-Ee Chia, April 25, 2013.

In the ceramah at Taman Sri Tanjung last night, Parti Sosialis Malaysia’s candidate for Semenyih (N24) Arutchelvan Subramaniams or better known as Arul, has signed the “Aku Janji” (I promise)  document with its residents.

In the 12-points agreement, Arul pledges to declare his asset yearly, be a full time ‘wakil rakyat’ (the people’s representative) with transparency and integrity and not to hold any position in any corporate body.

“We will start the process process of creating a Maljis Perundingan Rakyat  (People’s Consultative Council) or MPR. It’s like a parliament in our area. Normally the ‘wakil rakyat’ only goes to the parliament and is disconnected from the constituents. But here, we’re going to have a MPR session once every three month.” said Arul. This is accompanied by the setting up resident committee in every areas so that they can work together to solve their problems.

“Every year we will do a report card and show you what we do so that you can check.” he continues.

“And this most important part of the Aku Janji – I will not join Barisan National if I win, some people say I’m sponsored by Johan (BN’s candidate in Semenyih), neither will I jump ship to change party.” he said and the crowd burst into laughter.

During the signing ceremony between the representative of the residents and Arul, he also said that should he fails to fulfill all the 12 points in the “Aku janji”, the resident can take him to court.

Thus far, only the PSM candidates – Dr Nasir Hashim in Kota Damansara, Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj in Sungai Siput and Sarasvathy Muthu in Jelapang – have signed such legal binding agreement with their constituents. None of the candidates from Barisan National and Pakatan Rakyat have done this before.

Semenyih is embroiled in a 3 cornered fight between PSM’s general secretary, Arutchelvan Subramaniams, PKR’s Hamidi Hassan and BN’s Johan Aziz. In the last election, Arutchelvan stood under the PKR banner in an exchange of Bukit Lanjan seat to PKR, but lost 1140 votes BN’s Johan Aziz.

Various civil society organisations have come out publicly to support Arutchelvan in his bid to take the Semenyih state seat. Yesterday, a group of leaders of local Chinese organisation and civil right activists, namely, seasoned political commentator Lee Ban Chen; prominent human rights activist Dr Kua Kia Soong; Liau Kok Fah, chairman of the Civil Rights Committee of the Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall (KLSCAH); Kong Wee Cheng, representative of KLSCAH Youth; Lee Soo Wei, representative of the LLG Foundation Development Centre Civil Society Committee; Yong Kin Yin, representative of Malaysian Youth and Student Democratic Movement (DEMA); and academic Lew Bon Hoi. Aunty Bersih has also been seen actively campaigning for Arul.

For them, Arul is the best candidate for Semenyih as he has always been at the forefront to fight for the struggles of the grassroot and campaigns against the corruption of the BN government.