Can the kancil be more than a polite cough in a crowded hall?

 It is wise of Bersama to lick its wounds, skip the Negeri Sembilan state election and leap to the Melaka polls as it cannot afford to have its candidates lose their election deposits so soon after the Johor state election drubbing.

In Malaysian folklore, the kancil (mousedeer) is an icon of sorts – small, physically outmatched, but smart enough to trick crocodiles and outwit giants.

Unfortunately, real life can be different and the kancil was swallowed by the crocodiles in the July 11 Johor state election.

That must have prompted Bersama, the party with the kancil logo, to re-evaluate its situation, resulting in its decision not to contest any seat in the Aug 1 Negeri Sembilan state election.

Bersama will instead focus on preparing for the Melaka polls, expected to be held by September 2026 at the latest.

In late June, the party had said it would contest both the Johor and Negeri Sembilan state polls.

Bersama said in a July 15 statement that it expected the contest between Pakatan Harapan and Barisan Nasional in Negeri Sembilan to be more intense than in Johor. It said the election outcome could have wider political implications, including on the dispute involving the Yang di-Pertuan Besar of Negeri Sembilan and the state’s undangs.

“Taking these factors, as well as time and resource constraints, into consideration, Bersama believes it is more strategic to shift its focus to the Melaka state election, which will be held in a few months,” it said.

This is a kancil-like move.

It shows that Bersama, which went into the Johor state election hoping, at the very least, to ensure that none of its 15 candidates would lose their election deposits, is willing to lick its wounds, heal, and prepare for a better day.

For it cannot afford to have its candidates lose their election deposits, again, so soon after the Johor defeat.

Not losing the deposits in Johor would have sent the message that some voters were willing to take a chance on a new alternative to the two behemoths; that they were seeing the bigger picture; and that the Rafizi Ramli brand carried some weight.

But it was not meant to be. The candidates lost their deposits after securing only between 3% and 6% of the votes cast in the contested constituencies.

And Bersama ended up as a polite cough in a crowded, noisy hall.

Johor has taught it that a party powered only by aspirations and ideals has no chance in a river long dominated by the Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Harapan coalitions.

In Johor, voters decided to go for stability with predictability, and set aside experimental options for the familiar, even if flawed. They did not want to “waste” their votes on a new party contesting only 15 seats – not enough to form a government even if it were to win all.

Bersama would have learnt that while it offered a sophisticated 12-point agenda aimed at macro-level corruption and systemic change, voters were confronting immediate pressures of inflation and rising costs. They were thinking local.

Yet the real measure of a political creature is not how bravely it charges, but how cleverly it frames the fight. Rafizi has made clear that Bersama is engaged in a long game — a 5-to-10-year endeavour, with the present phase described as a necessary “kamikaze mission”.

In doing so, he is trying to redefine what a “wasted vote” can mean: Deposit losses are not a catastrophe but the cost of building infrastructure, mapping voter sentiment, and preparing the ground for the next phase. The immediate task is not power, but the slow, deliberate creation of space for an independent voice.

Rafizi is playing the politics of the long march: sometimes you must let your party bleed publicly in order to create space for the next generation.

But bleeding twice in a row, and that too in a short period of time may be suicidal.

This tiny party – with no money and no official machinery, but armed with an entrepreneurial mind and a long horizon – does not want to step into a river full of the same crocodiles so soon.

It probably understands that without a shift in voter mood or the collapse of the two giants — and the Johor result suggests neither is likely — the kancil could be swallowed in Negeri Sembilan too.

This decision not to contest on Aug 1 allows it some time to prepare better in its effort to convince voters to look beyond the crocodiles and seek a kancil alternative. Also, it allows the party to read the trend and learn from the Negeri Sembilan election without participating and losing.

Bersama’s leaders know the party does not need to win to remain relevant. It needs only to survive — and do so in a way that validates the long game.

If it can translate its digital vision into a determined ground effort in Melaka and reclaim deposits in some constituencies, it would show that the kancil’s smallness is no weakness when paired with patience and clarity.

And let’s remember, the kancil versus crocodile story is not just a folktale; it is really the story of every democratic outsider who has ever tried to nudge a bloated political system. - FMT

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