Troubling the DAP, annoying the Chinese

The issue of the Red Bean Army is viewed by many Chinese as a nefarious lie to persecute DAP in order to coerce the Chinese into abandoning Pakatan.

COMMENT

This columnist is in the habit of interviewing lots and lots of people to find out the current trend of the rakyat’s thinking.

Pertaining to the matter of the Red Bean Army (RBA) and the current political climate, this columnist found out recently that there are two schools of thought regarding the way the Chinese voted in the 13th general election.

The first school of thought whom this columnist will label as Group A are firm and steadfast in the belief that it was the right thing to do by voting for Pakatan Rakyat (PR).

The other school of thought, whom this columnist will label as Group B (many of whom need BN’s BR1M cash aid) are now regretting that the Chinese have mostly voted for DAP instead of MCA.

Group B Chinese are of the view that the fictional RBA was created to annoy the Chinese community due to the Chinese’s overwhelming support for PR.

The Group A Chinese however have pooh-poohed the views of those in Group B by saying that the Group B Chinese are cowardly and that there is no guarantee that the Chinese will not experience any backlash even if they were to vote for BN.

Below is a summary of the comments by the Group A Chinese: “As if there is an agreement or covenant already put in place to guarantee that if we vote for BN we will be spared this nonsense. What if we had voted for BN and then we still get treated to this Red Bean Army or some other sort of rubbish? Then it will be a double blow and we will end up as fools. Thus it is better to stand our ground and vote for Pakatan at all costs. Isn’t this a democratic country and haven’t we got the right to choose?”

This sums up the view of the stubborn Chinese who intend to vote for PR even in the next general election.

Therefore the issue of the Red Bean Army is viewed by many Chinese as a nefarious lie to persecute DAP in order to coerce the Chinese into abandoning Pakatan Rakyat.

Inventing a fictional army to put DAP in bad light is certainly not the way forward towards national reconciliation as proposed by Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak. Clearly this whole RBA thing should be stopped immediately as it does nothing to contribute towards a healthy political climate.

At the end of the day, BN leaders are the ones who should be putting an end to this RBA nonsense but strangely they have not done so.

Minority rules

Many Chinese are questioning why they should vote for BN when the better choice is PR and are extremely unhappy upon being labelled as ‘ungrateful’ for voting Pakatan.

Commenting on this issue, PAS Shah Alam MP, Khalid Samad remarked, “What has being grateful or ungrateful got to do with the voting?!”

In addition to that, what is worse in the 13th general election is that the choice of 51% of the people is Pakatan Rakyat which simply means that the majority did not get the government they want.

Instead it was the choice of the minority that won the day.

Commenting on this, PAS Pokok Sena MP, Mahfuz Omar opined sarcastically that “although BN has more seats, it is not the chairs who walked to the polling centre to cast their vote. It is humans who voted and therefore BN must accede to the demands of the majority 51% – the demands of the people and that includes cleaning up the electoral rolls.”

Singling out the Chinese as Pakatan voters makes it seem as if it is a crime to vote for Pakatan.

The Chinese voted for PR because they view PR as having the potential to govern well as there are many talented and visionary men and women of good calibre in Pakatan.

The examples of good governance in Penang and Selangor are also there for all to see.

The crux of the matter is no one should be coerced or threatened to vote for any particular party. If such a thing is happening, then it is a blatant mockery of the whole democratic process.

People who vote for the opposition are just as Malaysian as those who vote for BN. There should not be any victimisation of PR’s voters.

If this happens, then it is unjust and unfair and an infringement of one’s democratic rights.

Be that as it may, it is already bad enough that Pakatan’s MPs are denied federal funds for their constituency.

Thus the poignant question that we need to ask is this: ‘Are we heading towards a vibrant democracy?’. Has Malaysia the right to be proclaimed as a ‘model democracy’ for other nations to follow?

Selena Tay is a DAP member and a FMT columnist.