The polls are the thing

Together in friendlier times, Muhyiddin and Tan Sri Abdul Hadi Awang. The state polls have set the cat among the pigeons and which way each player jumps will show what relationships will emerge. — Filepics/The Star

IN the final act of any great political drama, there comes a moment when the grand speeches must stop, the backroom whispers must cease, and the players must step into the light.

It is a timeless lesson straight from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Prince Hamlet knows this well; frustrated by the smiling, deceptive exterior of his uncle Claudius, he realises that words alone cannot unmask a hypocrite. He needs an engine – a catalyst. “The play’s the thing,” he famously declares, “wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.”