Break the chains that bind Harapan before GE15

 

ADUN SPEAKS | Why is the BN coalition led by Umno on a winning streak in the country?

The coalition that was supposed to have been drowned under the weight of corruption, financial scandals and other misdeeds is making a serious comeback in national politics.

Is it because Malaysian voters have short memories? Or because there is no alternative to BN?

The opposition, the Pakatan Harapan coalition that promised reforms and went home on the mammoth 1MDB scandal that implicated a number of top Umno leaders, seems to be in a disarray.

Harapan as an alternative coalition seems to be no alternative at all.

In fact, Umno’s winning streak started with a number of by-elections in the country the minute Harapan was installed in Putrajaya.

To cap it all, the recent election win in Malacca, and lately in Johor, seem to suggest that all the bad publicity about Umno or BN’s complicity in corruption and financial misdeeds are not enough to dislodge the coalition from the mainstream of Malaysian politics.

Never mind the poor voter turnout in the Johor state election. The fact that BN won a supermajority of 40 out of the total 56 seats suggests that something is really ailing the Malaysian political system.

If convicted persons and those on the verge to be charged for corruption happen to be some of the top guns in Umno, why did the people vote this BN coalition into power?

In other words, do the voters really believe that the charges against the top Umno leaders were framed ones?

Strangely enough, the political campaign by the opposition against the Umno leaders about their involvement in corruption seems not to have impacted Umno’s subsequent performance.

The mother of all scandals

The 1MDB scandal was an important issue that brought down the BN government in the last general election in 2018.

It was the mother of all scandals in the country.

However, the effect of this scandal on the performance of Umno might not be there.

The opposition, by focusing overwhelmingly on this issue, might have neglected other important concerns of the electorate.

Political victory presupposes victory at the cultural front. However, on this matter of culture, the ideas, thinking, explanations and beliefs might not have been in favour of the opposition.

In other words, it was the inability of Harapan to break the cultural barrier of support to the BN/Umno that militated against them.

The incessant campaign against the 1MDB financial scandal with the involvement of the former prime minister, Najib Abdul Razak, might have given Harapan an edge in the last election.

However, this is not to be so in the subsequent by-elections in the country.

Ironically, the one-time political villain Najib has become a sort of folk hero to the predominantly Malay voters and to some sections within the non-Malays.

In fact, BN’s victory has been credited to the campaign launched by Najib and other Umno leaders.

In the last general election, Harapan was in its top performance, winning the majority of the seats.

In this by-election, its winning seats have dropped by more than half.

It serves no purpose to blame the low turnout of slightly more than 50 percent of the voters and the gain in popular votes as mitigating factors in the failure to unseat the BN.

The next general election might not be far off, considering the pressure Umno is going to put in calling for it.

Harapan as an opposition coalition has much thinking to do to ensure that it not only emerges as a credible or formidable opposition but also a coalition that might want to take a crack at federal power.

However, the chains that bind Harapan must be examined and broken.

The internal rift must be seriously addressed within Harapan, even on a simple matter as the use of the coalition’s logo.

PKR’s use of the party’s logo hardly made any difference in the recent electoral outcome in Johor.

It makes no sense to continue with the memorandum of understanding with the present government when the odds are stacked against the opposition.

How to have a credible opposition with a new vision, with the memorandum of understanding around the neck like the proverbial Albatross? - Mkini

---

P RAMASAMY is Perai assemblyperson and Deputy Chief Minister II of Penang.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.