Catchy title? Well, that is the tagline of Billi Lim Peng Soon who is the author of the book Dare to Fail. After 2 failures in the 1999 and 2004 General Elections where he contested the Bukit Bintang parliamentary seat and lost his deposit after wining less than 200 votes, he is trying his luck again in the 2008 General Election, this time at the Kelana Jaya parliamentary set against BN’s Lee Hwa Beng and PKR’s Gwo-Burne Loh who shot to fame for being the man who recorded the controversial Lingam video.

Azreen Madzlan of Malaysiakini has the story on Billi Lim.

Vote Billi Lim for inter-marriages

Self-proclaimed ‘failure guru’ Billi Lim is on a matrimonial mission to promote unity in the country. And if he gets elected, the first thing on his to-do list is to encourage more inter-marriages.

Why inter-marriages?

“It’s the only genuine way to unite this country nationally. Let the people decide which religion they want,” he told a press conference yesterday.

Lim - who authored the controversial book Dare to Fail - is contesting as an independent candidate for the Kelana Jaya parliamentary seat.

He will be going up against PKR debutant Loh Gwo Burne - who is no stranger to controversy himself after being named as the man who filmed the infamous ‘VK Lingam’ video - and MCA veteran Lee Hwa Beng.

This will be Lim’s third election outing. The first two - where he contested for the Bukit Bintang parliamentary seat in 1999 and 2004 - were disastrous. He only garnered 198 votes and 132 in the two polls respectively.

But holding true to his principles, Lim is not a person to be discouraged by failures. However, he has decided to shift his focus to Kelana Jaya where he has been a resident for 10 years.

“I’m anti institution. My job is my boss, I don’t have to report to any party,” he said when asked why the constituents should vote for him.

To another question, the 57-year-author also revealed that he supports the setting-up of an inter-faith council.

According to him, more meetings would yield positive results as there was still a void in terms of understanding between the different religions in the country.

Independent Front

During the press conference, Lim also expressed concern over the way the media portrayed independent candidates as ‘celebrities’ citing Maimun Yusof as an example.

Maimum, an 89-year-old grandmother, is standing as an independent candidate for the Kuala Terengganu parliamentary constituency.

“We are not part of a circus show. We definitely have to crack our head to win,” he said.

Lim also launched the United National Independent Front (Unif), a platform to unite all independent candidates.

He stressed that Unif is not a political party, but will function as a social networking among independent candidates. Unif will also assist potential candidates for future elections.

“In Unif, we must encourage young people, not only to vote, but also to be elected. I believe it (Unif) can produce real great leaders,” he added.

He said by being an independent candidate, they do not have to answer to the whip of various parties but only to the people in their constituency regardless of race and religion.

‘Family business’

Lim also criticised the sudden phenomenon of family members jumping into the political bandwagon and contesting to replace their parents.

He considered them as the “same content but in a new bottle.”

“It has become a family business. Looking at the issue, it’s not very healthy. Politics in this country should not be monopolised by a few families.”

He said sometimes political parties get caught up in rivalry and forget about the voice of the rakyat and nobody speaks for the nation.

Lim, who promised that ‘parliament will never be the same’ once he get elected, said people should not be impressed with all the election goodies prior to election.

“It’s more than that, you don’t vote for people because they donate to your school or sweep your longkang (drain).”