Never too late for Harapan
to be an honest alternative...
What is wrong with Pakatan Harapan is that it does not know what kind of coalition it is. I have said this many times. Umno/BN and PAS know exactly what they are.
How long the fracturing in the Malay establishment benefits Harapan remains to be seen - but this does not take away from the fact that Umno/BN and PAS know what they are and what they are selling to their bases.
For instance, Umno poohbah Ismail Sabri Yaakob announces that the government, because it cares for the “people”, paid RM1.5 million ringgit to the family of firefighter Muhammad Adib Mohd Kassim.
When Harapan formed the federal government, de facto Law Minister Liew Vui Keong said this of the kidnapping of Indira Gandhi’s children: "This case, cannot really ask for the government to interfere because this is a litigation matter taken up by the mother against the ex-husband.”
Nobody in Harapan said anything when the Suhakam revealed that pastor Raymond Koh and social activist Amri Che Mat were kidnapped by the state security apparatus and when then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad declared the findings hearsay.
So it's no point lauding the money given to Adib's family and then throwing in Teoh Beng Hock's name when, while in government, you did absolutely nothing for Teoh's family and never did anything for the families Harapan used as propaganda before it got into Putrajaya.
Harapan has no idea what it stands for, but it gaslights people into thinking that they are something they are not. Dethroning Najib Abdul Razak was a once in a lifetime thing.
Elements in the Malay establishment wanted to get rid of Najib and they hooked up with Harapan to ensure this. This was not something that Harapan meticulously planned and executed and as such, this idea, that Harapan won some sort of major victory, is self-deluding. Keep in mind that a majority of Malaysians did not reject the system, only that Umno, for a while, was crippled.
What does Harapan stand for?
What does Harapan stand for? I have asked many political operatives this and almost all of them acknowledge that the best Harapan can be is a less corrupt version of Umno/BN - and some sort of guard rails against an emerging theocratic state.
And even in this, they fail, with Mujahid Yusof Rawa, the religious czar of Harapan, attempting to out Islamise PAS and Harapan controlled states attempting to inject religion into the economic sectors and attempting to control free speech.
Now of course in public and in the service of the base, Harapan political operatives will blurt out all sorts of political bromides to ensure that their supporters have something to hang onto.
Why did Harapan fall? The answer is simple, Mahathir. Why didn’t Harapan carry out reforms? The answer is simple, Mahathir. Why have some Malays become more racist after GE14? Well according to Kim Quek, the answer is simple, Mahathir.
No doubt, Mahathir was a prime mover in the collapse of Harapan but the reality is that he was one man. For heaven's sake, he dared the Harapan council to sack him and sarcastically thanked Anwar Ibrahim when he said that there would not be a vote of no confidence against him.
As someone who endorsed him, I wrote a piece on why any sort of unity government, post-Sheraton Move, was well complete madness and we should be apologising for even giving Mahathir a second chance:
“Worried about Najib coming back? Why? We have voted in kleptocrats for decades and when we had the chance for something new, the elected prime minister said that the manifesto was not worth the paper it was printed on and his erstwhile allies just buried their heads in the sand.”
Malay vote
Harapan could have formulated policies and funded entitlement programmes which actually would have helped the dominant Malay polity - but it instead attempted to take over existing Umno programmes to maintain political hegemony and the result is that Umno still managed to make a comeback, with convicted political operatives leading the charge while embroiled in internal party feuds.
Not to mention cutting off vital subsidy programmes for disenfranchised Malay groups while claiming that these were cost-cutting measures.
Take the issue of race. Lim Guan Eng says that DAP never abandoned its principles to woo or appease the Malays. First of all, I have no idea what principles he is talking about. Like many DAP political operatives, Guan Eng likes to blather on about Bangsa Malaysia, but then he outsources getting the Malay vote to PKR and Amanah.
Of course, there was also Mahathir who was supposed to get the rural Malay vote, while DAP was sure that they had the Chinese vote in the bag. Now the only people that this plays out with are DAP supporters, the rest of the country see this as hypocrisy it is.
Of course, very few political operatives in PKR and Amanah dispense this kool-aid because they understand on the ground reality of dealing with communities who do not understand this Bangsa Malaysia kool-aid or view it as an existential threat to their economic survival. Remember when Lim Kit Siang said GE14 was probably the last battle for him, Mahathir and Anwar? Well, I guess nobody got the memo.
Anwar’s desperation to be prime minister has taken Harapan down roads that it should never have travelled in the first place. With Kit Siang's retirement, the Malay establishment has lost one of its whipping boys. They should be denied all of them.
