smartphones with no initiative to question what they receive on their smartphones and to do some research into the validity of the information they receive.
"They did it in the last general elections" - I hear you say.
Yes Pakatan got enough votes of rural and urban lower income voters to win the seats because Tun Dr. Mahathir, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yasin and their Pribumi party became a part of the Pakatan Harapan pact and brought along the votes of their loyalists amongst rural and lower income urban voters who in earlier elections had voted for UMNO/BN.
Take a look at the proportion of votes received by the winning candidate of parliamentary seats in Selangor state and you can see that Muslimin Yahaya of Pakatan pact party PKR won Sungai Besar with 36.5% of the votes, just 1.5 percentage points more than the nearest rival Budiman Mohd Zohdi (BN - UMNO) who got 34.1% of the votes - in a three-cornered contest with Mohamed Salleh M Husin of PAS which came a distant third with 14.8% of the vote in Sungai Besar - a ethnic Malay-majority constituency with 68.71% Malay population.
The parliamentary seat of Sabak Bernam in Selangor is a constituency which is 83.05% ethnic Malay and which has been won by the Alliance (the BN's predecessor) and by the BN since independence and in one-to-one contests between UMNO/BN and PKR/Pakatan and PKR's predecessor Keadilan. UMNO/BN consistently won Sabak Bernam with majorities ranging from 51.98% to as high as 61.99%. In the 2013 general elections UMNO/BN won Sabak Bernam with a majority of 53.04% in one-on-one contest against PKR.
In a three cornered fight between UMNO/BN, Pribumi (Mahathir's party) and PAS (Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party), UMNO/BN held Sabak Bernam with 31.5% of the vote, Pribumi got 27.4% of the vote and PAS 22.8%, in short UMNO/BN won Sabak Bernam with the largest minority of votes in the May 2018 general elections whilst it had won Sabak Bernam with over 51% of the votes in two-cornered fights in previous general elections since independence.
In the 2013 general elections, PAS was part of the Pakatan Rakyat pact, the predecessor of Pakatan Harapan today, but in the 2018 general elections, PAS was on its own and not part of Pakatan Harapan, whilst Pribumi and Amanah (a PAS breakway) are members.
So the respective results of voting in Sabak Bernam in the 2018 general elections reveal the extent of support PAS still has there as well as the extent of support for Mahathir and his party there and the split between the Mahathir loyalists within UMNO and remaining UMNO loyalists. Amanah supporters would have voted for Pribumi because it is part of the same Paktan Harapan pact as Amanah and whilst UMNO/BN held Sabak Bernam despite all that by a 4.1 percentage points margin, all the effects of three or more way contests.
The results of votes in Sungai Besar in 2018 show how fragile the wafer-thin margin of 1.1 percentage points in PKR/Pakatan's favour could be lost in the next general elections if the vote in Sungai Besar swings back to UMNO/BN.
https://election.thestar.com.my/selangor.html
And
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabak_Bernam_(federal_constituency)
Wan Saiful Wan Jan understand this well and warns his educated, English-literate, quite often overseas educated, urban, generally pro-Pakatan Harapan middle class cohorts to get off their high horses, out of their ivory towers and out of their Bangsar Bubble echo chamber and experience reality on the ground.
I say this as one of Wan Saiful Wan Jan's educated, English-literate, overseas educated, urban, middle class, born with a silver spoon in my mouth cohorts myself.
To those stupid Pakatoons who will accuse me of being an "UMNO/BN stooge" or a "dedak eater" (chicken feed dater), please be informed that I am an independent thinker, with some brains, who regards myself as part of the incoherent and very much fragmented "Third Force", independent of and not beholden to the Barisan Nasional nor the Pakatan Harapan.
And even now, I still am no fan of Wan Saiful Wan Jan but concur with him on this one point of NGOs in the Bangsar Bubble, albeit from the opposite end of the political spectrum from him.
The Malay Mail article follows below.
malaymail.com
Don’t just promote reform in ‘Bangsar bubble’, Wan Saiful tells NGOs | Malaysia
12-15 minutes
PPBM's Wan Saiful Wan Jan speaks during the G25 forum on Political Financing Reforms in Kuala Lumpur July 21, 2018. ― Picture by Firdaus Latif
KUALA LUMPUR, July 21 — Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia political secretary Wan Saiful Wan Jan told civil society groups championing political financing reform to get a dose of reality by visiting villages instead of remaining in upper middle class urban areas.
At a forum on political financing reforms organised by non-profit group G25 at the Bukit Kiara Equestrian & Country Club here, Wan Saiful observed that in Malaysia, civil society tends to preach to converts mainly in urban areas, instead of educating rural Malaysians on why they should not rely on political patronage.
