Pakatan Harapan must resolve four communications failures before the 15th General Election if PH is not to suffer from these four misperceptions
Pakatan Harapan must resolve four communications failures before the 15th General Election if PH is not to suffer from these four misperceptions.
The first is the image of the Pakatan Harapan Government.
Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, in his new book on his 22-month premiership of the Pakatan Harapan government said that there was the allegation that the DAP was dominating the PH Government.
He wrote (p. 112):
“The Dap is perceived as a ‘Chinese party’ representing Chinese Malaysians through a narrow range of ethnocentric interests – that’s the perception created by the UMNO cybertroopers and despite my arguments, they latched on to the idea that the Government (and thus the country) had somehow come under ‘Chinese’ control – it’s a deeply racist and insecure idea, but it was a key part of their strategy to undermine the Government. No matter how we explained ourselves, they would repeat that Malaysia needed a ‘Malay-Muslim Government’, and that the DAP was anti-Muslim and intended to destroy the Malays, and so forth. This went on continuously. This was all propaganda, and it came from the side that lost the general election, but Malaysians who are not very knowledgeable about politics tend to swallow this hook, line and sinker”.
In the section of “The DAP bogey” (p. 138), Mahathir wrote:
“…I took pains to provide equitable representation to the Cabinet for all the five partners in the coalition.
People accepted this, at first. Malays accepted this – it was a balanced Government that represented the interests of a wide cross-section of Malaysian society, and the fact was that we had never had a Malay-Muslim Government in Malaysia. However Najib and UMNO started playing up the fear that the DAP would somehow “destroy the Malays”. This resonated among the Malays. Why? For generations, people in UMNO and the Government had been claiming that the DAP was the enemy. DAP members were Communists, pro-Chinese chauvinists and so forth, and now they were in the Government: of course, they were planning to destroy the Malays – so it was claimed. This kind of thinking is credible where the Malays are concerned, but the DAP was never in control of the Pakatan Harapan Government, and was never out to destroy anyone. The DAP could not do anything without the consent of the Cabinet. They would put up a paper in the Cabinet, and we would debate. The Cabinet rejected many of their suggestions, which is the usual business of government. But Chinese Malaysians are frequently used as scapegoats and so it was quite easy for Malays to believe that the DAP was somehow pulling the strings of the Government”.
In p.145, Mahathir wrote:
“The allegation was not only that the DAP controlled th Pakatan Harapan but that I was under the control of DAP chief Lim Guan Eng, who served as Finance Minister in my Cabinet. These allegations were ridiculous. They were an insult to me and to Malays generally.”
But Mahathir presented only half the picture. For among the non-Malays, particularly the Chinese, there was the opposite allegation that the Pakatan Harapan was a Malay or Mahathir government, and the DAP had sold out the rights and interests of the non-Malays in general and that of the Chinese in particular.
This is the first communications failure of the Pakatan Harapan government, which Mahathir admitted the PH Government had failed to rebut these baseless and unfounded allegations.
The second PH communications failure is the failure to rebut the allegation that the 22-month PH government had failed to deliver the PH election manifesto.
Firstly, it is impossible for any government to fulfil an election manifesto meant for five years or 60 months in 22 months as the PH government was toppled by undemocratic, unconstitutional and illegitimate means in 22 months.
There are legitimate reasons for Malaysians to be unhappy with the pace for institutional reform or the rate of implementing the election pledges, and this was why I met Mahathir in mid-2019 and expressed my concern about the rate of fulfilling the PH election manifesto. I had intended to meet the Prime Minister after the mid-term of the PH government but the PH government was toppled after 22 months.
The PH mandate to fulfil the election manifesto was for five years. If in the first half of the term, the Implementation of the election manifesto was slow for whatever the reason, this could be remedied in the second half of the five-year term by an acceleration to implement the election pledges But this was rendered impossible by the Sheraton Move conspiracy which toppled the PH government in 22 months.
The third PH communications failure is the failure to impress on the people the importance of 14th General Election result on May 9, 2018 in ending the political hegemony of UMNO.
Before May 9, 2018, not many people expected UMNO to be toppled and the ending of the UMNO political hegemony which had reduced the role of even the other Barisan Nasional parties to that of mere supplicants or puppets.
As a result, Malaysia is in a new political scenario seeking a new political equilibrium where the the voices of the people matter in shaping the destiny of the nation resulting in the turmoil which saw four Prime Ministers in five years.
The lesson for Malaysians is to realise that a political struggle to make Malaysia a world-class great nation is a long and arduous one and require perseverance and stamina for the long haul.
It has taken half a century to break UMNO political hegemony.
We may need another half a century to achieve the Malaysian Dream to become a world-class great nation – as this cannot done in a year or two, or in one or two decades.
For half a century, we have been on the trajectory of decline, losing out to one nation after nation – Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Vietnam. Malaysians must end this trajectory of decline and strive instead to be a world-class great nation in various fields of human endeavour.
This will take decades and what better target than Malaysia’s Centennial in 2063.
The fourth PH communications failure is over the confidence-supply-reform (CSF) memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed between Prime Minister and the four Pakatan Harapan leaders on Sept. 13, 2021.
PH has failed to effectively rebut allegations that the PH had been co-opted into the Ismail Sabri Government and is no more an Opposition.
Nothing could be further from the truth. We must effectively communicate the following facts to Malaysians about the CSR MOU:
- That it was precisely because UMNO political hegemony was ended on May 9, 2018 and no single political party enjoys a simple majority of Parliament that we have created a situation where CSR MOU was feasible. The MOU was unheard-of in the past six decades because UMNO exercised political hegemony.
- The MoU does not provide for the political advancement of any PH political leader and the CSR MoU is an open document without any secret clauses. Any claim that the CSR MoU has secret clauses is baseless and exposes the person making such an allegation to the charges of a liar and no respect for the truth.
- We stopped the PH’s numbers of parliamentarians being used in the “Game of Thrones” of Government parties in the conspiracy to be Prime Minister, as whatever the combination and permutation, Anwar Ibrahim would not be named Prime Minister whether by PN or BN.
- The CSR MOU was to unite the efforts of all Malaysians to end the exponential increase of Covid-19 cases and deaths. There were 24,599 Covid-19 cases and 393 fatalities on August 26, 2021, five days after Ismail Sabri was sworn in as the ninth Prime Minister of Malaysia, If this exponential daily increase of Covid-19 cases and deaths had not been stopped, we might have cumulative totals of five to 10 million Covid-19 cases and 100,000 – 200,000 Covid-19 deaths on Dec. 31, instead of 2.75 million Covid-19 cases and 31,500 Covid-19 deaths.
- Pakatan Harapan insisted that the PN government allocate RM45 billion to help Malaysians affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.