COMMENT | First off, what happened to PKR’s Tian Chua is an absolute disgrace. I despise political thuggery and this is exactly what this incident was. There is no justification whatsoever for Tian Chua’s assault and this is just another example of how PKR members oftentimes make a bad situation worse. The current prime minister is a bogus prime minister – until and unless he survives a no-confidence vote – and his cabinet will be a cabinet of rakes and knaves whose only interest will be to lay the groundwork for further dismantling of democratic processes in this country.

Perikatan Nasional is a coward’s government. This was not some sort of populist uprising that supplanted the traditional order through the ballot box. This was not even a broad-based coalition of power usurpation but rather the fallout from decades-long political rivalry and treachery. In other words, the voting demographic of the rakyat played no part in this. If there were an election and Pakatan Harapan lost, then sure, we have to give the new government a chance. That’s democracy, folks. But a government whose basis is treachery and deceit has no moral legitimacy.

What the agents of the fascist state are hoping for is that apathy and resignation set in and their mendacity would be rewarded. Umno folks have been calling me and saying wait till he announces his cabinet before “pouncing lah, Thaya”, but how can someone like me evaluate anything of this backdoor government when these kleptomaniacs – they can’t help themselves of their urge to steal power - do not have a manifesto or framework to evaluate against? They get high scores for skullduggery, though.

When I see all these politicians thanking God that their knavery was rewarded, I can only imagine the kind of religious justifications they will offer when promulgating dodgy policy. Ironically, the eighth PM is in the same position as his predecessor Dr Mahathir Mohamad. The latter chafed at sharing power and reaching consensus with his allies. The new PM has the same problem.

He has to compromise with his former allies which would not be so much of a problem but he also has to determine how much leeway PAS gets. If PAS in Kelantan and Terengganu, for instance, had demonstrated that they could run states effectively without the aid of the federal government — which for so long they were estranged from — then this would be something.

While Umno and by extension the eighth PM can rely on a history of balancing racial and religious imperatives with the other races in Malaysia, Umno is going to demand a steep price for bolstering Bersatu. That is if Bersatu is going to be in existence. How exactly the 8th PM is going to pass legislation in Parliament with the way it is now is worth noting. While there could be efforts to buy MPs, this has to be put in the context of a slowed-down economy and the still unknowable impact of the coronavirus.

The eighth PM may think that he has the knowledge and expertise to handle the vagaries of the economy, ethnic relations and religious flashpoints. However, having positioned himself as an ultra-nationalist, he is going to find it difficult to retreat from stupid positions because he will be egged on by his allies who need to justify this move to their respective bases. As usual, the anti-Chinese propaganda is being used as the justification for the "Sheraton Move". While PKR leader Anwar Ibrahim is being used to justify the Malay establishment's need to destroy him, the anti-Chinese narrative is shaping up as the nativists' agenda to justify policy and as an agenda for any upcoming election.

"Today I am acting for the interest of the Malays... I have worked hard, said I want to serve but I became a barua (lackey), I was really a barua,” – said Norhizam Hassan Baktee (below), advancing the nefarious Chinese propaganda – read DAP – were attempting to supplant Malay hegemony and those like him (in the DAP) were merely stooges.

In this way, PN can paint any Malay associated with the DAP as traitors to their own kind. The fact is that Bersatu has always had to view the DAP with a certain amount of contempt because, for years, successive Mahathir-led governments painted the DAP as the bogeyman of Malay politics. How many times have I pointed out that the far-right and most voters of race-based politics have no problems with the dissonance in the narratives they are peddling and consume.

This means that the DAP can be the running dogs of Bersatu and, at the same time, the power behind the throne. Even Mahathir encouraged this narrative with his snarky responses and those of his henchmen, like the political operative who said that he was all alone against the "puak-puak DAP". "Bangsa DAP” and “puak-puak DAP” are standard far-right talking points and something that politicians, supporters and the various cottage industries of aggrieved Bersatu proxies have used before. It is an effective counter-narrative to the Bangsa Malaysia propaganda that Bersatu obviously does not promote or believe in private.

Please keep in mind that anti-DAP propaganda is anti-Chinese propaganda. I have been critical of party secretary-general Lim Guan Eng, and my writings are a matter of public record, but this mendacious “arrogant” narrative is exactly the kind of propaganda that the DAP will always face. Nobody talks about the arrogance of Malay leaders and their polemics against their own community. When a Malay leader is arrogant or abrasive, he’s a “maverick” or some sort of folksy hero.

A Chinese political operative, meanwhile, is signalled out for supposed bad behaviour and his political ineptness then becomes a racial criticism against his whole party and, by extension, the Chinese community. Which is why GPS says they will not work with the DAP, instead of saying working with Guan Eng would be difficult. They would rather use the DAP as a proxy. The MCA is going to have to play the "Hadi game", which essentially means saving Malaysia from the “Chinese”, which the DAP is a proxy for. Can the MCA live with that? I suppose so.

The entire narrative of the far-right and agents of the fascist state is that there are "good" Chinese who work for them and "bad" Chinese who work against them. So, what exactly does saving Malaysia mean to folks like former PKR member Azmin Ali, PAS leader Abdul Hadi Awang and the eighth PM? Or maybe saving Malaysia means saving yourself from the wrath of Umno as reported in the media -"They were scared of prosecution or rather vengeance”.

Since this has been reported in the press, yes, a few political operatives in PN have confided in me the very same thing – gleefully – that Bersatu is scared of what would happen to them if Umno regains power. This is understandable. Unlike PKR, DAP and Amanah, whose political operatives had faced the wrath of the state, most of the Bersatu folk were comfortable in the parties kleptomania before the old maverick decided that he would rather burn the house down than be ignored by Najib.

How long will the bread and circuses last before the Umno/PAS base realises that this backdoor government is a one-trick pony? Who knows? This depends on how sincere Pakatan Harapan is in wanting to regain power and organise itself as an effective democratic insurgency.