“Politicians are reluctant to change (and be more transparent regarding political funding) because civil society failed to change society. We organise events like this in Bukit Kiara but we do not take it to Pendang or rural areas,” said Wan Saiful.
He said within two months of joining politics, he immediately thought of a “much bigger world than the Bangsar bubble”.
“While we move forward and keep pressure on PH so it remains on track, members of civil society must recognise the elements of hypocrisy in ourselves. We are brave to lobby people in Putrajaya but not in Pendang, Arau,” said Wan Saiful.
He said civil society and politicians must take the political financing reform agenda to the grassroots so that politicians can focus on legislation, instead of being pressured to do “charity work”.
“The more we are talking ourselves and be happy holding events in Bukit Kiara instead of Pendang, Arau, or even Kerinchi... we will continue to talk to ourselves and no one will understand us since the people (at the) grassroot (level) don’t have access to media like we have,” he added.
“The access to the media means we are loud and we put pressure on the government to change but this is a failure of civil society to understand (the realities) for politicians on the ground,” said the rookie politician who failed to win the Pendang federal seat in Kedah during the last elections.
In his maiden run for office, Wan Saiful came in behind Umno and PAS in the race for Pendang in the 14th general election, polling 14,901 votes to Umno’s 20,728 and to PAS’ 26,536 votes.
Money needed to assist impoverished constituents
Wan Saiful admitted to sharing civil society’s naivete prior to leaving his position as CEO at the Institute of Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS) to become a politician, but his experience on the campaign trail has opened up his eyes.
His time in the Malay heartland of Kedah saw impoverished families unable to pay for basic medical needs, leading to family members suffering from infected open wounds and scars, as well as a wife who was forced to cage her mentally ill husband among others.
“I saw an 80-year-old grandmother who lived in a traditional split-level Malay kampung house. Her kitchen is on the ground floor and she lives on the first floor. She is old (and lives alone). She has to crawl up and down the stairs in order to get things from the kitchen.
“When I saw her, she was crying that she only gets RM200 a month from the Welfare Department and was crying, begging me to increase her welfare to RM300 a month if I was elected.
“She just wanted RM300 a month and here in KL, RM300 is lunch for some people,” said Wan Saiful, who had promised during campaigning to find the means to help the impoverished by canvassing companies, businessmen and the public for funds to help those in his constituencies.
Elaborating further, he said this was why many politicians needed a lot of money to service their constituents and it would be even more expensive for someone who lost the race when compared to the victor, since MPs and assemblymen received federal level funding while the losers did not.
BN’s vindictive political culture drove Opposition politicians to secrecy
He explained that under the previous Barisan Nasional (BN) government, things were even worse for the Opposition since the ruling government played vindictive politics and would go after Pakatan Harapan (PH) funders and donors such as Supermax CEO Stanley Thai.
In order to protect their financial resources, then Opposition politicians had no choice but to remain tight-lipped on the source of their fundings.
“When I joined politics, I had to resign from all posts I had, including IDEAS. The reason I resigned was if I stayed in IDEAS, IDEAS would be victimised because politics (in Malaysia) is so vindictive.
“IDEAS is [an] organisation I built for eight years and IDEAS had to distance themselves from me the moment I left. It was painful for me to see, but that’s the reality of Malaysian politics. You take big risk in joining an opposition party (back then).
“The vindictiveness of Umno and BN under Najib’s rule made people like me and my donors really cautious about disclosing who is funding our political work,” he explained, referring to former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
Elections are very expensive
Wan Saiful also said election campaigns itself is an expensive affair since he had spent nearly RM200,000 when he contested the May 9 poll.
He explained that he spent RM50,000 on 5,000 T-shirts, RM50,000 on party flags, RM15,000 on renting five houses for his workers accommodation and storage of campaign materials, RM6,000 to rent two Toyota Hilux for three and a half weeks, and also paying his workers.
“Consider contesting in area where source of income is rubber or rice. You need to appreciate you are pulling them out from daily work they do (to help you campaign).
“Do you know how much scrap rubber sells for? RM1.80 per kg. 100kg = RM180. To get 100 kg, [they] need to work for a week. That’s if they’re lucky. If it rains, they have no income. So if you need their help to put up flags, you need to appreciate the time they took off their work.
“You need to buy them food, drinks, accommodation and appreciate how much they are helping you,” he said. That’s why it’s so expensive to run a campaign. Even after losing you still need people to help you run the show if you are outstation,” Wan Saiful explained.
At the end of his turn during the forum, Wan Saiful invited members of civil society to join him in educating and engaging with rural Malaysians on political financial reforms.
https://www.malaymail.com/s/1654558/dont-just-promote-reform-in-bangsar-bubble-wan-saiful-tells-ngos
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Yours truly
Politischeiss
http://politischeiss.blogspot.com/
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