Democratic reality is preferring what you dislike over what you despise

 

The truest statements of the nature of democratic politics are, one, that it is the art of compromise; and, two, that political choice often entails preferring the undesirable over the intolerable.

Germany’s Iron Chancellor Otto von Bismarck was the formulator of the first maxim, and Edmund Burke, the Irish-born British parliamentarian, the author of the second.

Would-be formators of the federal government, following the stalemate of GE15, ought to take a leaf from Bismarck and a page from Burke.

Pakatan Harapan, winner of the highest number of seats, would find the PAS component of the second highest procurer of GE15 seats, Perikatan Nasional, intolerable. And vice-versa.

By comparison, Harapan would find BN merely undesirable as a federal government partner: the differences between the two coalitions are not visceral, nor fundamental.

The differences are amenable to compromise as when BN, in its manifesto, favoured granting citizenship to the overseas-born children of Malaysian mothers. Earlier, Umno was cold to the proposition.

The obstacles in the way of Harapan getting together with Umno-BN as partners in a federal government are formidable, but not insuperable.

Sure, the general assembly of Umno had made a decision in March that said “no Anwar, no DAP”.

But the previous December, Umno combined with Harapan representatives in the Perak state legislature to remove Ahmad Faizal Azumu, the menteri besar from Perikatan Nasional, on grounds of ineptitude.

PKR chairperson Anwar Ibrahim

In abjuring Anwar and DAP in March, Umno was yielding to emotion rather than rationality.

Now, in the immediate aftermath of GE15, when the spectre of Islamic fundamentalism is no longer a looming possibility but a clear and present danger, Umno, a nationalist rather than a religious party, has to adjust its stance.

The latest news of Umno’s getting together with Harapan to form the Perak state government in Ipoh yesterday, in which Umno supplied the menteri besar, is another instance of rationality triumphing over emotion.

Umno’s aversions based on emotion would lead it up a cul-de-sac that would spell the death knell of the country inaugurated by the 1957 Federal Constitution.

GPS faces blowback

Realising this, the parties composing Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS), initially benign towards Perikatan Nasional, have begun pushing for a rethink of the position taken by state Premier Abang Johari Openg.

DAP-averse Abang Johari is facing blowback from GPS component parties to take heed of the threat to the state’s pluralism that would come from cohabiting in a PN-led federal government in which PAS holds the whip hand in terms of MPs.

Abang Johari would not want to risk dissension within the GPS coalition ranks by making nice with PN whose PM-designate last week resurrected the bogey of a Jewish and Christian plot to Christianise Malay Muslims.

It was religion- and race-baiting of the worst kind and although Muhyiddin Yassin tried to limit the damage, his “I am Malay first” avowals of the past undermined the credibility of his demurrals.

There is an unbridgeable gulf between the positions of PAS and GPS on ideology that cannot be obscured by Abang Johari’s loathing of the DAP.

Suffice, GPS would have to readjust to the post-GE15 realities and declare, even if Umno doesn’t, that Sarawak’s and Malaysia’s future lie in collaborating with Harapan rather than cohabitation with PN.

PAS is the ogre, not DAP. - Mkini

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TERENCE NETTO is a journalist with half a century's experience.

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