916 and my stand.

Personally, I doubt the defections will happen. However, the over-reaction of a government uncertain of its position, long undermined by hesitancy over its capability and influence over the electorate, yet given too much power and authority at its disposal seems to create the environment for extremism, racial sentiments and anxiety to flourish in this multi-racial society of ours in Malaysia.

 

Politicians of both divide seems to fail to see the many similarities with the conditions in 1969 – and the crass racial comments being made currently seem to heighten the pressure – and disturbingly, someone I hailed as the Malay warrior has upped the ante by what I think are rather fictitiously exaggerated engineered comments that would raise the temperature even more. Mahathir absolutely revels in this kind of environment – the crisis felt by everyone, the feeling of loss and helplessness - and he has overseen many of these situations during his time and expertly used it to his advantage. Pak Lah should lock him up for uttering these statements alone – and then resign and retire in peace.

 

DSAI too should desist. These three as I mentioned elsewhere, should be left on an isolated island somewhere and let them beat each other up – although I have a funny feeling TDM would still emerge the winner as DSAI has a bad back and AAB is just too nice to throw a punch at others. DSAI has been irresponsible in espousing the defections and for what? A coalition government with the smallest of simple majority – where the three coalition partners are at par yet with widely differing views on many important issues and the only common concensus is that of forming a government, a coalition without concensus on the way forward for Malaysia, and hoping to govern on the fly –with so many first time parliamentarians in PKR with different voices, grouses and perjuangan for NGOs – it all adds up to so many uncertainties without conviction that this is the way forward. I saw some bloggers hailing a new government implies a new improved judiciary as a major win – but is it? Which judiciary is not tainted?

 

I would say a major win of a new government is the commitment against corruption and fair administration, best captured in the philosophies of both PAS and DAP. But certainly not PKR, and much less DSAI. His machinations may have enabled the rakyat to stand up and be counted on 8th of March to deny the 2/3rds majority, but to form the government it’s a different issue altogether. And to do it by engineering defections, and I suspect engineered with more machinations (I hesitate to use the much stronger c-word) then I would really hold back my support for these efforts.

 

Does this mean I should stay on the sidelines? Seeing as it were that the “battle” is about to begin, then I should pitch up on one side. With the BN’s political pitch of Malay nationalism as the core of its ‘perjuangan’, and of which they have so far been unable to see how the continued throwing of scraps for lower and middle class Malays while reserving fat contracts for UMNO-connected businesses has been a dismal failure in creating a strong and confident Malay “race”, and being unable to see that the Malays are only strong and confident when they have strong religious basis to help out their fellow beings, perhaps being a little more confident in seeking help for their fellow Malay-muslims as requiring a little bit more emphasis, then I would be throwing my lot and support for a new government. AAB has tried and failed because UMNO just plainly rejected any means to improve. My support for the new government is only to ensure that UMNO wakes up and aligns itself to its new reality. Until then, I would reserve my support for PR with unmitigated support to strengthen further PAS and what it intends to do within the coalition.