After the disastrous outing with Mahathir, one would have thought that any kind of partnership with Umno would have been avoided like the plague, but Anwar continued to avail himself to anyone who would take his hand in the hopes of securing the throne. How does this look to the demographic you are wooing? Weak, insecure political operatives hoping anyone will be their friend in their quest for power.
This also furthered the narrative that the DAP was willing to work with anyone, including those they demonised as racist and extremist to get political power. Now of course we have this big tent nonsense which just makes the situation even more bizarre.
Harapan did not need Mahathir to break Umno’s two-thirds majority and to capture economically viable states. They are sure as hell that they do not need the ketuanan establishment to hang on to power in those states.
Meanwhile, the states Umno/BN or PAS manage are mired in the kind of corruption that makes the lesser of two evils argument more viable. PKR, DAP and Amanah do not need anyone else to attain federal power and the propaganda that it does merely sustains the system.
Now some folks would say it is too late for Harapan to figure out what it is. That they should have done this a long time ago. I do not share that view. It is never too late to reform, reorganise and return to the fray. The problem is that Harapan needs to take a hard look at itself and admit to mistakes and propaganda that did nothing to reform the system. In fact, it caused more problems.
They need a younger leadership that does not buy into this bangsa kool-aid nonsense but understands that racial and religious politics should be dealt with realistically and strategically, instead of attempting to gaslight Harapan supporters.
These young leaders should not be proxies to the old guard. And these young leaders need to have an agenda that the leadership in Harapan subscribes to.
What did Sun Tzu say? “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” - S.Thayaparan
Kit Siang retires from politics...
Tributes poured in as DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang retires from politics after a 56-year stint.Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (Muda) vice president Lim Wei Jiet described the DAP veteran as a ‘giant’ in Malaysia’s political arena.
Despite Kit Siang being detained and oppressed while serving in the opposition block, Wei Jiet said the DAP stalwart has never backed down from voicing out. “If we read through the (parliament) Hansard, we can see that his speech makes most sense.
Tributes poured in as DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang retires from politics after a 56-year stint.
Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (Muda) vice president Lim Wei Jiet described the DAP veteran as a ‘giant’ in Malaysia’s political arena.
Despite Kit Siang being detained and oppressed while serving in the opposition block, Wei Jiet said the DAP stalwart has never backed down from voicing out.
“If we read through the (parliament) Hansard, we can see that his speech makes most sense.“The battle for the Malaysian Dream must go on until it is achieved but this is in your hands,” he said.
The recent Johor state general election, added Lim, was a salutary reminder that the party’s Malaysian Dream for a united, democratic, just world-class great Malaysia is a long-term political struggle.
“There are many ups and downs, gains and losses, but we must remain constant in our objectives and never compromise our principles and ideals,” he said.
In the DAP congress earlier, Kit Siang’s son and the party’s outgoing secretary-general Lim Guan Eng delivered a speech that paid tribute to his father’s contributions to the party when it was established in 1966 by 11 men.
“Eleven young men, many in their 30s, stood up to make a commitment with a confident vision of a young nation that is a free and democratic Malaysia based on the principles of racial equality, and social and economic justice, and founded on the institutions of parliamentary democracy.
“DAP was young then. Saudara Dr Chen Man Hin our first national chairman, was probably the oldest, in his 40s.
“In 1967, a 26-year-old young man Saudara Lim Kit Siang, was co-opted into the CEC.
“Little did they know then, that Lim Kit Siang would become a giant amongst Malaysian politicians for his brilliance, courage, indomitable spirit and loyalty to ideals and principles,” said Guan Eng.
The younger Lim hailed his father as the longest-serving Opposition leader in Parliament and that many ministers considered Kit Siang their only worthy opponent.
Guan Eng went as far to say that many international correspondents regarded Kit Siang as “the best prime minister that Malaysia will never have because of his ethnicity”.
“Perhaps this is the reason he has also been demonised and falsely maligned as being responsible for the 1969 May 13 riots in Kuala Lumpur when he was in Kota Kinabalu, being anti-Malay, anti-Chinese and anti-Indian. Kit embodied the DAP’s lonely struggle in opposition and ultimate success in winning power,” said Guan Eng.
Guan Eng also spoke of the countless death threats and detentions faced by his father before the Internal Security Act was abolished.
In a brief glimpse of their familial ties, Guan Eng said: “Our family is jealous of the time that DAP has taken away from him and that we have to share his love with the DAP.”
