DAP, a willing victim & captive to Parti Pribumi, out of sheer greed

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DAP, the victim of his ownBy TAY TIAN YAN

DAP's “success” has stemmed from an exchange of interests with Mahathir, but the party now is forced to pay a price for its arrogance and power hunger that come with that success

Photo courtesy: Bernama 

A recent string of developments has almost blown DAP onto the ground.

The party has spent more than half a century to lift itself out of opposition to become a component of the ruling coalition, but in less than two years, it now confronts a cruel ruling crisis.

In just two weeks, two of its ethnic Indian state assemblymen have been nabbed by the police for alleged involvement in LTTE activities.

Following that, a former party member Hew Kuan Yau came under police probe, his comic book banned.

And now, state assemblyman Ronnie Liu finds himself besieged by enraged PPBM Pribumi leaders who have demanded that DAP take action against him within a week, and his party has submissively referred him to the disciplinary committee.

As the second largest component of the ruling coalition with six ministers, seven deputy ministers and 42 Members of Parliament, it is downright sad that DAP has been slapped with such a humiliating treatment which it has not previously encountered. Not even in opposition.

While these three incidents might be purely coincidental, the way they have popped up successively is by no means accidental.

Ever since day one the tie-up between DAP and Mahathir was built with electoral votes as primary consideration, not ideological similarities. As Hew Kuan Yau has put it, they came together with a common objective of taking down the BN government, or by exploiting the Malays to fight the Malays.

Unfortunately, Mahathir's political wisdom has proven far superior to DAP's. While the Rocket has intended to make use of Mahathir to fight BN, the latter has gone a step faster to take it down first.

Mahathir was well aware that this party could help bring him a lot of Chinese and Indian votes, but after the election was over, this party would no longer be of any use to him but would instead become a liability.

In the eyes of majority of Malays, DAP is a Chinese chauvinistic party that is challenging the dominant status of the Malays. And in Malay-majority constituencies, DAP will affect the support rate of Mahathir and his PPBM Pribumi.

What Mahathir and PPBM need now in order to counter the Umno-PAS challenge is the support of the Malay society to ensure the stability and sustainability of the Mahathir administration.

To achieve this goal, there is this absolute need to alienate DAP and draw a clear line between them, also to show that the Pakatan government is not controlled by DAP.

Moreover, for Mahathir to establish his historical status in the Malay society, there is no way he should be seen as being too close to the Rocket, less so being controlled by it.

As a matter of fact, Mahathir has taken the pre-emptive step to dominate DAP by offering the party an unprecedented number of cabinet positions, including the very much prized finance portfolio (even though some of the minister's powers have been devolved to the newly created economic affairs ministry).

As a result, DAP will not have any objection even though Mahathirism is resuscitated, or the prime minister is having some secret deals with Umno and PAS. Even the clamorous Malay Dignity Congress is largely tolerated.

DAP's power has come from the local Chinese and Indian communities, but the party has opted to keep mum over a number of issues related to the minorities, including ICERD, the Rome Statute, the Seni Khat issue, UEC recognition and many others.

The punishment meted out to UTAR has broken the hearts of Chinese Malaysians.

DAP has opted to brush aside its own political ideologies, while its political attributes have become increasingly obscured.

DAP's suppressed reactions have not been well reciprocated by Mahathir and his PPBM Pribumi. When the time comes, they will still launch their offensives.

Even until this very minute, DAP's frontline leaders remain unresponsive, other than drawing a line between it and Hew Kuan Yau, and referring Ronnie Liu to the party's disciplinary committee.

DAP's “success” has stemmed from an exchange of interests with Mahathir, but the party is now forced to pay a hefty price for its arrogance and power hunger that come with that success.

The Rocket has unfortunately fallen victim to its own success.