Pakatan’s prime problem
The biggest problem with Pakatan’s proposal is not Dr Mahathir.
PAKATAN Harapan has chosen their champion(s) to take on the Barisan Nasional, or rather, the prime minister and his deputy. In their convention a few days ago, they finalised the two who would be their choice to lead Malaysia, should they win the upcoming general elections –Dr Mahathir Mohamad as PM and Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail as deputy. With this they hope to put to rest all unrest about the two positions. Or have they?
While the issue of choice is clear, the opposition coalition does not seem to really have a choice but to field Dr Mahathir as a political compromise between PPBM-Amanah-PKR (DAP is almost automatically excluded from equations involving the top two).
It isn’t merely a compromise of candidate between the parties, it’s a compromise on who is best believed to be able to bring the critical vote home, and in doing so, ensure Pakatan obtains the highest probability of success at the ballot.
With Dr Mahathir at the helm, Pakatan hopes to (re) capture the imagination of the rural and suburban Malay-Muslim vote, and a sizeable portion of the pro-Barisan vote amongst the older non-Malay-Muslim voters who would reminisce an older, romantic notion of Malaysia – one with less financial woes, at least on the surface, one with better race relations, a stronger economy, an enviable development pace, a stronger reputation abroad, and all of which they believe Dr Mahathir is responsible for.
Unfortunately in doing so, Pakatan now risks losing the support of those who believe that Dr Mahathir is “also” responsible for the corruption, decay of public institutions, lack of judicial freedom and so on.
In other words, Pakatan is taking a risk at attempting an almost-polar reversal of their traditional campaign – capitalising on the PAS-Umno vote split, capturing as much of the rural support as they can while convincing their traditional support base Dr Mahathir is not the evil guy they said he was for the past 30 years.
To capitalise on the perceived happier economic situation in the 90s when Dr Mahathir was Prime Minister, his Vision 2020 and the development he brought.
Or playing up the aspect of Mahathirism that they have downplayed while playing down the aspect they have played up, again, for the last 30 years, in just three months.
To say that is a tall order is an understatement. It would probably be easier to obtain a royal pardon for a convicted person.
Speaking of which, the next step is supposed to be for Anwar Ibrahim to take over after obtaining a royal pardon.
While it seems another impossible hurdle, stranger things have happened.
In 1969, Lim Kit Siang was on the verge of disqualification as an MP due to a conviction, but was granted a royal pardon.
Years later, Harun Idris was granted a royal pardon before finishing his sentence for corruption.
And in what is presumably some form of assurance, Wan Azizah has been put as a candidate Deputy Prime Minister.
As the Kajang Move demonstrated, sometimes applying pressure on the Rulers can backfire. Apart from eroded public trust, Anwar had his Selangor title revoked by the palace.
But assuming again, the plan succeeds and Anwar does successfully get his royal pardon, that would again involve someone vacating a seat for him, which in this case would likely be Wan Azizah herself, who would be warming the seat for him for at least the third time.
This to me presents another problem because on one hand Pakatan repeatedly promotes her as a capable and strong leader (which is quite true), but at the same time keeps making her vacate her seat for her husband.
Then presumably, Dr Mahathir steps down and Anwar takes the helm, assisted by a PPBM or Amanah or maybe PKR leader.
So basically, Pakatan’s choice for PM and DPM are both, interim.
If that is the case, the Pakatan campaign, should, from the get-go, inform the electorate who their final PM- DPM is going to be? Anwar-Muhyiddin, or Anwar-Mat Sabu or whoever they have in mind.
“Win first” is just the political equivalent for “we have no idea” and the current political impatience from the traditional voter base would not be favourable to more doublespeak. The interest should be a viable leadership that can truly reform the country and not maintaining of political dynasties.
So would their plan for reform, it needs to be spelt out properly and focus on things that matter most like restoring the Constitution and a 100-day plan, which preferably leaves out things like free EPL matches.
The biggest problem with Pakatan’s proposal is not Dr Mahathir.
