If you look at Pakatan Harapan’s leadership council, you’d realise one thing - they’re all nice people. Since Azmin Ali, Zuraida Kamaruddin and the nine other MPs defected, there is no one you could say has a reputation of great evil.
In fact, the last general election was framed as a moral choice between Najib Abdul Razak and Harapan, and people trusted Harapan because they were nice people - at least they weren’t corrupt.
But being nice doesn’t win you elections.
When I talk about Harapan, I will always think of the former British deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg. In private, his friends and colleagues would describe the former Liberal Democrats (Lib Dem) leader as ‘a man of principle’, ‘passionate’, and a ‘nice guy’.
A body language expert analysed him during a public debate and this is what they say of him:
“In terms of warmth, Clegg won by a mile. He was relaxed and made a lot of appeasement gestures to show he was on your side - the kind of person you would like to go for a [drink] with. But he made too many appeasement gestures. He was too nice, too young. He wags his head from side to side - it is a gesture that shows he is being friendly but it has weakness in it.”
He was almost too nice, ‘it has weakness in it’. In the year out of office, his party won only 8.1 percent of the votes, their worst in 45 years, inviting a complete wipeout with only eight seats left. The party lost its infrastructure, deliverers, fundraisers, organisers, members, and of course, its supporters. Clegg, the nice guy, became ‘toxic’ even in his hometown.
Selling out to the devil
The cause? He played too nice when he was in government. In 2010, Lib Dems shocked its supporters and formed UK’s first governing coalition since World War II with the former enemy, Conservative Party. Already then, their support levels plummeted from 59 percent to 44 percent and never recovered.
Then nice-guy Clegg started working closely with Conservative David Cameron, almost too close for their own good. Clegg made several high-profile concessions, prompting The Economist to say, “[l]ots of voters hate them, and they think they have sold out for a perch in a ministerial Jaguar”.
Political scientist David Fortunato looked into this and found that voters would punish parties they found compromising. Not only that, if they know you compromised too much, they will discount your performance and think you are incompetent; they will also discount your future policy promises.
This happens most in two groups: The compromising party’s core supporters and the politically-disinterested fence-sitters.
This is called the ‘cost of ruling’. Compromise is the heart of governing well, but at the same time, it carries with it a curse of losing your supporters if you concede too much. It happens most in a coalition government.
In Germany, Free Democratic Party had a sharp decline in popularity after conceding to Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats over tax reductions.
In Denmark, the Socialist People’s Party had a steep popularity drop when it was unable to deliver on the new toll road (reduced traffic and emissions) as promised during its campaign.
22 months of niceness
In Malaysia, that was Harapan conceding too much to Dr Mahathir Mohamad. Like Clegg, Harapan played nice in negotiations in a zero-sum political game that resulted in Harapan being taken advantage of, seen as being controlled and weak in the 22-month government.
Mahathir took all of Harapan’s manifesto promises and called it ‘not a bible’. He also almost sacked Yeo Bee Yin for requiring Lynas to shift its facility back to Australia.
He appointed former inspector-general of police Rahim Noor, the man involved in Anwar Ibrahim’s infamous 1998 black eye, as special envoy, attended the Malay Dignity Congress, invited Umno defectors en masse, retained oppressive laws… And in all cases, Harapan leaders either urged their supporters to give Mahathir the benefit of the doubt or stayed silent. In both cases, they compromised, and in unforgiving voters’ eyes, they sold out.
To be fair, Harapan didn’t have it easy. Governing is hard, especially for first-timers. They need to implement policies for the common good, extract benefits from the office, and please their core supporters.
While there will be no definitive answer to how well they had governed, what is certain is that they’ve lost swathes of supporters along the way.
Now there are significant trust and credibility issues in what they say. That’s why only their hardcore supporters turned out in the last few state elections. Normal supporters, progressive idealists, moderates, 30-something middle-class, fence-sitters who loaned their vote to Harapan in GE14 – they couldn’t find it to believe in Harapan again.
But they couldn’t say it; they just didn’t turn up. And that’s the curse of being a nice person. People are least honest to you because any real criticism would appear too harsh to level against you. That’s why nobody dares to tell the Harapan leadership that their time has come.
As we inch closer to the next general election, Harapan would inevitably start discussing strategies, and campaign messaging becomes important. I don’t presume to know better, but offering fewer but fresher ideas might have a better chance of winning core supporters and some fence-sitters.
The last thing you want to say is how great the 22 months were, or to bash Najib and say, ‘I am the true Mr Nice Guy’. We all know that by now. - Mkini
JAMES CHAI is a visiting fellow at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. He also blogs at www.jameschai.com.my and he can be reached at jameschai.mpuk@gmail.com.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.
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