The Kuala Terengganu Elections

I have read many of the articles written in Malaysia Today. It is the principal medium through which most of the attacks against UMNO are taking place. UMNO bloggers, admittedly have not been intense as the Pakatan Bloggers. That’s an indicator of the intellectual deficit which UMNO has. Maybe, what they are lacking upstairs is made up by brawn. Possibly, they are doing work on the ground. Ground work, actual face to face encounters are better indicators of voter’s preference.

Accordingly, I wouldn’t place too high a premium on blog voices. They are, at best opinion shapers that need actual conversion. To use a very recent metaphor used by the intriguing Mr Padedoh, while we bloggers can carpet bomb the targeted areas, it is the ground troops that do the finishing touches. They do the protracted battles- trench warfare, frontal, rear attacks- whatever weapons necessary to win each and every battle- buy votes, snatching IDs, intimidation, putting the fear of god in everyone, threatening to circumcise everybody, selling God’s promises, giving benedictions and so on. Spiritual corruption is as abhorrent as physical one. Spiritual intimidation is as potent as physical ones. So what actually is the difference between the spiritual soothsayer and the physical magician?

The answer, I am proposing lies in who best converts the weaponry they have,- PAS with their spiritual goodies and UMNO with their physical wares, into IMMEDIATE USABLE BENEFITS. It is to these, that people of KT must look out for. So in answer to the commentator, Mr Navi who asked me, which will I choose, I say, Mr Navi I choose the latter. I don’t apologise on my choice. Spiritual salvation, I will certainly look for.

I am not trivialising the great propaganda work carried out by the Pakatan bloggers and it will be some time, when the UMNO cyber-troopers get their act together. I mean that as a compliment to RPK and his band of brothers, including of course the equally indomitable Unker Zorro. He has been relentless.

Let’s just say, at the moment, the Pakatan Rakyat Bloggers enjoy some advantage. Therein lies the beauty and value of the internet. To a very large degree it allows a leveling of the playing field- on that field, adversaries pit wits and intelligence and thought process against one another. As far as I know, blogging is by far the most democratic medium for freedom of expression. That, to me personally is a gift from the gods.

Allow me to expand. Having found myself marginalised by the very people that I am now defending, blogging has provided me the new medium, unbridled thus far, to express my thoughts on a range of issues and topics. Therefore in answer to a commentator to the 3^rd series of my Warkah To The People Of KT- blogging extends what I have been doing while actually serving as ADUN. And to this particular cynical commentator, I would further say, you aint seen nothing yet!. What I am doing now probably captures only 10% of what I have done before. The future can only be more explosive.

And so we come back again, to the detached and philosophical question posed by the PR propaganda machine- let us send a message. The people of KT and indeed the whole of Terengganu have sent their clear message. Idris Jusoh, the man known for his notoriety with the excesses and personal indiscretions toward Tuanku Sultan Terengganu has been removed. The people of Terengganu have spoken by putting in the pugilistic Mat Said as the new MB. You wanted a leader whom you think needs to be combative and you got one.

That only proves again and again, the people of Terengganu and KT are businesslike in their decisions. Nothing personal, just business. So there’s nothing personal if you choose not to elect a PAS parliamentarian and certainly, you will not be influenced by all those nonsensical references about Wan Farid’s personality.

We don’t have to like his bloody face. Can he do a job well? Has he got the smarts? Can he walk and chew gum at the same time? Measure him against these. Hell, he can’t do anything about his face- he was born like that. Just as an aside, you can’t do anything about the faces of a Mat Sabu or of an Ibrahim Ali. Ibrahim Ali thinks of himself as a most handsome and sexy man. Only Mat Sabu thinks he is handsomer than Ibrahim Ali.

So the people of KT must resist the invitation to reject Wan Farid because he is sombong, because he is alleged to be difficult to meet up and so forth. Anwar Ibrahim has got an uppity face for that matter and his consistently dismissive refusal to see those seeking his help when he was a cabinet minister, was legendary.

If there are defective monsoon drains, roads and other social facilities that are lacking, ask yourselves, what have the local reps been doing in the district development meetings? (mesyuarat pembangunan daerah) you have 3 PAS ADUNs and they can’t even look after drains? Or if PAS reps do not attend mesyuarat pembangunan daerah, have they made representations to district offices to correct these defects?