Whose decision is it really?

When you see the word decision, I am sure you will know that this article is about politics, a subject that I did not write in this blog for a long time.

All attentions (Malaysians) are on the state called Perak in Malaysia, simple translation; the SILVER STATE of Malaysia.

The ruling government “is” or “was” a coalition government called Pakatan Rakyat (PR) which is an opposition party in the Parliament. The majority held by them was very slim. Total seats were 59 and the PR coalition government had 31 against 28 (Barisan Nasional {BN}).

The BN guys just needed 2 guys from the PR to defect and give BN a simple majority to overturn the PR government and form their own government.

To everyone’s surprise, 1 legislative member from the BN side jumped from the BN camp to the PR camp. Everyone was wondering why, but rather than spending / wasting time thinking why this happened, the PR was so happy and celebrated. Now PR has 32 against 27, any sane mind would have considered this as a structural reinforcement for the PR government.

Suddenly 2 PR legislative members were missing, then there was 1 lady saying she is not defecting from the PR side. In this chaotic situation, the PR government made a decision to dissolve the existing government to pave way to a fresh election to get firm mandate from the people.

While all these were happening, the 2 missing members together with the lady member declared that they have quit their parties under the PR coalition and now stand a s an independent members.

You need to pass at least university maths to understand all this. Now the numbers stand at PR 29 against 27 BN and 3 Independent. Just when everyone thought they can put back the calculators, the guy who switched camp from BN to PR now have switched camp again. This time from PR to BN. Yes, please use your calculators again. The numbers have changed to PR 28, BN 28 and Independent 3.

Now who can form the new government? Is it PR or BN? All depends to whom the 3 independent members throw in their mysterious support.

People chose a candidate to represent them based on 2 major reasons. One is, which party they belong to because the party reflects their struggle and vision. The other is, who the person is, what type of a man is he. Based on these 2 major reasons, people decides their vote.

We can sum up the deciding factors into the 80/20 ratio, which in my opinion, 80% of your decision should be based on the political party the candidate belongs to and 20% for the candidate himself. Relenting on this ration, a candidate should never change his political party. If he decides to leave the party, he should resign from the position that he won using the party’s name.

Very rare you see candidates winning on their own caliber (it has happened in Malaysia where independent candidates have won). Only a few have achieved these kind of remarkable triumphs. But people should remember that their candidate could not achieve anything more after winning the election (correct me if I am wrong, my knowledge about successful independent candidates are limited).

Therefore, when the people cast their votes believing that they have voted for a guy of party A turns out to be jumping camp to party B. I like the candidate but I don’t like the party B. Now did I, as the citizen of this Malaysia, got a fair chance to vote my favourite candidate and favourite party member to rule the land I belong to?

It looks like, I just can vote but the outcome is all in somebody else hand. It makes every voter thing, whose decision is it really?

http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/97547

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/17590-bn-set-to-form-perak-govt-as-sultan-defers-decision-on-dissolution

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/opinion/baradan-kuppusamy/17609-a-hollow-victory-for-bn

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/opinion/malik-imtiaz-sarwar/17549-making-sense-of-the-perak-controversy

Subra