Evolving with the times
INSIGHT: By JOCELINE TAN
DAP’s new Malay recruits are more likely to impress
its non-Malay supporters than the Malay ground which it is trying to
infiltrate but, in the long run, it is an astute move to tap into the
changing urban demography.
DATUK Ariff Sabri has been the
talk of
Pahang Umno since he joined DAP a few weeks ago. Ariff, a former
Pahang assemblyman but who is now more famous as a blogger, is arguably
the biggest Umno name to have joined DAP.
“I was quite shocked. I
thought someone was playing a joke on me and I felt sad when it turned
out to be true,” said Pahang exco member Datuk Sharkar Shamsuddin.
The
Umno and DAP view of each other has always been extremely polarised –
ultra Malay versus Chinese chauvinist. As far as Ariff’s friends in Umno
were concerned, his political move was akin to leaving one world for
another.
Malay
recipe: Zulkifli (left) and Zairil (centre) represent DAP’s past and
present attempts at diluting its image as a Chinese chauvinist party.
They are seen here with life member Iskandar Basha Abdul Kadir (right)
in Penang.
On top of that, DAP has been making a song
and dance about the fact that Ariff hailed from the Prime Minister’s
constituency and used to be the Pekan Umno information chief.
But
no one felt more taken aback than Pahang Mentri Besar
Datuk Seri Adnan
Yaakob. The two men have known each other for years and when Ariff was
not picked to defend his Pulau Manis state seat in 2008, the Mentri
Besar had reportedly made efforts to ensure that Ariff and his family
would be all right.
Sharkar is one of those people who sees
everyone as a friend and he called Ariff to urge him to rethink his
decision, but the die was cast.
Ariff and Aspan Alias, another
Umno politician from
Negri Sembilan, had attended the DAP national
conference in January where they were welcomed like
VIPs. Since then,
former
National Union of Journalists president Hata Wahari has also been
recruited.
The latest recruits stand out as both are from Umno whereas Hata had single-handedly taken on
Utusan Malaysia before he was sacked from the paper.
In
that sense, it was the first time that DAP had managed to snare three
Umno-related personalities who can now join them in challenging Umno.
Hata, who is currently working for Lembah Pantai MP
Nurul Izzah Anwar, seems to be taking his radical views against
Utusan Malaysia and on press freedom to the political arena.
Ariff and Aspan have used their blogs to air their opinions and often to hit out at what they think is wrong with Umno.
Ariff,
being a former assemblyman, is definitely the biggest catch among the
three. He said he is against corruption and wants to see good governance
and the rule of law.
“It’s not easy to move on but I am taking
stock of the new realities of Malay politics. The younger generation is
less racial in outlook and more willing to go on merit,” he said.
He is also much harder to define – he is a big fan of
muay thai,
has a taste for serious literature and likes music from an earlier era.
Although his blog may be rather too cerebral for the average person,
his writing is very cut-and-thrust and he can be quite ruthless. He has
commented on everything from politics to the economy and has a loyal
following.
DAP Youth chief and Rasah MP Anthony Loke who took the
initiative to approach Ariff admitted he was attracted to the latter’s
line of attack against Umno.
“We told them to go on writing. They can attack Umno and explain a lot of things on our behalf,” said Loke.
But
what is the big deal, some have asked. They said that a few new Malay
members looking for a new platform to air their grouses is not going to
change the image of DAP. They think DAP is recruiting people who have an
axe to grind, basically “Umno-bashers” who can take the DAP fight with
Umno to another level.
There has been a trickle of
Malays into
the party over the years and there is even an all Malay DAP branch in
the Klang Valley. There have also been Malay DAP candidates every
general election but only three or four have managed to win seats, the
most notable being the late Bayan Baru MP Ahmad Nor who was a well-known
trade unionist.
But DAP’s attempts to reach out to the Malays
over the last 40 years have been a flop partly because of the success of
Umno’s propaganda against DAP and partly because of the way DAP had
exploited Chinese issues.
DAP was more than happy to ride on its
reputation as a champion of all things Chinese but their troubles in the
wake of their success in Penang and Perak drummed home the point that
their Chinese image had become a liability.
All those years of
attacking Umno, the NEP, Islamic policies, the civil service, the police
and, more recently, the MACC have come home to roost.
The
targets of their criticism have one thing in common – they are largely
associated with the Malays and Islam. Their attacks have been akin to
Malay-bashing and the party has, rightly or wrongly, acquired an
anti-Malay reputation.
Last year, the party launched its Malay
website, Roketkini. It is not the most original of names but it is quite
an interesting site although critics say that it sounds like a Malay
apologist for a Chinese party.
