Even when it comes to the milieu of cutthroat politics, Jeyakumar is far too nuanced a political operative to forget the privileged position he comes from when dealing with other political operatives who are supposed to be his allies, as demonstrated in his public spat with DAP’s Sungkai state assemblyperson A Sivanesan, whom he threatened to sue of over allegations made about his asset declarations.

Of Sivanesan, Jeyakumar said: “Sivanesan's achievement of overcoming poverty, becoming a lawyer, and winning the Sungkai state seat far surpasses mine as I was born into a middle-class family, but that does not give Sivanesan licence to defame me.”

Is it any wonder that in attempting to explain why Umno always has the advantage, I draw upon the work of Jeyakumar and Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) in an attempt to offer a strategy for dealing with the hegemon? 

PSM identifies issues, not enemies

I have made this argument before. The best way to deal with those marginalised groups who seem cut off from mainstream oppositional politics is to make an alliance with political parties like PSM.

Grand national narratives do not get any traction with the voting groups that PSM engages with. This is another world and it is this way because the Umno hegemon set it up this way, and the opposition has never had a genuine agenda to bridge this world and mainstream oppositional politics.

While the mainstream political coalitions are busy finding easily identifiable “enemies”, what Jeyakumar identifies are deficiencies in the system and misguided policies which encourage the working-class Malay base to essentially vote against their long-term interests.

This, coupled with oppositional discourse (I’m leaving out establishment non-Malay propaganda because this is about how Harapan could win), which in the words of Jeyakumar, defines “….leaders of BN and PN as totally corrupt, incompetent, self-serving and hypocritical, and the Malays as lazy and demanding subsidies as their entitlement” has contributed to the dead-end politics here in Malaysia.

Jeyakumar rightly pointed out that the apocalyptic messaging of Harapan in its various configurations detracts from the reality that BN has contributed to the creation of a viable state but in the process succumbed to the excesses of power and corruption.

This is an important point because if you say you want to save Malaysia but it turns out that all your rhetoric was horse manure, then people will not trust your coalition.

Keep in mind that Jeyakumar is not dismissing or ignoring the excesses of the Umno state but rather reminding the opposition and its supporters - and that includes PSM - that propaganda only works in the short term.

You may think that your political adversary has done nothing for this country but the reality may be different and the votes they get reflect this.

Harapan can still change course

Now, some folks would say it is too late for Harapan to figure out what it is that they should have done a long time ago. I do not share that view. It is never too late to reform, reorganise, and return to the fray.

The problem is that Harapan needs to take a hard look at itself and admit to mistakes and that propaganda did nothing to reform the system. In fact, it caused more problems.

Look, even now, the current prime minister has acknowledged that entitlement programmes are mismanaged. Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob admitted that all those poverty alleviation programmes are carried out by the vast bureaucracy and nobody has any idea about their effectiveness – “… that hitherto many ministries had programmes on poverty alleviation but there was no specific monitoring on their effectiveness.”

Hence, all this talk of poverty alleviation, especially when it comes to the Malay community, is mired in the kind of corruption that plagues the mainstream political establishment.

This is not to say that people do not need help, but rather the way how the political establishment targets certain groups while allowing the political elites to get away with literal theft is part of mainstream politics in this country.

As Jeyakumar said in 2019 when Harapan was mucking about with the aid given to fisherfolk, of all people: “If you stop affirmative action for the rich Malays, even the poor Malays would accept it.”

Harapan’s manifesto should reflect what is happening on the ground and not reflect the Manichean discourse of Harapan echo chambers. Jeyakumar and PSM have something worth saying, will Harapan listen?

This remains the state of play.