Three-cornered fights are Opposition’s Achilles’ heel
Common sense and history tells us that without a unified Opposition, Barisan Nasional is invariably the winner no matter what scandals they are dodging presently.
Koon Yew Yin, Free Malaysia Today
By now it is clear that even with the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) financial scandal, Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s campaign against Prime Minister Najib Razak, the pain of the Goods and Services Tax and numerous alleged incidences of corruption, abuse and mismanagement of the economy by the government, it still does not mean that the next general election will be won by the Opposition coalition.
This is not to say that we should under-estimate the average Malaysian’s disillusionment with, and distrust of, Umno and its partner parties in the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition. Even the most ignorant of Umno members, are fully aware of how division chiefs enrich themselves with fat contracts, scholarships for their children including jobs in the civil service for relatives and friends, etc.
Umno members are no fools. They know that the higher up one gets in the party leadership, the more the goodies they can accumulate. So they are not surprised that RM2.6 billion was deposited in Prime Minister Najib Razak’s personal bank accounts.
Many of the more ethical and principled Umno members agree that this is wrong. But will this mean that they will not vote for Umno in the next elections? I hope they listen to their conscience and I am sure many other Malaysians will join me in wishing the same.
But hope is not enough.
What will win the next general election is not Umno leaders and members like former Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and former Premier Mahathir forsaking the party and voting for the Opposition nor will it be public anger or revulsion at the present government that alone should be enough to bring Umno and BN down.
What will win the elections is a strong, solid and unified Opposition. This is such a no-brainer that one would have thought that all the parties in the Opposition, especially the more progressive DAP and PKR, would make this the first of the five or ten commandments that they agree to.
However, recent events give the impression that this pre-condition of Opposition electoral success has either been forgotten or sidelined. Hence it is reassuring to know that this is the main message that has emerged from the recently held PKR congress i.e. ensuring a united and strong Opposition.
Common sense and history tells us that without a unified Opposition and especially whenever three or more cornered fights take place in any election in Malaysia, the BN is invariably the winner.
We know that even before the election proper, gerrymandering has already given BN candidates – especially in rural areas – a head start. This BN advantage will become impossible to overcome should there be two or three candidates from the Opposition taking on the BN candidate.
The other major message from the PKR congress that it will work to ensure only two-way fights take place during the next election is very assuring to those of us who want to see change, or if not change, at least the continuation of a strong Opposition to provide a check and balance in our political system.
The possibility of three or more cornered fights is strongest in East Malaysia where Opposition parties have been bickering openly as well as stabbing each other in the back. The latest recruit into PKR’s leadership ranks, Saifuddin Abdullah, who has been given the job of mediating and resolving the competing seat claims of PKR and DAP in the coming Sarawak state elections has a big challenge in front of him.