However, he added that their family fully respects and supports Kit Siang’s life-long determination to make Malaysian lives better.
“For many of us who know that without Kit Siang leading our veteran leaders, there would be no DAP today as well as many of us who remained in DAP during the painful days in Opposition due to his example or the young leaders here who joined DAP because they were inspired by Kit Siang, we want to thank you for all you have done.
“On behalf of DAP and the DAP family, let us thank you deeply and gratefully from the bottom of our hearts,” said Guan Eng. - thetruenet
Hadi should go, before he is pushed...
A week before the Johor state elections, PAS president Hadi Awang urged voters not to support Umno, a party he associated with misconduct, malpractice and corruption. Isn’t this a case of the pot calling the kettle black? PAS politicians broke many rules during the lockdowns, with one menteri besar engaging with members of another community in a northern state, and threatening to divert a river flowing into another state.
Moreover, didn’t PAS have to pay the investigative reporter, Clare Rewcastle Brown, a substantial amount of damages in an out-of-court settlement aftar Hadi sued her over an article alleging that PAS had received RM90 million to guarantee its support for Umno and Barisan Nasional?
PAS is also seen as a party which does not tolerate criticism. One of its MPs, Khairuddin Aman Razali, was critical of PAS and got into the bad books of the party hierarchy. Hadi had said that Umno and BN suffered from numerous failings and weaknesses. “The parties are old and weak and with that comes many failings, corruption, misconduct and malpractice,” he was reported to have said.
“We hope the people of Johor will vote for Perikatan Nasional instead, and elect representatives who do not simply make promises but do the work.”
Both Hadi and Najib Razak were instrumental in causing the break-up of Pakatan Rakyat soon after GE13 and midway through Najib’s tenure as prime minister from 2013 to 2018. At the time, Najib openly supported Hadi’s call for hudud in Kelantan. Soon after the 61st PAS muktamar in 2015, the progressives in the party were wiped out, when 22 of the 23 seats in the central committee were won by the ulama.
Mat Sabu (Mohamad Satu) and Husam Musa formed Amanah, but the “bromance” between Najib and Hadi appears to be over. Remember when veteran Umno politician Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah described PAS as untrustworthy, and was like “a prostitute, going back and forth between DAP and Semangat 46”?
Hadi should have realised that just like in real-life romances, any political union which does not have a solid foundation of trust, mutual understanding, respect and common interests formed over a lengthy period, can only spell disaster for that union.
A few months ago, in November 2021, when a victorious Umno triumphed in the Melaka state elections, the rift between PAS and Umno grew wider. PAS was treated like a jilted lover. Both Najib and Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi are anxious men. The charges they face hang like millstones around their necks.
They would naturally prefer GE15 to be held as soon as possible, so that they can capitalise on the opposition supporters’ election fatigue and the fact that the opposition coalition is weak and in disarray. If both Najib and Zahid can pull off another election victory – this time in GE15 – who knows what the future might hold?
Nevertheless, Hadi is desperate to remain in power. He has tasted what it feels like to be in Putrajaya, and he is also aware that he, and his party, may not be able to secure many Malay votes in the future. This is ironic considering that both PAS and Umno have warned Malays in the past that only these two parties can protect Islam and defend the Malays.
In 2022, the Malays are more divided than ever, no thanks to both PAS and Umno. The politicians in PAS have been a total disappointment. Some are good at stoking racist and religious fires up north in Kedah. In Putrajaya, their ministers have shown dismal performances. Environment and water minister Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man, for instance, has been ridiculed for his lack of knowledge about environmental issues, and deputy minister for women, family and community development Siti Zailah Mohd Yusof for advocating forms of gentle beating by husbands to control their wives.
Hadi is aware that he has a limited shelf life. His loyalty towards Muhyiddin Yassin and Ismail Sabri Yaakob meant that he was rewarded with a post as special envoy to the Middle East, but he is aware that he is on borrowed time.
He has done little to improve Middle Eastern relations. He only teamed up with Najib because it was politically expedient, but Hadi is also a political opportunist. After the Sheraton Move, he promptly dropped Najib in favour of Muhyiddin. Najib faced incarceration, and teaming up with Muhyiddin seemed a better bet.
Hadi is able to hang onto power because PAS supporters are often warned that they should listen to their leaders and not question them.
If PAS continues along the same path, the party’s future success in elections will be humiliating. Only a new leader, with better and more youthful ideas, can salvage the party and claw back some of its former reputation. - Mariam Mokhtar
cheers.
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