YOURSAY | ‘We will vote for whoever does a genuine job.’

COMMENT | Would you not vote for Harapan?

BlueShark1548: Malaysiakini columnist S Thayaparan, you should direct your question on whether to vote for Pakatan Harapan to PKR and its president, Anwar Ibrahim.

The DAP has strong support in the constituencies won by the party and should perform well. The question is, can Anwar retain PKR's current seats, win back the seats it lost due to defections and win new seats?

It is more likely that PKR would lose seats and Harapan is back to having insufficient seats to take Putrajaya and we have to live under Umno rule again, unless East Malaysians wake up to the new realities of Putrajaya politics.

Harapan has no chance of winning Putrajaya with a 74-year-old man as its leader when the 15th general election is expected to have six to seven million new 18-year-old voters, many of whom were not even born when Anwar left Umno.

Harapan needs new and younger leaders, and the likes of DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang, Anwar and Amanah president Mohamad Sabu should give way to them.

DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng, who is facing criminal charges, should not be nominated for GE15 if he has not cleared his name by then.

VioletZebra1195: To answer Thayaparan’s question, yes, I would consider not voting Harapan, especially in Selangor if they go ahead and destroy more forest reserves. For me, that would be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Perhaps, I might vote for a Harapan candidate to be an MP, but not an assemblyperson. They need to be taught a lesson in humility and to not take their supporters for granted.

Apa Nama: I agree. It’s better for me to boycott the coming general election. Let the MPs learn some lesson not to take our votes for granted and treat them as dirt.

The problem is that the voters do not have a choice unless a Recall Election Act is in place. The MP may work hard but he/she is still under the thumb of his/her party.

So, he/she needs to work harder to convince the party leadership to buck up. Otherwise, the hardworking MP could also be a victim of vote boycott due to their party affiliation.

For sure, I will punish both the hardworking MP and the party for taking my vote for granted. You cannot separate the two.

The MPs of a party, say PKR, need to get together and whack the leadership to buck up. But in Malaysia, our MPs are too obedient, they follow the flow and toe the line.

Do a radical change, then you have my vote. Otherwise, I better sleep on voting day!

Malayan Boey: @Apa Nama, by not voting, you are assigning others to make the decision for you. You would also lose the right to lament and complain at whichever new government that Malaysia gets.

Either select the better alternative or seek a third alternative. Why the reluctance to support Warisan or Muda?

MS: Most Malaysians, in my view, vote for parties and the coalitions they are in rather than for specific individuals.

Part of the problem is the media which seldom, if ever, investigates the backgrounds of those nominated with any rigour.

And on their part, those nominated seldom allow themselves to be held accountable for their past statements, actions and omissions, and most definitely never present themselves at town halls to be questioned and quizzed on both national and local issues by those whose support they seek.

The root cause, if there is just one, appears to be a combination of the lazy, unquestioning, mindless, easily misled, emotional, blinded (you pick your descriptor) voter and the etherising effect of ceramah (talks) which nearly always resembles the atmosphere of a mesmerising Jim Jones rally in Guyana. (And you know how that ended).

All of which explains why voters get to be serially disappointed by the three-ring circus which is Malaysian politics - with its leaping frogs, moral and intellectual pygmies and a variety of twisted bigots and semi-literates with fake degrees prancing about with undeserved titles.

Will any of this change? Not likely.

Racial and religious tribalism, which is now as normalised as nasi lemak, will ensure that the circus will continue to entertain the hoi polloi and delude them into thinking that they have a say in determining their future.

Milshah: Thayaparan said Malaysia has never, ever had a secular alternative to Umno/BN and that Malaysia has never had a political coalition that championed values that were in direct contradiction to the mainstream Umno/BN politics.

This is where he is wrong. The DAP, in its original Malaysian Malaysia struggle, was a direct alternative to Umno/BN. Even Parti Sosialis Malaysia is another alternative. But all lost in every election, except for the last election.

What was the difference between the last election and the previous ones that Pakatan Rakyat/Harapan had lost? They brought in the old maverick with his Malay nationalist party. If ever, the DAP had to become less secular and less Malaysian Malaysia for Harapan to win the last election.

Now that Mahathir, Bersatu and Pejuang are out of Harapan, I look forward to Harapan being in 100 percent Malaysian Malaysia secular mode.

Newday: I speak on behalf of the family including children that are all now at voting age. We will vote for whoever does a genuine job of working hard for the best of all in the local community/constituency.

Traditional blind voting along party or coalition lines is not something that has much relevance anymore to us.

Our PKR representative got the vote in GE14. He is still working hard and most likely will get our votes again.

We view PKR as a quite dysfunctional party. The younger ones are waiting to see who may throw their hat in the ring from young independents or Muda if it ever gets registered.

I feel the power of major parties and coalitions will become less relevant to the final makeup of whoever governs after GE15.

The younger independents, Muda or a mix, may find themselves in the position of holding the balance of power. I look forward to that day coming.

BluePanther4725: Harapan may not be perfect but supporting them is way better than voting for the incompetent kleptocrats in Umno and the treacherous, Islamist extremist Perikatan Nasional (PN).

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