Once the honeymoon is over

Joe Najib

I believe the government of the day faces a tougher challenge to retain office than BN ever did.

1. The flowery promises it made to elevate the rakyat’s living standards and reduce overall cost of living especially among the complaining M40 segment have to be delivered.

While some voted purely to bring Barisan Nasional’s 60-year reign to an end, some truly hold PH to their promises and expect nothing less. They don’t like empty promises.

2. The younger generation, the newly-registered voters, the Gen-Ys and Millennials, are rebellious in nature. Deep-rooted, they are still very much anti-establishment. They feel, more than they understand. Today, PH is the establishment.

Over the next 4 years, any reported wrong-doings by the government will have a greater impact than the wrong-doings done by the opposition. Because the former will involve national coffers, tax payers’ money, by people in power. The same effect that befell Barisan Nasional.

3.  The larger population I believe voted PH into power because of two overarching intentions – (1) to bring down DSN/BN, and (2) their united faith in Tun Mahathir.

So now that DSN is no longer in power (not even leading the opposition), + the likelihood of Tun M no longer spearheading the PH coalition in the coming few years, those two overarching intentions hold no relevance/strength anymore, and the influence of Point No.1 above becomes greater.

4. If Barisan Nasional alters its race-based party structure to form a true multi-racial, multi-ethnic opposition with young progressive faces, putting the warlords of yesteryears as back-benchers (or getting rid of them altogether), they will be a formidable option.

This is discounting the probability of PH folks jumping ship or switching sides over the next few years, bringing their individual support with them. As of current affairs, you can roughly tell several camps not happy and being vocal of Tun M’s decisions, like Rafizi. Imagine what will happen if Invoke becomes a neutral / stand-alone party. The support it’ll get from the young generation will be significant, and will affect PH more than it will affect BN.

These are some of the reasons why, in my opinion, PH needs to stop the blame game and pointing back to BN for all their future shortcomings and inability to deliver their promises, and start moving the country forward, with facts, figures, and tangible improvements in the rakyat’s daily lives.

The rational-thinking folks will understand what I’m saying.
The ‘uneducated’ ones, however, will say ‘takkan hari ni mengandung esok beranak’.

Kalau ketuanya mandul (impotent) and tak ambik ubat, memang sampai bila tak beranak.