Rafidah: Political Wisdom?

Rafidah Aziz has advised the Barisan Nasional leadership against repeating past mistakes, by listening to the voters and not party members when selecting candidates for the next general elections.

I think this is one good advice coming from this doyen in a long, long time. I sometimes wonder whether she took her own advice when she was surfing the political waters as Wanita UMNO chieftain.

She said too many good candidates had been axed during Election 2008 because of this policy.

“In the next general election, what we really need are good candidates, the right candidates, winnable candidates.“To get this, we must listen to the people, not the party members,” she said. On the dot, my dear lady, on the dot!

The outspoken leader pointed out that many party members had their own personal agenda to achieve, which could prove to be detrimental to Barisan Nasional (BN) at large.

“If you ask only them (the party members) on who should contest next, they might say the present representative needs to be removed.

“Of course they would say this. Why? Because there is usually already someone else there, waiting in the wings to take over,” she said.

Rafidah said it was important for the leadership to start collecting grassroots feedback from all quarters of society, which includes both party members and the voters themselves.[Who is being task to do this? Is he or she morally upright?]

“Sometimes, the people like their representative. But this representative could not be popular among party members because he or she is maybe not too ‘party-centric’,” she said.

She explained that this may not sit well with the party members who felt that they have not been getting enough “largesse” from the disputed candidate. [ We need a mind-set change here!]

“So that is where the disparity of perception comes in. You ask the party members and they would say to change the candidate but when you speak to the people, they like their representative.

“But do not look at what the party members want alone — the people end up casting the votes in the end,” she said.

Without elaborating, Rafidah said that this had clearly happened during the last general election in March 2008.

The election had seen the Pakatan Rakyat parties of PAS, DAP and PKR unexpectedly rise to power when it swept up five states and denied BN its two-thirds majority in Parliament.

“Last election, too many changes were made without consideration on who these candidates were — whether they could be accepted by the public at large,” said Rafidah.

She commended Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak on his leadership to date but urged him to remind his “soldiers” in the government to strive harder to carry out his newborn initiatives.

“He has made real effort in consolidating the country, especially through his 1Malaysia concept.

“But more needs to be done. We need to go to the grassroots and explain to the people that this 1Malaysia not just about ‘one’ everything — one uniform, one murtabak.

“It is not just symbolism... it is about how we are all Malaysians and that despite our differences, we are held together by this one thread that is Malaysia,” Rafidah said.

She said that Najib seemed to understand what needed to be done to strengthen the country’s economy but pointed out that it was one thing to create approaches like the New Economic Model (NEM) and another to ensure that work was actually carried out.

“Having the NEM is one thing but making sure that things are done is another. To me, for any government of any time, there is nothing else but the ‘nose to the grindstone’ approach.[Hard work and clean conscience, my good dame!]

“Everyone in the administration must be diligent in achieving targets. All must be on their toes, there is no slacking, whether or not you are in the Cabinet or in the public service or in the education sector — you have to know your role and achieve your target,” said the former Cabinet Minister cum ex-economics lecturer in Universiti Malaya.

Rafidah added that the government needed to be stern in preventing detractors from politicising policies that were beneficial to the people. “Like the subsidy cuts for example. Do not let these detractors to politicise on it and divide the people because the cuts are for the good of the people. [Who says so? Not the poor. Not the impoverished salaried class!]

“As Malaysians, we owe it to ourselves to accept things that are good for us and the country so if we need to cut back on subsidies, then we must accept it and the government must explain to the people why,” she said.

I guess she is with Jala and suffering the blind spot malady too, in this instance!