When I first heard Tengku Zafrul saying that he is willing to contest anywhere that PKR fields him, even in Rafizi 's turf in Pandan, my first thought was that PKR has become a Bob Dylan song.
In other words, it has become "Like a Rolling Stone*.
From being a parti reformasi, it now attracts “rolling stones” like Ramanan and Tengku Zafrul, who join it just to try their luck.
My second thought, however, was that I found Tengku Zafrul’s sincerity to be refreshing and endearing.
Now, a lot of people think that having integrity means that you are a good person — good as in someone who does not take bribes, or who is kind and generous — but I do not have the same view of integrity as other people do.
For me, even people who take bribes, or who are cruel and miserly, can have integrity.
For me, having integrity simply means that you are a true person — or a person whose intentions, actions, and expressions are one.
In other words, I think that even a person who takes bribes but openly announces that they take bribes and that they do not see what is wrong with taking bribes is still a person of integrity, because they are being true to themselves. They do not say one thing and mean another. Their internal experience and external expressions are one.
For that reason, I found Tengku Zafrul’s statement — that he is willing to stand for election anywhere — to be something that comes from integrity, by someone who is saying what they mean and meaning what they say.
Now, although I believe that a person with integrity is not necessarily a good person, I do believe that having integrity is the first qualification of a good person, in that it is our integrity that will eventually lead us towards becoming good people, even if we are not originally a good person.
I don't think anyone else can teach us to be good - it is only our own experience that can teach us to be good, and the first thing we need to do to be able to learn from our experience, is to not lie to ourselves. If we make it a habit to lie to ourselves, the more we try to teach ourselves , the more confused we will become - to learn from our experiences, the first thing we need to do is trust ourselves, and we can only trust ourselves if we don't make it a habit to lie to ourselves.
In other words, even if we are people who take bribes, if we have integrity, in time, I believe we will change our views. Our integrity, or our refusal to lie to ourselves, will eventually point out to us the flaws in our beliefs and grant us the insight to better understand what is good and true.
But if we are people without integrity — or people who do not take bribes outwardly and say that we despise people who take bribes, but inwardly secretly wish we could take bribes — sooner or later, we will start taking bribes.
But anyway, I digress.
Now coming back to Tengku Zafrul — seeing that I find his statement to be the statement of of integrity, and finding it refreshing and endearing — there are two pieces of advice that I would like to give him.
The first is that he should stop saying that he is willing to contest anywhere that the party wants him to in public.
Just because he is sincere does not mean he always has to say what is on his mind.
There is such a thing as saying things at the right time and place, and silence is also an option that a person can exercise without compromising their integrity.
I think it is better for him to remain silent about his willingness to serve any constituency, because 1) it makes him sound desperate and 2) it does not sound nice to hear when you are a voter.
As a rule, voters like candidates who make them feel special — that even if the candidate had 1,000 choices, they would still choose the voter and their constituency 1,000 times over.
Nobody wants a candidate who is going to represent them for some random reason, like because they were assigned to do so by the party leadership, even though the candidate themselves never asked to represent them.
Imagine having to vote for such a candidate.
It would make voters feel unwanted to have to vote for a candidate who never wanted represent them in the first place. In a closely fought election, it is not a good idea to make voters feel unwanted for no good reason.
Even if Tengku Zafrul is merely trying to say that it does not matter where he serves because he will serve with all of his heart and soul anyway, I still think it is better for him not to say things like he is willing to stand anywhere that the party leadership sends him, because that is not how his message might be received by everybody.
Secondly, rather than saying that he is willing to challenge Rafizi in Pandan, I think it would be better for him to start training his guns on Subang.
Even if Tengku Zafrul feels “like a rolling stone”, and believes, like the song says, that “when you got nothing, you got nothing to lose,” he should aim to win, and not merely just try his luck.
I am not saying that Tengku Zafrul can never take on Rafizi on his home turf.
But I do think that Tengku Zafrul cannot take on Rafizi on his home turf in the near future.
I do not think even Anwar can take on Rafizi — not only in Pandan, but in any urban constituencies — in the near future.
Rather than Pandan, I think a constituency where Tengku Zafrul has a good chance of winning is Subang.
Subang is currently represented by PKR MP Wong Chen, but Wong Chen has already declared that he will leave PKR, and if he defends his seat in the next election, it will be under the Bersama ticket.
I used to live in Subang, and I would say that Tengku Zafrul’s vibe matches that of Subang.
There are not many places in the country that will appreciate a “I do not care where or who I serve, but I will serve with all my heart and soul” spirit — but Subang is one of them.
I also think that Subang is one of the places that will definitely not fall to PN or even UMNO, so the contest for Subang will really be fought between PKR and Bersama.
If Tengku Zafrul stands against Wong Chen in Subang, I do believe that he has a better than average chance of winning.
While Tengku Zafrul will be encumbered by the fact that he represents an unpopular PKR, I still think that if Subang voters have to choose between him and Wong Chen, they might evaluate both men as belonging in roughly the same category — as urbane, cosmopolitan figures who fit what Subang aspires to be — and choose Tengku Zafrul simply because, individually, they find him to be better than Wong Chen.
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