Are thousands really joining the BN directly - but who are they?
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| Tengku Adnan - thousands are applying |
The divisions and branches of some component parties have been reduced to familial or community clubs inaccessible to outsiders. Some even reject capable and educated people for fear they will pose some threats to the current office bearers.
Tengku Adnan said thousands of people had applied to become BN direct members. That was the response on Day One. The figures should easily sum up to five digits over the following days.
We don't need complicated formulae to demonstrate that Tengku Adnan will soon declare that BN has tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of direct members in a few months' time, exceeding the figures for some of the existing component parties.
This is of course a good thing for the ruling coalition, as there are still so many people who have faith in BN and will rush to join the big family of BN.
And this is definitely not a bad thing for the nation on the whole, as there are still a sizeable number of people still believing in politics and wanting to have a part in it.
As BN's secretary-general, Tengku Adnan should perhaps try to understand the motives of these people becoming direct members of BN.
I believe while some could have done it out of opportunism or for own interests, or just for fun, others may have done so to advance their political aspirations and ideals.
But then who are these people?
Basically they can be divided into two groups.
Number one, they support BN but not any specific component party.
They agree to the BN spirit and format, including the "1Malaysia" concept, but owing to some reasons they do not quite accept Umno, MCA, Gerakan, MIC, etc.
Number two, they want to join the component parties but have failed to gain access to them.
The divisions and branches of some component parties have been reduced to familial or community clubs inaccessible to outsiders. Some even reject capable and educated people for fear they will pose some threats to the current office bearers.
We must never underestimate these two groups of people, for they are the future of BN.
To the first group of direct members, they obviously do not subscribe to the community politics model whereby the Malays should support Umno, the Chinese should support either MCA or Gerakan, while the Indians should go for MIC. Such a model is no longer convincing and is unable to meet the requirements for the establishment of a common national identity.
As an upper tier mechanism, BN effectuates the distribution of power and swapping of interests, which also does not go well with effective governance in modern politics.
The direct membership model is not built upon the foundation of community politics, but national identity, the most fundamental prerequisite for modern democratic political parties.
Secondly, many of the BN component parties are fast aging. They fail to recruit young members. While the middle-level leaders are in want of successors, the high-level leaders lack new mentality.
The rigidity and xenophobia prevailing in some of the component parties have slowly developed into anti-elite campaigns. From general elections to by-elections, majority of BN candidates have risen to prominence out of guanxi (or connections), and are far inferior compared to some opposition reps in terms of academic achievements, professionalism and political ideologies.
If this is allowed to go on this way, young voters and elites in our society will drain to Pakatan in a big way.
A revolutionary outfit, direct membership will give BN a new lease of life.
But while calling on these direct members, BN has set pretty tough thresholds, such as they are not allowed to attend BN meetings, cannot be fielded as electoral candidates or quit the original component parties.
Excessive accommodation of the status of component parties and vested interests will only hamper BN's effective transformation.
Sin Chew Daily
Tengku Adnan said thousands of people had applied to become BN direct members. That was the response on Day One. The figures should easily sum up to five digits over the following days.
We don't need complicated formulae to demonstrate that Tengku Adnan will soon declare that BN has tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of direct members in a few months' time, exceeding the figures for some of the existing component parties.
This is of course a good thing for the ruling coalition, as there are still so many people who have faith in BN and will rush to join the big family of BN.
And this is definitely not a bad thing for the nation on the whole, as there are still a sizeable number of people still believing in politics and wanting to have a part in it.
As BN's secretary-general, Tengku Adnan should perhaps try to understand the motives of these people becoming direct members of BN.
I believe while some could have done it out of opportunism or for own interests, or just for fun, others may have done so to advance their political aspirations and ideals.
But then who are these people?
Basically they can be divided into two groups.
Number one, they support BN but not any specific component party.
They agree to the BN spirit and format, including the "1Malaysia" concept, but owing to some reasons they do not quite accept Umno, MCA, Gerakan, MIC, etc.
Number two, they want to join the component parties but have failed to gain access to them.
The divisions and branches of some component parties have been reduced to familial or community clubs inaccessible to outsiders. Some even reject capable and educated people for fear they will pose some threats to the current office bearers.
We must never underestimate these two groups of people, for they are the future of BN.
To the first group of direct members, they obviously do not subscribe to the community politics model whereby the Malays should support Umno, the Chinese should support either MCA or Gerakan, while the Indians should go for MIC. Such a model is no longer convincing and is unable to meet the requirements for the establishment of a common national identity.
As an upper tier mechanism, BN effectuates the distribution of power and swapping of interests, which also does not go well with effective governance in modern politics.
The direct membership model is not built upon the foundation of community politics, but national identity, the most fundamental prerequisite for modern democratic political parties.
Secondly, many of the BN component parties are fast aging. They fail to recruit young members. While the middle-level leaders are in want of successors, the high-level leaders lack new mentality.
The rigidity and xenophobia prevailing in some of the component parties have slowly developed into anti-elite campaigns. From general elections to by-elections, majority of BN candidates have risen to prominence out of guanxi (or connections), and are far inferior compared to some opposition reps in terms of academic achievements, professionalism and political ideologies.
If this is allowed to go on this way, young voters and elites in our society will drain to Pakatan in a big way.
A revolutionary outfit, direct membership will give BN a new lease of life.
But while calling on these direct members, BN has set pretty tough thresholds, such as they are not allowed to attend BN meetings, cannot be fielded as electoral candidates or quit the original component parties.
Excessive accommodation of the status of component parties and vested interests will only hamper BN's effective transformation.
Sin Chew Daily
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