As reported in NST Feb 25th, when asked whether he has “created a new style of approach with Indians, Works Minister and MIC President, Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu said “Take me for instance. When I switch on my handphone in the mornings, there will be a hundred calls from people trying to communicate their needs”.

It is true : Samy has a successful and prosperous political career for nearly 30 years in part due to his accessibility to and willingness to hear those who went to see him. The other attribute to which his political success is owed is the ability to ingratiate UMNO bigwigs.
But these two attributes – accessibility and ingratiation to which his political success is owed – are hardly a “new style” of political approach. Not that I blame him. Old patterns of behaviour, especially when they brought success, have a way of clinging stubbornly on like a weed that has taken firm root after 3 decades. You can remove the top, but the old weed will spring up again – and again.

And that’s what happened when in an attempt to ingratiate UMNO Bigwigs, he went ballast on national TV to declare “I have also suggested that the Cabinet take appropriate action against the person (or persons) who had stolen and exhibited (the Litrak Concessionaire) agreement. The agreement is solely between the government and the company and it is a secret document,” (The Sun). Knowing that the OSA is draconian and imposes mandatory jail term of 1 year, why else was he so adamant and vociferous in demanding investigation and prosecution of the 4 opposition leaders if it were not otherwise due to an attempt to ingratiate UMNO leaders? After all he cannot be blamed as privatization and concession are purely an EPU decision under the PM’s jurisdiction, which were approved by cabinet and merely taken over for implementation by the Works Ministry. That’s what earned him the rebuke from YB as being “blood thirsty”.

In his alacrity to lynch the whistleblowers, he apparently forgotten about the untenability of having commercial concessionaire agreements classified as official secrets when by their nature they have to be disseminated in the public domain to rating agencies, bankers, investing public to raise finance for the mega projects.
In part, public opinion plays a major role via blogs etc to tell the government why it is untenable to classify these concessionaire agreements under OSA, recognizing which the cabinet decided to declassify them.

But Samy has a problem for taking a hard public stand that has embarrassingly proven erroneous, earning him a label as a “bad boy of Tolls”! He has to contain the political fall out, minimize the costs, and preserve at all costs his infallible and competent image as a “know all minister” who is not impetuous to commit silly and basic errors.

So he resorts to the well-tried method of a political spin.

Now the main purpose of a political spin is to reorient potentially embarrassing or ambiguous actions, (mis)statements, and/or circumstances in such a way as to deflect, minimize, or refute critical attention from himself – the political actor – as primary target. So he called for a Press interview, which is an appropriate stage for spin because of its reach.

He has used 2 types of strategic spins here:

(1) the Defensive Spin to recast or redefine an unfavorable set of circumstances to encourage viewing them in a more favorable (or at least more understandable and hence palatable) light as far as he is concerned. He therefore explained why he initially mistook the concessionaire agreement as coming within ambit of the OSA by saying in the interview that “Concession agreements are attached to cabinet papers. Since a cabinet paper is a classified paper, the attachment also becomes classified”. (This is of course not true. Even if cabinet minutes on why and to whom the concession is awarded are ‘classified’ under OSA, it bears no nexus to the formal agreement that is signed much later after the award!). He went on in the interview to now say “there is nothing wrong in allowing the people to look at the concession agreement”. He even painted the scenario that at his initiative “I went to the cabinet three weeks ago and asked them if we could open the concession agreements for public scrutiny” to which the “Prime Minister said ‘OK – you submit a paper” (read the cabinet decision to declassify the concession agreement is now all due to the ‘people orientated’ paper he submitted to the cabinet favoring disclosure! But this is not enough! Though this is a good ‘defense spin’ it won’t be the ‘best’ unless it is also complemented by a good offense spin, as Lee Kuan Yew is often quoted – ‘the best defense is a good offense’

(2) The Offensive Spin, which involves attacking or the strategic use of anger as a means of immobilizing specific political opponent and detractor who would otherwise be in a position to capitalize or continue to capitalize on the embarrassing circumstance to discredit him. So that’s where in the interview he has singled out YB Lim Kit Siang as a target for his ire by alleging that: –

(a) in labeling the Works Minister as “bloodthirsty”, he was imputing that he was “Dracula” since only Dracula, as vampire, “goes for blood” ; and

(b) that “a man and politician of his (LKS’s) age and experience should be more cultured when he talks about other people.

What Samy has engaged here is a fallacious form of argument popularly known as “straw man” argument. It is a logical fallacy based on (i) misrepresentation of an opponent’s position (in this case by misrepresenting and twisting the word “blood thirsty” used by YB LKS as a metaphor for “vengeful” to something else like the vampire Dracula, just because in the literal sense the vampire sucks and is thirsty for blood) (ii) , then attribute that position to the opponent (which is wrong because when LKS called him blood-thirsty, he had meant vengeful and not evil like vampire Dracula) and (iii) finally attack the opponent LKS for being uncivil for calling him a vampire!

