PSM's treatment undeserved

THEY say you can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat other people who have nothing to offer them.

Put another way, the way the powerful treat the powerless reveals a lot about the powerful.

After going around and around, Pakatan Harapan has decided not to allocate a single seat – at either Parliament or state level – to Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM).

PSM stated that it wished to be allocated the Sungai Siput parliament seat. Some assumed that this was its "minimum demand", but in a statement, PSM clearly said that should the seat be unavailable, it was willing to contest two other parliamentary seats currently held by Barisan Nasional.

In fact, PSM stated it would be willing to contest any parliamentary seat, along with two state seats.

There are 222 parliamentary seats and 600 state assembly seats in Malaysia; 822 seats in total, and Pakatan was not willing to give a single one to PSM.

My guess is that unless you follow Malaysian politics closely, work with civil society or are one of the many working-class Malaysians PSM has helped, it will not be a familiar entity.

I'm not a hardcore socialist and I remember being a little disturbed by some of the historical leaders featured on the walls of PSM's headquarters in Brickfields. Ideologically, we certainly don't agree on everything.

But I can say without any reservation that there is no party in Malaysia that is as dedicated to the plight of the working class in Malaysia as PSM.

Its tireless dedication to trying to improve the welfare of some Malaysians who are struggling the hardest has been proven time and again. So much so that there are some who feel that PSM more closely resembles an NGO than a political party.

PSM has also been more willing to defend certain principles even if it costs votes.

At the risk of belabouring (as it were) the point, the type of people in PSM serve as a very notable reference point when it comes to one of the questions I have pondered for decades – what kind of people join politics, and why?

During election season, you will see individuals throw themselves body and soul into the chaos of the political process – and you will see many do so for bad reasons, some for the worst reasons imaginable.

But just like how practically nobody works in an NGO for fame, fortune, or glory, nobody joins PSM if all they want is political power or to get rich. It is the type of party you join if what you really care about are principles and actually helping people on the ground.

So, is PSM's current fate just another case of nice guys finishing last?

I don't have enough data to answer that question conclusively, but I think what happened tells us more about Pakatan than it does about PSM.

I accept that Pakatan policies don't get swayed by nobody columnists, but if I were in their shoes, I don't think I would have gone so far as to offer absolutely zero seats to a party like PSM.

Let's be frank here. Whatever the complex machinations each coalition is cooking up these days, it would be unwise to ignore the elephant that is the biggest centre of gravity in our GE15 room: the fact that we are looking at three-cornered fights in most seats.

I could very well be wrong, but in my view, this is the biggest factor that will determine who will have an edge in the elections (and spoiler alert, it is unlikely to be Pakatan).

Another thing I have always admired about PSM is its willingness to fight a losing battle, and to fight that battle with honour.

Rightly or wrongly, I believe Pakatan is facing an uphill battle – especially given the state of voter apathy at the moment. One of the biggest challenges the coalition will face is to get a strong voter turnout.

In the midst of dropping popular candidates and a lack of a new formula that seems likely to break existing political deadlocks, further alienating supporters through moves like completely sidelining PSM may even further decrease said voter turnout.

In Pakatan's position, with outright victory being quite distant to begin with, I personally might focus on fighting with honour – so that win or lose, Pakatan can at least say it stuck to its principles, treated its allies with respect and lived to fight another day.

This refusal to give even one seat suggests something of an obsession with feudal political currency – where seats are given out as "rewards" to local warlords within parties. It's hard to imagine why else not even one seat could be spared.

If anyone raised concerns about loyalties and deciding votes in hung assemblies, I think history, statistics and any passing on-the-ground familiarity would show that others are far more likely to become political frogs than anyone from PSM.

The new and more fashionable Muda received much better treatment from Pakatan and I do not begrudge the party its good fortune. I imagine it'd be too much to hope for Muda to give up one of its precious seats to PSM.

Perhaps the only note to Muda at this point is that it might be good to be wary – once there is a dependence on a coalition for seat allocations, this may prove to be a defining characteristic of one's political party moving forward.

The high degree of voter apathy in these elections is real. We see it on social media and in empty polling agent counting agent (Paca) training sessions.

The answer to this state of affairs is not to become more and more political, by squeezing out those who focus more on helping people than on political battles.

This strategy may look like it helps in the short term by giving you one or two more seats to allocate to appease internal party supporters – but the public perception fallout may put "safe" seats throughout the country at risk.