‘Third political force will split Indian votes’

GEORGE TOWN: The DAP is worried that the “third political force” will split the votes in many Indian constituencies and hand the seats over to the Barisan Nasional (BN).

DAP Bagan Dalam assemblyman, A Tanasekharan, said although the third force has every right to contest in elections, it should be backing Pakatan Rakyat if it wants to topple the BN.

He called on Malaysians to send a message in the next general election that they do not want a third force but a two-party system.

“They should give Pakatan a resounding victory,” he told FMT here today.

Observers say that the 13th general election will see a record number of parties and candidates contesting as independents.

While Pakatan is a three-party coalition, BN has 13 component parties with Umno as the dominant partner.

Since the 2008 general election, the country’s political landscape is dominated by the two-coalition and not two-party system.

The independent parties likely to contest in the coming general election are Kita, headed by former federal minister Zaid Ibrahim, Human Rights Party (HRP), Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP), Sarawak National Party (SNAP) and Parti Cinta Malaysia (PCM).

The election is likely to see a socio-political movement, Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement (MCLM), making its debut.

The movement is set to field its own candidates, which it believes would be better than Pakatan candidates or at least better than those who have defected.

However, Tanasekharan is convinced that all these groups would not be a force to be reckoned with, but rather would disrupt Pakatan’s march to Putrajaya.

Playing ‘spoilers’ role

Accusing the parties of just being spoilers, he said the imminent multi-cornered fights in many constituencies would be mainly a Pakatan versus third force contest, giving BN an easy ride to retaining the federal government.

He alleged that HRP, for instance, wanted only to defeat Indian candidates from Pakatan.

“HRP terms Pakatan Indian leaders as mandores. HRP is not going to win seats by fielding candidates in areas with sizeable Indian voters. This will allow only BN to win,” he said.

Led by former ISA detainee P Uthayakumar, HRP plans to contest 15 parliamentary and 38 state seats, including Bagan Dalam, that have a majority of Indian voters.

HRP central executive committee member S Thiagarajan said the established, capable and experienced Pakatan candidates should not be worried of HRP’s presence.

He said that HRP would rely heavily on Indian support to have any chance of scoring one or two upset wins unlike Pakatan, which can derive support from all communities with its multi-racial platform.

He added that HRP would not have decided to contest in the next election if Pakatan had fulfilled its 18-point demand for the betterment of the Indian community.

He said the Pakatan governments in Selangor, Penang and Kedah, for instance, should guarantee the Indian community in writing that all Tamil schools in the respective states will be given free land for their schools.

There are 98 Tamil schools in Selangor, 56 in Kedah and 28 in Penang.

He said under the National Land Code, this could easily be done by the respective menteri besar and chief minister with the stroke of a pen.

On Kita, Tanasekharan said that its main enemies are PKR supremo Anwar Ibrahim and his PKR. - FMT