Pakatan Harapan’s series of blunders
Effectively, what happened was, after 50 years of trying to kick Umno out, which they finally succeeded in 2018, they go and help Umno grab back control of the country. How does Pakatan Harapan explain this to the voters who supported them in the 2008, 2013 and 2018 general elections?
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Malays have a saying: the chisel making noise after the house has been built. Yes, this is what we are seeing from Pakatan Harapan: an attempt to lock the stable door after the horse has bolted.
What is done is done. The train has left the station. So might as well keep quiet and accept the fact that over the last five years, Pakatan Harapan has committed a series of blunders that have dismantled what we started out to do back in 1999: which was to bring reforms to Malaysia.
There is a lot of grumbling going on regarding the new Cabinet. Some even call it a bloated Cabinet.
The UK has a Cabinet of 121 Ministers. Malaysia’s system follows the UK. So how many Ministers should Malaysia have? Fifteen? How many Ministers did Pakatan Harapan have when it was the government for 22 months? Fifteen? Pakatan Harapan had 55 Ministers and Deputy Ministers.
So, what has changed? Barisan Nasional, Pakatan Harapan, Perikatan Nasional — all the same. Why make it look like it was better during Pakatan Harapan’s time?
They say Muhyiddin Yassin resigned because 15 Umno MPs withdrew support from the government.
That is not true. If only 15 Umno MPs withdraw support, that is not enough to bring the government down. You need at least 111 MPs to bring the government down, not 15.
After 15 Umno MPs withdrew support from Muhyiddin, he was left with only 99 MPs. That means 121 MPs did not support him.
Does this mean 121 MPs supported Anwar Ibrahim or Pakatan Harapan?
No, only 88 MPs supported Anwar Ibrahim and Pakatan Harapan. That means 33 MPs did not support either Muhyiddin or Anwar.
And that is what DAP’s Liew Chin Tong meant when he said “Battle of the Three Kingdoms” or that GE15 is going to be a three-corner fight. Malaysia is going to see three political camps, and neither is going to win enough seats to form a government.
But that is still not the reason why Muhyiddin resigned. Muhyiddin knew that while he may no longer have 111 or more MPs supporting him, neither does Anwar Ibrahim. If Muhyiddin is left with only 99 MPs, for Anwar it is worse, he had only 88 MPs. Hence, without a clear successor, Muhyiddin would still possess the largest minority, even if he did not have a majority.
But it came to a point he got fed up and disgusted with the whole thing. Since the day he took office, he was constantly attacked and harassed by both the opposition as well as his own Umno comrades in the government. Umno was supposed to be in the government, but they were acting more opposition than the opposition.
The last straw was two Saturdays ago when he invited Pakatan Harapan to form a unity government with Perikatan Nasional and participate in the running of the country. When Pakatan Harapan rejected the invitation, Muhyiddin decided to throw in the towel and walk away.
What many do not know is that some of the younger DAP leaders had been discussing this unity government with Muhyiddin for the last one month. They went into detail regarding the “reform agenda” that this new unity government will adopt and implement.
Hence it was puzzling why Pakatan Harapan rejected the invitation after talking about it for a month and after coming to an agreement on what the “reform agenda” is going to be.
And this was Pakatan Harapan’s major blunder. Muhyiddin had opened the door to a unity government and the “reform agenda” that Pakatan Harapan wanted. But Pakatan Harapan slammed that door shut again. Why? No explanation was given.
What was Pakatan Harapan seeking and hoping for? Was it to make Anwar the prime minister? That could not have happened because they did not have even 90 MPs to be able to make Anwar the prime minister, and he would need not less than 111 MPs.
Did Pakatan Harapan really think Umno would agree to a DAP or DAP proxy as PM? Did Umno not repeat again and again that they wanted an Umno PM? In what way would making Anwar the PM be translated to an Umno PM?
Maybe the five or so Umno Court Cluster would agree to Anwar being made PM. But that is only because Anwar promised he would bury their court cases. The Court Cluster would agree to Mat Sabu as PM if their court cases can be buried.
Effectively, what happened was, after 50 years of trying to kick Umno out, which they finally succeeded in 2018, they go and help Umno grab back control of the country. How does Pakatan Harapan explain this to the voters who supported them in the 2008, 2013 and 2018 general elections?
