It was a case of deja vu once the results of the Democratic Action Party (DAP) Central Executive Committee (CEC) election was announced on the back of the 16th DAP National Congress held last week.
There were many familiar faces with the incumbents holding to the Chairman and Secretary General's post. Curiously, none of the Malay Muslim DAP members were elected which in turn necessited some of their selection under the 'closed-door' office bearer selection meeting.
The selected 'some' were only 'few', ie two, namely Dr Ariffin Omar (Vice Chairman, one of five with the other four all elected) and Zairil Khir Johari (Assistant National Publicity Secretary, the other being the elected Teo Nie Ching with 903 votes) with Ahmad Ton (with 347 votes, only 1 vote less compared to Dr Ariffin and 42 more than Zairil) completely overlooked.
I am in the opinion that the decision of the DAP of appointing Dr Ariffin and Zairil into the CEC, whilst provided in their constitution, should have not been done in the first place. Apart from giving the perception to its members as well as the public that the 'back-door' selection is an unethical way to put certain individuals onto key posts by sacrificing other members who had garnered higher votes, it does to a certain extent pour fuel to the argument that DAP is run just as any race-based party with the need of allocation of quotas based on race.
I can imagine the appointed members having 'inferiority complex' as all others are there in the CEC on merit whilst them benefitting from a decision based on some clandestine strategic wheeling-dealing. Pressing forward, if one wishes to do away with the Bumiputra privileges than what better time to prove it than now.
My suggestion to Dr Ariffin and to Zairil is to politely decline the selection and instead work on strengthening their positions within the grassroots. What is certain for the rejected Malay Muslim candidates is the fact that they will need to find out the reason why they were rejected in the first place. If they are deemed not good enough for their party then what would the voting public make of them come the General Election 2013?
Of course, a worse outcome would be the staging of a massive walkout by all Malay Muslim members out of the DAP into other political parties while at the same time accusing DAP of being racist (and nepotistic, a claim DAP hurls to its rivals in the ruling government).
That to DAP is a scary thought, but a thought neither a rocket scientist, nor a 'Rocket' reader would have difficulty figuring out.
Best regards and Wassalam
1 comment:
Thank you for the good piece of article. After yours was published, today we see that the election results have been amended and Zairil is in at 20th spot, earning the last elected CEC position... How convenient! Let see what is in store for poor Pooi Weng Keong whose head got chopped for the 'error' in tabulating the votes!
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