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By P Gunasegaram
The implications for the future of democracy are rather wicked.
Who initiated the process of no contest for the top two in political party elections and created delays? Umno of course. It is disturbing that PKR is now mooting the drastic idea of not having contests for the top two posts at their upcoming party polls in May.
Any such move which impedes democratic processes within a party always leads to a consolidation of power for the top leaders inevitably making leaders more dictatorial and less responsive to the needs and aspirations of the rakyat.
It thwarts the democratic process which diffuses upwards to the top when dissent can be aired and tested to see if a majority of members are discontented with their leaders and ready for a change of the leadership at the party polls.
Remove the contest for the top two and democracy gets the plunge of a knife - if it does not kill, it maims often irrecoverably so for many years.
The motive for this becomes obvious if one notes who the suggestion is coming from - Shamsul Iskandar Md Akin, a close aide of PM Anwar Ibrahim - who said that the top two positions of president and deputy president may not be contested. Anwar is the president and his deputy is Rafizi Ramli.
Saving Zahid
This is the same Shamsul who lost by a narrow 348 votes to Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, now deputy PM, in the November 2022 elections at the parliamentary constituency of Bagan Datuk, where there were 748 rejected votes. That would call for a vote recount, right? Wrong.
Shamsul revealed in a podcast that he decided against it after a conversation with the “general” (Anwar) at 2am not to challenge the results as they (PKR and Umno) were forming a government.
He said: “Of course, I was sad. We worked so hard. But in politics, the organisation is bigger than you. There is a bigger picture.” Zahid was saved but Umno fumed at the revelation.
Now Shamsul, ever the Anwar loyalist, is clearly pushing the no-contest idea with the notion that the party and the leadership is bigger than its members and the right to choose and validate leadership.
He said tellingly: “The goal is to maintain internal party stability and improve service to the public, especially with the next general election approaching in about two years.”
Now where have we heard that before? From his opponent in Bagan Datuk, Zahid, of course, when he had his party postpone elections and introduce a no-contest motion.
Preventing a challenge
In May 2022 Zahid pushed through a constitutional amendment to postpone party elections to six months after the next general elections. I commented that this was a morally bankrupt decision by Umno, preventing a challenge before general elections.
The resolution was proposed by Umno vice-president Mohamed Khaled Nordin while fellow vice-president Ismail Sabri Yaakob (who was PM at the time) supported it. With an Umno-led government, there was no chance that the Registrar of Societies (ROS) would turn down the constitutional amendments.
After the general elections of November 2022, Zahid became deputy PM. And then came round two, arising from a resolution made earlier that there will be no contest in the party elections for 2023. The ROS approved the resolution, he said in March 2023.
The facts were different - a leaked letter from the ROS confirmed that it had ruled that the no-contest resolution was against the Umno constitution. Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail then revealed a couple of days later that he used powers he had under the Societies Act to exempt Umno from a law that could see the party deregistered.
How bad is that! This is not an Umno minister but a PKR minister and a Pakatan Harapan led government which utilised a ministerial power of exemption to legitimise Umno’s blatant stamping on democracy which its own constitution disallowed.
And now PKR is attempting to do the same as Umno, all to stop any challenge to Anwar at the May party polls. Who benefits if this no-contest move is somehow adopted by PKR? Anwar of course, just like it benefited Zahid when Umno did it.
Don’t morph into Umno
It prevents anyone from mounting a challenge to Anwar, including Rafizi who does not need the no-contest. If there is a challenge for the no 2 position, he will easily beat Saifuddin, who has been carefully cultivated by Anwar despite his massive loss to Rafizi in the last PKR polls in May 2022.
Despite having lost both his parliamentary seat of Kulim-Bandar to PN and the PKR deputy president’s post easily to Rafizi, Saifuddin was rehabilitated through the back door by appointment as a senator and given the very powerful home ministry.
The test of a leader’s mettle is if he abides by the moral compass, laws and rules to enable the democratic process within the party to determine if members agree with his moves and be prepared to step down if they do not.
Doing anything to tamper with that process ala Umno through any pretext may keep Anwar in power but without the legitimacy of the open and unquestioned support of the majority of PKR members.
That will mean an over-concentration of power and spell disaster not only for PKR but the rakyat and the country. We really don’t want or need another Umno. PKR must reject this authoritarian, dictatorial move or the consequences will be wicked.
Don’t morph into yet another Umno.
(P Gunasegaram says all electoral changes must facilitate democracy. Any leader who does otherwise does not deserve to be one.)
P Gunasegaram is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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