Ye shall know them by the company they keep. Take that principle, twist it a little, and ye shall know them by the blogs they keep.
IN the old days, PKR (Justice party) was nearly non-existent. The DAP (Democratic Action Party) parliamentary and state assembly members were so alone in the sea of the government backbenchers, its policy initiatives and institutions, you feel sorry for them. Their alone-ness is reflected in their blogs: alot of pedestrian stuff, some whining over this failure and that, and little entries of no great significance with the occasional call to arms.
Now they are in power. Not enormous power, not power at the federal level, but some, and its considerable in hind sight, relatively, and at one level, state. Above all, they have numbers now. Its people are no more alone.
The DAP along with the PKR crucially share legislative power in three states, Penang, Perak and Selangor.
One of the things that strike you in the demonstrations to remove a blockade that would divert Makhota Cheras traffic to pay tolls - a form of forcible tax for private benefit - is nearly the powerlessness of the DAP. The Makhota toll road runs in a part of Selangor. The issue had been brewing more than a year before the 2008 general elections. The fact that it resurfaced, accompanied by violence and police brutality soon after the elections illustrate almost a sense of ineptness by the state government to which the DAP is a part thereof. Worse, a part owner of the toll road company is also the government. This is almost an incredulously ironic episode, seeing DAP legislators functioning like opposition lawmakers, tackling the police on the streets rather than working to get them sacked, and quietly. Makhota showed it was back to the old days.
Some things also passed on from the old days. The DAP members keep blogs. Ye shall know them by the blogs so that it is possible to see if the DAP and PKR legislators together do the job they are elected to do - run the states, manage (or interfere in) the institutions, sort out problems especially because they are so many around and the federal authorities are utterly incompetent, even if they act. In other words it is possible to gauge DAP and PKR performances in legislature and in governance in their blogs. This gauge is not definitive but it offers a glean, a sense of what they have managed to do or not do.
It’s been a 100 days - three months - so that the blog entries and the issues addressed in them will show the level of their imagination, the skill in their politics, the intelligence in their administrative and managerial conduct. This is also to say the blogs offer a series of snap shot records into their ground level accomplishments (or none whatsoever) and that’s with the benefit of whatever the authority already vested in them.
This series taken from the last 100 days are important because they can be benchmarked against early entries prior to the March general elections. Their latter-day performances need not be revolutionary, even groundbreaking, but the blog entries the past months should have move forward from the banalities produced in the early and lonely days.
Waiting for Godot: One sense that the DAP is waiting, waiting, waiting for the man on the left. If so, that dependency will in years to come turn the DAP into Gerakan today; only the shell is left.
Below let the record speak, state by state. Mostly, it is a record of DAP members. Forget PAS. The latest entries or near latest entries are used. They show an amazingly low level of governance. How so? In tone, language, substance, and ideas, these benchmarks in the blogs reveal little effort if any. Instead, we read them talking and talking and talking, and whining. Those entries don’t show work, and above all don’t show the drive to accomplish something concrete, anything. Perhaps the best, the most efficient, are those without blogs. After all, if there’s time to blog then governance and administration must be a easy life.
SELANGOR
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Tony Pua: For that entry, he calls that “progress” in municipal PJ.
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Ronnie Liu: He wants answers to a letter about buses from questions borrowed from an enemy. Sigh.
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Hannah Yeoh: She is impossible - why on earth is she in a legislative assembly?
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Charles Santiago: He tries so hard but national politics is a different kettle of fish to NGO activism. The latter is all you hear.
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Elizabeth Wong: Like Santiago, two of a kind. She might not have heard of “public administration”. Lots of yada, yada, yada.
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William Leong: Doing good work in Kuang, for example. But blog doesn’t show it.
PERAK
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M Kulasegaran: From him, reams of speeches. For crying out loud, please…
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Fong Po Kuan: It is the same song and dance routine nearly every day.
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Wong Kar Woh: Again, speech after speech after speech.
PENANG
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Jeff Ooi: No solutions, no answers, no ideas - but lots of rehashing of material.
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Chow Kon Yeow: Working hard yes, only by default. Band aid solutions are not substitutes for fundamental change.
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Chong Eng: Nice, fancy blog. Still pounding the pavements. Just go out and kick some butts.
SPECIAL MENTION
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Fong Kui Lun: Yes, way to go. And it’s back to the basics.
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Jenice Lee: Always meeting constituents. Finding out, collate information. Understanding, then act.
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Teresa Kok: Concrete, imaginative piece of work. Forget the authorities, they are against you.
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Xavier Jayakumar: Hardly profound, but quietly working. At some point, the gift giving has to stop.
