Nothing wrong for UMNO and DAP to work together

Malaysiakini:

There's no moral dilemma of Umno and DAP working together

by S Thayaparan


“I am prepared to work with any Malaysian to save Malaysia, not only Dr Mahathir and Muhyiddin, but even with Najib if the prime minister is prepared to admit that he had led the country on a wrong tangent and that Malaysia must be saved with far-reaching democratic and institutional reforms.”

– DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang

With 'prime minister in perpetual waiting' Anwar Ibrahim making moves, Umno in perpetual schizophrenia mulling a reset, PAS in perpetual hypocrisy waiting to see which side comes out on top, Bersatu in perpetual fear of losing power and willing to throw even the kitchen sink at any problem, it is plausible to consider the option of Umno working with Pakatan Harapan to buy time while the Malay establishment gets its bearings after the recent political upheavals.

While nobody is surprised that Anwar may be making moves with elements from Umno to dethrone Muhyiddin Yassin's regime, the big question remains if a DAP/Umno combination is in the short-term works. Anwar may be playing some sort of game with no purpose, but it does bring up interesting questions.

I have no idea why Umno and DAP in some sort of “unity” government is such a horrible thing to consider. This idea that there is something “morally” questionable about the DAP working with Umno is absurd.

The ever-earnest James Chai, in his comment piece, makes his case that one of the moral dilemmas of a possible Anwar government is the partnership between Umno and the DAP. Funnily enough, his first two moral dilemmas, working with corrupt Umno politicians and changing governments during a pandemic, makes the case that in reality, all these supposed moral dilemmas are red herrings.

The DAP, by making its Faustian bargain and working with Bersatu, demonstrated that working with morally-suspect and corruption-tainted politicians was not an impediment to “saving Malaysia”. Indeed, when Harapan briefly formed the government, and Bersatu was accepting Umno frogs, the DAP bent over backwards attempting to justify why Bersatu accepting Umno members was part of the grand plan to save Malaysia.

Meanwhile, the recently-concluded disastrous Sabah election and the wholehearted commitment by Harapan officials (including the DAP) to use the election as a referendum on Muhyiddin's rule, demonstrates that whatever moral questions of regime change in a pandemic are moot. Folks blame the PM for the resurgence of the pandemic, but were hyping and cheering on participants during the heat of the election.

So, if the DAP gets to decide to work with corruption-tainted politicians (as they did with Bersatu), then I do not see why this becomes an issue simply because Anwar decides to gather a motley morally-compromised alliance made up of disaffected Umno political operatives to replace the Muhyiddin regime.

Truth be told. Umno and DAP working together makes sense in a way that makes people uncomfortable. If we dispense with the Manichean worldview, what we have are two essentially race-based political entities, joining forces, and which most probably represents a sizeable majority of voters.

There is actually a persuasive realpolitik case to be made with these two historically hostile entities putting aside their horse manure feud and working together now. The Umno apparatus and propagandists have always complained that the MCA is not holding up its end of the racial equation power-sharing formula.

With the MCA bereft of majority support of the Chinese community, what MCA is relying on are the Umno voters to support them. This, of course, makes it extremely difficult for the MCA to exert any kind of influence in the coalition, considering the party does not have the backing of the majority in the Chinese community. This makes moves by Umno to middle ground issues suspect because it does not have the support of credible non-Malay power structures.

If Umno, which has a pedigree of fighting for Malay "rights", made a centrist move for political purposes, imagine the optics if they had the backing of a credible non-Malay power structure.

What the DAP brings to any kind of coalition is the majority backing of a voting demographic and hence they can claim to be the “voice” of the community on secular and egalitarian issues. The fact that they have to downplay such aspirations proves how well they can play with weak factions of the Malay political establishment. Now, imagine if they could do this with Umno, which is a vital part of the Malay power structure and works on a reform agenda which many in Umno know needs to be carried out if Malaysia is to remain a viable democracy and not some sort of theocratic nightmare.

The big question is: how much is too much for the Malay establishment? We already know, from the words of Mahathir, that the DAP was bending over backwards for the bumi agenda. That the non-Malay – read Chinese – community did not get as much from the government as the Malay community did. That the DAP was subservient because it understood that Umno/PAS would use any excuse to destabilise Mahathir’s government.

How do Umno and DAP work out a relationship which satisfies both bases without alienating the grassroots? Both now have experiences in dealing with a partner - Bersatu - which is gobbling up everything, even though it is the weakest link in the coalition.

There are really no ideological differences between DAP and Umno. Of course, some folks will point to the superficialities, but what the reality of Harapan rule has demonstrated is that these differences mean bupkis when it comes to policy. We know that Malay power structures use the DAP as a convenient whipping boy.

Former Umno operative Muhkriz Mahathir said so here: "Looking at Umno, when there were big issues which we could not address, we would talk about DAP, Chinese chauvinism, and how Lim Kit Siang becoming prime minister would destroy Malaysia, that the Malays would disappear, and the mosques can no longer air the azan. I admit that I too have said such things, in front of a 100 percent Malay audience."

Think about this. One of the big commonalities between the DAP and Umno is both have been burned by former prime minister Mahathir. The old maverick left Umno because Umno refused to bend the knee. He then left Harapan because their knees broke after prolonged inertia in a supine position.

The reality is that DAP and Umno are always attempting to be centre-right forces in this country, but both have been pulled away from the middle ground by political personalities under various forms of political scandals.

What people forget is this - that if Umno and DAP were on the same page, they would be the ones setting the agenda. I have no idea if this is a good or bad thing, for Malaysia, but I do know that both would be speaking for the majority of this country.

If there is a dilemma, it would concern the values of the majority.

S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. A retired barrister-at-law, he hopes young people will assume the mantle of leadership – if there is to be any hope for this country