COMMENT | I have no idea if the corruption charges against DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng will stick but I do know that those charges are but an opening salvo for a Malay "uber alles" government running low on ideas and operating on the fumes of race and religion.

Now, some folks may take offence to the fact that I claim this is a Malay uber alles government. While the term is mine, the reality is that numerous political operatives from Umno, PAS and Bersatu have themselves claimed that this is a Malay-first government meant to rally the majority to the agenda of self-preservation and "national unity". Their statements are all a matter of public record, whether you refer to the Malay, English, Tamil or Chinese media.

When I say that this is a politically-motivated prosecution, this does not mean that I think Guan Eng is innocent or guilty. In a functional system, that would be for the courts to determine. What I mean is that Perikatan Nasional (PN) wants to destroy Guan Eng and the DAP for political reasons. How can anyone get justice when the state says that it is by definition an ethnocracy?

The aim of these charges against the former finance minister and his wife are to further a racial and religious narrative. A narrative that is desperately needed to mitigate the economics of this pandemic and, of course, decades of neglect bestowed upon the majority polity by a racial system that furthered cronyism and corruption at the expense of the welfare of the majority.

The PN government knows that this politically-motivated prosecution will rile up sentiments on both sides. They know they are playing a good hand because, with the conviction of Najib (something that benefits certain factions of the PN government), the state can say that this is not a politically-motivated witch hunt, but rather just another case about corruption.

Just like the redo of the firefighter Muhammad Adib Mohd Kassim's case and the continuing saga of the classification of the defunct Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) terrorist group, the redo of this Penang tunnel corruption case is something that has been on the minds of the PN regime since moving into Putrajaya through the backdoor.

While M Indira Gandhi has to threaten a hunger strike to get her child back (which she has not), the far-right only has to file police reports for the ground to sway under non-Malay feet.

For a long time, Guan Eng was in their crosshairs because, like his father, he is a galvanising force for the Chinese community. What better way to demonstrate the power of the state than by constructing a narrative that the DAP is not as "clean" as it claims to be.

What better way to assuage the anger of a political establishment that defines itself along racial and religious lines and then has to suffer the humiliation of the public spectacle of its leaders being charged with corruption. Of course, the fact that the religious establishment tells believers that it is better to be led by corrupt Muslim leaders than by honest non-Muslim leaders does not help.

This is why the PAS top brass has no problems showing solidarity with recently convicted former prime minister Najib and believing that he will clear his name on appeal. For some odd reason, they seem very sure of that.

What this persecution is meant to do is put everyone in their corners. Malays will see how the "Chinese" community reacts when one of their leaders is charged with corruption.

The public vitriol against the Malay community is then used as propaganda by the political establishment because a sizable chunk of the Malay polity is with Umno, PAS, and Bersatu, which then reinforces racial narratives that the Malay community is under siege.

This is a Trumpian play of white grievance politics that is in fact mainstream – Malay grievance – in Malaysian politics. The PN government has just taken it to its logical extreme.
The PN government knows that it has lost the non-Malay vote. What they want is for Malay sentiment to remain with them. Now, if only they can make an election pact that satisfies the diverse warlords and political backers that make up the PN regime.

After building the DAP as an existential threat to the Malay polity, what this newly-minted Malay uber alles government needs is a resolution to the tale of how this "Chinese" politician is in actuality a corrupt political operative, even though his party and he were trumpeting the values of a clean and transparent government.

The caveat is, of course, that Malay solidarity is not at the expense of non-Malay "rights", whatever that means. It is all horse manure anyway. The problem with these current charges is that it does not make effective propaganda. The PN state does not have a hook in which its mouthpieces and propaganda organs can hang the narrative on.

Najib "stole" billions of ringgit and even the average Joe rakyat can get behind something like this. But what do they have with these charges on Guan Eng? That the former finance minister wanted 10 percent of something if the deal went through? That something which is alleged to have happened nine years ago qualifies as the kind of kleptocratic excess that is comparable to Umno?

That is the point, right? It really does not matter that the charges are weak. It really does not matter if it really does not make sense that Guan Eng's wife Betty Chew is a "stand-in" for Rosmah.

What matters is the fact that the PN government targeted the leader of the "Chinese" opposition, which is what the Najib regime never really managed to pull off because everyone then was too concerned about making excuses for a prime minister whose corruption scandal was making international headlines.

Anyway, another former prime minister and now president of another new Malay-only political party said that he was "inclined" to believe that the charges against Guan Eng are politically motivated. Thanks for that, I guess.

Remember when the old maverick threatened action against the MACC if it persisted in the investigation into his people and that he would be "active in exposing all the wrong things that they (the MACC) carry out"? This would be a good time to educate Malaysians on all that wrongdoing.

However, the spectacle of Najib attempting to play the "sympathy" card of an overnight stay at the MACC headquarters after previously denying that he was detained after seeing how well it played with Guan Eng's base is priceless.