Pak Mus knew the distinction between primacy and dominance

 A quiet lieutenant of the March 2008 electoral transformation passes on.

From Terence Netto

Spirits were already low among the bevy of PKR loyalists in Penang when news last Saturday spread that a stalwart from the early days of reformasi had passed on.

The faithful had known for some time that Mustafa Kamal Yusoff had been ailing from renal problems and had not long to live.

When word on March 28 confirmed that “Pak Mus”, as he was fondly called, had indeed succumbed in hospital there was the feeling that an era had indeed come to a close in the saga of the party.

Pak Mus, a benign-looking burly figure who patrolled the periphery of party ceramah and gatherings, away from the forefront but not too far away to suggest he was removed from it all, was a familiar presence that had the magic of convincing the discerning faithful that all’s well that seems well.

Pak Mus exuded a gravitas that did not have to shout but it was there all the same.

As state election director, he was a central figure in the 2008 general election (GE12) campaign that saw PKR ride with Pakatan Rakyat ally, DAP, to victory in Penang.

That what happened on March 8, 2008 — the denial of Barisan Nasional’s supermajority in parliament and its ouster in four states in the Peninsula — would go down in history as an imperishable page in Malaysian political history.

Those who knew Pak Mus and the work he did in Penang and elsewhere in the north would aver that he was a significant lieutenant in that historic campaign.

A former Umno factotum, Pak Mus worked his knowledge of the electoral terrain and the actors on that turf into a cohesive unit that clicked to deliver one of Malaysian electoral history’s transformative results.

He was secretary of the party in Penang, knowing everyone who mattered in DAP and PAS, which was then allied with PKR under Pakatan Rakyat, precursor of the current Pakatan Harapan.

From the way he went about his tasks you knew Umno had lost a type marinated in the country’s multi-racial composition, with its complexities that wait to trip up those who crassly ignore them.

This type never loses sight of the distinction between primacy and dominance and how you should steer away from the latter even if pressure builds to ditch one for the other.

In short, Pak Mus has gone too soon for his kind of wisdom is imperative to get this country to avert the fate that those who lose their balance in quest of delusive chimeras. - FMT

 Terence Netto is a senior journalist and an FMT reader.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.