YOURSAY | Govt parties must step up now

YOURSAY | ‘The government also needs to address institutional and electoral reforms.’

MP SPEAKS | Building a winning coalition for GE16

Man on the Silver Mountain: The problem with politicians giving a discourse on strategic assessment is that you cannot fully trust them.

Politicians, being who they are, cannot get free from the entanglement of subjective bias in their agenda.

Iskandar Puteri MP Liew Chin Tong’s first salvo, “the unity ticket must get at least half of the Malay votes”, was already a big error.

Liew, that was overly too ambitious. You cannot plan on impracticality. Yes, it may happen, but if that is so, it will be a bonus.

Bottom line, you do not need 50 percent. You only need the existing percentage, which is slightly more than half of that.

What is more important is that you should not lose your supporters because they can be or at least become passive-aggressive if they are disgruntled with you.  

Keep your support base and then conquer those who are not.  The rest are commendable attempts.

I can’t disagree much with them. Just a little tip.

As it stands now, there is no reason for the non-Malays, especially the Chinese, to vote for Perikatan Nasional, whose strategy was obvious.

People like Kedah Menteri Besar Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor repel the non-Muslims, deliberately.

In turn, he and the likes of him are the darlings of the Malay hinterland. That strategy was probably a result of desperation.

They were not too ambitious, but to just get the Malay votes, which would win them some states and, with some horse-trading, might get them to form the federal government.  

So, do not give reasons for the non-Malays to change their support for you. PN’s next obvious step is to woo the non-Malays.

They were quite cunning, as you can see. They put a Chinese candidate in a predominantly Malay area.

The reason was to have a Chinese representative, which is something they would not have achieved in a Chinese-majority area.

Of course, they could always exploit dissatisfied Harapan party members but this depended on the individuals themselves.

Not all rebels could fit in. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim should aim for some economic results. Be pragmatic.

When you do that, you will not be idle to engage in unfruitful pandering to petty racial-religious politics, as you will be preoccupied with the job at hand.

Major reform at this stage will probably be politically risky. Help Umno to rise in appropriate ways.

FedUp: Pakatan Harapan needs to step up its game quickly. Do not take your existing voters for granted.

People want to see real, tangible change.

Quite frankly, if ministers had time to campaign every other day for the state elections, it meant they were not focusing on the very reason the rakyat voted them in, which was to improve the country.

Not having the state elections at the same time as the 15th general election has also backfired, looking at the voter turnout.

So what if the three states stayed with PN? Do a good and fair job to improve the country for all Malaysians and people will vote for you in the 16th general election.

Do not make a hard job even harder by trying to do everything in one go.

IndigoTrout2522: Liew’s article is well written but it is only half the battle. Implementing and communicating the results is important.

The most critical piece is the economy, raising the standard of living, lowering the cost of goods, good jobs, decent housing, good roads and transportation, safety, security, and so on for all people.

It must be big and significant for people to see and perceive that they are truly benefiting from this government. Most people don’t care about politics, they care about pocket issues and peaceful life.

For this recent state election, they couldn’t see or perceive it even though the government had done something good.

So, it must be big and significant, but the government lacks effective communication. Instead, it was spending way too much time pleasing or fighting the extreme right.

Keep Sarawak and Sabah on your side. The government also needs to address institutional and electoral reforms.

One is the disproportionate number of votes in parliamentary and state seats.

Through re-delineation, the boundaries should be redrawn closer to one person, one vote, not such big differences.

Anwar must reshuffle his cabinet to bring in qualified, capable, and incorruptible professionals to implement the vision and policies of the government.

Of course, this is not easy, but what Liew has written here has been pointed out by many commentators. So, move on and act now. Malaysia will become great again!

Aristo: This is a good piece, but how and what can the unity government do to promote this?

The first thing is to ensure that people are happy in their lives. No need to worry about food, jobs, and housing.

Enjoy a better quality of life.

How can the government achieve this when one-third or half of the cabinet ministers are clueless, directionless, and incapable of doing his/her job?

The people are unhappy with the performance of their ministers and have been voicing that out, but the unity government is not paying heed.

The cabinet is the backbone of the country. If the backbone is weak, the country will be weak.

MonkeySeeMonkeyDo: Very well written, but who is listening? Liew, those who read this article are already “converted”.

Going forward, the government must go to the rural kampungs and talk to the people there. How many of you have done that?

Listen to them. Get to know them. Don’t do it just before the elections.

Do it all the time. If the government leaders are sincere, the Malay kampung folks will be convinced one day.

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