There is no more Harapan

“There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.”

— George W Bush

When then Pakatan Rakyat managed to deliver a body blow to the Umno regime in the 13th general election, former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad spewed out propaganda demonising the Chinese community, the DAP and Malays who voted for the coalition.

He claimed - "But Kit Siang (DAP advisor Lim Kit Siang) came and brought his 'Malaysian Malaysia' concept aimed at creating Chinese hatred towards the Malays; that they (the Malays) purportedly gained everything after independence." - which is cute as far as propaganda goes.

But more importantly of the Malay community, it was further reported that - “Dr Mahathir noted that the Malay community was getting weaker and more divided due to the attitude of some Malays who were hungry for power and positions to the extent of forgetting the community's basic struggle for its race, religion and country. 'They want to gain power in whatever way. Even if they have to sell their own race to get what they want, they will do it,' he said.”

In the 2008 election, when former prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (below) suffered the kind of electoral loss unheard of during the long Umno watch, the old maverick thundered during a ceramah, "Anyone else would have already resigned but (Abdullah) has no shame." If Abdullah had no shame about not resigning, what of Mahathir, whose resignation was the nail in the coffin of the Harapan collapse, wanting to be prime minister again?

I have argued that Pakatan Harapan, flawed though it is, is a potent multi-racial alliance capable of dismantling the Umno hegemony. This idea that a “Malay-based party" is needed to anchor the alliance is complete horse manure. Maybe it would take Harapan longer to achieve its goal of claiming Putrajaya without a Malay-based anchor, but it is not an impossible goal.

This idea promulgated by the old maverick and his legion of fans, that the “Malays” cannot accept Anwar Ibrahim or a multi-racial based coalition, is factually wrong. By the old maverick’s admission, it was apparent to everyone in 2008 and 2013 that a broad-based coalition was capable of wounding a monolithic racial hegemon.

Mahathir wonders why the “Malays” fear the DAP. Well, the propaganda he spewed all these decades has come back to bite his behind. Check out what Umno supreme council member Mohd Razlan Rafii, says: “DAP wanting Mahathir as prime minister for the third time is nothing more than a political show to pull in the support of the Malays to ‘Pakatan Harapan Plus’."

According to the foundation of this propaganda, the DAP is a stand-in for the Chinese community, hence what we are witness to, according to the PN regime, is that this fight between Mahathir and Anwar, with the DAP “siding” with the old maverick, is really about a Chinese tsunami aided by power crazy Malays.

Nobody in the DAP seems to be able to get a handle on how to spin this fiasco without doing damage to Harapan, but more importantly, to the DAP. Anthony Loke’s (above) interview was a complete disaster - except to die-hard partisans - that is.

His interview managed to throw Anwar and PKR under the bus, shoot Harapan in the foot and play into the hands of PN by furthering narratives that the DAP was aligning with Mahathir for protection against the PN government.

The mechanism in place for a Mahathir-led Harapan says more about the untenable nature of this option, rather than allaying the fears of supporters. So that is the mechanism, Anthony? Harapan Plus will self-destruct if Mahathir does not hand over power to Anwar? You do understand that this is exactly what the Sheraton Move was, right?

The canary in the coalmine is, of course, the DAP’s Ronnie Liu, whose pungent commentary of this sordid mess says more of what the DAP used to be than what it has morphed into. Now, Anwar is meeting with leaders from “other” blocs and some people are going ape manure.

Well, that source from that Malaysiakini news report was correct when he said: “He (Anwar) did lament a little about how his actions are being questioned by people but no one is questioning Mahathir.”

While the old maverick gets to meet (the current prime minister, Hadi Awang and an assorted riff-raff of the political mainstream even it was before the coup) and do anything he wants, the Harapan base has never extended the same pragmatic standards to Anwar (above), who has always been vilified for doing things that the old maverick does with impunity. Refer to the old maverick’s recent commentary on the current prime minister and Azmin Ali and you would realise the incestuous nature of the cabal that brought down Harapan.

People say that Anwar does not have the numbers. The DAP, Amanah and whoever else make up Harapan are supposed to be his numbers. If Mahathir and the MPs, who are the smaller group, do not want to join with the majority - who are supposed to be showing support for Anwar - then so be it.

I am not saying do not work with imperfect allies. I am just saying do not bend over by giving political pirates the power over you. By not firmly stating that Mahathir had his chance and now, Harapan has to give Anwar a chance. What the DAP and Amanah are doing is furthering the narrative that Anwar does not have the numbers when the reality is that they are being held hostage by a cabal of political pirates and playing into the narratives of the PN regime.

We have already witnessed what happens when a minority party like Bersatu is in power with the spineless cretins who promised Malaysians a new Malaysia.

Look at the arrogance of some people when they were in power.

Lim Guan Eng (photo) picked a fight with the MCA over the TAR UC funding and saying "your time is up, your time is over”. Instead of expanding state funds for non-Malay institutions to equitable levels, he attempted to destroy the MCA because the political mob can only have one running canine.

All this was happening when PKR political operatives told bald-faced lies and denied that there were fissures within PKR, claiming that such fissures were the imagination of the press. Now at least, we have PKR political operatives saying that it is better to be a “good” opposition than being part of a Mahathir-led circus. This is something that any rational person should be able to get behind.

Let the PN government demonstrate how a Malay uber alles government handles race relations, the economy and the vagaries of a post-pandemic world. Let the world see how an “Islamic” government operates in a multi-racial country.

After all, it was the old maverick who bemoaned the fact that Islam was under siege and the West did not want an Islamic government to function, right?

"Islam is now a universal enemy of many people in the west. They don't want to see a country achieving development success under Muslim leadership, and will thus keep condemning the Malaysian government," claimed Mahathir.

As it is, all Harapan is doing is giving substance to Mahathir's propaganda.

The old maverick taught his minions well.

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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