Is Pakatan Harapan prepared to helm the gov't again?

MP SPEAKS | The legitimately elected Pakatan Harapan government lasted barely two years before being toppled by rapacious political bandits via the infamous “Sheraton Move”.

The coup is treacherous and unscrupulous, to say the least. It is the gravest assault on the democratic system of the country.

Those traitors who plotted the coup did not only betray their parties but also the mandate that was given by the electorate in the last general election.

People are riled up. They feel their votes cast in the last general election are in vain.

If an electoral victory can be thwarted so easily by a handful of political plunderers, why bother busting a gut to vote?

Moreover, all reforms are hobbled and people can hold no one accountable because the current government is not elected.

Thus, we should not shirk our responsibility to restore the legitimate Harapan government.

However, how well is Harapan prepared to helm the government again?

As I am every bit as passionate to restore the Harapan government as many of you, I think we should spend some time to reflect on our past mistakes.

Besides immediate strategies to defeat the malevolent enemy, a profound reflection is equally important to ensure a better version of “Pakatan Harapan government” at the helm later.

In order to avoid interminable arguments, let’s not discuss the prime minister candidate in this article.

Lopsided decision-making mechanism

When Harapan was in power, one of the main issues raised was the mechanism of decision-making.

Many crucial decisions, be it Harapan’s or the government’s, were made unilaterally, without sufficient consultation.

For instance, the appointment of cabinet ministers apparently did not reflect the will of component parties within the ruling coalition.

The appointment of the MACC chief last June had also caused rowdy debates among the coalition members.

The bone of contention was not so much the capabilities of those candidates, but the decision-making process.

Some may argue those appointments are the prime minister’s prerogative.

However, such prerogative only means “punca kuasa” (source of power) in administrative terms.

Consultation and consensus are always the practice in coalition politics unless the prime minister’s party won single-handedly without other parties in the general election.

Besides governmental appointments, some crucial decisions that would affect the coalition gravely were also made in silos.

One of those is volte-face in the controversial Lynas rare-earth processing plant. It was not just “another decision”, it was a major electoral promise!

Most Harapan MPs campaigned with the people before the election, vowing to close down Lynas when Harapan is in power.

However, the decision to go against the coalition’s electoral promise was not well deliberated among Harapan lawmakers.

Even if the government’s hands were tied due to contractual obligations or other reasons, the contract should have been made public for the rakyat to judge.

The lopsided decision-making mechanism has sapped Harapan’s integrity gravely.

People have lost faith in the coalition because whatever promised collectively could be changed unilaterally.

If Harapan were to return to power, there has to be an improved decision-making mechanism, head and shoulders above the previous one.

Bad communication, poor responses

In the short period of 22 months, Harapan supporters had suffered immensely because of poor communication of the federal government.

Instead of propagating progressive policies and positive reforms implemented by the Harapan government, we were badly battered by fake news and hate speeches.

For instance, people hardly talked about free food for school kids, but the majority of society was mocking the change in the colour of shoes.

No one talked about the successful restructuring of the mismanaged Tabung Haji, but everyone cried about the lowest dividend in history at 1.25 percent.

Time and again, the Harapan government failed to respond to fake news instantly.

When malign fake news was spreading like wildfire in social media, the government did very little to counter or clarify, as if everything was hunky-dory.

By the time Harapan realised that people’s perceptions have already formed based on spurious information, the ship has sailed.

Worse still, the government was unnecessarily dragged into the quagmire of identity politics.

The opposition then turned the discourse of ratifying ICERD (International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination) into a false dichotomy, pitting Malays against non-Malays.

They have pulled a flimflam by portraying that ICERD will threaten the position of Islam and the Malays enshrined in our constitution.

Ironically, the ratification of the ICERD was supposedly a show of determination of the government to eliminate racial discrimination.

Unfortunately, the government’s response was pale. Harapan failed miserably in communicating the issue to the rakyat, although official media were in the hands of the government.

The same failures repeated in the case of the Seafield Temple chaos and the farce of Zakir Naik. These mistakes have cost us a government.

Have we repented and learned from these lessons?

Revisit manifesto and be honest

Last but not least, Harapan should start revisiting the manifesto before lunging into the government again. Harapan was voted in as government partly because of reforms that we have promised in our manifesto.

However, people had a bad experience with the short-lived Harapan government in implementing its own manifesto. Some were due to poor communication; most were Harapan going back on its own word.

One vivid example is Lynas, key officials’ appointments to be affirmed by Parliament and to limit the tenure of the prime minister to two terms, among others.

People’s trust in Harapan hit rock bottom when leaders started giving lame justifications such as “manifesto is not a bible”, “we did not expect to win when we made those promises” and “difficult to fulfill manifesto without a two-thirds majority”.

Therefore, if Harapan were to “re-form” government again, a revised manifesto with substantial and practical reforms should be put on the table.

Utilise the 22-month experience, change whatever half-baked content and present it to Malaysians again, with full honesty.

Convince them how “Sheraton Move” has transformed us into a better ruling coalition. This is the only way to regain trust from the people.

Otherwise, wresting back Putrajaya with the same old attitude and mechanism is only new wine in old bottles, which will benefit no one except those who will be back in their cozy ministerial offices.

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CHANG LIH KANG is the MP for Tanjong Malim and vice-president of PKR. - Mkini