COMMENT | I have no idea why Lim Guan Eng would remind the current prime minister to be a prime minister for all Malaysians. 

Remember what Lenin said? “Our party, like any other political party, strives for political supremacy for itself.” Which is generally true, I suppose.

Our New Great Leader

The DAP, or at least its emissaries (since everything is shrouded in secrecy), made a ballsy move that could have been paradigm-shifting when it opened negotiations with Muhyiddin Yassin for some sort of collaboration. It did something that is counter to what Lenin asserted. But of course, it came to nothing.

Ronnie Liu even went so far as to claim that there was something suspicious about this, that Damansara MP Tony Pua and others should retract their statements that “Umno is not our political enemy now” and that the “people” are angry. 

The fact that the DAP’s base was so against this move is almost Trumpian in the way conventional democratic norms are held hostage by years of ginning up the base and demonising the other political party.

Honestly, how on earth could you tell Ismail to be a prime minister for all Malaysians, when you ditched plans for bipartisanship because your base was against it. This is the problem with political bromides: from the perspective of rational people, it always comes to bite you on your behinds.

Trust in Muhyiddin had nothing to do with it, because as Wong Chin Huat cogently argued “You don’t need politicians to be sincere to love you. For insincere politicians, you just need them to be desperate.”

And here is the thing, Muhyiddin was not only the desperate one. The rakyat as a whole, regardless of their political affiliation, were also desperate because of the vagaries of the pandemic. When I argued that Pua is correct, this could have been the start of bipartisan working relationships in a major way in Malaysia.

If Malaysians saw that the opposition was not going in for the kill and was attempting some sort of collaboration, it would have normalised democratic norms, which successive Umno/BN governments were hell-bent on subverting.

I suspect that having worked with Muhyiddin before, the expectation was that it would be a mutually beneficial relationship, now that the tables had been turned. Now, of course, we have these statements of having a unity government when the reality is that there is no incentive nor desperation for such concepts.

Furthermore, the last people who should be talking about trust are Pakatan Harapan and its supporters. It is pointless going over the stumbles, the lies, the political backstabbing, the charades and the broken promises. Do not act like being the lesser of two evils gives you the moral high ground.

As PSM’s A Sivarajan pointed out: “While concerned citizens and civil society organisations are enthusiastically making a wish list on how this ‘new’ pandemic cabinet should be, the political elites are making a list of their own. Unfortunately, it’s not the same list.”

At this moment does anyone really think that the current prime minister is thinking of ways to make the lives of the citizens of this country better? I doubt it. 

What he is doing is thinking about how he and his coterie can withstand the assaults from the various schisms of the Malay establishment and use the gravy train to sustain his regime.

Ismail is thinking that opening up the economy is a way to lessen the pressure on the public, and maybe even at the expense of the health and security of the country. 

He is thinking that the state security apparatus is finally in the hands of the Umno state (again) and dissent could be handled in the way the old maverick taught his creatures.

He also realises that the odious concept of bipartisanship is banished for good and even if it weren’t, he is in a better position to dictate terms, because the desperation in the Malay establishment for supporting him trumps the personal agendas of specific clusters.

And this is the problem right here. Muhyiddin's desperate offer demonstrated that he knew what was wrong with the democratic processes in this country, even though ordinarily he would not even bother addressing it. 

Someone like Ismail, from all he has said and done, does not think that the democratic process in this country is flawed. Indeed for all his shenanigans and on the record statements, he thinks it is just perfect.

This is why I believe that Wong is being too generous in his 10-point plan for Ismail to help himself and Malaysia. 

Firstly, Ismail does not spend too much time thinking of how he could help Malaysia, and if he did, being part of a legacy race-based political party he thinks Malaysia is a specific ethnic group. His idea of help would be prolonging and inflating entitlements programmes.

Secondly, as for helping himself, he thinks unlike the desperate Muhyiddin for example, the Malay establishment, realising how close they come to losing total control and being at the mercy of a level democratic playing field, now have one of their own in charge.

His idea of helping himself would be to further subvert democratic institutions, strengthen alliances (including with Muhyiddin), being generous with who gets to feed on the trough and using the state security apparatus vigorously.

He also understands on a primitive level how open his position is to disruption from those within his own party. Now, he has to not only worry about satisfying the agendas of certain clusters but that Umno would have no problem taking out one of its own.

What I hope is that Anwar Ibrahim is seriously concentrating on the next election instead of attempting to seek political profit from Ismail’s opponents within Umno.