Indeed A Week Is A Long Time In Politics

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From Terence Netto
Former British prime minister Harold Wilson famously quipped that a week is a long time in politics.
What he probably meant was that because democratic politics is a crucible for compromise, a lot of things can happen in the course of a week.
Political players and the positions they assume can at the start of a week appear unmalleable. Days on, however, as tensions and crosscurrents eddying near the surface of the political arena work their attrition on players and stances, shifts can occur to pave the way for compromise and accommodation.
In politics, too, it appears nothing is set and complete until the Fat Mama sings. Witness the shifts that have occurred in the span of less than a week since Ismail Sabri Yaakob from Umno was sworn in as the ninth prime minister on Aug 21.
Bera MP Ismail’s undistinguished record puts him firmly on the right flank of his party, just the place one may assume that will not yield on the “No Anwar, No DAP” stand of the Umno general assembly of last March.
Finality, however, as another British PM Benjamin Disraeli perspicaciously put it, is not the language of politics. Not democratic politics, which is the surest way to bridging differences in a pluralist society.
No sooner had word from the political grapevine resounded that Bersatu’s Azmin Ali coveted the deputy PM’s post in Ismail’s Cabinet than a thaw was discernible in the hitherto frigid relationship between Umno and Pakatan Harapan.
Though an Azmin aide denied his boss had threatened to withdraw support for Ismail in an upcoming confidence vote in Parliament should their man not be appointed DPM, the new PM wasn’t going to wait to ascertain its veracity.
The word went out to PH that the new premier was willing to parley with their leadership troika of Anwar Ibrahim, Mohamad Sabu and Lim Guan Eng.
The PH trio emerged from the meeting flaunting a joint statement with Ismail pledging a bipartisan endeavour at institutional and political reform. PH head honcho Anwar said afterwards that if the premier was sincere in this quest, the opposition “will not complicate the confidence vote” for Ismail.
Threats to Ismail’s ostensibly liberalising tenure from within the ruling coalition will not garner PH’s connivance. To be sure, these moves towards bipartisanship did not occur in isolation.
Almost simultaneously to Ismail’s overture, Umno’s Azalina Othman resigned as deputy speaker of Parliament amid rumblings of discontent with her fellow speakers in the controversy over interpretation of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong’s behest on Parliament’s reconvening.
This was followed by her call for the appointment of a deputy speaker from the opposition.
Azalina is clearly lifting anchor and drifting intriguingly beyond the reflexive partisanship of Umno.
Topping this off is her call for citizenship rights for children of Malaysian mothers who, unlike their male counterparts, cannot pass on this right to their kids, a species of gender discrimination that smacks of the Taliban.
It appears there is nothing like the now three-year attenuation from the central levers of power for some Umno politicos to shed the party’s aversion for liberalism.
Until now, ‘liberal’ was a pejorative term to Umno, especially on its right wing. But after Azalina’s liberal manoeuvres and Umno veep Khaled Nordin’s call for a mature politics that eschews demonisation of the opposition, it seems Umno is hewing to the centre of Malaysian politics.
Aren’t these soundings akin to the “Middle Malaysia” formulation of DAP of a few years ago?
And where do these leave Umno’s “No Anwar, No DAP” resolutions of some months back?
Suffice, all these shifts have occurred in the space of less than a week, showing Wilson’s insight about the elasticity of time in politics as brilliant epigram. - FMT
Terence Netto is a journalist and an FMT reader.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.

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