Pejuang in cloud cuckoo land

 

From Terence Netto

Pejuang, the political vehicle Dr Mahathir Mohamad set up after mis-steering and then losing control of his own creature, Bersatu, aspires to contest 120 seats in GE15 and form the federal government.

So said deputy president Marzuki Yahya, who spoke to Malaysiakini on the party wanting to be not kingmakers but Putrajaya’s occupier after GE15.

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The fact that Pejuang, in its maiden electoral outing, contested 42 out of 57 seats in the Johor state election last March and lost their deposits in all of them was not viewed by Marzuki as a chastening experience.

Instead, he argued that the Johor election results should not be seen as a benchmark of their achievements.

He declined to say who would be the high-aiming Pejuang candidate for prime minister in GE15, but offered that the party regarded Mahathir as an icon.

In other words, Mahathir would be their prime minister-designate, especially after the man himself had said a few weeks ago that even at the geriatric age of 97, he might have to contest again in Langkawi if no suitable replacement is found.

What is troubling about this type of fantasy-creation is that there is another fabulist show in town that offers a politician parading the national stage like there is nothing untoward about the whole spectacle though he faces possible jail time for offences he allegedly committed.

Sure, it can be argued the former type of fantasy-creation is quite harmless and can be ascribed to pre-election puffery, expected behaviour when a general election is in the offing.

But when it is borne in mind that Mahathir is one of the biggest decriers of the latter instance of fabulist preening – which plays before and is received with seeming approval by disturbingly large audiences – abstention from fantasy-creation would be the order of the day for the Pejuang crowd.

The extent of Pejuang’s fantasy-spawning can be gauged from what that redoubtable crystal ball gazer prior to a general election, Daim Zainuddin, said about Pejuang’s chances in GE15.

Daim was reported by another news portal to have predicted that Pejuang and Bersatu are likely to be annihilated.

Daim has been a good reader of the tea leaves before general elections; he was one of the first to predict BN’s unprecedented loss of its supermajority in the general election in 2008 (GE12). - 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.