Haris Ibrahim reports from KT (No.2)

January 7, 2009

Haris Ibrahim in Kuala Terengganu reports:

DAP hosted a Chinese dinner last night and very kindly extended an invitation to the Barisan Rakyat blogger team.

600-strong crowd

The near 99 percent Chinese diners had an array of excellent speakers to prime them on the numerous reasons why they should not only vote for Pakatan, but also go out and take the same message to friends and relatives.

YB Janice

YB Leong

YB Liew

YB Ronnie

RPK

YB Tian Chua

YB Teresa

And of course, the man of the moment, Pakatan candidate Wahid, was there, humour and all. Strikes you as the kind of person that is easy to like immediately.

As he came in well after all the other speakers, it was good that he did not get into the same issues that other speakers had touched on. He just sort of bantered with the diners, giving them an opportunity to see a very likeable person.

RPK was powerful. He drove the point home that the Chinese had settled in Terengganu for more than 200 years. Well before UMNO and Dr. M were conceived. Enough, then, of the race politics that haspagued our nation for so long. Time to dump UMNO and BN into the South China Sea, he urged. You can imagine the ovation that RPK received.

Tian Chua, I thought, made a very important observation and one that I felt went down well with the audience.

What BN calls the bickering between the three parties in Pakatan, the bickering that BN claims hints at the impending collapse of Pakatan, in fact, discloses a healthy democratic process that prevails in Pakatan : the ability to articulate a disagreement with an equal partner.

This is something that we hardly ever saw in BN before 8th March last year and, of late, some in BN are trying to be seen to be doing, albeit rather tentatively.

Remember Najib’s ‘we are an Islamic state’ stance last year, and the total silence from the other BN component leaders to this irresponsible claim, with the exception of Dompok? See how UMNO has brushed off calls by PPP and Gerakan to amend / repeal the ISA? There are no equal partners in BN. Just one big bully and a bunch of ‘yes’ men.

Pakatan component parties may be seen as quarelling but in reality this is a healthy process in a democracy.Yes, democracy is alive in Pakatan.

Tian Chua also reminded those in the hall that this by-election was more than just about getting a new MP for Kuala Terengganu. It was about the people in this constituency continuing the trend of change that has started to sweep through the country. Their vote would not just decide the fate and the future of their fellow constituents, but that of every fellow Malaysian.

Wahid, understandably, could not stay long, but before leaving the dinner hall, he made a very sincere effort to get up close and personal with those in the audience.

Before we left the hall,  RPK, too, took time out to shake hands and exchange thoughts with most of the 600 people at the dinner. In the course of this, he discovered that some of them were known to him from the days when he and Marina resided in Terengganu.