Bungalow aside, is Lim Guan Eng out to sabotage Malay unity?
The Third Force
On a scale of ‘being incredibly stupid’ to ‘being incredibly smart’, Lim Guan Eng registers midway as ‘being slow’ – which is why, the DAP Secretary General shouldn’t be putting his smart money on smart-ass politics. Instead, he should be learning the art of war from UMNO and PAS, who have been setting the stage for the emergence of a new phenomenon – a greater Malay conscience.
Done with years of partisan bickering, the two Muslim factions seem to realise that mutual tolerance would bring about a wider outlook and a deeper understanding of the Malay dilemma. Last Wednesday, Guan Eng proved that to be his biggest problem, perhaps even nightmare. Part of a caption from the Malay Mail Online – A Vote for PAS is a Vote for UMNO – summed up the caution he drew immediately after it became apparent to him that PAS was moderating its political appeal.
Guan Eng was stumped into caution following a press release that Dato’ Seri Haji Abdul Hadi Awang of PAS had issued together with his counterpart from Parti Ikatan Bangsa Malaysia (Ikatan), Tan Sri Abdul Kadir Sheikh Fadzir. According to the duo, leaders from PAS and Ikatan had huddled to negotiate terms of a collaborative framework by which a new political bloc may function.
Trending on a platform of moderation, both Hadi and Kadir expressed their desire to bring about positive change for the country. But almost immediately after their ambitions broke into print, Guan Eng began funnelling doubt by questioning if a bloc that was provisioned within a non-inclusive framework was capable of effecting change.
All the doubts, all the insinuations – and yet, the DAP Secretary General meant not a word he said. All he did was last Wednesday was to litter his words with spurious verbiage to draw a veil over his innermost fears. Like Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohammad, Guan Eng tends to say one thing, but means something else. He’ll get you to second-guess him, only to twist your arm later with the hand of the law.
So what was it that got him quivering like jelly? That Ikatan was a potential go-between for UMNO and PAS and was capable of bringing moderate and hardliner Muslims together on a single platform?
Precisely!
It hit Guan Eng like a wall of bricks that PAS was reinventing its appeal around smaller parties with moderate leaders. The fact that PAS was far to UMNO’s left made it necessary for the Islamist party to seek a mediatory partner – one that was part moderate, part egalitarian – to serve as the nexus between the two establishments.
Fitting that bill was Ikatan, which, as we already know, is a multi-racial affair, postured against moderation. Established by Tan Sri Abdul Kadir Sheikh Fadzir in 2012, the party aims to reconstitute the elements of moderation and liberalism as they were once advocated by Tunku Abdul Rahman. Hadi, on the other hand, has long realised the need for UMNO and PAS to reconcile on middle ground, and knew then as he does now that PAS and Ikatan would be sufficiently equipped to draw the best attitudes from a badly splintered and diverse Malay base.
Put differently, Hadi has long figured out that Muslim moderates are willing to assemble on the same page with hardliners if problems were hashed out on mutually agreeable platforms. But Pakatan Harapan has yet to hear of such a thing, let alone believe it – the opposition coalition remains stranded in gridlock by constant bickering – forever being of the opinion that tolerance could only be fostered if all parties agreed to disagree.
Guan Eng has since realised the misconception, but knows that Pakatan Harapan is ill-capacitated to re-establish its base on mutually cohesive platitudes. So you can see now why it bothers Guan Eng to the nth degree that Ikatan has suddenly emerged from nowhere , and why it was necessary for him to shift the spotlight onto PAS last Wednesday.
The bottom-line is this – Guan Eng will do anything, perhaps even lie, to prevent the nascence of a greater Malay conscience, which he feels would jeopardise DAP’s goal of securing a winning Malay ballot come the 15th general elections in 2023.
