The unveiling of Pakatan’s Game of Thrones

Writer says man who single-handedly split Malaysians into pockets of racially-charged communities by fear, civil unrest, now controls steer of Pakatan’s ship.

FMT LETTERS

By Karamjit Ghill

As Season 7 is gearing for release, the much awaited TV series exemplifies everything you need to know about politics at its finest hour.

Minus the violence, gore and sex, the Pakatan Harapan leadership line up has been revealed by Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who is the chairman, the de facto leader and the president’s puppeteer.

An historic occasion that was marred by last minute lobbying which dragged the announcement to midnight.

Anyone’s guess on what was used as the bargaining tool. But one thing was very clear, the minorities in Malaysia have been abandoned.

The minorities have been reduced to dust in this line up. Out of 12 top leadership positions, only 2 filled by Chinese and 1 Indian which is clearly a lopsided deal.

The Chinese and Indian representation is inadequate to exhibit the level of support they have been showering the Pakatan coalition till date.

It is an ungrateful act by the Pakatan leadership to ignore the prominent roles played by the minorities, especially the Chinese in swinging the votes towards Pakatan and bringing them to the forefront of Malaysian politics.

The struggle and the support of these minorities have been in wane.

It’s even more pathetic to mention about the Indians who have been sidelined all these years under Barisan Nasional and Mahathir, and it continues to be the case with Pakatan as well.

M Kulasegaran is the sole representative of the Indians in the line up.

Beggars can’t be choosers they say, so for all it’s worth, he has been given token responsibility of being the treasurer.

If you talk about equality, the minorities should be protected but here its a complete hypocrisy by Pakatan.

As Mkini columnist S Thayaparan aptly puts it in his column titled “Playing the Losing Non-Malay Race Card”, taking an excerpt from the article – “So, someone like PPBM president Muhyiddin Yassin can go on about a Malay tsunami, and the DAP and MCA can bicker on about who better represents the Chinese community but whenever the Indian issue comes into play – and truth be told this is mainly an opposition tactic – everyone suddenly becomes race-blind”.

I went through the line up. Had a second look at it, even a third.

Yet, I am still confused as who is actually leading the coalition. The ultimate question is, who will be the prime minister once Pakatan clinches Putrajaya.

Which house would you support to sit on the throne? Normally the party with the most MPs in Parliament would be able to nominate their leader as the prime minister.

So in Pakatan’s case, it is clear that DAP would be the prime candidate to lead the nation.

Will Pakatan Harapan be true to their policy of racial impartiality? It is of course nonsensical to conjure up such an image but would Malaysia ever have a non-Malay prime minister?

We are back to square one after all these years. The struggles of Reformasi & Ubah have been undone and obliterated.

The man who single-handedly split Malaysians into pockets of racially-charged communities by fear and civil unrest, now controls the steer of Pakatan’s ship.

By the looks of it, Putrajaya’s winter is here indeed and the white walkers are at the gates.

Karamjit Gill is an FMT reader.