Were Harapan supporters promised the impossible?

"To avoid the Wan Ji mishap from happening again, all DPPs should read the Harapan manifesto on New Malaysia and seek any new instructions from the attorney-general if they have queries, especially with regard to cases before the last general election."

– Lim Kit Siang

At the Perak DAP convention, Lim Kit Siang said something rather queer. He said Harapan had to admit that it promised the impossible in its election manifesto. He also said that he believed Malaysians would “appreciate our frankness, with their support and confidence largely intact”.

Lim Kit Siang is late to the party. The prime minister of this country, the prime minister that the Harapan political elite support, has already pooh-poohed the election manifesto.

Here is what Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad recently said: “We thought we were going to lose. We put in tough things in the manifesto so that if we lose, the (BN) government would be in a quandary (after winning the polls).

“But now, we are the government. We are victims of our own manifesto.”

I have no idea if Malaysians would appreciate being reminded that the election manifesto is worthless. I suppose some Malaysians whose only aim were to remove the Najib regime, would understand that the manifesto is worthless.

But for many other Malaysians, being told that what was promised was impossible, and juxtaposed with the polemics that Harapan was needed to save Malaysia, may need a little convincing when Lim (above) says “the five pillar promises contained in the manifesto remain our lodestar and guiding principle”.

Moreover, when we talk about “Malaysians”, who exactly are we talking about? If we were to believe that Mahathir owes his tenure to non-Malay support, this would mean that the non-Malays are more invested in the egalitarian aspects of the manifesto than their Muslim brethren.

If anything, non-Malays who supported Harapan have been getting the short end of the stick when it comes to policy decisions of this government. The “don’t spook the Malays” narrative has become the new normal.

Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman, the young boy minister, has the temerity to declare open season on the DAP for what Ronnie Liu said, and the DAP politburo meekly attempts to smoothen things over.

Meanwhile, the Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng is carrying on his petty feud with the MCA and using the TAR UC issue to alienate the Chinese community. The rather dumb excuse of wanting state-funded government institutes free from political influence is the dumbest rationale that Guan Eng has come up with.

We live in a society where tax money is funding Malay/Muslim education establishments that discriminate against the non-Malays, and Guan Eng (above) attempts to use TAR UC to finish off the MCA, not to mention as a vindictive means of revisionist history.

Let’s take something as ridiculous as the khat controversy to understand how badly Harapan mismanaged this issue. Forget about the fact that it should never have been an issue in the first place, but observe how quick Harapan non-Malay politicians attempted to delegitimise dissent to khat.

I cringe whenever I hear Lim Kit Siang being called by the people as Lim “khat” Siang, but I understand the frustration people have of his defence of this issue.

When Guan Eng blames Sin Chew Jit Poh for stirring up non-Malay fear of khat, what does this say about Guan Eng and his eagerness to propagate an art form which is linked with religion, and which the state uses to strengthen its hold on the majority of this country?

Lim said he blamed political conspirators, and Harapan was caught off guard by this issue: "Nothing could be further from the truth as the issue had caught everyone, including myself, by surprise, as it is a legacy of the previous government."

This brings us back to an important point. Why is Harapan carrying out policies enacted by the previous government? Before the election we were told that when it comes to “Islamic” issues, there was a consultative mechanism in place which differentiated Harapan from the previous government .

As PSM’s S Arutchelvan wrote: How is Harapan making decisions? We know that the public discourse is not dominated by discussion of policies, but rather by the squabbles, machinations and sex scandals of the Harapan political elite.

Lim hopes that Harapan commits to the pillars of the manifesto, but before the by-election defeat of Tanjung Piai, nobody in the Harapan political elite seemed committed to the manifesto.

Lim warns that the “Malaysian” dream could die if Harapan fails, but this is the kind of political rhetoric that got Harapan into trouble in the first place. The “Malaysian dream” is like the “Save Malaysia” propaganda. It really does not mean anything beyond encouraging certain romantic ideas the Harapan base has about what Malaysia could be.

I think most Malaysians, specifically non-Malays, just want a little fairness when it comes to the political process. I do not even mean strict egalitarian polices or full-blown meritocracy. They just do not want race and religion to be shoved down their throats, especially by hypocritical politicians at every turn, and racist policies which affect the economy and standard of living to be rectified.

All these issues that Harapan is facing - the backtracking, the deception, the deflections and weasel-worded defences of past policies - just infuriate a section of the voting public.

Forget about Mahathir and Bersatu for a moment. What do we have?

We have multiracial political parties unable to coalesce around common goals, while fascist agents have the upper hand.

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S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. A retired barrister-at-law, he is one of the founding members of Persatuan Patriot Kebangsaan. - Mkini