In short, Samy is engaging in a dishonest argument of attributing and extrapolating an untenable statement and position to an opponent who never in the first instance said it.

What may be summarized from the analysis here? I think the following are fair:-

First, Samy is consummate politician who has been successful so far because of his attributes of being a good political actor of being accessible at all times to his constituents, yet at the same time adept at accommodating and ingratiating the egos of the UMNO’s bigwigs, and when attacked by political opponents, has an arsenal of defences and counterattacks by way of Defensive and Offensive Spins launched through the media stage;

Second, he is well aware that like other BN leaders and ministers from Dr Mahathir’s administration, he is overstaying his political career under Pak Lah’s administration. To carry on, he has to hone and sharpen more the very attributes that have helped his political career and success so far including the ability to ingratiate the UMNO bigwigs as well as launch political spins to counter public criticisms. The overzealousness in this regard has got him into trouble uninvited – as in the case of launching into a public tirade and demanding application of the OSA against the 4 opposition leaders for disclosing the Litrak Concessionaire Contract even if such contracts are rightly not blamed on him or the Works Ministry, being under purview of EPU under the PM.

Third, although he has talked about “a new style of approach” of politics, as it invariably is imperative because of changes in today’s world, he has, however, clung on stubbornly, like a weed that has taken firm root, to well tried successful formulas of the past like using political spins (both Defensive as well as Offensive in combination) to recover, if not, buttress political support perceived lost by an embarrassing circumstance of going ballast on national TV and ‘bloodthirsty’ against 4 opposition leaders over something that the latter has been able to seize a higher moral ground (ie the Litrak Concessionaire Agreement should be declassified for disclosure in public interest that cabinet decision subsequently vindicated).

Which only shows that he has not adapted creatively to changes in the political environment brought on by better education and the proliferation of the Internet.

It will be recalled that it is the Internet and the Blogs therein that have played an effective role to convince the government that it is untenable to classify commercial and concessionaire agreement as secrets under the OSA. It will be further re-called that political spins whether Defensive or Offensive spins, are in today’s world of better education losing their edge and effect as people are able to see through the fallacious contents of these spins.

In today’s world the watchword is transparency and accountability. To adapt and for political survival, Samy is well-advised to follow YB Kit’s advice to take the transparent approach by staging either a press conference, or a televised interview with a selected journalist with pre-screened questions to make to the public the following points: –

· That he had made a mistake in originally demanding for the 4 opposition leaders to be investigated under OSA;

· That if he had erred, he had erred mistakenly thinking that he had the law (OSA) on his side, which he now knows better he doesn’t but he should be forgiven as he is trained in architecture not law!

· That he would personally make sure the speedy declassification of the 21 concessionaire agreements and answer public queries on them if they were within the authority of his or his Ministry to explain.

In showing willingness to communicate forthrightly with the public, for a change in this manner, he will seize the initiative – whilst it is still his – to stand out as an example to other ministers of how to give effect to the Prime Minister’s platform of transparency and accountability, and in the process score more political brownie points to ensure his own longer term political survival and relevance in spite of overstaying.

..//..It is ridiculous for someone like him that has little support even in his own community for so long to remain in power…//.. – Bigjoe
I am sure that its not only a MIC’s phenomenon, this applies to UMNO (in TDM’s case), MCA and other political parties.

Generally speaking, even if a party president and encumbent were unpopular with his community, he could stay his position if he garners the overwhelming of the delegates who comparatively are smaller for him to pamper with largesse and spoils of patronage in exchange for votes and support.

That is why a leader cannot under the present political and cultural milieu be “clean” and yet stay in power to effect reforms because he doesn’t make the money for distribution in part or award the contracts unfairly to delegates or their proxies and cronies, he would stay at the apex for long. He will be ousted. Game over.

Such is the system, which continually drains on our natural resources and Rakyat’s moneys to sustain itself.

It is a political system that like Dracula has to feed continually on Raykat’s “blood” in term as in money and lucrative contracts/concessionaire agreements or else it could not sustain itself.

Of course those who have a vested interest in such a system will deploy the laws whether OSA, ISA, Printing Press and Publication Act and Sedition Act to suppress detractors who criticize or otherwise challenge or threaten the very system by which they secure power and make money for they and their families for generations to come.

Race and religion may be used as a card to presently maintain the system but ultimately it is, as elsewhere, drawn on class line representing intra (not inter) ethnic conflicts : the privileged and elite Malays, Chinese Indians or even Caucasian (won’t mention name here) will by virtue of political connection act, say and do to preserve the present system against detractors because they have a vested interest in it.

There is nothing strange. Be upset but don’t be too terribly upset : it does not affect only our country.

It is like that everywhere else but manifested in different forms and guises, done in different ways and pretexts.