Pakatan should advance boldly, not scramble backwards

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. -filepic

Don’t look to a past filled with marriages of convenience; build a stronger future on a foundation of well-defined shared values and ideals.

I WAS driving with my wife from Merang to Kuantan to help pick up some durians to deliver to some of Malaysia’s best gamers.

It was a long drive through beautiful countryside, so for conversation, I decided to ask my wife: “What do you think Pakatan Harapan should do?”

My wife hardly follows politics, and is generally not particularly interested in the subject. This made her answer even more profound.

She said something like: What it really comes down to is values. You can see the true values of an organisation or movement based on the decisions they make. If you have strong and consistent values, then whatever the storms and setbacks, you stay true to a course. Without strong and consistent values, you will just flail about aimlessly making a lot of noise, going nowhere fast.

I confess I was surprised and impressed, and ever more convinced that I had married the right woman.

So, if we look at last week’s internal argument about who Pakatan’s candidate for prime minister should be, what can we tell about the organisation?

Given how much emotion and drama were involved, it’s probably safe to say that a top priority for most of Pakatan now is how to launch a countercoup against the current government.

Vast amounts of time and energy seem to go into this question, and the subsequent all-important question of who the PM would be, should such a countercoup succeed.

What we really should be asking instead is: Is this really the most important question on the table?

Is the only question that matters is who is in power? And who a hypothetical new PM would be, if (and this is a big if) Pakatan really did have the numbers for a countercoup?

This continuing obsession over a countercoup, especially one in which Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad would emerge once again as prime minister, is trying to take a shortcut back into the past, at a time when Pakatan should be thinking about stepping boldly into a brighter future.

I think that true naiveté would be believing that Dr Mahathir’s third term would differ in any significant way from his second term. I think he’s made clear what his beliefs are on many issues, including those regarding the nexus between race and politics in Malaysia.

He’s certainly earned the right to have those beliefs, but I suppose it should not be surprising that the views of some of us on topics like these differ significantly from someone born around the time of Queen Elizabeth II.

The other most obvious reason to stop obsessing about countercoups is this delusionary thinking that the end result would be any more stable than the past or present.

As political analyst Wong Chin Huat likes to point out, if a majority of 139 seats in Parliament was not enough to ensure stability, then what number could Pakatan possibly come up with in our current landscape and reality that would be any more stable?

Again, these are the wrong questions. The right question we should be asking is: what new ideas can Pakatan bring to the table today?

There has been literally zero discussion about this – about what policies the next (theoretical) Pakatan government are championing, what they would like to do differently (both compared with the current government, and compared with the last time they were in power), and what their real values are.

In place of this, we get unconvincing platitudes about the “people’s mandate”. Yes, Pakatan got a convincing mandate in 2018, off the heels of three-cornered fights between Pakatan, Barisan Nasional and PAS.

If Pakatan really were all about “mandates” though, then technically, the best thing for them to push for would be snap elections. I don’t think this is a good idea for various reasons, and Pakatan probably doesn’t think it’s a good idea because I doubt they are confident of winning.

So, I think this argument about “mandate” is a red herring.

The next government can’t just be about putting people like Datuk Seri Najib Razak in jail. I think many of the intelligentsia are upset about political appointments to government-linked companies, but I don’t imagine that issue is a hot-button one throughout the country.

I confess I expected decisions around the Covid-19 pandemic to end up much worse, but unless there’s a second wave secretly brewing, we appear to have moved relatively successfully out of crisis mode.

So, what is Pakatan really selling here?

Yes, a countercoup is the fastest way to get everyone back their ministerial positions, and I don’t doubt that if they took over power tomorrow, Pakatan would make some incremental improvements that we would enjoy.

But is this really the best possible option for Malaysia’s long-term interests?

Or is this the perfect time for Pakatan to take a step back and reconsider its own identity and values?

Perhaps some in Pakatan feel that if this current government is not replaced soon, it will have time to consolidate power and wipe Pakatan out in a matter of years – thus the urgency.

This argument would however betray a lack of self-confidence and conviction that would one way or another lead to the same result in any case.

DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang most recently said that supporting Dr Mahathir is PKR president Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s best chance to become PM.

It isn’t. If you take time to think about what such a statement really means and implies, it will become clear how ludicrous that suggestion is.

Having Anwar support Dr Mahathir, however, is undoubtedly the “fastest” way for former ministers from Pakatan to get their old jobs back. Surely we are wise enough by now to realise, however, that “fastest” is not the same as “best”.

Covid-19 in and of itself is looking less and less likely to be a catalyst for a huge societal shake-up some of us were thinking about. All this means is that if we want such a shake-up, we’ll have to do it ourselves.

Is a reset to the same old landscape we had pre-Sheraton Move really the best we can come up with? Is the old Pakatan formula really so good that it does not need such a shake-up?

All three major component parties in Pakatan – whether they acknowledge or recognise it – are in fact facing crises of identity.

Rather than taking swift measures to cut out various cancerous elements, PKR is letting itself bleed slowly to death, creating the perception over time of rats abandoning a sinking ship.

It has all the makings of a party with a fresh new ideology, but the PKR brand association has almost irreparably become one of perpetual infighting, and little to no talk of ideas or ideals.

Parti Amanah Negara has had a bit of a crisis of identity from the very start. Who are they really? Who is their base? Are they anything beyond “PAS lite”? What do they stand for? What do they offer? Would they win a single seat if they were not part of a coalition? If all of their MPs contested under the flag of a different Pakatan party, would the results be any different? Does anyone really know?

The most interesting case however is probably that of DAP. Again, that’s perhaps an entire article in and of itself.

For now, suffice it to say: isn’t the first Pakatan government basically as far as DAP can possibly go under its old form?

If they were to continue being associated primarily as a Chinese or non-Malay party, then the extremely severe backlash (however artificially engineered) is something that can be brought out to haunt anyone associated with the DAP brand again and again.

Such concerted non-Malay political power, especially in the context of an extremely divided Malay political landscape, will always make picking on them like shooting bogeymen in a barrel. Collapsing any government in which they are a part – as happened with the Sheraton Move – will likely always be easy.

A deep, top to bottom comprehensive DAP rebrand is perhaps their only viable option. But even as I write these words, I’m near certain no one within the party will be interested in such a thing (if I’m wrong, please feel free to get in touch).

My wife and I were in beautiful Terengganu for a short scuba diving trip. When you’re on the surface of the water, if you panic and thrash about, this only increases your chances of drowning. If you remain calm, however, you’ll find that your body floats naturally.

This is no longer the time to thrash about trying to convince parliamentarians to change sides. That ship has more than likely sailed, and it was always sailing in the wrong direction anyway.

This is a time to take a deep breath, stay calm, and really reflect on your ideals, values, and shared goals (if any). This is a time for Young Turks both inside and outside Pakatan to plan for the next generation – not just the next election.

The whole reason the Pakatan government collapsed in the first place was because it was not fundamentally built on shared values; it was built on convenience and common enemies. Foundation is everything, and if you get that foundation right, it truly won’t matter who the candidate for PM is.

Old strategies, old ideas, and old brand associations will bring old results. If you are willing to do the painful work of internal reform however, then you will add value to Malaysia – regardless of how many general elections it takes.

NATHANIEL TAN saw his first whale shark! He is a strategic communications consultant who can be reached at [e-mail].