Pakatan in Cameron Highlands like Custer at Litlle Bighorn

MM Online - Don’t get too used to power, Ambiga warns Pakatan lawmakers (extracts):

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 2 — Former Malaysian Bar president and activist Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan has expressed concern that Pakatan Harapan lawmakers are losing touch with the common people, who are becoming increasingly disenchanted.

The lawyer said when PH was still the Opposition prior to the 14th general election (GE14), they were with the people on the streets, speaking and reaching out to them at all times but now there appears to be a big gap when it comes to engaging with the rakyat.

... she said one of the things she has observed is that the people are no longer informed on the government’s plans and their patience was running out.

The former member of the Institutional Reforms Committee said PH should not get too comfortable with where they are right now.

“None of them in PH have that characteristic to go down and meet the people... no one has been seen going down to the people nowadays. My advice to them is don’t get too used to the power,” she said.

Ambiga cited examples of how Datuk Seri Ahmad Maslan, Umno MP, recently whipped up a bizarre dish of fried rice with strawberries from Cameron Highlands and how other Barisan Nasional candidates including former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak was seen on the ground driving a four-wheel drive through muddy terrain and rivers, having meals and activities with the rural area voters during the state seat’s by-election campaign.

“You know that’s the touch, Pakatan cannot afford to lose that. Of course, it is difficult while you have other jobs to carry out in the respective ministries.

Following Ambiga's previous article in MM Online, Ambiga: Growing support for Najib ‘very worrying’, wouldn’t happen in other countries, and Tajuddin Rasdi's succinctly written article in FMT titled Saving Malaysia, again, the latter which I cheekily re-titled Pakatan may lose GE15?, wakakaka, it's little wonder Ambiga has come out again to remind Pakatan leaders Don’t get too used to power and become too BIG-HEADED and/or TOKONG-ish. 

She's worried that Pakatan ministers and leaders have lost touch with their supporters, stating:

"... Pakatan must also understand we are coming in at a difficult time — recession time — and the patience of the people is running out.

“I’m always of the view that reform and change must occur quickly because if you wait too long, they will lose the stomach for reform. They will start thinking of the next elections.”

Of course, implicit in what she has said have been the number of free capati's Pakatan leaders have been handing out generously, wakakaka.

I bet those Pakatan leaders probably have been thanking and thinking Mahathir's dictum "... pre-election manifesto is not a bible that has to be followed and abided by religiously" has been just great, audaciously courageous and life-saving for them and their reckless promises.

And Mahathir was even considered as cuter when he confessed Pakatan made those unachievable pre-election manifesto promises in reckless fashion thinking they could not possibly win GE14, but without realising his confession revealed Pakatan for making manifesto lies and fabrications in order just to win.

Be that as they were, yes, the above have worried Ambiga when she foresees what Tajuddin Rasdi mentioned, that growing disenchantment with capati-inclined and now-secretive-obsessed and less-tolerant Pakatan may yet prove to be disastrous for the "new" Malaysia.

Apart from that, IMHO, Pakatan lost the Cameron Highlands by-election because of over-confidence and an unfounded belief in its own popularity, invincibility and its perception of an-already destroyed UMNO.

The 09 May 2018 momentous GE14 victory and a couple of other by-elections had led an over-confident Pakatan to expect winning Cameron Highlands with hands tied behind its arrogant back.

T'was only in the latter stages of the campaign that some of its more experienced leaders, eg. Lim KS, began to be aware that, like the US 7th Calvary in June 1876, Pakatan had walked into its Little Bighorn battlefield.

Battle of the Little Bighorn 

Like Lt Col George Armstrong Custer, Pakatan was too arrogant, overconfident and had only contempt for the enemies - those were the principal factors leading to Pakatan's defeat in Cameron Highlands.

Its arrogance and overconfidence had sadly, in just a mere 8 months, detached Pakatan significantly on many aspects from the voters.

Lim KS's several ominous anti-Najib warnings were too late or ignored, and his last minute shameless appeals to the Chinese voters of Cameron Highlands who work elsewhere to return home to vote for Pakatan were unheeded.

Will Pakatan make the same mistakes in Semenyih?