NOMINATION day is around the corner and the rumour mill is working on overdrive again.

Several high-profile MPs are said to be dropped, including Maria Chin Abdullah, Charles Santiago and a few others. 

For both Chin and Santiago, the issue seems to be their lack of political status.  

While both are members of their respective political parties, they lack the depth of “ordinary” members.  

It is, after all, called grassroots. 

The traditional method of gaining visibility in a political party is by doing local community work, building up a localised party base in a particular constituency, establishing local traction, and standing for elections. 

These served three distinct purposes in the past – visibility, manpower and finance. 

Visibility because it gives time for the future candidate to mingle with the local and be a familiar face as opposed to suddenly bringing him or her in and expecting the people to accept them after just two weeks of campaigning.

Manpower because the grassroots branches are built to serve as manpower for the heavy logistics required in vote canvassing, recruiting polling and counting agents, organising talks and rallies, and so on. 

Finally finance, in knowing the local area and having members, organising fundraisers and networking sessions become easier and local businesses tend to donate to people they are familiar with.

The burden on political parties that also used to invest in candidates would see their chances of the money wasted reduce considerably.  

Outsiders, or rather pejoratively known as “parachute” candidates, were sometimes a necessity. 

In the run up to the past elections, the Pakatan Harapan coalition was new.

The pool of candidates to choose from was smaller, with grassroots from various areas needing to pool together to support their respective party candidates. Sometimes, this meant sacrificing less popular seats in favour of more winnable ones. 

Hence, candidates from civil society groups were ideal – they took the load off the local machinery as they usually brought in some of their own help, financing and networks, while allowing the political party to seamlessly introduce an election topic – in the case of Chin, Bersih, and Charles, water-related issues. 

Over the last two national elections, however, grumblings from within party circles seem to have surfaced that “activist” MPs were not as good at promoting the party itself, as compared to career party members.

These misgivings may not be as well placed as thought. 

Though a party wins a seat, support is not merely from within party ranks, rather, the public. 

While it is true that the party logo plays a large, perhaps the biggest factor in determining the success of a candidate, the person in question matters too. 

An elected representative’s platform is mainly the people’s platform, not the party’s. 

Politics and government (including the opposition) are two separate but entangled topics.  

Part of the failure of the Barisan Nasional government was the overt blurring of these lines. Government machinery was used for party events and party manpower was used to carry out government programmes. 

Hence, the promotion of party branding and the representation of constituents can be done professionally.

For example, aid distribution should not be a party event if it uses public funds, but a Deepavali open house hosted by sponsors could be considered one. 

Some MPs also represent issues and demographics beyond their constituencies – such as certain ethnicities not large enough to have their own majority seat, or plights of certain quarters, like religious minorities or political philosophies. 

At the end of the day, party-based candidacy is not a right, but a privilege. 

But the party needs to strike a balance when making decisions involving local and national interests. – October 26, 2022.

* Emmanuel Joseph firmly believes that Klang is the best place on Earth, and that motivated people can do far more good than any leader with motive.

* 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.