A FEW days back, there was an editorial here which said there was an insidious campaign telling people not to vote. In fact, there have been constant op-eds published dating back three months on The Malaysian Insight trying to appeal to people to vote.

I love that they used the Brexit referendum, because it goes to show that when both sides of the political divide – this being Labour and Conservative in the UK – did not campaign for the Stay campaign prominently enough, it was somehow the voters fault.

Meanwhile, the Leave campaign was organised and spread propaganda nationwide to secure their votes, while the younger voters who wanted to “Remain” decided it was not worthy of their attention.

In fact, even now the UK politicians waffle about Brexit and whether or not they supported Brexit or otherwise.

And this is the same problem with politics in Malaysia now – all sides are too chickenshit to actually stand for something contrary to public opinion, and would rather coast along for fear of losing their vote base, while trying to convince the conservatives to vote for them.

So I will be frank, I am actually one of those anti voting campaigners – I am the one going around telling people not to vote until the leadership of Pakatan Harapan either resigns or dies out figuratively or literally, whichever first.

Because PH as an alternative has shown themselves to be nothing of the sort. If anything, PH is now seen more as a twin of Barisan Nasional and nothing more. As such, this is what I’ve suggested continuously.

The leadership of PH – all of them - need to give way to younger leaders who can actually offer hope of a better future without having to reminisce of a bygone era of dinosaurs tainted with corruption and hypocrisy.

It was really taking the cake to have Dr Mahathir Mohamed speaking at an anti-kleptocracy rally while keeping a straight face, I tell you. 

And the truth is, the regular Malaysian voter, being unaffiliated with any party, won’t be able to change the internal leadership of political parties being outside these organisations and not being allowed to vote for their leaderships.

As such, Malaysians, your only voice to get political parties to take you seriously is by not voting for their candidates, not voting for their party, abandon all events and gatherings they host, until they lose morale and figure out change needs to happen internally to win you back.

Unfortunately, politicians being politicians, being thick-headed and not letting go of power is a common trait for all of them. They will go on blaming the government, the gerrymandering of the election, they will look at everything other than blaming themselves for failing to cater to your wants and needs.

That is why I have mentioned that this might take an election or two, as the editorial of The Malaysian Insight was keen to point out.

To paraphrase Lewis Black, we are now stuck between two parties – the party with no ideas, and the party of bad ideas. The way it works is that someone stands up and says “I have a really bad idea”, and the other side goes “And I know how to make it worse”. This is exactly the conundrum we face in our politics today.

So, I am appealing to the Malaysian youth, those aged 30 and below, to boycott the next general election. To remove ourselves from the voting population, for the next five years. Register to be voters, but do not go out to the ballot box. Stay home. Enjoy a weekend away with the family, hang out with friends, switch off from politics.

And if PH refuses to change after the next general election in 2018, fine. Let them waddle through another five years of a barren political landscape. Because the one thing the young Malaysians have aplenty when compared to these political dinosaurs is time. – December 22, 2017.

* Hafidz loves to ruffle feathers and believes in the EA Games tag line of challenging everything. Most times, he represents the Devil’s Advocate on multiple issues.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.