By Niza Shimi
The recent unveiling of the candidates nominated by various political parties should end guessing games and speculation, right? Apparently not.
It is said that politics is like a game of chess. As I’m not a chess player, it’s hard to understand some of the moves. According to chess.com there are three main ways to win or lose a chess game: checkmate, resignation, and timeout.
But what do you call the move in the political chess game when an incumbent doesn’t want to make way for new blood and decides to stand for election as a non-denominational candidate?
Is it the inevitable political man sulk? So far, there’s not been any signs of political women sulking.
Take for example United Malays National Organisation’s (UMNO) Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim who is the incumbent for Arau, Perlis. He was not named as the Barisan Nasional (BN) candidate for the 15th general elections (GE15).
So, what does he do? He decides to stand for election anyway, against the BN candidate. But sulky politicians get other parties coming to offer comfort. Big-hearted Perikatan Nasional (PN) even vacated the seat to make way for Shahidan.
The dramatic twist is that even before BN formally announced who made the cut, Shahidan had already closed the BN operations centre in Arau.
It’s not difficult to speculate that the axe would fall on Shahidan as he was among those most vocal about the UMNO being with the PN government and is said to be aligned with Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaccob as prime minister. Shahidan has not officially stated his intention to join PN.
Similarly, there’s an interesting when caretaker minister for communications and multimedia Tan Sri Annuar Musa uses government media to air his political man sulk. He said he wasn’t consulted before the chop as incumbent for Ketereh, Kelantan?
Do you consult someone that’s going to be dropped?
The drama takes an even more dramatic twist when Annuar announced he would be standing anyway but under another party, that you will never guess in a million years, named Muafakat Nasional (MN).
Isn’t that the emotional pact tearfully inked between UMNO and Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) before there was PN? Apparently, Annuar had MN registered as a non-governmental organisation with him as president. Did he just pull a coup on both UMNO and PAS?
Poor PAS. They were told by the Registrar of Societies (ROS) that MN couldn’t be registered in 2019 as the name was already owned. Now they know that it was Annuar who did it.
Was it sheer randomness or did he have a premonition that MN would be handy if he ever got the chop? Amazing!
But BN isn’t the only political party having man sulks. It’s non-denominational behaviour, after all.
There’s Parti Keadilan Rakyat’s (PKR) Chua Tian Chang (aka Tian Chua) who turned poetic after some airing of views in the media with the party president about the shuffling of candidates and dropping seniors.
Sure, there was anger and ruckus, as Malay Mail reported. Tian Chua hasn’t said anything about leaving PKR but he posted a poem on his Facebook that could show the depth of his feelings about being left out of Batu, his former constituency.
Tian Chua’s poem entitled [Farewell] begins with, “I am banished to the world of fallen souls, Cheer up, my friends, It's all fine, It's not a road of no return..”.
The poem ends with sadness, “If I never come home, Maybe you will find me buried amongst the woods and rocks Just put a small red rose at my grave to remember the beautiful memories we once shared.” – Tian 2/11/2022
Not sure what to make of it? Fortunately, in Malaysia we have an adult in the room. The King is always the last man standing.
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