THE whole idea of the third force and independents contesting in upcoming state elections has become a farce rather than a force to be reckoned with.
To date, MUDA’s four candidates – its secretary-general Amir Hadi and three other women, Syaidiyah Izzati Nur Razak Maideen, R. Thanusha and Melanie Ting – will be fielded in Selangor, mainly to contest in seats held by PKR.
Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) has announced its candidate Prof Darren Ong for Dengkil seat.
However, unlike the major parties which cover a broader base of issues faced by the constituents, harping on environmental issues alone is hardly sufficient for PSM or even the Green Party for the matter to win enough votes.
Moreover, Dengkil may be the constituency where a more credible candidate for the Selangor Menteri Besar may be contesting – and he is known to be more people friendly and sensitive towards the environmental issues faced by the people of Selangor.
It is not easy at least for the moment, for these parties to make any significant inroads into the mainstream politics.
These independents and smaller parties have yet to learn that the sentiments of the people are still not with them. For now, people tend to be more interested in voting either Bersatu or PAS within the Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition or Pakatan Harapan (PH) or UMNO insofar as unity government is concerned.
Lessons should have been learnt from the last general election when many independents had emerged out of nowhere but none won big while many ended up losing their deposits.
Except for Bersatu which had the backing of the then federal government under Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob, all other smaller parties lost badly.
Even former two-time premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had to eat his own bitter pill. He contested under his new party, Pejuang, but lost to PN. This clearly shows that the nonagenarian is no longer relevant to the Malay voters in Langkawi.
In the Batu constituency, PH-PKR incumbent P. Prabakaran beat nine others with a landslide 45,716 votes in a 10-cornered tussle.
Even former Batu MP Tian Chua only managed to garner 4,603 votes when he contested as an independent. Ironically, Prabakaran who himself had initially contested as an independent won the 2018 general election after Chua and his party, PKR, gave Prabakaran the endorsement.
The Batu constituency was in essence a three-corner fight between Prabakaran, Datuk A. Kohilan Pillay (MIC-BN; 10,398 votes) and Azhar Yahya (PAS-PN; 23,475 votes).
Like Dr Mahathir, Pejuang’s candidate Wan Azliana Wan Adnan lost her deposit by having bagged only 849 votes while Warisan’s Naganathan Pillai (known on the ballot as Nathan Batu) polled only 575 votes while Parti Rakyat Malaysia’s (PRM) Mohd Zulkifli Abdul Fattah received a mere 137 votes.
The other four independent candidates included social activist and lawyer Siti Kasim lost their deposit after only managing to garner 653 votes while fellow independent Nur Fathiah Syazwana Shaharudin @ Cleopatra received 112 votes.
Most laughable was Too Cheng Huat who pitched his moniker Too Gao Lan (which in the Hokkien dialect sounds like ‘too fed-up’) who also attracted a low vote count of only 112 votes.
This clearly shows that voters were more interested to pick parties that have potential to form the federal government rather than individuals based on their own merits.
The other clear message which independents should have learnt is that they would not be able to make much of an impact in the coming state elections. At the most, they will make some noise. – July 18, 2023.
Main pic credit: Malay Mail
