If we go back to very recent history, look at what happened and examine the list of parties who want to come into Pakatan Harapan under the “big tent” approach to “unite” all opposition parties, you can’t help but ditch it in favour of that small tent which just sticks to the three - PKR, DAP and Amanah.
First, what eventually led to the collapse of the Harapan government after it won convincingly in the last elections in May 2018? It was allowing a racist, narrow-minded self-interested party into the coalition by the name of Bersatu which restricts its membership to Malays only.
It was led by two very dubious people – Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Muhyiddin Yassin - whose track record amply showed that they could not be trusted but yet they were let in because some people, including some PKR and DAP top leaders, felt that was the only way to win the election.
I wrote here why Mahathir could not be trusted in an article in April 2017 after his party Bersatu was admitted into the Harapan coalition. I still remain totally flummoxed as to why he was allowed into this reform bid in the first place given his extremely poor track record.
Mahathir refused to set a date to pass the baton to Harapan head Anwar Ibrahim, and the Sheraton Move happened - Bersatu abdicated, taking 36 MPs, along with PKR deputy president Mohamed Azmin Ali who took a further 10 PKR MPs. The Harapan government collapsed because of the three traitors.
That should be more than enough evidence to show that you have to be careful who you bring in to help you win the elections. Mahathir’s Bersatu won just 13 seats in the last elections, immediately after which PKR had almost four times the seats at 47 and DAP 42. It would have gotten less if it had not been in the Harapan coalition.
Mahathir and Bersatu did not win the election for the coalition, other members of whom won the lion’s share. But they were hailed as victors and did not do as promised. The promise to a nation was hijacked by a mere 13 MPs! That was the fatal folly of the three original coalition partners of PKR, DAP and Amanah when they let the Trojan horse in and eventually lost the war.
Foolish fatal folly
Question is, are they going to repeat this foolish, fatal folly yet again by aligning with dubious, irreputable partners who will play them yet again? Or are the three prepared to stand and fight as one, believing in their own ability to prevail?
Let’s look at the other opposition parties and what they really have to offer to Harapan. The four main ones we look at are Mahathir’s Pejuang, Muhyiddin’s Bersatu, Syed Saddiq Syed Syed Abdul Rahman’s Muda and Mohd Shafie Apdal’s Warisan. There can be other electoral alliances in Sabah and Sarawak.
If any of these party leaders have prime ministerial aspirations, that should immediately rule them out of the coalition - Pejuang, Bersatu and Warisan should be included. Harapan should unconditionally support only those who support its own candidate for prime minister which is Anwar Ibrahim, who recently was returned unopposed as PKR head.
Can anyone really be advocating Mahathir, who was the main cause of Harapan’s downfall? In any case, what can Pejuang bring to the table? All of their candidates lost their deposits in the Johor by-elections, showing Mahathir’s waning support.
Let’s take Bersatu - there may be possible synergies as they were a significant force in Johor. But Muhyiddin is the head, has PM aspirations and the party is full of defectors. They will defect again for the right price, power and privilege if given an opportunity. Harapan will be foolish to ally with them.
Nothing to offer
Shafie Apdal makes no secret of his aspirations to become PM and has nothing to offer in terms of support - all six Warisan candidates lost their deposits in the Johor by-elections. He has constantly put Harapan down, treating with disdain but not always with reason Harapan’s MOU with the government to stabilise the political situation.
There is absolutely no reason for Harapan to team up with Warisan which brings nothing to the table but Shafie Apdal’s ridiculous aspirations to become prime minister.
Muda has a lot of appeal and has hit people in the right spot by its multiracialism, anti-corruption stand and appeal to the youth. Just like Shafie, Muda’s Syed Saddiq has high aspirations as I explained here which strangely involves some kind of alliance with Warisan.
In this case, the Shafie Apdal/Syed Saddiq axis appears to be one of the “you-scratch-my-back-I-will-scratch your back” type, one to become prime minister and the other to leapfrog his ambitions for eventually becoming one.
But Syed Saddiq is a Mahathir protege, which in itself is a bad thing, plus he admits his continued closeness to the old fox. He has made about turns in terms of the Indian Muslim radical cleric Zakir Naik. And he had suspicious amounts of cash to the tune of RM250,000 in his house as I explained here.
Oh, one more thing - all of Harapan’s three parties have always opened their membership to all races and it is the grouping which promises the greatest amount of multiracialism. So it needs no new converts to multiracialism such as Syed Saddiq and Shafie Apdal, and their parties.
Harapan, if it has not already done it, must inscribe on its holy grail that no party whose leaders have a bad track record should be admitted into the coalition, notwithstanding what Amanah president Mohamad Sabu says that he will seek friends with other members of the opposition.
Former DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said pretty much the same thing earlier although his recent successor, Anthony Loke, according to Anwar, seems to be leaning towards a smaller tent.
Hang on Harapan’s coattails
After carefully looking at the entire situation, there is no question about it. Just like Mahathir, the other four parties want to hang on to Harapan’s coattails to get into power. And when they get in, just like Mahathir and Muhyiddin, they will entice others in PKR to cross over to kill this government if it wins.
Harapan does not only need to just keep these useless fringe parties out and say firmly that it wants to strengthen itself from within. But it needs to ensure that it gets good candidates who will not jump ship no matter what. That’s a tough act but anyone with even a whiff of a bad record must be out - individual or party.
Which makes all the four likely candidates to be in the coalition terribly ineligible. Just stick to the original three - not only do you have a better chance of winning but you have a better chance of staying in power after winning once you eliminate the frogs.
Small is beautiful, Harapan.
The best way for Harapan to stay in the battle for GE15 is to go for it on its own and stay on the straight and narrow - clean, efficient and trustworthy. Now, where have we heard that before? - Mkini
P GUNASEGARAM, a former editor at online and print news publications, and head of equity research, is an independent writer and analyst.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.