Could you describe your experiences when you were detained by the Umno state for your various political activities?

Arutchelvan: Some say I hold the record as one of those most arrested, competing with people like Tian Chua and Hishamuddin Rais.

Most of my arrests happened while fighting evictions and public assembly. I am so used to this and I understand I will be one of the targets even when I am not the main organiser.

So when I go for these events, the rule is to wear proper underwear, carry very little cash and documents in your wallet and let the people outside do the worrying on how to campaign to get me out.

Most of the times, the police officers handling us in detention are kind as they know why we are there. It is only when they get bad instruction that they have to follow, then we have tough times.

Though I have been arrested more than 40 times and charged a number of times, I have only been convicted once and that was later overturned in the High Court. This was for a case of criminal trespass in a temple in Brooklands Estate.

Being detained and seeing the others being detained, why they were there, has been a great educational process for me. It teaches us humanity. Every time when I come out, the support and solidarity we receive have always made me stronger and more prepared for the next round.

When one is put on a single cell, then one has the time to rest and the challenge will be on how to pass your time. Anyway, it is a nice time to do some reflection and plan the next move.

Getting arrested with a team of other activists in spite of the anxiety and having one’s freedom curbed, is always a pleasure, full of laughter, songs and storytelling and listening.

There is a nice song, ‘Buruh, Tani, Mahasiswa’, the lyrics are:

Marilah kawan mari kita kabarkan
Di tangan kita tergenggam arah bangsa
Marilah kawan mari kita nyanyikan
Sebuah lagu tentang pembebasan
Di bawah kuasa tirani
Kususuri garis jalan ini
Berjuta kali turun aksi
Bagiku satu langkah pasti

This is the best song to sing under detention.

PSM is derided by Harapan supporters, so how does PSM become a mainstream alternative to the politics of Harapan?

True. The height of it was during the campaign period but post-election, this ridiculing by Harapan supporters is becoming less as they come to terms with reality. As the euphoria fades, I think people become sober and that helps us in becoming the alternative which people hope for. 

PSM has put forward many candidates which should appeal to the disenfranchised, but as yet they have been unable to garner popular support. What do you think is the reason for this?

In 2004, 2008, and 2014, we only fielded four candidates until people inside and outside started to ridicule us as “four-seat party”. Therefore, it was good that we broke the curse of the “four-seat party” in 2018.

We realised before the election that unless we were to get a straight fight, we would lose all our seats. So our internal goal was to try not to lose the deposit but sadly we did lose the deposit in all seats. Therefore, losing all the seats was not a surprise but losing the deposit in all the seats was not expected.

All our postmortem reports and discussion showed that the Harapan wave and using one logo did make a serious impact on voters and Dr Mahathir Mohamad was a factor in urban seats.

Most of the older voters in our areas told us that, at the last minute, they were told by their children who came from outside to vote Harapan this one time and some of them fell for this.

After the election, in all the places, we stood including mine, people continue to show support and admire us. Many have come and even apologised to me saying that they were forced to vote for a Harapan candidate but kept saying we are actually the best. It is sad when they tell us all the excuses on why they didn’t vote us.

So on a personal level, I am extremely happy that 60 years of Umno rule is over. The next time we go to polls, people will have no reason to call us the splitters/spoilers, etc. I think this process is good for the country and for PSM.

In hindsight, some felt we should have at least been a bit flexible and that would have allowed at least (former Sungai Siput parliamentarian) Dr D Michael Jeyakumar to win.

But now when I look at things, I think even if Kumar did win, it would have been difficult for us to operate under this new government. If we want to build an alternative political system, we need to break free and this is the best time to do it.

How does PSM compete with the media that Harapan has at its disposal, mainstream and online?

We have formed a new young team to deal with this. We have now reduced our print copy and have moved online. We have also started to have fortnightly live talk shows in Malay and Tamil while (talk shows in) Mandarin will start in January. We are also in the final process of revamping our website.

All our branch leadership will also be trained in social media skills. These were decisions made in our last congress in July and it is being implemented.

Having done that, propaganda itself cannot help us but our agenda on various people-centred issues does get us into headlines from time to time. We seem to get a reasonable amount of coverage on issues and the statements made by us.

How do you as an activist/political candidate keep going on with all the rejection from the mainstream public?

I continuously get calls on a daily basis from all over, from people asking for help. Some say my number was given by the police, some say my number was given by a journalist and some say, by civil servants. Most times, these people tell me, they have tried everything else and someone says, “Why not call Arul?” These people feel we can help solve problems. Others in the party have similar experiences.

Even many Harapan leaders admire our work. We in PSM are not political animals that we will lose sleep or get depressed after an election loss. Elections come and go but the struggle continues.

Though we have lost elections, we have won many local struggles in estates, squatters, and at work sites and these victories keep us going. Our track record in the grassroots struggle cannot be challenged by any other parties. Today, some good policies are there because of our long struggle.

I continue to be humbled when everywhere I go, there are people who want to take a photo with me. When I eat in restaurants, the bill is mostly paid by some stranger and there are even few people who have named their newborns after me. All this gives recognition to the small work we are doing and that keeps me going.

Why do you think that the socialist message of PSM has not garnered popular support, especially among the disenfranchised of the mainstream political parties?

Socialism has been a bad word. The state calls us communist and the Malays feel it is anti-religion while others feel it is anti-business. So these are the main reasons and these are not new ones. So we have to live with all of this but again considering the two decades PSM has been around, we actually have more Malay members today, many young members. I would consider that PSM and socialism have made some inroads.

