“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.
Long gone are the happy days of
September 2019 when Umno and PAS got politically “married” in the
Muafakat Nasional alliance, amidst tears of joy at PWTC in Kuala Lumpur.
The Clowns
Both party presidents solemnised the union as the nasyid group Brothers sang the song Teman Sejati (True Friends). And then the 2,000 joint party delegates cried out “Allahuakbar!” (God is great) several times.
Bersatu,
then still in Pakatan Harapan, slammed the union as “sumbang mahram
(incest)” to “gratify greed and corruption”. Umno vice-president Khaled
Nordin retorted, “hey don’t behave like a jealous divorcee”.
“Umno
and PAS have just met up, but Bersatu seems ‘overly excited’ and wants
to ‘storm the bridal chamber’ to see what we’re doing on the katil pengantin (marriage bed).”
Now, did I say this was a soap opera or what?
How
could the Umno-PAS passionate romance have gone so wrong since then?
The PAS leaks scandal went viral on April 20. Only the Terengganu
menteri besar initially
denied it. Why was it not immediately denied by other leaders mentioned
in the leaks, asked some Umno leaders? In other words, can there be
smoke without fire?
Another Umno official went further, challenging the Terengganu MB to swear a sumpah laknat, a holy oath that he shall suffer God’s curses if he is not telling the truth.
“The rakyat no longer believes in mere bare denials from ahli politik talam dua muka (two-faced politicians) who say something in front but do something else behind. Bulan puasa jangan tipu (don’t lie during the fasting month),” said Selangor BN information chief Isham Jalil.
Yes, all this infighting has serious national consequences. But before discussing that, let’s have a laugh at the melodrama.
The marriage falls apart
The
PAS-Umno marriage began falling apart in 2020 after they and Bersatu
had all gone into Putrajaya as a threesome via the Sheraton Move. But
soon after, an ugly love triangle developed.
The basic cause of
all this tension is that both Umno and Bersatu were (and still are)
chasing the same Malay “nationalists” votes. In fact, Bersatu founder Dr
Mahathir Mohamad wanted his party to replace Umno by taking over the
monopoly of the “Malay protector” franchise, and this included luring
many Umno frogs over.
Meanwhile, PAS was wooed by both sides and
Umno accused them of “main dua kolam” (“playing two pools”, or lovers,
to get the best deal).
By the time the Umno general assembly rolled around in March 2021, the situation had deteriorated. Umno Youth chief Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki admitted that Umno was hurt when its partner PAS continued flirting with Bersatu.
Like
a Bollywood heartbreaker scene, the poetic politician said, “Who would
have thought, tears have not yet dried, the laughter hasn't faded, but a
blossoming relationship had to be shared with another.”
Oh man,
don’t you think our real-life politics are more entertaining than some
fictitious K-drama? Since Asyraf is rather handsome, please get a
lookalike to play him in a future political M-drama!
For the old man character, I propose a walk-on part for Umno veteran Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, who actually called PAS a “political prostitute”.
PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang
Broken-leg duck
By
November 2021, Umno was openly fighting against both PAS and Bersatu in
the Malacca state elections. Yet all three shared the same political
bed in Putrajaya!
In January this year, PAS president Abdul Hadi
Awang accused Umno of being “ungrateful” after the latter's reluctance
to forge an electoral pact for the Johor state election.
"We saved
a lame duck. It broke its leg during the 14th general election...
Unfortunately, when it was healed, it wanted to swim on its own. It left
us. This is immoral,” pronounced the Very Religious Man.
How
did Umno respond? No, it’s PAS who destroyed the marriage, they were
the broken-leg duck that wanted to swim off on its own with Bersatu, rebutted Umno Supreme Council member Mohd Puad Zarkashi.
"PAS was carried away because of the benefits of federal government positions,” he claimed.
Umno deputy president Mohamad Hasan waded in,
"For those calling Umno a duck, goose, tiger, or whatever… Umno remains
the largest Malay party. Our revival is not due to PAS' miracle
medicine," he said, squishing Hadi’s analogy.
Zahid added to the insult fest by saying that Hadi should change his job from politician to zoologist.
Talk about political comedy man, you can’t make this sh*t up!
As
for Umno and Bersatu, open warfare erupted long ago. In January, Najib
explained why Umno had lost trust in Bersatu, claiming sabotage in the
Sabah state elections.
Muhyiddin Yassin replied,
accusing Najib of “twisting the facts”. He added the killer line that
he'd be ashamed to be associated with a party that has a convict boss.
Whoa! Talk about calling out Malu Apa Bossku!
Two weeks later,
Muhyiddin made the explosive allegation that Zahid had visited him with a
“pile of files” of his court case, pleading with him to kautim things.
No, that’s a lie, counters Zahid. To “prove” his innocence, he was ready to… you guessed it… do a sumpah laknat! Gee… why bother with having courts and lawyers in Malaysia when such sacred oaths can decide The Truth.
Later,
during the Johor election, Najib blasted Muhyiddin as a “failure” who
bungled both the economic and Covid-19 crisis and was not fit even to be
Johor's economic adviser.
Of course, Najib wants us to think that the many Umno ministers in Muhyiddin’s government were totally blameless.
The sad conclusion
It's
such a twist of delicious irony that the three parties who plotted to
betray the voters’ mandate via the Sheraton Move are now betraying each
other.
The unholy fight for power between Umno, PAS and Bersatu does serve up quite a spectacle.
How can three quarrelling parties be in the same coalition at Putrajaya?
Their
only interest seems to be clinging on to power (and chances to hand out
lucrative contracts). How can they make long-term strategic policies to
improve our country? Is that why Malaysia made a mess of its health and
economic response to Covid? We seem to be a rudderless ship, drifting
without clear direction.
These jokers hijacked power in the
Sheraton Move by claiming to uphold “Malay-Muslim unity”. Yet they
clearly don’t like and trust each other. The latest PAS leaks scandal
has only made this even more obvious. It’s a sickening circus.
How
can voters trust these three parties, when they are not practising the
very “Malay unity” they claimed to champion? Would you trust an engineer
whose bridges keep collapsing? Or a lawyer who keeps losing cases?
If
voters believe all that these three Malay parties say, they would also
have to believe all their accusations against each other. How do they
filter out who’s lying and who’s telling the truth? More sumpah laknat?
Or
are voters willing to vote blindly based on race and religion? Just to
get a few crumbs from their masters’ tables? While the jokers on top
grab the lion’s share and impoverish the nation as a whole? Is that what
the so-called “Malay unity” of Umno, PAS and Bersatu is really all
about?
Somebody should write a TV political comedy series “based
on real events”! (Hello Harapan, if you take over, keep this in mind
please.) Yeah, let’s all sit back, take out the popcorn and enjoy the
show.
But be aware that we are also watching the destruction of our own country. I don’t know if we should laugh or cry.