Taking on Samy in Sg Siput

Is there a chance for Dr Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj to become the Samy slayer in Sungai Siput?

Asked if he thought he could snag a winning margin, Dr Kumar replies: "Difficult, I think it’s very difficult." This general election marks the third time that the medical practitioner is mounting a challenge against Samy Vellu for the parliamentary seat which registered 46,783 voters in the previous polls.

The safe seat in Perak had in the past been an MIC stronghold. Indians, making up 22.6% of the electorate, are a sizeable voting bloc while Malays and Chinese number 36.3% and 40.2% respectively. MIC chief Samy could before rely on rock solid support from Sg Siput Indians but there’s of course now the Hindraf factor to contend with.

Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang has surmised that disenchanted Indians are today’s ‘kingmakers’ and could swing the election. Dr Kumar predicts that this time he might possibly corner up to 60% of the community’s vote, compared to 36% in 2004 and 17% in 1999.

He expects independent candidate businessman Nor Rizan Oon to have little impact in the three-cornered fight and said postal votes had not been spoilers in the constituency.

But can Dr Kumar succeed in harvesting the current discontent against the government to pip the incumbent to the post? Samy had waltzed away with a majority of 10,349 the prior round.

As Parti Sosialis Malaysia candidate, Dr Kumar can hope to rely on PSM’s Indian support base. He projects that standing on the PKR ticket [more in Q & A below] he can also bank on the Malay catchment though not collecting the maximum number of Chinese votes that a strong DAP contender would otherwise be able to garner.

If the winds of change are blowing strong, why is Dr Kumar seemingly downplaying the possibility of causing an upset? He explains that the wrangling between Opposition parties running up to nomination day had caused some bad blood on the ground. The less-than-unified front did not possess its opponent’s cohesiveness – or if you choose to look at it another way, Umno’s dictatorial say-so in the ruling coalition – on the matter of seat allocation.

Nonetheless betting on his chances, Dr Kumar reckons: "I think it’s better than the first two times." Why? "This government is characterised by its corruption, its misuse of government funds, crony contracts, destruction of the judiciary, destruction of all the institutions, privatisation. This government requires to be shown the door. It has very little saving graces."

Makkal Sakthi

Dr Kumar doesn’t see Makkal Sakthi as an invention of Hindraf though it is the Hindu movement that has popularised it as a buzzword. He prefers to see Makkal Sakthi as ‘kuasa rakyat’ (People Power) or ‘Hidup pekerja!’ (Workers Unite).

His political orientation is naturally, as befitting his party affiliation, socialistic. He has even a huge poster of the Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara as centrepiece in his operations centre. Dr Kumar’s concerns are in the areas of labour laws, minimum wages, union rights and privatisation (he is secretary of the Coalition against the Privatisation of Health Services).

We discuss his widely-circulated November critique on Hindraf. He views Indians as a genuinely oppressed group whose long frustration has come to a boil. The ‘Indian problems’ are real enough in Sg Siput, such as urban squatters who have lost their jobs and homes in the plantation sector.

Does Dr Kumar truly believe Malaysians will be able to approach the issue of Indian marginalisation on the basis of class rather than religion and race, as he advocated idealistically in his Hindraf treatise?

He concedes that it wouldn’t have happened last year. "It won’t come overnight. You’ve got to develop a programme. Work on it. Hard work." He says the direction to take is to expand on an issues-based rather than communal-based activism.

I ask him how he sees the ‘activist’ label tagged to him. "An activist is someone who challenges unjust laws and structures by mobilising the people who are affected by those things. The source of your power to affect change is not yourself, not your clever arguments but the people."

Note: PSM has failed to be registered as a political party since its first application in 1998; the authorities see it as a "national security threat".

EXCERPTS FROM Q & A:

Q: If you get into Parliament, would you be a Keadilan MP?

I’ll be a PSM MP on a Keadilan ticket.

Yes, but I’d like an explanation on what that really entails.

What that entails is because the Parti Sosialis is not registered by the government, it won’t recognise me as a PSM MP. But because I’m a PSM candidate, a PSM party member, the issues we bring up would be the PSM analysis, the PSM ideology. And in most of the cases, it would be similar to Keadilan. We’re all for good governance, we’re all against corruption, we want a better deal for poorer Malaysians, we’re against racial politics. I think in a lot of things, in 90% of things, we’d be identical to the Keadilan position.

But there are some other things where we differ with Keadilan. Like for example, regarding free trade with America where there are some differences between our positions because we see the whole world trading system as something which is unequal and unfair.

It’s favouring the rich countries and it’s favouring the corporations in the rich countries. And it’s critical to have an analysis of that to understand what they’re trying to do with the free trade thing, which I think many of the political parties in Malaysia do not have. Of course if the issue of that comes up, we wouldn’t be following the other parties’ analysis, we’d be following our own analysis.

But then there is such a thing as the party whip.

No, we are a special case. In Selangor, two of our colleagues there are contesting under Keadilan, and the Keadilan leaders know, it’s pretty clear: ‘We’re standing on your ticket; we’re not joining your party’.

There are a lot of commonalities but there are some differences. Like for example, we put a very, very heavy emphasis on area work and going down to the grassroots and bringing the grassroots things up. You see Keadilan put on a lot of emphasis on Anwar Ibrahim. He’s a good speaker. I think he’s miles, miles better than Nazri and Hishamuddin, and they’re the bottom of the barrel. He’s much, much better. I mean there’s no comparison with those guys.

So I got no problem working with him but we will not build a party on a personality. We will not think that so important. We would think that it’s very important to have grassroots work, grassroots mobilisation. In that way, we’re much more like the Makkal Sakthi guys because we believe in People Power. When the differences come up, we’ll be taking up our own analysis, not other peoples.

(Hypothetically speaking) For the duration that you’re in Parliament, you’d be under the Keadilan symbol then if it comes to a headcount?

I think on most issues, I see myself voting with them, definitely. I think in Parliament, even if PAS brings up something or DAP brings up something, I’d probably go with them, isn’t it? I mean, that’s not a problem.

Why do you think you stand a better chance this election?

Poor governance is getting worse with time. Like for example, the Lingam case coming out now, people can see how bad the rot is. Crony contracts, construction … I’ve never seen so many houses and buildings and structures actually collapsing on us. The rot has gone so deep, the system is rotting. And as time progresses, the rot gets worse and worse, it’s getting more and more apparent what’s happening. That’s on the national level.

On the local level, we’ve worked continuously here from ’99 doing work with people. So I think all of that count for something. And the fact that like now, I can turn and say, "Look, when I say I go to Parliament and do this, this and this", they can trust me because this is the record.

I’m here every week. We have helped so many thousands of cases in my service centre. We’ve helped about 20 different community funds. We’ve got involved in (the coalition against) the privatisation of hospitals, the privatisation of water. We have done what we can do.

If you give me the mandate, we can do the other things. I’m not just a politician who’s bluffing you. You can see my track record. We’ve been around here nine years. And without the ‘peruntukan’ (budget), without funds, we’ve done so much.

And it’s not just one person, it’s a team. I represent the team, I’m a team player. All the people out there (in the packed operations centre) came, not because they’re paid but because they believe in what we’re doing. (We’ve) no paid campaign workers. There are people have taken two weeks’ leave just to come down and be with us. We have a core of about 40 people. So basically, it’s run on that.

To sum up his political philosophy, Dr Kumar says: "We need the people of all races to come together and reclaim the country."