O Gerakan, how the mighty have fallen!

NST:

Only 'kamikaze' seats for Gerakan?

Gerakan’S entry into Perikatan Nasional (PN) before the Chinese New Year celebration has led political observers to wonder if the multiracial party could help the ruling coalition win the 15th General Election (GE15). - NSTP file pic

KUALA LUMPUR: Gerakan's entry into Perikatan Nasional (PN) before the Chinese New Year celebration has led political observers to wonder if the multiracial party could help the ruling coalition
win the 15th General Election (GE15).

In a recent statement, Gerakan pledged to work with PN component parties to establish a people's government that prioritised (the public's) wellbeing and moderation.

Despite the pledge, political analysts believed that the only way Gerakan could achieve this was if Barisan Nasional (BN) refused to cooperate with PN in GE15.

National Professors Council chairman Professor Datuk Dr Shamsul Amri Baharuddin said with MCA in the picture, Gerakan would be left to defend only the "kamikaze seats".

MCA is a BN component.

"If BN and MCA join or cooperate with PN, Gerakan will be doomed to contest seats that everyone knows it cannot win.

"It means Gerakan will have to contest 'kamikaze seats'.

"This is because MCA will go for Malay-majority seats, which means Gerakan will have to face DAP in Chinese-dominated seats," he said.

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KT NOTES:

To think this party, once touted as the "next" ruling party of Malaysia after its substantial victory and public popularity in the May 1969 GE, trusted by Malays far far more than its then-allies DAP and PPP (the latter being mainly an Ipoh & Perak party), but now contrarily dismissed in such sad sneering disregard, is (even for kaytee) a tragic ending for Dr Lim Chong Eu's much beloved party with its catching motto of "Satu Hati" [which subsequently was modified to become "Satu Hati Gerak Bersama"].

Of course Dr Lim wasn't the ONLY founder of Gerakan (March 1968 and legalised in May 68) though he alone persisted with it. Intellectuals, academicians and trade unionists like Prof Syed Hussein Alatas, the much revered Dr Tan Chee Khoon, JBA Peter, Prof Wang Gungwu and Veerappen Veerathan plus Dr Lim Chong Eu were joint founders of the multiracial party.

Prof Syed Hussein Alatas with his right arm resting on Dr Lim Choong Eu
on night of election victory in 10 May 1969 and the capture of Penang State from the MCA and a stalemate in Selangor

May 13 broke out in KL 3 days later

A few years after its auspicious genesis (I think 1972?), many MCA intellectuals and Young Turks left to join it after their less-than-auspicious status quo in MCA, where the Young Turks had an irreconcilable stoush with the late MCA President Tan Siew Sin. Gerakan was then a natural political sanctuary for such young-ish non-Malay but multiracial-bent idealists.

MCA President (late) Tan Siew Sin

One of those MCA Young Turks was Dr Lim Keng Yaik whose original idealism was seen to have diminished after years as the head of Gerakan in BN, wakakaka - t'was reckoned to be the adverse influence of BN, wakakaka again.

(late) Dr Lim Keng Yaik

Gerakan's downfall began when it joined Tun Razak's Barisan Nasional (BN). Razak's clever manipulation of politically gullible Chinese saw him pitting the then quite powerful Gerakan against a post-May-1969-voracious MCA in a Machiavellian "Divide and Rule [the Chinese]" strategy inherited from our British colonial master. That was when the original founders of the party save for Dr Lim Chong Eu left the party in unhappiness, eg. Dr Tan Chee Koon left to form his own party PEKEMAS, Drs Syed and Wang Gungwu returned to academia.

[Its ally the DAP wisely rejected Razak's overture and stayed out of BN but alas, in 2018 joined Mahathir - what an eff-up after 50 years of political non-corruptibility.]

That Razak-UMNO strategy to weaken the Gerakan Party (and MCA) was brilliantly portrayed in Penang where-when its (Gerakan's) final humiliation manifested in the tragic 'Raja Bodek-isation' of Koh Tsu Koon, a Gerakan CM of Penang who was just a puppet to his UMNO DCM.

Mind you, there was once a spark of possible Gerakan-MCA unity in Penang (so as to pose a stronger 'non' presence against UMNO in the Penang Assembly) but alas, such potential was squashed before the non got "too big for their heads", wakakaka. Yes, the "Divide and Rule [the Chinese]" strategy worked again.

Penangites especially the 'non' couldn't countenance such a humiliating clown any more even after more than 39 years of Gerakan rule. The voters made sure Gerakan lost disastrously to the DAP in 2008 just as they made sure (Wong Pow Nee's) MCA lost disastrously to Gerakan in 1969. The rest is history.

I see no further future for Gerakan if it believes it can still rely on Chinese votes. Better to merge with its archfoe the MCA (and its Indian members to join either DAP or MIC) or "sell" its logo and party status to Atuk, wakakaka, or become a Malay-dominated party like PKR.