A Higher Power Than The Powers That Be

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Malaysian politics is like a perpetual-motion machine, never still, always looking for a new course. The Johor state election is barely over (in a literal sense, but still virally alive within Umno ranks), and the hoopla razzmatazz shifts to Umno’s general assembly and DAP’s congress, with PKR’s following after.
Ho-hum.
They won’t get it. The low turnout of voters just means a majority were not engaged in the process – couldn’t be bothered, nothing to do with them, whatever.
Media analyses and comments have scrabbled through the figures and talked of a fractious opposition, failure of leadership, etc.
They have sounded the death knell for Pejuang. Its conception was still-born from the start. Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad invokes a return to the original spirit of Umno, which he defines as looking after the Malays… but not forgetting the others.
Tun, it’s the constant forgetting, lapses of memory, except during election campaign times, over decades by Umno and its token associates, which led to the up-swelling of votes by the “others” that swept you in for a second time as prime minister.
And – eh, Tun, the generation who was around at the beginning, their numbers are shrinking, no thanks to that other perpetual motion machine – mortality.
As for the subsequent generations, the Umno they know is the Umno that is now anathema to you too.
Talking of being past shelf life, I was Anwar Ibrahim’s junior in University Malaya during his holier-than-thou period, inspiring his followers to roam through the corridors of the Arts Faculty ripping off all notices and signs in English, hammering on the doors of lecture halls because we were studying English literature.
This first experience of him has tinted my judgment of him, so I won’t offer an opinion about whether he should fall on his sword on the dismal showing of his party.
PKR president Anwar IbrahimPKR and Harapan
But I am amused by PKR’s insistence on going it alone in terms of party logo because apparently its “blue eye” will be better received than the Star-Trekkie Pakatan Harapan logo.
Talk about padan muka (serves them right) - after Johor, they now have a black eye.
Blame connivance, blame Mahathir for the Sheraton Move, but what has Anwar done since for the party? For the coalition he leads?
Does he have the numbers? Wait, now does he have the numbers? No, no numbers. Well, the Johor election number is one seat.
As expected, the Harapan presidential council has issued an anodyne statement accepting the electoral decision and admitting its weaknesses.
"This includes the issue of multi-cornered fights among the opposition parties, logo, low turnout, and Harapan's communication on issues,” it said.
"Therefore, a number of measures will be carried out including a convention and retreat among Harapan leaders to revive the idealism of Harapan and its supporters' struggle and to discuss the preparations for the 15th general election.”
Pakatan Harapan Johor election machinery launchIdealism? Start with losing the bi-polar dichotomy between pushing for an anti-hopping bill while fishing for frogs.
That includes losing the “big tent” idea because that just means being amenable to compromising ideals with shifty politicians just to defeat the evil empire of BN.
Granted, the evil empire is a scary opponent, particularly when party president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, at the post-election party, raised the spectre of the return of Death (sic) Vader:
“Although officially, Tok Mat was the election director (of Johor's state election) and Hasni its chief coordinator, the main campaign manager was Yang Berhormat Datuk Seri Mohammad Najib Tun Abdul Razak." Dang, dang, dang!
Idealism may inspire, and idealism brought people out in the last general election, but idealism is just peeing into the wind without performance.
Besides retreating to talk, and hopefully confront some hard truths, Harapan leaders should also extend best wishes to the prime minister because he would have to have a stony face and be deaf to the calls at the general assembly for him to release the hand-brake on the Umno electoral bandwagon and call for a general election.
A political record threatened - challenging Muhyiddin Yassin for shortest tenure as prime minister.
Umno president Ahmad Zahid HamidiA higher power
The lesson that the Johor election reminded me was that in Malaysia, in my life, there is always a “higher power.”
When I was a kid, the highest power, obviously, was a father with a cane (mercifully, seldom felt because the threat was sufficient to keep me out of mischief… for a couple of days).
In terms of unknown higher powers, on the eve of Chinese New Year, Vesak Day, I would hold joss sticks and follow my mother in bowing before the small altar for the god of the ground, and the altar nailed to a pillar for the god of the sky, and another for the god of the kitchen, with no idea of what I was bowing to.
To this kid, the Buddhist temple round the corner in Temple Road was a substantive manifestation of a “higher power”, with its lotus pond, flashes of goldfish in the depths beneath the pads and blooms, the smoky fog from hundreds of joss-sticks, the statues of Buddha bright in the light of candles and oil maps and bulbs; standing in the garden of my house in Rozario Street on the night of the Vesak procession vending its way to town and back, waiting for the saffron-robed monks on the main float to whisk splatters of blessed water onto us.
In school, the highest powers were identifiably the teachers and unknown higher powers in Malaya and England who marked and graded my educational exam stages in Standard Six, Form Three, Form Five, and Upper Six.
In Form Six, one of the subjects was British Constitutional History, which led to my first acquaintance with the Constitution of the country which drew much from the Westminster model.
I was taught that’s the highest power, from which the country’s governance is decided, the Parliament as an endorsing check should amendments be required.
But, as we see in Johor, we must give way to higher powers who have their own rules and rulings. It doesn’t matter what Umno wants. - Mkini
THOR KAH HOONG is a veteran journalist.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.

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