The greatest responsibility of Ubah is to both prepare the future for the young and prepare the young for the future
DAP celebrates the 47th anniversary of the birth of our party on 18.3.1966 for the first time in Johor, the critical new frontier that PR must win to bring about Ubah or Change. Inikalilah! It is now or never!
For the first time in our nation’s 56-year history, change is possible.
For the first time ever, Malaysians have a real alternative.
For the first time ever, there is now a clear and tangible choice between a regime that is undemocratic, corrupt, racist and bankrupt, versus one that is clean, practices integrity, values freedom and human rights and is proven to be competent, accountable and transparent.
But one thing for sure, change will not come easy. In the last few weeks we have already seen cases of hooliganism by BN thugs, when even the Chief Minister’s Office in Penang can be attacked by an unruly mob and Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s bus was stoned and pelted when he was inside the bus, resulting in injury to a few people. This is only the beginning – BN’s desperate tricks will only get worse.
DAP and PR’s biggest challenge is still electoral fraud by BN and biasedness by a partisan Election Comission in the coming general elections. The electoral rolls are still not cleaned up with the astonishing 28% unidentifiable voters or 140,000 unaccounted for voters in Selangor. Is this the 28% “handicap” built in to the electoral process in benefit BN?
Further the constituency delineation is gerrymandered in an undemocratic manner to benefit BN. The smallest parliament seat in Malaysia, P125 Putrajaya, has 15,308 voters as of Quarter 3, 2012 while the largest seat, P109 Kapar, has 142,419 voters. The number of voters in the largest seat is 9 times that of the smallest seat.
In other words, one vote in P125 Putrajaya is roughly equal to 9 votes in P109 Kapar. This is a gross violation of the ‘One Man One Vote’ principle where one person’s vote should have the same weightage and power as another person’s vote.
For this reason PR is starting at a disadvantage as we have to win more than our fair share of the popular vote to win 50% of the seats, or else BN will steal the election. The disparity between votes received by BN and seats won by BN at every election is clearly shown below.
| Years | BN Seats | Total no of Seats | BN % of Seats | BN % of Votes | Diff (Seats-Votes) |
| 1959 | 72 | 98 | 73.5% | 63.7% | 9.8% |
| 1964 | 88 | 104 | 84.6% | 58.2% | 26.4% |
| 1969 | 74 | 142 | 52.1% | 45.3% | 6.8% |
| 1974 | 135 | 154 | 87.7% | 60.8% | 26.8% |
| 1978 | 139 | 163 | 85.3% | 57.3% | 28.0% |
| 1982 | 126 | 148 | 85.1% | 60.5% | 24.7% |
| 1986 | 148 | 177 | 83.6% | 57.3% | 26.3% |
| 1990 | 127 | 180 | 71.1% | 52.0% | 19.1% |
| 1995 | 162 | 192 | 84.4% | 63.4% | 21.0% |
| 1999 | 148 | 193 | 76.7% | 55.5% | 21.2% |
| 2004 | 199 | 219 | 90.9% | 62.2% | 28.6% |
| 2008 | 140 | 222 | 63.1% | 50.3% | 12.8% |
In other words PR has to win more than 51% of the popular votes,not 50% of the votes to win Putrajaya. It is therefore extremely important that we now put aside whatever minor differences we may have and rally united behind our party, and behind the Pakatan Rakyat coalition.
As Mahatma Gandhi once said, “There is enough in this world for everyone's need, but there is not enough in this world for one man's greed.” Corruption by BN is deeply entrenched in Malaysia. Whilst making corruption history is amongst the highest priority of PR, the most difficult task is to give our young hope of a brighter future. In other words, the greatest responsibility of Ubah is to both prepare the future for the young and prepare the young for the future.
An education system that is available, accessible and affordable must also inculcate a culture of excellence. Instead we have increasing mediocrity with the drop in Malaysia’s ranking in the Trends in International Math and Science Study (TIMSS) 2011 from 20th to 26th in the Mathematics and from 21st to 32nd in Science. This confirms the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) that the competency of 15-year olds in Malaysia was 3 years behind the international average.
Malaysians as a nation face a talent cliff that can hamper economic growth and cripple our efforts to transform ourselves into a high-income, knowledge-based developed country. Unless we grow and build human talent, retrain and retain them as well as attract new talent, we face the risk of not just falling behind from new developed economies like Singapore and South Korea but also being overtaken by neighbours like Indonesia and Thailand.
PR offers not just free education but will abandon political connections in favour of choosing the the best and brightest. At the same time, PR will build learning centres to give tuition to academically weak students so that we do not only focus on the best but can create a rising tide of supporting talents of high standards.
To succeed, Malaysia needs to be freed from the shackles on our mind imposed by a BN that refused to let us think. The greatest gift a government can bestow on its population is not cash handouts but knowledge and freedom from fear. Plato said, “We can forgive a child who is afraid of the dark, the real tragedy is when men and women are afraid of the light”.
Let us UBAH and Change to shine the light on all four corners of Malaysia!
