Has hope turned into despair?

I’m tempted to say yes (to the question above). Or the past week’s turn of events may just fortify and mobilise the people’s determination to reclaim the mandate of GE14 and return to being governed by a reformist multi-racial administration.

But for now, grey is the skies as the eighth prime minister works on forming a "new" government under a new name. Its composition, however, will not be. It will probably reflect a pre-GE14 power structure shaped by Umno-PAS stalwarts driven by their tired old "ketuanan Melayu" (Malay supremacy) agenda.

For the angry 48 percent that voted for regime change two years ago, Perikatan Nasional (PN) will always remind them of the backroom manoeuvrings and treacheries that broke Pakatan Harapan’s back.

Who knows if PN will “save the country from the current crisis”, whichever way Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin cuts it, or whether the defectors were out to first serve themselves rather than the people. How the vanquished, led by the Mahathir-Anwar allied groups, will now reconsolidate to challenge the legitimacy of the "new" government, this we will witness with cautious optimism over the next few weeks.

Given the visceral nature of Malaysian racialised politics, who knows who and which party can effectively govern with inclusive intentions, integrity and accountability by the rule of law. The nascent reformist Harapan provided that hope until it lost five by-elections within two years to Umno.

Indeed, I see grey skies clouded with questions of why and what could have been. Would Muhyiddin have become PM if Dr Mahathir Mohamad had kept to his promise of transitioning the prime ministership to PKR leader Anwar Ibrahim? Was the leadership changeover ever in Mahathir’s game plan even as he least expected a coup? Why resign when he could have endorsed Anwar (below, right) or his former deputy Wan Azizah Wan Ibrahim (below, left) as the next PM?

Would Mahathir now be content to act in a non-executive role as eminent advisor to the sitting PM? Would he, in his remaining years, fade into the background and settle down to blogging his political wisdom, and leave a legacy worthy of one or two biographies?

Who knows the true intentions of power-intoxicated ageing politicians regardless of what they say in public. "Saving the country", "uniting the people", and so forth, are tired and old meaningless cliches. The reality is for most politicians, their sight is often fixed on just winning or wrestling power from the incumbents whom they have fallen out of favour. To hell with the common good.

As I wrote in January, I see the key traits of a progressive prime minister to be someone who can see beyond the next election; someone who is demonstrably dedicated to serving the people than be served; someone with an acute sense of social justice, and a commitment to fair and equal economic opportunities for every Malaysian.

Given the evidently limited pool of progressive political talent, Anwar comes up on the top drawer for his intellect, more cosmopolitan outlook, ability to comfortably transcend racial and religious lines, notwithstanding his core Malay-centric ideology, and his global experience. He is the one to more likely keep open the pages of Buku Harapan and better represent Malaysia on the international stage.

Muhyiddin does not fall into this category. Given his track record as a Malay chauvinist, he will have a hard time convincing the dejected 48 percent that he can truly work to reconcile the special privileges of Malays with the constitutional rights of non-Malays to fair and just treatment.

I cannot recall Muhyiddin ever making any momentous public policy statements - in the jobs, health, economy and education sectors - that reflected a conciliatory spirit and racially inclusive intentions during his tenure as deputy prime minister and education minister in former PM Najib Abdul Razak's administration.

He overturned PPSMI in 2009, introduced by then PM Mahathir six years earlier. The Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) scores in 2009 showed the competency of our 15-year-olds were three years behind the international average. Likewise, Malaysia’s ranking in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (Timss) rankings in 2011 fell from 20 to 26 in Mathematics and from 21 to 32 in Science.

Burnished in my memory was his statement in 2010, that he is Malay first and Malaysian second, for which he rationalised that it would be fine for non-Malays to so declare their ethnic pride. 1Malaysia was a non-concept nor a practicable or achievable goal.

As Umno deputy president in 2014, he urged Najib to make the bumiputera agenda part of his administration’s core policy. “The bumiputera agenda as a national agenda cannot be executed in pockets, it must be part of the national framework,” he said.

Muhyiddin will always remain a conservative Malay-first minister who may not expect broad support from minority non-Malay voters, and who, like many of his Umno predecessors, operates on the dogma that national stability is only assured by satisfying the demands of the dominant Malay population. The interests of non-Malays, if they are addressed at all, would be tokenistic dressed in his obligatory attendance at Chinese/Indian cultural festivities.

PN has jumped into bed with Umno-PAS. It is a racial and religious reunion, a tryst in camouflage. Who knows if the incoming MPs with their Umno-PAS baggage will or will not be tempted to hitch a ride on the gravy train given its history of corruption and political patronage.

PN’s claim of majority support, and hence their right to govern, will certainly be tested on the Parliamentary floor. The ultimate test of PN’s legitimacy will be whether the investigation of Umno politicians and their cronies implicated in the 1MDB scandals will be compromised under Muhyiddin’s administration.

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ERIC LOO is the founding editor of the academic journal Asia Pacific Media Educator. - Mkini