Two grumpy old men

FMT on whether the Mahathir-DAP love affair will last:

Former PM Mahathir Mohamad’s appearance at the DAP convention on Sunday gave a fitting end to 2016, a year filled with political turmoil. It marked a complete about-face for the Umno veteran. However, it was a move that was not completely out of character for Mahathir, given his penchant for political histrionics.

The questions now, as raised at the convention by now-former DAP member Shamsher Singh, are: What are DAP and Mahathir up to, and is the quest to oust Prime Minister Najib Razak worth an alliance between two formerly bitter rivals?

DAP’s decision to forge an alliance with Mahathir’s new party, PPBM, seems to fly in the face of its decades-long struggle against the government. Even as an ex-Umno man, Mahathir is a perfect representative of everything the Umno-led government stands for: immovably Malay, stubbornly authoritarian. His mingling with civil rights activists and opposition politicians isn’t going to shake his long history of iron-fisted politicking.

Many observers must have dismissed his glowing words about DAP as facetious. The more he praises his former enemy’s “multiracialism”, the more his intentions are suspect. Commendable as its efforts at multiracialism are, DAP’s public identity remains entrenched in Chinese sentiment. So far, about the only voices of caution have come from the party’s non-Chinese members; besides Shamsher, Sangeet Kaur Deo also cautioned the party, albeit in a less explosive fashion, to be wary of PPBM.

We all know about Mahathir's intention. He wants to protect his ménage at all cost, hence even sucking up to his erstwhile political foe would be a sap-sap-suoi (kacang putih) matter.

I suspect he will even do a Faustian Pact to perpetuate his Maha-Kim Dynasty, let alone bodek what has been known in Malay or UMNO circle as the Chinese Iblis, namely, DAP.

But what about the DAP?

Last month I posted Incongruous alliances in which I wrote (extracts):

... time appears to be running out for the older generation of politicians, though I have heard Mahathir's family has longevity genes which means he will be with us until he's 108 (Chinese auspicious number for someone who dislikes Chinese, wakakaka), perhaps even out-living Najib, wakakaka.

So it's understandable if these elderly pollies get more and more impatient and thus are more willing to form silly and most incongruous alliances to gain the power they want urgently in their life-time, like ultra Melayu semi-Islamic Pribumi (whose leaders do not like Chinese) with secular socialist democrat DAP, when Mahathir and Lim Kit Siang used to tear viciously at each other, wakakaka.

While the DAP, like any political party in federal opposition wants to do, ie., to change the ruling party and thus change the government of the day through elections, I suspect an added factor driving Lim Kit Siang obscenely pell-mell into an incongruous alliance with Mahathir of Pribumi (which name of his new party alone should offend any non-Malay, to add on to Mahathir's known anti-Chinese mentality) is his age (LKS' age, that is).

LKS is already 75, and while he appears well and hearty, missing the coming opportunity in GE-14 (maybe next year) to change the ruling party via the polls will mean he won't be able to realize the acme of his political strife until 2022 when he reaches the age of 81.

Thus time is not on his side. Unlike Mahathir who struggles ferociously, reputedly, for his descendants, LKS struggles hard for his party's objectives, though whatever these are by now I'm not sure anymore, not with LKS' questionable political alliance with Pribumi.

If you have been following his son's public statements prior to the current flirtation between Mahathir and DAP, you would remember that Guan Eng had been more cautious, circumspect and quite reserved in any political relationship with Mahathir.

But as a son, a Chinese son, Guan Eng has had no choice but to back his father's open intention to ally with Mahathir (come hell or high water) in the recent DAP convention. It would have been unfilial of him as a son not to do so, and a political weapon for the BN if there had been a split in the House of Lim on LKS' lustful Maddy affair.

It's not unlike a wonderful humanitarian advocate like Marina Mahathir supporting her father, the draconian Mahathir or that of sweetie Nurul supporting her convict dad.

But there are forces in the DAP which frown on any unjustified alliance with Mahathir, such as Ramkarpal Singh Deo (son of the late Karpal Singh).

In April last year (2015) the now-defunct TMI published a news report titled Working with Dr M to remove PM will be a ‘disaster’, Pakatan told.

plus Maria, wakakaka 

In that report we read Ramkarpal's opinion on working with Mahathir (extracts):

“The question of working with Dr Mahathir is an unimaginable disaster waiting to happen.

“There can be no doubt that Malaysia needs to be saved. While I agree that Najib ought to go, I cannot agree with the means by which Dr Mahathir proposes to do so,” Ramkarpal said in a statement here.

“Asserting pressure on a democratically elected prime minister to step down cannot be democratic and it is high time that Pakatan Rakyat come together at this very critical time against Umno and the Barisan Nasional (BN),” the DAP MP added.

Ramkarpal said that working with Dr Mahathir would mean that PR would just be maintaining the status quo and allow “corruption to continue”.

“I am firmly of the view that saving Malaysia can only mean a new clean, accountable and transparent government."

“Pakatan Rakyat must live up to its promise to Malaysians of being that alternative and democratically oust Najib and the BN through the ballot box,” Ramkarpal stressed.

There wasn't any doubt about Ramkarpal's extremely poor opinion of Mahathir, but alas, LKS has pressed on heedlessly.

And that has compelled Ramkarpal's sister, Sangeet Kaur Deo, to state during debates at the DAP national conference (via MM Online):

“I want to clarify at this stage that it was interesting to see Tun Mahathir in support of Maria’s release when it was him that was instrumental in the cruel enforcement of the ISA.” 

Hasn't she been delightfully sarcastic about Mahathir's all-too-apparent hypocrisy? She ought to know how evil Mahathir had been when it was his regime that incarcerated her father Karpal Singh three times, in 1987, 1989 and 2000.

In the 2000 arrest, Wikipedia states Karpal Singh ...

... was charged for making seditious remarks in court during Anwar's first corruption trial. This was the only known charge of sedition in any country in the Commonwealth of nations brought against a lawyer for remarks made in court in defence of a client.

T'was a period in time when Malaysia was ruled by the iron fist of a PM named Mahathir. And ironically LKS was also detained in Ops Lalang, thanks to that same Mahathir draconian regime.

SIRIM should grade Mahathir's current hypocrisy as 101% bullshit with the potential to metamorphose into anti Chinese venom.

Continuing with Sangeet's statement, “Now I strongly urge the leaders of DAP to be very mindful when we choose our allies. Yes, there are no permanent friends, there are no permanent enemies, but there must be permanent principles. And when we choose our allies, we must be sure that their principles are genuinely in line with ours.”

What Sangeet Kaur said, obviously referring to Mahathir, has been exactly in line with her brother Ramkarpal, namely, that Mahathir's principles (or lack of) aren't those of the DAP.

And may I add in conclusion, nor those of LKS, given his current nyanyok mentality and heedless rush into an unholy alliance with Mahathir, which has turned him sadly from being my hero to being a big bloody zero.

I excuse him on my belief it's his age and associated anxious desire to finish with and on a glorious chapter to his almost half a century of political struggle, since 1969.