When we talk about good healthcare, affordable housing, local government election, good transportation, alternative energy… a lot of people are with us. The only thing we have failed to do is make the link between these policies and socialism.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and mantra of no alternative, the world had only capitalism to save them. But today, even in western countries, capitalism has failed and we see important gains by the left-wing politics in the US under Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn in the UK.

There were also changes in government recently in Mexico and some inroads in elections in Belgium. Therefore capitalism, which promotes profit and individualism, may face its biggest challenge in the years to come.

I believe many youths in Malaysia are looking for an alternative and we have to make PSM relevant to them.

What do you think the new Harapan government is getting right?

Arutchelvan: In the first place, there is confusion about what we mean by the new Harapan government. Are we talking about the four parties in Harapan (PKR, DAP, Amanah and Bersatu), or Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad?

In any case, what Harapan have gotten right is politically, they managed to create fear around the RM1 trillion debt, which will elicit sympathy if they cannot deliver on some key promises. They even got the rakyat donating to them.

The appointments of some ministers cut across racial lines, and there have been some good appointments as well, like the attorney-general (Tommy Thomas) and the new Election Commission chief (Azhar Harun) (photo), which seem to be good decisions.

Going after former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak immediately after coming into power demonstrates how serious they are. They have also not allowed the royalty to bully the executive, worked to abolish the death penalty, and the media appears to be freer these days.

What do you think the new Harapan government is getting wrong?

Harapan ministers keeping Mahathir in check is totally non-existent. Is seems most ministers have become docile cheerleaders, and are lost.

They are not walking the talk. They have not been transparent in making the reports on institutional reforms available to the public. They have not repealed some critical laws like the Sedition Act 1948, Peaceful Assembly Act 2012, etc.

Other missteps include Education Minister Maszlee Malik’s appointment to the International Islamic University, and Lim Guan Eng’s (photo) graft charges being dropped.

There are also their anti-poor policies – the minimum wage increase of just RM50; subsidies for fishermen and farmers removed; and not fulfilling the manifesto, while at the same time pursuing things not in the manifesto, like the third national car, the ‘crooked bridge’, etc., while getting rid of good infrastructure projects, like the MRT3.

Is there a difference in the way that the Harapan government engages with PSM compared to the BN regime?

We still have to shout and do demonstrations to get attention, but we can now get better access to ministers because we know some of them from before. Most of them do respect the work that PSM does, though they might find us a pain at times. But the government bureaucracy is almost the same. Hardly anything has changed.

What is PSM’s position on the issue of Islam when it encroaches on the public and private spheres of citizens in Malaysia?

PSM has always believed that the only way to fight Islamic extremism is through class politics. It is therefore important to build a class-based movement, which among others, has a huge multiracial component which will campaign strongly against racism.

In Malaysia, Islamic extremism is fought by non-Muslim forces, and minority Malay liberal forces. When non-Muslims argue, it creates more problems than solutions.

PSM feels that we must get the working class to have a strong stance against racism, and always highlight and condemn any racist tendency from any group, be it Umno, PAS, Perkasa, Hindraf or the Chinese education movement.

Islam is the biggest religion, and they always feel that they are under siege by the others. It is important to win over working-class Muslims by addressing poverty issues, not through propping up race-based institutions.

This is why PAS continues to get support in Muslim-majority states. We need to win the Muslim masses through social economy programmes, rather than allow radical Islam to fill the vacuum.

What has been the reception to PSM post May 9?

The shocking thing was just after the election, we got a sudden surge in membership. Around 100 new members in the first week. Are they people who were formerly with BN, those with Harapan who now want to be in the opposition, or just those who wanted to encourage PSM not to close shop? We aren’t sure.

But we are now settling down to the new reality. The new government. The rakyat felt that everything would change overnight – prices would go down, life would improve, etc. People now realise that that is not so simple. They still need to fight to live. So our struggle continues to make sense many people.

Now more people are willing to listen to us. They feel we have been truthful then and now. We have less competition from Harapan since they are now the ruling coalition.

We have nothing to stop us moving forward, and hopefully, if the Harapan government is going to be less repressive, that will allow us to build a true people’s movement dedicated to the majority class.

PSM has a process in which the candidate has to have had a presence in the constituent he or she is standing in for a year, right?

Currently, the selection process of choosing the candidates remains, but what may differ is that we are in the process of making our division boundaries match electoral boundaries.

So that work at the division level can focus on the constituency, and that any division that wants to contest in the election must ensure that they must have at least 50 percent of the population covered using a unit system.

It is a bit complicated to explain this here, but basically we have come up with a more uniform and organised selection process.

Is PSM a viable opposition to Harapan, if it comes to that, and how does this selection process enable it to be an effective opposition, if the need arises?

I think PAS and Umno as the opposition will raise religious and racial issues. That will be their trump card. Therefore, PSM has the opportunity to bring up issues related to the B40 and M40 demographic.

We have always been seen as the champion of the B40. Our challenge is to make the party relevant to the M40, and these are the people who will make critical decision in the elections.

I think with Harapan winning the election, the route is clear for PSM to become a viable opposition. If the people realise that there is not much difference between the neoliberal BN and the neoliberal Harapan, then people would look for a third force.

All over the world, recent trends show that elections are either won by the far right or far left. So we do have a chance, as voters have become radicalised or when people get fed up.

Does PSM intend to work with the BN opposition?

Currently, we don’t have any desire to work with the BN due to ideological reasons. We may work with some ex-BN parties, like Gerakan, if they can put forward a position consistent with our class-based and multiracial political character.

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Arutchelvan and Thayaparan

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