Pact with Bersatu, PAS will diminish PH

 

From Terence Netto

Amanah deputy chief Salahuddin Ayub became the third prominent Pakatan Harapan  leader to scramble what appears to be an evolving Pakatan Harapan (PH) consensus: that it go into GE15 without any electoral understanding with perpetrators of the Sheraton Move.

PKR’s Anwar Ibrahim was the first major PH leader to cloud the evolving consensus when he disclosed some weeks ago that he had engaged Bersatu leader Muhyiddin Yassin in discussions of an unspecified nature.

Following this, Saifuddin Nasution, secretary-general of PKR, in remarks made while campaigning for the deputy presidency of the party, said PH should not rule out cooperation with any opposition party going into GE15.

The feelers put out by Anwar and Saifuddin were soon overtaken by forthright pronouncements against cooperation with Sheraton Move perpetrators from DAP chairman Lim Guan Eng, secretary-general Anthony Loke and Amanah chief Mohamad Sabu.

All three voiced what appeared to be the evolving consensus that PH ought not to have anything to do with Bersatu and PAS where cooperation between opposition parties concerning GE15 was concerned.

Such is the lingering antipathy among PH supporters towards the Sheraton Move that no electoral collaboration with parties complicit in the “Move” should be entertained.

Terms like “betrayal” and “traitorous” employed by PH leaders to describe the Sheraton Move and its perpetrators, more than two years after it occurred, continue to convey the acidulous grudge these leaders feel towards the “Move” that will live in infamy.

Hence it came as a huge surprise that days after Mat Sabu had closed the PH door to cooperation than his deputy Salahuddin should equivocate on the matter.

Salahuddin, the MP for Pulai, intimated that Mat Sabu may have been misquoted and the Amanah leader also referred to Guan Eng’s proscription against cooperation with Bersatu and PAS as not quite the final word on the matter.

Salahuddin’s equivocations, together with the feelers on cooperation put out by Anwar and Saifuddin, misread the feelings of PH supporters which is that engineers of the Sheraton Move are verboten and must be regarded as such going into GE15.

What the Sheraton Move perpetrators did was a dastardly act of betrayal of the verdict of voters in GE14 which was in favour of the change espoused by the PH coalition.

Also, the tenor of the government by Perikatan Nasional that took over the administration of the country in March 2020 took no heed of the PH reform programme that was endorsed by voters at GE14 in May 2018.

In that sense, the PN betrayal, in particular Bersatu’s, was doubly galling: It not only backstabbed its allies in PH, it cared a fig for the PH reform manifesto when it assumed the reins of government.

True, it could be argued as extenuation that prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, during PH’s 22-month tenure, himself in word and deed dishonoured the manifesto. But at least, he did not let dishonour tip over into betrayal.

The results of state polls in Sabah, Melaka, Sarawak and Johor suggest that voter sentiment is swinging back in favour of Umno-BN, after its historic ouster from federal governance at GE14.

It is better for PH to talk inter-opposition party cooperation in preparation for GE15 with Warisan and Muda than with Bersatu and PAS.

Among PH supporters, much odium lingers with regard to what the PN parties did in February 2020 in order to take over the federal government.

There is a sacrosanct principle behind this opprobrium: You do not betray an electoral verdict that had taken decades to forge.

PH will suffer a suicidal loss of essence if the coalition parleys with the Judases of the Sheraton Move. - FMT

Terence Netto is a senior journalist and an FMT reader.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.