Malaysiakini : Indeed, to any rational observer, Lim Kit Siang made a tactical booboo by wading into Najib’s pardon bruhaha because it only shines a spotlight on the deafening silence of Harapan political operatives, especially the DAP, when it comes to Najib’s possible pardon.

Indeed, all it did was give Umno a talking point against the DAP reviving old narratives that some in Umno want to carry on.

Lim is right though when he says that Najib walking free only benefits Bersatu and PAS. I have said the same. But what if both of us are wrong? What if Najib rejuvenates Umno? How would this play out in the new political terrain where alliances are now needed to run the country?

And look, Umno needs the DAP for the moment because it needs leverage in this unity government. The only reason why Ahmad Zahid Hamidi is walking around free is that this unity government allows it. 

Zahid’s camp understands that it does not cause the DAP politically when Umno attacks the DAP because they believe - and elections have demonstrated - that the DAP base is a sure thing.

As one Umno hack recently told me, now that the DAP is in the government, we don't have to worry when we "kacau" them, because, unlike the MCA, they will not lose votes.

Dying beast

Could Anwar Ibrahim be playing a game of chicken when it comes to Najib’s pardon? Who knows? Could Anwar be colluding with Zahid to free Najib? Who knows? The only known political fact is that with the fall of Umno, the Malay polity has options.

Look, Umno was already a dying beast. Umno was losing support way before Najib brought the House of Cards down. Bersatu, PAS, and to a lesser extent PKR, are the options available to the Malay polity in the peninsula and now they can shift their votes around. Electoral legerdemain only makes their choices more potent.

So yeah, if they are so inclined and the pardoning of Najib weighs heavily on their conscience, they could abandon Harapan - that percentage that does support Harapan - in favour of Perikatan Nasional and they will be secure in the fact that they would be taken care of. In other words, they can afford to switch their votes.

And forget about young people. Bridget Welsh remains the best analyst in town when it comes to the election game in Malaysia. In her recent article about the youth vote, she wrote: “The youth boost for PN (37 percent) in GE15 was nevertheless much smaller than has been hyped in the media. It is almost the same share of youth support won by Harapan, an estimated 35 percent.”

See, that is the problem right there. The very fact that youths are divided is a problem because PN (as many PAS propagandists have told me) is relying on the religious bureaucracy, especially the federal apparatus to make its political case.  

The fact that youths are divided demonstrates that far from being overhyped, the messaging and propaganda are working.

This is why I always say that Harapan’s Islamic policy must be the exact opposite of PN's. Young voters must be given a genuine choice, otherwise, all this talk about young voters being talked down to means bupkis because PN has already demonstrated how they would rule and if youths are buying that, then yes, there is something wrong with their vision for this country.

But what about the non-Malays? Who do they have? Political strategists, propagandists and activists who are generally aligned with Harapan tell me that there is no other choice. Independent candidates, no matter how altruistic, never gain traction with the Harapan faithful.

PKR needs DAP

Could Harapan voters not be bothered to show up? Maybe, but conventional wisdom demonstrates that even if this happens, Harapan would still win in the state elections, but with a lower margin. One political operative said if I could imagine Harapan and the DAP losing in states like Selangor and Penang. Do you really think that would happen, he asked.

And that's the big point, right? Harapan needs the DAP. PKR, unlike Bersatu, PAS and Umno, cannot get the Malay votes on its own. To form a cohesive government, it needs the DAP. And to be fair to the DAP, they have been bending over backwards for this unity government.

In fact, I would argue that the DAP is the backbone of this government, which is why PN attacks PKR and Umno relentlessly about the Malays losing power.

People always ask me why I am not upset about Najib possibly walking free. Here’s the thing. I believe the existential threat facing this country is religious extremism. A country if it wanted to, could recover from a kleptocracy but it never survives a theocracy.

True religion and corruption are not mutually exclusive in this country. When you have PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang and preacher Dr Zakir Naik arguing that it is better to live under corrupt Muslim rule than an honest non-Muslim rule, where do you go from there?

As someone who endorsed former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, and let us face facts, the Harapan base and especially the DAP base endorsed Mahathir wholeheartedly, the idea that I now have to invest in Najib's incarceration, when kleptocrats are running around outside and inside the government, would be pretty hypocritical, not to mention disingenuous of me.

That is just one part of the problem. The other problem is the reality that Anwar’s Malaysia Madani does not want to confront religious extremism. So, people who vote for Harapan, especially the non-Malays, are again shafted in their behinds.

We vote for the moderate centre, but the reality is that the leader of the moderate centre is too busy placating the deep Islamic state. Where do we go from here?

The question is not do you think that Najib should get a pardon or at what cost? To any rational person, the answer would be obviously an emphatic no.

The tragedy of Malaysia is that no matter how this game plays out there are going to be kleptocrats who will never answer for their crimes, either in this unity government or in a possible PN regime.