Pakatan must woo like-minded partners

'Exclusive' Pakatan Rakyat coalition must forge alliances with smaller parties in the country if it is to achieve its aim of ousting the Umno-led federal government.

GEORGE TOWN: Pakatan Rakyat leaders have never failed to consistently remind the masses, during their rallies, that the coalition is ready to capture its holy grail Putrajaya in the next general election.

Speakers from PKR and DAP, but strangely not from PAS, would constantly remind us that Opposition Leader and Permatang Pauh MP Anwar Ibrahim will be the next prime minister of the country.

One wonders if all these rhetoric and heroic speeches are signs of Pakatan’s confidence or just over-confidence.

Some say their skilful orations are merely to camouflage their own lack of confidence and shortcomings and may just derail their road to Putrajaya. Yet others believe the speeches to be real.

Comparatively speaking, Pakatan is not as mighty as its rival, Barisan Nasional (BN) with its power-packed machinery.

BN has some 13 political (but not) equal partners in it, and a dozen more backing it from the outside.

And there is the majority of the country’s 46,870 registered non-governmental organisations whose leaders openly root for the coalition.

The ruling BN also has an entire civil service machinery to utilise during elections. Pakatan is less “fortified”.

Since its formation after the 2008 general election, Pakatan has remained an exclusive three-party domain although it woos support from all Malaysians.

Not inclusive

Pakatan may have its reasons for remaining an exclusive, rather than an inclusive, coalition. But public perception is not favourable for the three-party dominance.

Many believe that the three allies – PKR, DAP and PAS – don’t want to share power with anyone.

Some political observers claimed that the Pakatan trio want to monopolise the power if the coalition ever reaches the powerful corridors of Putrajaya.

They said that if Pakatan is honest about providing a viable alternative to Malaysians, it should consider expanding its composition by including fringe parties, which have a common goal of ousting BN from Putrajaya.

Human Rights Party (HRP), the political wing of Hindraf Makkal Sakti, Sabah Progressive Peoples Party (SAPP) and Sarawak Nasional Party (SNAP) could all boost Pakatan’s electoral chances.

So, too, will the socialists in PSM (Parti Sosialist Malaysia), who, although Pakatan-friendly, are yet to join the coalition formally.

Pakatan seems to want votes and the support from various political and non-political groups but it does not want to share power.

“The power shall be exclusively for the Pakatan trio. Pakatan allies prefer to embrace individuals, but not organisations,” some observers said.

Not willing to share

Political scientist Sivamurugan Pandian said that a major reason behind Pakatan’s refusal to open its door could be that it did not want to share seats to accommodate new partners.

“Secondly, Pakatan could be forced to re-formulate its common agenda to accommodate new allies,” he told FMT.

PSM once said that it did not want to be a formal Pakatan coalition partner because its socialist stance was not compatible with Pakatan’s more capitalist-friendly policies.

DAP is ideologically a socialist party, but its administration in Penang, many argue, has been pro-developer.

PAS-led state governments have been predominantly Malay-Muslim policymakers in Kedah and Kelantan.

PKR-helmed Selangor administration is said to be a state government without any clear-cut vision for the people.

Until today, Pakatan has not accepted HRP-Hindraf axis due to the group’s radical stand on Indian issues.

But it’s learnt that a high-level meeting between a top Pakatan leader and the group’s leadership was held recently and a follow-up meeting is expected soon.

Even if the Pakatan leadership decides to forge an alliance with HRP-Hindraf movement, it would surely be blocked by Pakatan‘s ethnic Indian elites.

The Indian elites, not grassroots, are dead set against sharing the same table with HRP supremo P Uthayakumar and company discussing Indian issues.

Indian elites against HRP

Uthayakumar is convinced that Pakatan’s Indian elected representatives would block any attempt to bring in HRP-Hindraf group into the coalition.

“Pakatan Indian reps wouldn’t want to lose their political clout. They know HRP-Hindraf members would take the lead and thunder from them because we won’t be mandores,” said Uthayakumar, a former ISA detainee.

This explains the recent criticisms by DAP elected representatives P Ramasamy and A Sivanesan against HRP-Hindraf axis.

Ramasamy, Sivanesan and several others believed that Pakatan doesn’t need HRP-Hindraf’s support to fish for Indian votes.

They claim that HRP-Hindraf had lost its political clout over the Indian masses.

However, such top-level opinion is not shared by Pakatan Indian grassroots.

Many believe that Pakatan should forge an alliance with HRP-Hindraf because the movement would be able to a steal big chunk of ethnic Indian votes in the next election.

This could cost Pakatan many seats where minority Indian votes are crucial and decisive.

Although Pakatan would likely court more trouble if it were to include these anti-BN parties, it however would only last for a short term until the newcomers familiarised themselves with terms and conditions of the coalition.

Common ground

Indeed, in the long term, it would actually be a win-win situation for Pakatan. PSM, SAPP, SNAP and HRP-Hindraf may not agree with PAS’ Islamic-state stance, but all parties here have something in common.

The parties want to see an end to the Umno-helmed federal government once and for all.

The parties are also for human rights, social justice, press freedom, independence of the judiciary and the rule of law.

Observers suggested Pakatan should work on these areas to forge an alliance with these parties.

The recent Sarawak election proved that Pakatan must expand and emulate the BN political formula, by forming local alliances with Sarawak-based SNAP and Sabah-based parties such as SAPP.

By including more parties, social activist BK Ong reckoned Pakatan would benefit with a large pool of credible and capable candidates with various backgrounds.

“The Sarawak polls showed Pakatan badly lacked credible candidates,” said Ong.

Thus, without forging an alliance with these fringe parties, Pakatan would not able to muster the crucial all-Malaysian support to defeat BN in the 13th general election.

Pakatan must share power

The Pakatan leadership should accommodate all these parties because these movements are influential in their own way and have large followers.

It should set aside all selfish interests and produce an all-Malaysian common agenda agreeable to all the parties.

It must stop promoting individual interests and rather look at the larger picture.

It must underline its seriousness to capture Putrajaya and provide the people a federal government with a difference.

Pakatan must demonstrate publicly its willingness to share power, be accommodating and compromising.

It must open its door to all parties with a common goal of kicking out Umno and company from Putrajaya.