Theoretically, Umno and PAS have up to four million members in Malaysia, with at least three million of them with Umno (according to party stalwarts) and another million from PAS.
While the parties may have been strong in the early part of 1997, prior to the Asian Financial Crisis, over the last 20-odd years, Umno and PAS have slowly crumbled like a biscuit soaked in warm Milo.
Even if both parties can collectively rally their members to the anti-Icerd (International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination) rally on Dec 8, Malaysians should be cautious, but not be cowed.
To begin with, like it or not, Umno and PAS have some decent members too. The fact that their leaders failed them does not mean that all party members are bad.
Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and incoming prime minister Anwar Ibrahim are formerly from Umno. As are several members of the current cabinet.
If splinter groups from Umno and PAS can produce decent entities like PKR, Amanah and finally Bersatu, it goes to show that not all Umno and PAS members are rotten. Given a decent chance to redeem themselves to help the country, they will heed the call.
Secondly, while Umno and PAS may have conspired to keep former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak and his cronies and crooks in power since 2016, which is when lawsuits by the US Department of Justice had revealed money-laundering activities heavily involving 1MDB, there were a few party members who knew things were not right.
Questioning the 1MDB scandal led to the sacking of then Umno deputy president Muhyiddin Yassin (photo) as well as the resignation of the party’s then vice-president Shafie Apdal, who went on to form Warisan in Sabah, which is a strategic alliance of Pakatan Harapan in Peninsular Malaysia.
Aside from Mahathir, the biggest coup of all involved former ministers Daim Zainuddin, Rafidah Aziz, Syed Hamid Albar and more recently, Mustapa Mohamed, who have all switched their alliance from Umno to Pakatan Harapan.
Thirdly, Umno and PAS are mass-membership parties, not cadre-based political parties. Cadre policy is when the party indoctrinates its members to the degree of brainwashing them into believing in nothing else but the party ideologies. Thus, one cannot expect that all four million members will show up at the rally just because they are told to do so.
Finally, PAS has always fought against the politics of kaummiyah, or race, until the leadership of its former president, the late Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat. It is only under its current president Abdul Hadi Awang that the party has latched on to Malay votes.
Come what may, there is nothing to fear about the Dec 8 rally. Umno and PAS have seen first-hand how Bersih conducted themselves during rallies. In a civil and professional manner, Bersih, through it’s repeated calls for clean and fair elections, eventually helped Pakatan Harapan reach Putrajaya - with the help of the rakyat.
On Dec 8, even if the ragtag members of Umno and PAS were to come out in full force, their wings have been clipped. The Pakatan Harapan government has already decided to shelve the ratification of Icerd. So, what else is there for them to demonstrate, let alone celebrate?
Thus, one must not fear the Dec 8 rally, or the run up to it.
If anything, one could perhaps say that this is the last hurrah for Umno and PAS. Of the 13 component parties under BN that contested in the May 9 general election, only Umno, MIC and MyPPP remain in the coalition. Even MCA has decided to push for the dissolution of the BN.
Umno and PAS have nothing to show but their final embrace. In this sense, Malaysians will see the beginning of the end of the two parties’ marriage of convenience.
PHAR KIM BENG is a multiple award-winning head teaching fellow on China and the Cultural Revolution at Harvard University - Mkini
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