“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.”
“Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace,
for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended anything successfully, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man." “It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
A plague on both coalitions, we need a Third Force by Kua Kia Soong
Wednesday, February 26, 2020
Malaysiakini : COMMENT | The euphoria
amongst Malaysians following May 2018 has now turned to despair and
disgust after the political machinations that are afoot.
On
March 7, 2016, I warned the "Save Malaysia" campaign that putting the
former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamed as the head of the supposedly
"reform movement" was bare-faced opportunism. Some have said it was like
putting the fox in the hen house. The erstwhile "progressives" scoffed
at my "idealism" using trite clichés including: "There are no permanent
enemies in politics."
While those in the PKR leader Anwar
Ibrahim/DAP camp are licking their wounds, what is transpiring now
borders on extreme opportunism that former "progressives" could be part
of a coalition with Umno and led by the same Mahathir, who I pointed out
in 2016 had not shown a shred of remorse for his authoritarian rule
from 1981 to 2003. After the record of the last two years of the Pakatan Harapan
government, such politicians will be left out of hand if they even try
to pretend to have a reform agenda. I warned in 2016, that
Mahathir’s main objective was to get rid of former premier Najib Abdul
Razak and to ensure that his own economic and political agenda was
implemented. This he has successfully done and will pursue even more
firmly now he can dispense with all the pretence of reform promises made
in GE14. Opportunism in its crudest form can be seen when
politicians target an individual (namely, Najib) rather than the
political regime, and political-economic system that oppresses, divides
and exploits the people. As is now revealed to all, Mahathir’s “Save
Malaysia” campaign in GE14 was mainly aimed at expelling Najib (below, right) whilst maintaining the same racist and exploitative rule.
Former
PKR deputy president Azmin Ali and his crew can make all the
politically correct noises about “reformasi” but they have lost
credibility through the last two years of bickering and Azmin’s sex
video file is now in the hands of Machiavelli who now has him wrapped
around his little finger.
Both factions in PKR have failed to
show the people what they are fighting about and they have not even
pretended to champion any concrete reforms except to pay lip service to
“reformasi”. That is why the people have had enough of their
interminable bickering. Harapan was already morphing into BN 2.0
As
events have unfolded, Harapan has become more and more like BN 2.0
especially with the assimilation of Umno MPs into Bersatu. Even Anwar
was considering accepting the former BN minister Salleh Keruak into his
party. The most revealing and distressing initiative of all was
the so-called “Malay Dignity Congress” with its racist resolutions and
which the prime minister patronised, and the continuation of the New
Economic Policy in the new Shared Prosperity Vision. And
as this short rule has ambled along, it has failed to meet manifesto
promises and voter expectations in numerous ways. We have witnessed a
number of the flip flops over the Harapan promise to abolish toxic
institutions and laws, such as Sosma and other detention-without-trial
laws in the country. Nor do their promises focus on the most urgent and
comprehensive reforms that civil society has long argued are of high
priority. On top of all that, we have seen a disturbing trend of
autocratic decision making and policies symptomatic of the old Mahathir
1.0 era. Malaysian politics now means never having to keep election promises
While
the Harapan manifesto prohibits the PM from also taking on the finance
portfolio, Mahathir has in the first 100 days succeeded in taking over
the choicest companies, namely Khazanah, PNB and Petronas under his
Prime Minister's Office. It is the return to the old Mahathirist
autocracy.
Was the cabinet consulted on the decision to start
Proton 2, privatise Khazanah, Malaysia Incorporated and the revival of
the failed F1 circuit? The appointment of Mahathir and Azmin to the
board of Khazanah Nasional also goes against the Harapan manifesto
promise of keeping politicians out of publicly-funded investments since
it leads to poor accountability. Only by insisting that boards be
comprised of professionals and on rigorous parliamentary checks and
balances for bodies such as Khazanah can we ensure a high level of
transparency and accountability. The excuse of the
government debt to delay local government elections which have been
suspended in our country since 1965 is not acceptable. It is a simple
matter of abolishing a provision under the Local Government Act 1976 and
reviving the Local Government Election Act in order to introduce local
government elections. It is equally absurd to
tell Malaysian independent Chinese secondary school graduates that their
UEC certificate can only be recognised in five years’ time. This is a
serious breach of promise in the Harapan GE14 manifesto since more than
80 percent of Chinese voters voted for Harapan because of this promised
reform.
Time to build a progressive Third Force
Reforms
that do not challenge the neoliberal economic policies that were set in
fast motion by Mahathir in the early 80s are not serious reforms. Income
disparities will continue to widen while the environment, indigenous
and working people will continue to bear the burden of so-called
development. Najib merely made more extreme the structures created by
Mahathir to entrench the powers of the Executive, emasculate the
democratic institutions and provide the means for private enrichment of
the elite in this country. Racist and racial discriminatory policies were also entrenched by Mahathir in the early 80s and further manipulated by Najib. In
hindsight, perhaps we had to go through the betrayal of the last two
years of Harapan rule, the arrogant disregard for the promised reforms
and the interminable bickering between the parties in the Harapan
coalition. If we had not gone through this process, the people would not
have experienced the opportunism and hollow reforms mouthed by these
politicians all these years. More than ten years ago, I
raised the urgent need for a Third Force in Malaysian politics when it
was clear that the Harapan "profits before people" and race/religion
agenda was no different from that of BN’s. I said that we needed a Third
Force if we are not to be disappointed with the return to BN rule in
GE15 again. I was wrong – Mahathir didn’t need another general election,
did he? It is time for all who have hoped for real
reforms in Malaysia to build a "Third Progressive Force" for a truly
just, democratic and sustainable future that BN and Harapan have failed
to provide. In light of the worst treachery in Malaysian politics
we have yet seen, professed progressive politicians should leave both
coalitions to help build the progressive Third Force.
And if
there are enough “good men and women” among them, they might actually
succeed in scuppering Machiavelli’s plan by denying him the number he
needs for a majority in the House… but that is just wishful thinking.