pīlōkär´pēn’s: Significance of the insignificant

On the voting day of this by-election, I was on the flight leaving Penang, transit at KLIA being held few hours due to an unforeseen delay for a plane flying out of this Central Peninsular. Probably, my designated plane was used up by the great B-End machinery to parachute off more goodies to the voters or temporary superstars of HS.

Initially, I thought things were still cool, as I was able to go online and do things, like send an important paper to my colleague Tim, but dang, the speed was crawling, turtle speed and I had to cable up near the disabled toilet.

Luckily the toilet is unused and squeaky clean, most importantly odorless. And, no, I wasn’t in the toilet, I was like 2 seats to the left of the entrance. And beside me were a bunch of Africans speaking English in their native slang which I could make up parts of what their talking about, while the others turned up to be the unwelcome unexpected unbearable noise pollution around me.

The major parts of it that I understood was how corrupted their own country’s government was and how this and that agency stupid and not fair, almost had me believe that this anti-government sentiment is kinda global.

I turned to paper technology just to have something to read and pages after pages in the dailies was the commentators’ review and aspiration on the by-election.

By default, thanks to the transparency of cyberworld, all its dwellers shun the national front, no matter how much moolahs (which is from the people to begin with) B-End decided to throw in to this small poor area.

Before the election, like I say, a lot of commentary was going down the line of significance of winning the election, ie. Bro Wong CH’s hypothesis about people decision on their tolerance on bumiputeraism and etc. However, since a lot of funding Barbies were thrown into the game, probably the end game bear no significance at all.

I reached the other side of peninsular in one piece thanks to the attentive pilots who cared more about the windy skyline than the votes-counting progress in HS.

And I found out that the People’s Goliath lost in a battle that Uncle Lim had cleverly predicted or issued warning a few days earlier. Perhaps this was Uncle’s unusual but not uncommon reverse psychology strategy to get the Malaysian Chinese behind his Team, and it did worked with regards of the Chinese’s major backing of 80% for the PR. Otherwise, people would have blamed him for cursing them to the losing end and shaking up the confidence that run high from the strings of by-elections won previously.

After the news went viral, gloomy atmosphere curtained down on the cyberworld. Most, probably a lot (although

I didn’t have the statistic for it) gave major credits to the wonderful ‘gift’ from Numero Uno to the people of HS for the winning of K from B-End while others struck a bitter chord of criticizing the people of HS, to extend of saying certain ethnic groups there will forever be prostitutes and slaves. Some neutral assessors got worried that the voting went along racial lines, which is a step backward from the 308 tsunami, a hindrance to form a Malaysians’ Malaysia or 1Malaysia (depending on which ever flavor you prefer, it meant the same thing anyway. With or without APCO).

I guess thinking about what significance in the winning is just, seriously, an unnecessary wastage of brainpower. With pouring in of allocations, B-End had successfully made this a zero-sum game, like the early pawn’s showdown in the opening chess. The Feds and State government didn’t change much, and least likely to do any major solid improvement for HS after this by-election. The only thing that was making a vast difference is the major part of time; energy and concentration of leaders in Feds and State government which can and should be used to ensure a better running of the country were instead being used up in campaigning.

On the healthy note, it is probably a good thing; a regular walk around the area can be an appropriate cardio work out. The people surely don’t want another MP dying, eventhough it seems like the popular trend nowadays. Soon enough, it will probably be an epidemic.

An MP expires, then comes the by-election, then lots of moolah for the people, then people got happy, then other people in other area got jealous and starts to wish their MP dead (unless he/she is really working hard for the people) and finally their wish come true, then the vicious cycle continues.

Why B-End won?

Probably it’s the blinding flash flood of money or simply called it as ‘buy election’. The Don from The Godfather once said “I got a deal you just can’t refuse”. Probably, they simply had a deal that they can’t refuse. Not easy for us to understand as we sat in our bum in an-airconditioned room pluggin into broadband and reading this probably nonsensical article in the comfort of home, within the sense of security that at the end of the day, we have enough food to satisfy our palates, enough entertainment to keep us dumb, enough layers of beds for a good slumber and enough love to keep our life meaningful. A broken bridge in town stopping the children from proper schooling probably matter more than heartbreaking news of submarine unsubmergable. A matter close to their hearts matter more than the national interest.

Probably it’s along the racial line. Seems like a probable answer, albeit a scary one, unless it brings out the competitiveness of ethnic-voting, as what Bro WongCH advocates.

Nevertheless, despite the big carrot thrown in for a good taste (Rasa), being labeled ‘pendatang’, ‘prostitutes’, treated as 2^nd class citizen and the on-going mysterious death of the father-to-be late Teoh will constantly haunt most Chinese Malaysians without any significant Alzheimer.

Numero uno’s initial gameplan to throw this into a zerosum game probably not expecting the future dilemma that they would be facing – people will ask for MORE.

Greed has no limit.

Now, Sibu probably is an open but simple game to play. Sibuans should be asking for the same, if not, better deals than the citizen of HS or else they will stain the ballot otherwise.

Sibu is better known as B-End’s fixed deposit; although at this moment of time, cashing out may be a Herculean task.

I guess Numero Uno did not read Sun Tzu's Art of War.

Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.

My point is by-election is simply overrated, overspent and overwhat-ever it is about it. See I wasted half hour writing about it.

I seriously hope the Election Commission can come up with a ruling that the candidates have fairly clean bill of health, or at least have certified reasonable 5 years survival at the point of nomination.