Harapan is mainlining apathy into its base

“So, in the interests of survival, they trained themselves to be agreeing machines instead of thinking machines. All their minds had to do was to discover what other people were thinking, and then they thought that, too.”

- Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng’s plea for more time and patience when it comes to implementing policies meant for everyone is a pusillanimous tactic considering we were told that removing the Najib Abdul Razak regime was an all or nothing gambit and time was of the essence.

Prime minister-in-waiting Anwar Ibrahim echoed the same sentiment when pleading for there to be no protest votes against the government he hopes to inherit. At this moment both are dealing with anger from a section of the Harapan base aimed at a particular component of Harapan.

In politics, anger is something that can be dealt with, with the appropriate realignment of policy and agenda. What is worse, and which could eventually destroy Harapan, is apathy. This is the real danger facing Harapan.

The DAP, in particular, is a victim of its own propaganda success. The party’s scorched earth policy when it came to race relations with regard to what the MCA was doing with Umno and the rhetoric surrounding the failed Umno policies – which Harapan has no problem emulating – was effective propaganda for non-Malays. But, like all propaganda, it comes back to bite the collective behinds of Harapan.

The most profound example of wrongheadedness in terms of policy is Lim’s rationale for withholding funding from Tunku Abdul Rahman University College (TAR UC) and using Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s name as a fig leaf. 

Public accountability, as defined by Harapan, is a joke and penalising the MCA in the run-up to the Tanjung Piai by-election demonstrates the vindictiveness of the DAP. 

Malay power structures are laughing at the way how their non-Malay proxies destroy institutions beneficial to non-Malays in their quest to demonstrate subservience.

Meanwhile, banging the drum on the 1MDB scandal is slowly proving to be the albatross around Harapan’s neck. Nobody, certainly not people who are struggling economically, care about this issue, especially when the legal process is ongoing and there are more immediate problems.

When you have citizens who think that Mahathir still leads Umno, does anyone really think that this same section of the electorate is keeping up-to-date on the minutia of Najib’s legal travails?

Similarly, when accusing the MCA of remaining silent when it comes to the alleged crimes of the Najib regime, while the DAP and PKR – both multi-racial parties – remain silent while the country slides into some kind of Islamic dystopia when the education minister, religious czar and numerous factotums talk about a newfangled Islamisation process, is wearing thin.

The “running dog” narrative which was gleefully applied to the MCA seems tragic now, with the DAP being busy sanctioning its own after threats made by the young boy minister. 

While the Perak Menteri Besar Ahmad Faizal Azumu’s (above) comments are dismissed as inconsequential by factotums from Bersatu, and the menteri besar has no idea why he should apologise, the DAP has to carry water for the old maverick and his proxies. You do not get more “running dog” than that.

Sure the backtracking and failure to implement campaign promises are important factors in this diminishing returns government - but the DAP seems to be the weakest link in this government, even though it has the strongest mandate. However, people could forgive a lot if only they did not feel that they were being played for chumps.

A young non-Malay voter, who has decided to leave the country, told me that what she is worried about is that in five years the situation could be worse. I get this a lot from young Malaysians. What they had hoped for was not radical change but rather a steady pace of change that would not target them as “pendatang”, like how their parents were targeted.

Many young non-Malays tell me that this is a great country to live in but they would rather work hard for a better life in a country that views them as immigrants than be subjected to policies that treat them as second-class citizens in their homeland.

In my last article, I argued that nobody really cares if the pace of reforms is slow. Indeed, by nature, Malaysians generally have a carefree attitude when it comes to policy failure and inaction. 

Keep in mind that it took the citizens of this country decades to remove the BN regime. Also, keep in mind that the opposition (Harapan) once controlled a couple of states and partisans were extremely forgiving when it came to the failure of policy implementation or execution.

No, what some folks are pissed off at is the way how the Harapan government is not only sliding back into BN era practices but the folks who want reform are made to look as if they are the problem. Harapan is always blaming the past government for every single thing going wrong in this country when this is blatantly false. Harapan’s problems are self-inflicted.

The fact is that people voted for Harapan to provide solutions. Granted, Harapan was vague on this but they had an election manifesto, which could have been the basis for a new Malaysia, if it was used as a guide, not as something the current prime minister uses to mock Harapan supporters with.

The tragedy is that if Mahathir and the other political operatives in Harapan were attempting to realise the manifesto instead of denouncing it at every turn, the base would be galvanised instead of the apathy that is slowly setting in.

This is an important point. What Lim should understand is that if Harapan is given the five years he wants, in the end, the country will be either in worse shape or people would just lose faith in the political process and just not participate.

What Lim should really worry about is that for the decades BN ruled, there was peace and stability, even though racial and religious policies were running this country. 

Once the base starts realising that a change in a government really does not mean a change in policy, people will stop participating in the process.

What Harapan is doing now, is mainlining apathy into the base.

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S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. A retired barrister-at-law, he is one of the founding members of Persatuan Patriot Kebangsaan. - Mkini