PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim’s call for a dialogue with BN is being done in the open and not secretly, said PKR Youth in responding to PAS today.
The reactions from the Umno leaders and from their social media are what we have expected. Datuk Seri Anwar had taken the opportunity of the Merdeka eve to offer an olive branch so as to stem the slide in interracial and interfaith relationships and also to stem the slide in the economy,” Saifuddin told a press conference on Monday
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Anwar had made a major concession, agreeing to set aside his grouses over the conduct of the fraud-tainted May 5 general election, for the sake of national dialogue to lift the morale of the nation and to get the economy going again.
Sad to say, top Umno leaders had bombarded his call, and accused him of political “desperation”.
However, their attacks against Anwar have backfired with many criticizing the Umno bigwigs, who include Mukhriz Mahathir, Khairy Jamaluddin, Nazri Aziz and Shafie Apdal, of trying to protected their own political positions as well as the vested interest of their cronies.
“When country spend more time talking about religious/ethnic issues it means economy not well. It means distraction required,” former Umno leader Zaid Ibrahim said on Twitter.
“Truth is economic transformation must be real. Old ways and attitudes do not work anymore.
Mahathir agenda is over, and its will is exhausted. It has no answers, beyond blaming Anwar on the one side and Najib on the other. While the first is normal, the second is startling. A government does not determine who sits in the Opposition, but it does choose a stalwart for Prime Mininister
1984 affirmed nationalism, and 1989 indicated that corruption was a non-negotiable liability. In the Nineties the political gains of economic revival were destroyed by the politics of identity. In a unique variation, optimism became a common strand between two antagonist governments in the 21st century’s first decade. The wheel has slipped back into a quagmire of Voters live through five years of meek reality to vote, on one day, for redemption and resurrection. He who mobilises hope, wins.
“Whatever the grouses, the Prime Minister should give a good response and accept the offer made by Datuk Seri Anwar in good faith because these are issues that affect a lot of people. Just 3 days ago, I was in Singapore and the exchange rate was RM2.63 to the Singapore dollar. These are the signs that the situation is critical and requires immediate response from both sides of the political divide.
“Just a day ago, the PM gave news that made the nation very happy. This will have a chain reaction. So stop the posturing on issues such as the ‘anjing’ case (involving dog-trainer Chetz Yusof), the use of the word Allah, the destruction of the ‘surau’ (Muslim prayer room in Johor). Focus on what matters. The Opposition Leader had made the initiative. We hope PM Najib will respond positively and urgently,” added Saifuddin, referring to the shock fuel price hike announced by Najib a day ago.
The GE13 results, where Pakatan Rakyat got 51 percent of the popular votes shows that a big number of the Malays have awakened.
This is not only a fractured and polarised nation, it is also a failed nation. A nation whose institutions have been relegated to the ruling elite’s apparatus, a nation whose education system produces graduates that can’t think and are unemployable, a nation whose administrators are chosen not on merit and are totally inept, a nation whose majority race still depends on clutches and rent-seeking, and worst still a nation whose ruling elite is resorting to fraud and even treacherous act of giving citizenship for votes to sustain their hold on power.
Politicians, from Umno and other race-based parties know that they have to play the race card to win votes. In this respect, Umno knows the game very well. They are the master at this, and they are the ruling party.
To stop all this racial politics (and religious politics), Umno must first be stopped. Otherwise, race and religious politics will continue until the end of time, or until the Malays wake up to Umno’s deceit.
Umno leaders are stupid if they didn’t see this and chose to not to acknowledge this ‘awakening’ by reforming their parties as well as the government machinery that they control.
At least Pak Lah (Abdullah Ahmad Badawi) has awakened from what I read in the book ‘Awakening’, but not the so-called warlords and the grand old man, Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
This awakening is feared most by Umno which will result in the party losing political power in time to come. The biggest obstacle for Umno to reform is Mahathir. With Mahathir still alive and kicking, you can forget about implementing reforms.
Today Umno is not interested in promoting racial harmony and unity. They are very vindictive because believe the Chinese did not want to ‘cooperate” with the Malays anymore. That is why they are determined to show the film ‘Tanda Putera’.
But they forget that Umno does not represent all Malays in this country. In GE13, out of 7.3 million Malays who voted, only 3.4 million voted for Umno-BN but 3.9 million Malays voted for Pakatan Rakyat.
