I don't know why, but when I advocated for Bersama to be fair to voters and not ask us to choose somebody it picked from the streets—someone who is no better than any of us, and who looks like they are just winging it and giving chance a chance—as the price we must pay to show our support for Bersama, a few commentators assumed that I was asking Bersama to abandon its path and revert to choosing old and contaminated politicians to stand under its banner.
Well, if I came out sounding that way, I obviously haven't explained myself well enough, because that is not what I meant at all.
What I meant was that, to be fair to voters, Bersama has to pick winners and fighters.
Legacy parties have the privilege of choosing run-of-the-mill candidates to represent them because those candidates can borrow the legacy of the party they represent to help them gain the image of a winner or a fighter.
If you are Joe Average and you represent DAP or PAS, for example, voters won't mind voting for you, although you are just an average person, because you will look like a winner or a fighter because of your association with DAP or PAS. In other words, voters will vote for you not because of who you are, but because you represent a winning and fighting legacy, as embodied by DAP or PAS.
A month-old party like Bersama, however, has no winning or fighting legacy. So a run-of-the-mill candidate representing Bersama will just strike voters as a run-of-the-mill person, which will then cause the question, *"Why should I choose this person to lead the fight for me when they are no better than me?" to subconsciously arise in the hearts and minds of voters.
When that question subconsciously arises, it will manifest as a rejection of, or a great reluctance to vote for, the Bersama candidate.
So how can Bersama overcome this?
Well, one thing it can consider is choosing candidates who already appear to voters as winners or fighters in their own right.
I hope we have not gotten so jaded with our lives that only someone with a Datuk Seri title and a million-ringgit watch strikes us as a winner or a fighter.
A single mother who raised all seven of her children to graduate from university is a winner.
An army officer who took a bullet in the line of duty is a fighter.
Datuk Lee Chong Wei or Nicol David are winners and fighters.
A self-made man who picked himself up by his bootstraps and made something of himself is a winner.
A person who threw away status, luxury, and leisure to pursue something they believe in is a fighter.
A firefighter who braved a towering inferno to save a kitten is a fighter.
Now, if Bersama presents these sorts of individuals as its candidates, not only will it elevate Bersama's own status, it will also create the conditions for voters who are rooting for Bersama to vote for its candidates without feeling like they are insulting themselves.
Now, in the short run, in the lead-up to the Negeri Sembilan poll, it might not be possible for Bersama to get Datuk Lee Chong Wei or Nicol David to run as its candidates.
So perhaps, in the short run, Rafizi Ramli and Nik Nazmi can rely on the only two winners and fighters they have in their stable today, which is themselves.
A winner is someone who fights for something worth winning despite having a lot to lose.
A loser is someone who fights for nothing worth winning when they have nothing to lose.
Rafizi or Nik Nazmi might have every reason to worry about all that they stand to lose by running in the Negeri Sembilan election. They might worry about their path to victory too.
Well, to that, all I will say is that a firefighter rushing into a burning building to save a cat has a lot of things to worry about too.
But it is the fact that they did it anyway, despite all the worry running through their head, that gives them the vibe of a winner and a fighter.
It is that vibe that breaks an invisible shackle in the minds of voters and enables them to visibly stand behind such a person and accept them as their leader and representative.
So rather than stand in 15 constituencies with a motley crew of a happy-go-lucky people, who have nothing to lose and and who not only don't believe that they can win, but who believe that they are all going to lose their deposits even before they step into the arena, and then expect us, the voters, to stand behind them to turn them into winners, when we ourselves are in need of a winner who will stand in front of us, be our leader, and make us believe that we have it in us to be fighters and winners, maybe what Rafizi or Nik Nazmi should do is simply stand in one constituency themselves.
Stand as someone who is fighting for something worth winning despite having so much to lose.
Then call on the voters to stand behind you and fight with you.
I can't say that if you do that, voters will rally behind you.
But I will say that it is only if you do, that you will enable the conditions for voters to rally behind you.
Before anything truly begins, there has to be faith.
What I am telling you here, is how you prove yourself to be a man faith.
Anything of consequence will only start because at least one person truly had faith.
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