In a couple of days, the Tamil Nadu election is scheduled to occur, and when it is over, the state may witness its biggest political upset in decades.
The man who will provide this upset is Thalapathy Vijay - the number 1 star of Tamil Cinema - and I must say, that in my eyes at least, the Malaysian politician whose trajectory in politics mirrors the political trajectory of Vijay in Tamil Nadu the closest, is our own Rafizi Ramli.
Now let me give you some context as to what similarity I see between Vijay and Rafizi.
You see, Tamil Nadu politics has for as long as we can remember, been dominated by two parties, namely the DMK and AIADMK.
In recent years however, AIADMK had been plagued by a leadership vacuum and internal power struggle, which then resulted in DMK being able to clearly pull ahead of the race and win the confidence of Tamil Nadu voters.
DMK's grip on the politics of Tamil Nadu had been so secure, that M.K Stalin, the DMK leader who is also the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, would become so over confident about his place, that he would appoint his son, Udhayanidhi Stalin to become not only the number 2 in DMK, but also and the deputy chief minister of Tamil Nadu.
If Stalin had assumed that there was nobody in Tamil Nadu that could challenge his blatant display of nepotism, because the only party that could challenge it - the AIADMK, is in a state of disarray, he obviously has not heard of the saying: “ the best laid plans of mice and men, often go awry.”
Unexpectedly, out of nowhere, Tamil Cinema's top star, Thalapathy Vijay, sensing an opportunity that the weakening of AIADMK had provided, and perceiving the widespread dissatisfaction that Stalin's nepotism was causing, would decide to leave the cinema field and enter the politics of Tamil Nadu.
Although Vijay only joined politics a little over 2 years ago and though the political party he created, the TVK, is also just a little over 2 years old, the impact that they have had in Tamil politics has been immense.
It has been so immense, that from the moment that Vijay entered the political scene, the hitherto confident Stalin, who looked like he was going reign for as long as he wished, suddenly looked like he was just warming the seat for Vijay.
Although obstacle after obstacle had been put in place to disrupt Vijay's march to the chief minister's office - from gossip related to his relationship with actress Trisha to attempts to blame him for the death of his fans and supporters in the Karur stampede to his last movie, Jana Nayagan, being pulled out of cinema just a couple day before it was scheduled for release - it doesn't look like his opponents have been able to stop Vijay.
In just a little over 2 years, from having zero presence in Tamil Nadu politics, Vijay today looks like he is set to rule Tamil Nadu and become the tour de force of Tamil Nadu politics in the foreseeable future.
Now as we all know, like M.K Stalin, our own Prime Minister Anwar, would become so over confident about his place and position in Malaysian politics that last year, he would make his daughter , Nurul Izzah, became the number 2 in PKR and thus the next in line to replace Anwar as the Prime Minister of Malaysia.
His decision to promote his daughter to the number 2 position will not only cause Rafizi Ramli to turn from friend to foe overnight, over the cause of just one year, it has also led Rafizi to become the single biggest critic of the Madani government and the number 1 threat to Anwar remaining as the Prime Minister of Malaysia.
Rafizi, who was the previous PKR number 2, was removed from his position by Anwar to make way for his daughter, but if Anwar had presumed that Rafizi would accept his fall lying down, he was sadly mistaken.
Rather than accept being cast aside without a fuss, Rafizi has vehemently been raging against the dying of the light and refusing to go gently into the night.
Although dismissed by many - including myself - as a sore loser, like the little engine that could, Rafizi has been punching and punching against Anwar and PKR, to the point that Anwar has become so weak, that if elections were held today and Rafizi were to decide to challenge Anwar in a PKR stronghold, I daresay that it might be Rafizi that will come out the winner.
For now, Rafizi is still as a part of PKR, but that might change in June, for Rafizi has hinted that he might be forming a new party in the next couple of months.
While Anwar Ibrahim has said that he has no plans to call for an election in the next couple of months, but judging by the rising dissatisfaction against Anwar's rule, especially since economic crisis induced by the in Iran has hit the country, and also judging by how the election mood has infected our politicians, political party and media, it might be the case that snap elections might be called in the near future, regardless of whether Anwar consents to it or not.
If Rafizi were to create a party in June, and if snap elections were to be called by the end of the year, will Rafizi be able to create the same impact in a short time as how Thalapathy Vijay created in Tamil Nadu?
Well, to be fair, there are significant difference between the political trajectory of Thalapathy Vijay and Rafizi.
Vijay is a Tamil cinema superstar, whose charisma and larger than life image on the silver screen, has over the decades, conditioned millions of Tamil Nadu's voters, especially its youth, to identify with him intimately.
Vijay also left the cinema field as a winner, and he has been able to skillfully transfer his image as a winner in the field of cinema to the field of politics.
This two criteria - the ability to form an intimate identity with the voters, to the point that the voters feel that your electoral victory is akin to their victory, and the perception that one is a winner - is the two most important criteria in determining electoral success.
Rafizi however, has not developed such a strong identity with any segment of the voters in the country nor is he generally perceived as a winner.
The only segment of the voters that he has formed an identity with Rafizi is likely those who see themselves as reformist, but not only are the reformist not a major component of the voters demographic, it is also not very clear as to how strongly established is the identity that Rafizi has formed with this group.
Previously, Rafizi is also not known as a very successful minister and in the last PKR election, he belonged to the side that lost.
But what is working in Rafizi's favour is the fact that Anwar is a much more unpopular figure in Malaysia that Stalin is in Tamil Nadu.
In Tamil Nadu, the Tamil voters do not necessarily wish to see Stalin fall - they just wish to see Vijay win.
In Malaysia however, although it is questionable as to whether the majority of Malaysians truly wish to see Rafizi win, we can quite confidently say is that many Malaysians do wish to see Anwar fall, and the fact that Rafizi is currently the one that is seen to be the most capable of bringing Anwar down, is making a lot of Malaysians identify quite intimately with Rafizi.
As for being a winner, well, Rafizi might not be able to challenge Anwar as a winner on account of his lackluster performance as a minister and losses in the last PKR election, but that doesn't mean Malaysians can make him into a winner, by empowering him to bring Anwar down.
If you can't be be a winner through your own achievements, you can still be a winner by bringing down the previous winner.
Anwar is the reigning winner in Malaysian politics - and if Rafizi can create the perception that he can bring Anwar down, as sure as night follows day, he will be able to create a perception that he is a winner too.
Anyway, we shall see how Vijay fares in Tamil Nadu politics in the next few days.
As for Rafizi, just as Vijay found obstacles after obstacles places in his way the moment he was perceived as a challenger to Stalin, I am sure that Rafizi will also find obstacles after obstacles placed in front of him, the more that he looks like he can bring Anwar down.
Regardless of that, like Vijay and Stalin, I believe that Rafizi and Anwar will also butt heads in the next election, which is likely to occur in the not too distant future, and in that election, I wouldn't be surprised if Rafizi manages to pull off the biggest upset in Malaysian politics, since Najib's BN fell for the first time in the country's history in 2018.
Let us wait and see as to how the cookies shall crumble.
TheRealNehruism (nehru.sathiamoorthy@gmail.com) 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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