Time for DAP to be a good partner

The Chinese-based party should not rock the Pakatan boat right now by harping on non-issues and should instead work towards winning the polls.

COMMENT

The 13th general election is there for Pakatan Rakyat to lose. And lose it they will if DAP does not get its act together. I never thought I would say that.

All this time I have watched DAP grow from strength to strength. Consolidating its considerable presence in Sabah and Sarawak while making inroads into the Peninsula in places where even Umno thinks Pakatan would not dare venture into or could hope to field a candidate against the Barisan Nasional and have a chance to win.

All this while, the DAP has made concerted efforts to take in Malays to boost its claims to be a party for all Malaysians. Its commitment on taking over the government in concert with PAS and PKR seems to be the order of the day.

And yet as the 13th general election nears, we see the real DAP is starting to unravel… to fray at its edges.

The memory of the controversial exit of its vice-chairman, Tunku Abdul Aziz Tunku Ibrahim, has returned to haunt the party because now, through Tunku Aziz, we are privy to what has been said of Anwar Ibrahim by DAP’s first-tiered leadership.

And what they say of Anwar is not flattering to DAP and to Anwar himself. Now, is DAP making use of Tunku Aziz to rein in Anwar after his acquittal of Sodomy II?

Or is Tunku Aziz making use of DAP to continue his public spat with Anwar over his insistence that the April 28 Bersih rally should not have proceeded at Dataran Merdeka? You tell me. Either way, it bodes ill for the Pakatan coalition.

Hudud a non-issue

The DAP also insists on mischievously harping on hudud – a non-issue as both BN and Pakatan are on record as having said that they will not and cannot implement. So why talk about something that is not going to be implemented?

Another non-issue is party hopping. It is a non-issue because anybody with an ounce of grey matter in his or her brain is against this.

But anybody with an ounce of grey matter also knows, understands and accepts that no matter what anybody says, any politician worth his salt will have to accept that in a democracy, elections are won in a number of ways – and party hopping is one of them.

Tell us, Karpal Singh and Lim Kit Siang, was there not a time when this Anwar was once your sworn enemy? Wasn’t he your favourite target and whipping boy in Parliament? And now you are comrades in arms.

And do you not have within DAP ranks former Umno politicians? What do you call that? A change of heart, a marriage of convenience? Or has the time come even for sworn enemies to look again at each other’s convictions and see if there is room to work together towards a common goal?

So please DAP, while it is a decent thing to do to be against frogs that go hopping from one party to another, the adherence to such sentiment might be a bit harder to do.

We are at war with BN. Almost anything that could assist us to win that war must be considered. When victory is in hand, these “questionable tactics” can be looked again with clear heads. Until then shut up.

Start beating the drums

Once again we see that the Chinese and the non-Malays are no match for the Malays when it comes to politics.

Do you not agree that Anwar has been able to overcome his tormentors and resolve the internal conflict within PKR and is now leading Pakatan again? Do you not agree that PKR is getting its act together?

That Anwar is peaking at the right moment in the lead-up to the 13th general election? That the person that strikes the most fear in BN and giving Najib sleepless nights and creating havoc within Umno’s ranks is again and as always been Anwar?

What DAP, PAS and PKR now need to do is to beat the drums and make a place in the Pakatan camp for the rakyat to come and join them in that big march to Putrajaya.

The Pakatan partners must get their act together and then ask the rakyat to join them.

CT Ali is a reformist who believes in Pakatan Rakyat’s ideologies. He is a FMT columnist.