Political Alliances 101

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We must not be emotional about political alliances. Political alliances are like someone visiting a brothel. You visit a brothel just to have sex with a prostitute, after which you pay him or her and go home. You do not start crying because your relationship was just for sex and because there is no emotional attachment with the prostitute. NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Some people find it strange that Umno announces Muafakat Nasional (the Umno-PAS coalition) “is still alive” and yet in the Melaka State elections Umno and PAS are enemies. Actually, it is not quite strange and happens often enough, especially in East Malaysian politics where a certain party can be in the opposition at state level but part of the government in Parliament.
This happens mainly because of a clash of egos where everyone has the impression that they are better, stronger, more deserving, etc., than the others. I suppose that is why ego, pride, vanity, and so on, are amongst Christianity’s mortal sins.
Maybe I can explain how political alliances work in the simplest of English. And if your English is horrendous, then maybe you can get someone to translate this article into Chinese, Tamil, or Bahasa Malaysia.
Let me quote a real-life example to explain how political alliances work.
In 1999, DAP entered into a political alliance with PKR, PAS and PRM (which they called Barisan Alternatif). So we supported DAP.
Then, in 2001, DAP resigned from the alliance and declared itself an independent party. So, by DAP’s own action, they now became our enemy.
In the 2004 general election, the opposition performed the worst in the history of Malaysia.
Because the opposition was slaughtered in 2004, in 2008 DAP came crawling back to the opposition coalition and a new political alliance was formed between PKR, PAS and DAP (which they called Pakatan Rakyat).
In 2015, DAP kicked PAS out of the political alliance, and they formed a new political alliance (which they called Pakatan Harapan), this time without including PAS.
Some call those who do not support Pakatan Harapan as traitors, turncoats, frogs, etc.
That is like calling someone who was not born in Russia, does not have Russian citizenship or a Russian passport, and has, in fact, never once visited Russia in his or her entire life, as a traitor to Russia.
How can you be a traitor to Russia when you do not have any connection whatsoever to Russia? And how can you be a traitor, turncoat, or frog to Pakatan Harapan when they formed the coalition without inviting you to join the political alliance?
But then this is how Malay-educated, Chinese-educated and Tamil-educated people think.
We must not be emotional about political alliances. Political alliances are like someone visiting a brothel. You visit a brothel just to have sex with a prostitute, after which you pay him or her and go home. You do not start crying because your relationship was just for sex and because there is no emotional attachment with the prostitute.
 

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