The Chinese also voted overwhelmingly for Pakatan because they wanted a clean government, cheap cars (without excise duties), toll-free highways and other promises as specified in the opposition manifesto.
Indeed, the Chinese still wanted to cooperate with the Malays – those in Pakatan – for a clean government. The Chinese reject Umno-BN because they are synonymous with rampant corruption, cronyism, nepotism, etc.
‘In GE13, out of 7.3 million Malays who voted, only 3.4 million voted for Umno-BN but 3.9 million Malays voted for Pakatan.
If creative politics is a pattern of inventive responses to society’s inertia and small margin for change, then Pakatan Rakyat leader Anwar Ibrahim’s call last week for a national dialogue among all political parties in the country is a step in the proactive vein.
Since political parties claim to speak nothing but gospel truth, it may be opportune, as we squabble towards another general election, to raise a Biblical parallel. Which of the two fetches more votes? A sermon on the Mount with its appeal to the meek who shall inherit the earth; or resurrection, which promises hope in the mess of despair?
Right now, the political situation in the country is at a standoff between a government that cannot garner credibility for its victory in the general election and an opposition that can shout but cannot shift the status quo.
Word on the grapevine says that the unity government overtures from the Najib Abdul Razak administration to PKR failed because it was seen as an attempt to split the unity of Pakatan Rakyat by drawing away from its fold the party that holds the Opposition coalition together.
The political charade of that maneuver was highlighted by the denials that an offer was made in the first place which issued from some quarters of the Najib administration after it became obvious that the overture had no chance of success.
To these quarters, post-failure denial is imperative to sustain the fiction that the BN victory does not need any more authenticity than what the parliamentary arithmetic provides it.
But the fact that the overture to PKR was made underscored the point about the BN victory’s want of credibility and the corresponding need to shore it up with a tie-up with PKR that would disintegrate the opposition.
That PKR spurned the offer reflected the strength of the underlying consensus in Pakatan that the majority of voters wanted change and felt that the opposition coalition was the better vehicle by which to realise it.
Prior to the general election, Pakatan had to contend with the perception that the coalition’s unity was a matter of mere expedience, and was not anything more substantive.
Stay United in Common Cause
Sure, the secularity of DAP consorted uneasily with the theocratic inclinations of PAS but as time wore on, it became more and more evident that voters’ desire for political reform and change exerted a dynamic on the nature of the inter-party relations within Pakatan.
The pull of this dynamic impelled Pakatan towards unity as leaders within the coalition sensed that the tide of voter sentiment in favor of change was strong enough to compel those doubting the viability of the opposition to submerge their doubts.
True, the continuing success of the Pakatan state governments in Penang and Selangor helped sustain the belief that it was not mere political expedience that accounted for their both state administrations’ viability.
Something stronger – a shared desire to prove that the Opposition could provide better governance to a populace long starved of it – has also been at work in welding the coalition together.
Pakatan’s Anwar is fond of citing the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset on the need not to underestimate the intelligence of the masses.
Fifty-seven percent of those who voted in the general election marked their ballots for change.
Extrapolating from this, one can contend that a majority of the electorate wants Pakatan to stay together.
Leading off from here, one can also argue that the decision of PKR to spurn the offer of a tie-up with UMNO-BN accords with the wishes of the majority of voters.
But people are apt to become bored with a standoff which is why Anwar’s can for a national dialogue on the daunting array of problems facing the nation – from the threat of national insolvency, mounting crime, debased education, racial and religious tensions, and endemic corruption – is a proactive response to the prevalent stagnation in national affairs.
The call has elicited contempt from UMNO quarters, but that is only to be expected. These quarters have deprecated the need for a dialogue and have said whatever needs be discussed and debated ought to be done in Parliament.
Are they not in danger of underestimating the intelligence of the masses which voted for change and who know that their push for it has been stalled by a gerrymandered electoral process that has yielded in parliamentary representation skewed towards maintenance of the status quo rather than change?
In the next several weeks, if UMNO-BN continues to be constrained by the combination of its lack of ideas and if it conducts governance in business-as-usual mode, the need for more creative responses from Pakatan would require it to come with something to refresh the political script.
There is no need to let the cat out of the bag before its time, but to set the feline among the pigeons is a necessity in the face of a static situation whose sterility will be off-putting to voters.
The maintenance of voter interest is one of the deeper challenges of the current situation. Pakatan must demonstrate that it can be creative in the face of looming UMNO-BN sterility and refusal to change.