It is quite obvious that
Roketkini’s purpose is also to debunk Malay prejudices against DAP,
defending the party against notions that it is anti-Islam, supports the
Islamic State, is trying to promote a Christian Prime Minister, has
communist leanings and so on.
Malays in the party find themselves
always having to explain themselves to their Malay friends. For
instance, former vice-chairman Zulkifli Md Noor still gets puzzled looks
after 30 years in the party. Some of his friends think that DAP uses
Malays like him as tokens and that the party is not sincere in giving
them real roles. His detractors see him as a DAP poodle.
They
said that if DAP genuinely wanted to promote the Malays, people like
Zulkifli should be given winnable seats. Instead, he has contested three
general elections in seats where he was pitched against big guns and
where he had little chance of winning. In 2008, he even had to make way
for a well-connected Indian candidate even though he had been doing work
in that particular constituency.
But Ariff is definitely not
going to be anyone’s poodle. For instance, his blog is called Sakmongkol
AK47 – Sakmongkol is the name of a famous kickboxer whereas AK47 is a
Russian-made firearm.
He described his first few interactions
with DAP as a culture shock but as he said: “Just because I am in DAP
does not make me less of a Malay, I’m still a loyal subject of the
Rulers.”
During a party retreat in Seremban last year,
Lim Kit
Siang had urged members to correct their image by attracting young,
liberal and progressive Malays.
“We’re not only targeting former Umno members, we’re also looking for fresh faces without any political history,” said Loke.
DAP, said social historian Dr Neil Khor, is by constitution a non-sectarian party.
“They
have to practise what they preach. They have been dominated by a
Chinese type of thinking. I think they are trying to say that, yes, we
can’t deny that we have become an ethnic Chinese party but we are
pushing for a more multi-racial outlook,” said Dr Khor.
The
latest Malay recruits will probably be made candidates in the next
general election. The question is whether they will be tested in Malay
seats where they will have to struggle to win or given safe,
Chinese-majority seats.
“If they pull it off, it will be a real game changer for DAP,” said Dr Khor.
Everyone
is watching what the party is planning to do in Perak. Pakatan Rakyat
politicians have convinced themselves that they will take back Perak and
the talk is that DAP wants to have their own Malay candidate for mentri
besar. They have been badly damaged by attacks that although they won
an overwhelming number of seats in the state, they had to surrender the
mentri besar post to PAS.
Not everyone in the party is thrilled
about the entry of Ariff, Aspan and Hata. First, there are the
suspicions and stigma attached to party-hoppers. Then there is the
concern about whether they will be able to adapt to the party’s way of
doing things.
A few of them are also concerned about the
Johor-born Hata. They saw how he bit the hand that fed him and his
ferocious flogging of his then employer shocked many people. They are
worried the firebrand could easily turn around and bite DAP if things do
not go his way in future. They can see that this is a guy who goes for
broke.
They want the party to recruit more Malays like Zairil
Khir Johari and former Transparency Malaysia chief Senator Tunku Aziz
Ibrahim. They have no baggage and do not ask too many embarrassing
questions or cause trouble in the party.
Zairil, whose stepfather
is the late Umno veteran Tan Sri Khir Johari, is seen as a rising star
in Penang where he is the Chief Minister’s blue-eyed boy. The Internet
chatter is projecting him as the next deputy chief minister. But to be
fair to him, he is a genuinely likeable person, humble and hard-working.
“All
these people joined without any pre-conditions. They may or may not be
candidates in the general election and we do not have carrots to
dangle,” said Jelutong MP Jeff Ooi.
The party constitution
specifies at least two years of membership because anyone can be
considered as an election candidate but it can be waived by the central
executive committee as in the case of Ooi, who joined the party about
six months before the 2008 election.
The short-term take on this
is that DAP is trying to dilute its Chinese image which is becoming a
liability in its quest for power. But the new recruits are more likely
to impress DAP’s non-Malay ground rather than the Malays whom they are
trying to attract. No one can quite see Malays rushing to join DAP in
the near future and especially given the way DAP leaders attack Malay
institutions.
But in the long term, this is an astute party that
has begun to tap into the changes taking place in the urban areas and
among urban Malays.
The Malay population is growing very fast and
will soon dominate the electorate map in such a way that future general
elections will be largely a Malay fight. Any party that wants to stay
relevant will have to be acceptable to the Malays in one way or another.
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Stocking up ... from left, co-founders of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz with Sean Parker and the murals. Photo: Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Windfall ... David Choe.
