The race and religion factor
Creating a bogeyman is a well-known fear-mongering tool in politics. Once you got the public to unite against a common threat, usually someone of different race or religion than you then you got you work laid out much easier for you. And who else is easy picking as the bogeyman in Malaysian politics other than allegedly Chinese-controlled DAP party. Mostly because they are quite influential at national level thus considered a genuine threat to Malay-based parties, opposition and government alike.
This is also not helped by the action of a few rogue DAP politicians who commit one faux pas after another, antagonising the Malay populace by their insensitive or downright rude remarks. They are a minority of course but they get amplified real quickly by their detractors and that is not easily forgotten. It doesn’t matter if the DAP party is getting increasingly multiracial and more inclusive, attracting membership from Malays and other races. And also their governing record in Penang for example was stellar with good economic and social progress and minimum corruption. These race supremacist would carry on targeting DAP just because of their racial composition.
Muhyiddin Yassin was remembered for proclaiming that he is Malay first and Malaysian second. A heart-warming to say if you want to get the adoration of fellow Malays but appalling in multiracial Malaysia. What’s wrong with taking care of all Malaysians regardless of race? From the latest tidbits of information that surfaced, Muhyiddin was said to blame the eroding support of the constituents to Pakatan Harapan on DAP and DAP alone (what else is new). He’s basically saying if PH continue to work with DAP, they will lose major votes to the UMNO-PAS coalition. So is it any wonder when he jumped at the chance to switch allegiance to the latter following the Sheraton move? Or was this his plan all along? Guess we’ll never know.
The Mahathir factor
When Mahathir’s Bersatu party pulled out of the PH coalition, Mahathir had a few choices he could me. He could resign as prime minister and party chairman like he did or he could take that opportunity to retire and back Anwar, his anointed successor for the premiership post. Unfortunately, Mahathir did the former and decided to gamble with his proposed unity government idea which was rejected wholesale by his proponents and opponents. Whether Mahathir truly wish to pass the baton to Anwar or not, I guess we’ll never know. We know he had a history with Anwar and although they have publicly forgive and patch up, who knows what’s really going on in that sly brain of his. One thing for sure, his choices ultimately cost the coalition the government.
The Kartel factor
Finally we’re going to address the elephant in the room, the Kartel or also known as the Azmin Ali camp. I have related a brief history of their clash in pursuit of power and influence in the previous blog post. Their tussle for power had lead to some ingenious scheming and manoeuvring that ultimately brought us the fateful Sheraton move. Azmin, Muhyiddin and his ilk will be forever remembered as traitors who brought down the Pakatan Harapan government who derived their mandate from the people.
And now for my predictions for this new Perikatan Nasional government. As you can see we would lose much of the freedom, liberty and reforms that we enjoyed during PH’s short stint as government. Sure they are not without fault buy I guarantee you, PN’s conservative ethnographic-religious-supremacist government will be a hundred fold worse. Sure, there will be some new policies that benefit the Malay muslim population but the rest of us will be neglected if not oppressed altogether. I also predict it won't be long before this newly minted PN government go at each other's throat. Coming from 3 main parties with different ideologies and ambitions, I doubt their marriage of convenience would withstand the test of time. Let’s see how many bingos we can cross off the list below.
- UMNO members on corruption trial will walk free
- No more freedom of speech, freedom of expression and right to assemble
- RUU 355 will be passed, hudud later if we’re lucky
- Government owned media & GLCs will become propaganda machinery again
- Race supremacists and thugs will become more brazen and bold, spewing hatred and breaking the law
- Wither independent judiciary?
- Corruption and abuse will be the norm again
- Non-bumiputra and bumis of the wrong religion will be targeted and treated as second class citizens
- New more conservative and theocratic education policy
- Censorship of mass media, Internet, social media, games
