ONE peddles hope, the other stability, and another champions one race.
Essentially, these are the choices of Malaysians going to the polls tomorrow.
At the end of the day, it is expected that these three coalitions: Pakatan Harapan (PH), Barisan Nasional (BN), and Perikatan Nasional (PN) will dominate the 22 million ballots that are expected to be cast nationwide.
Sabah and Sarawak will be looking at these three options to decide who they shall align with at the federal level to gain influence and affluence for their respective territories, and the long awaited equal treatment.
The last four-and-a-half years have been eventful, if not tumultuous, with PH being given the mandate to govern in 2018, only for all of that to come crashing down 22 months later through in-fighting and political guile.
In the pandemic that followed soon after, Malaysians were at the mercy of an autocratic administration in PN, which suspended Parliament via an emergency.
A victim of circumstances or its own doing, PN’s 17-month administration is remembered for lockdowns, fear, hunger, death and despair.
Chief engineer of the Sheraton Move, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, had taken over the premiership from Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and styled himself as “Father”, whom critics compare unflatteringly to dictators past and present.
While his was short of military rule, essential aspects of governance such as accountability and transparency in procurement procedures also went out the window.
Seventeen months later, the coalition that today pitches stability, BN, outwitted Muhyiddin to seize the premiership it had lost in 2018 after 61 years.
As of today, Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob remains the poster boy to be re-named prime minister should BN be returned to power – something that many are not convinced of due to the perceived ambitions of his party boss, Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, to make himself prime minister to avoid corruption charges he is facing.
With this brief history lesson to rejig one’s memory, the people need to make informed choices as they head to the polls tomorrow.
The PH led by Dr Mahathir, while demonstrating efforts to live up to its manifesto of cleaning up the country and institutional reform, was also criticised for being unanchored, with some ministers running their ministries like fiefdoms and making policy decisions that were unpopular with the business community as well as certain factions of society.
Today, PH’s value proposition is that it will be a centred administration of younger leaders headed by its chairman Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim – “the next Prime Minister of Malaysia” – for the last 30 years.
PH’s approach of a multi-racial, clean, progressive and prosperous Malaysia is in contrast to the mono-ethnicity of PN, which in the final leg of campaigning has resorted to demonising minorities with the Chinese and Christians in its sights – even though the largely Chinese Gerakan is part of the coalition.
BN, on the other hand, is having to deal with the shadow of its chairman Zahid, who is facing corruption charges and a revolt within his own Umno, of which he is president.
It is a sense of déjà vu for BN, which, in 2018, was dealing with the spectre of the 1MDB scandal that dogged its then chairman and prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
It is telling that while the anti-corruption value proposition is loud with PH and even PN – which keeps putting the Umno court clusters narrative in focus — there is no apparent assurance coming from BN.
BN falls back on its record of development and administering a multi-racial country successfully for six decades.
Ismail Sabri’s “Keluarga Malaysia” campaign seems a soft sell that treads carefully between appealing to the non-Malays while not alienating conservative Malays, whom Umno is still banking on for support.
Anwar and PH, however, seem to be taking the bull by the horns: yes, we are a multi-racial country, so deal with it.
The selling point at every ceramah, irrespective of audience profile, has been constant: that it will protect the rights and privileges of the Malays as the dominant race; the position of Islam as the religion of the federation, and the Malay rulers as enshrined in the constitution.
However, the pledge is also to defend the rights of the non-Malays, the people of Sabah and Sarawak and the indigenous groups as important stakeholders in this country.
PH pitches this along with equitable governance, and tells doubters to look at Selangor and Penang to gauge how it could administer the country if given the chance tomorrow.
Would we see a chaotic administration that is tone deaf to communal sensitivities? All three options have been guilty of it, some perhaps less deliberate than others.
At the end of the day, when the dust is settled, one hopes that the victor is a conciliatory one, not one that comes in on a vendetta with guns blazing.
We need leadership that looks beyond communal politics, upholds the constitution that is meant to protect all Malaysians, has practical ideas on how to bring prosperity to everyone, manages the country’s abundant resources competently, addresses corruption, promotes institutional reforms, and will be one that can make Malaysia the formidable economic powerhouse and exemplary multi-racial nation it can still be and still is.
Anyone who can deliver that should get the vote. – The Vibes, November 18, 2022
Terence Fernandez is editor-in-chief of PETRA News, which publishes The Vibes and Getaran
