It’s not common to see the flags of political parties under one roof or all over a building, but Tham’s MDT Garment houses flags for Barisan Nasional (BN), Pakatan Harapan (PH), PAS and even Parti Warisan Sabah (Warisan).
“Our core business is making uniforms, but we also sell political party flags, vests, shirts, banners, and patches,” he said.
And with the general election (GE14) just weeks away, Tham’s company is working overtime to meet customers’ needs.
Right now, his printing machines are working 24/7 to cope with numerous last minute orders, due in part to PH’s decision to use the PKR logo after the opposition pact’s registration bid failed.
“Since last year, we’ve received orders to print flags from parties and their supporters.
“Now since PH is using the PKR logo, all PH parties and their supporters are rushing to print PKR flags since they won’t be using the ones they’ve ordered,” he said, adding that this had led to a shortage of cloth imported from China.
“We’re getting orders for thousands of flags a day, to the point where we are printing them in advance so our customers don’t have to wait.”
In fact, Tham said, if a customer needed 1,000 flags now, they could collect them immediately regardless of whether they needed PKR, BN or PAS flags.
He added that the national flag, the Jalur Gemilang, was also very much in demand as parties liked to tie them together with their flags.
Navigating his way through a maze of bundled-up flags and party shirts, Tham told FMT that his customers came from around the country, even as far as Sabah and Sarawak, and that he couriered Warisan and BN flags.
For a roll of 100 standard-sized flags, Tham charges RM250 or RM2.50 per piece. He said the price of printing flags in China, an option taken by some parties, wasn’t much cheaper.
Tham said business was better this time around, due to there being more three-cornered fights and PAS standing in over 100 seats.
“I expect to be busy until polling day. From experience, even on polling day people will come in to buy flags.”
But as busy as he is, Tham said he always found time to chat with his customers about politics.
“Because we cater to all parties, often we will have customers from different parties coming at the same time, and we’ll chit-chat about politics.
“The good thing is that my customers are very cordial with one another even though they’re from different parties. They know that I’m just running a business, so to them it doesn’t matter that I print flags for all parties.”
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