S Thayaparan
Malaysia’s tragedy is that (Prime Minister) Anwar Ibrahim’s supporters are equally insecure and desperate, so they tolerate his flaws. They will say, “If not Anwar, then who?” or “Do you want a ‘Green Wave’ government?”
COMMENT | For someone who is so dependent on non-Malay support, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has done a remarkable job of dismissing the base of Pakatan Harapan.
Anwar is very well aware that although on social media, non-Malays rant and rave, the reality is that when it comes to the ballot box, they will vote for his proxies because they believe that flawed as he is, there is no alternative.
This of course is directly opposite from how Perikatan Nasional voters think. You see, they have seen Malay prime ministers brought down not necessarily by the will of the people but by political blocs.
They understand that the individual is less important than the political parties that they support or which they can withdraw their support from.
What we are dealing with now is something much more different. It is a system which the establishment has very little control over. And this is what the progenitors of the ketuanan (supremacy) system are reckoning with.
The theocratic state-in-waiting understands they have no need for prime ministers in the sense of someone leading the country. All they need is a figurehead.
PN, because of electoral legerdemain, has become the realisation of theocratic dreams of fellow Islamic travellers within the bureaucracy.
PAS-led PN is the logical conclusion of decades of Islamisation and racial brainwashing that created a polity who have abandoned such concepts as social contract and power sharing in favour of a theocratic state.
This is why PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang laments the old timers, who desperately attempt to replicate the success of BN when the political terrain has changed.
Malaysia’s tragedy is that (Prime Minister) Anwar Ibrahim’s supporters are equally insecure and desperate, so they tolerate his flaws. They will say, “If not Anwar, then who?” or “Do you want a ‘Green Wave’ government?”
– Columnist Mariam Mohktar
COMMENT | For someone who is so dependent on non-Malay support, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has done a remarkable job of dismissing the base of Pakatan Harapan.
Anwar is very well aware that although on social media, non-Malays rant and rave, the reality is that when it comes to the ballot box, they will vote for his proxies because they believe that flawed as he is, there is no alternative.
This of course is directly opposite from how Perikatan Nasional voters think. You see, they have seen Malay prime ministers brought down not necessarily by the will of the people but by political blocs.
They understand that the individual is less important than the political parties that they support or which they can withdraw their support from.
What we are dealing with now is something much more different. It is a system which the establishment has very little control over. And this is what the progenitors of the ketuanan (supremacy) system are reckoning with.
The theocratic state-in-waiting understands they have no need for prime ministers in the sense of someone leading the country. All they need is a figurehead.
PN, because of electoral legerdemain, has become the realisation of theocratic dreams of fellow Islamic travellers within the bureaucracy.
PAS-led PN is the logical conclusion of decades of Islamisation and racial brainwashing that created a polity who have abandoned such concepts as social contract and power sharing in favour of a theocratic state.
This is why PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang laments the old timers, who desperately attempt to replicate the success of BN when the political terrain has changed.
PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang
Hadi understands that the fear of the “Green Wave” in the non-Malays is so powerful, that they will let Anwar, supported by the DAP, hasten the Islamisation of this country, thus doing his job for him.
Jakim expansion
When Anwar decided that the Islamic Development Department (Jakim) needed to play a bigger role in policy-making, for instance, non-Malay political operatives in the Madani government were silent as church mice.
Dissenters who were appalled by this move were dismissed by the prime minister who reportedly said: “I want Jakim not only to talk about religion and Islamic law. Jakim is to expand its duties, talk about economic issues, look at digital programmes, and look at the education curriculum.
“The responsibility is broader, so that the values of Islam can be applied, and this is opposed by those who do not understand, a small group of non-Muslims who write that ‘Anwar is now displaying his strong Islamist attitude, which he has tried to hide all this time by ordering Jakim to control all the systems.’”
Hadi understands that the fear of the “Green Wave” in the non-Malays is so powerful, that they will let Anwar, supported by the DAP, hasten the Islamisation of this country, thus doing his job for him.
Jakim expansion
When Anwar decided that the Islamic Development Department (Jakim) needed to play a bigger role in policy-making, for instance, non-Malay political operatives in the Madani government were silent as church mice.
Dissenters who were appalled by this move were dismissed by the prime minister who reportedly said: “I want Jakim not only to talk about religion and Islamic law. Jakim is to expand its duties, talk about economic issues, look at digital programmes, and look at the education curriculum.
“The responsibility is broader, so that the values of Islam can be applied, and this is opposed by those who do not understand, a small group of non-Muslims who write that ‘Anwar is now displaying his strong Islamist attitude, which he has tried to hide all this time by ordering Jakim to control all the systems.’”
Political analyst Bridget Welsh in her latest piece not only demonstrates why she is the best political observer of Malaysian politics in play at the moment but also raises an important point.
She wrote: “More quietly, there has been a modest streamlining of governance, improvements in efficiency and greater cooperation among ministries. This has come despite strong resistance from the bureaucracy who overwhelmingly did not vote for the current government.”
If you are a rational non-Malay, you have to ask yourself, why would Anwar empower an organisation which clearly benefits PN?
All these provocations by various agent provocateurs of the state when it comes to religion are hastily defined as “miscommunications” by Madani factotums.
And what do you do? You have given them more money to carry out agendas which should be (but isn’t) antithetical to the Madani state.
Flawed electoral system
It gets worse because of the electoral system. Keep in mind that Bersatu was created because the old maverick knew that the electoral system was rigged.
As previously reported, “(Former prime minister) Dr Mahathir Mohamad noted that the opposition coalition's multiracial approach had not been successful in rural Malay constituencies, which is given disproportionate weightage in the general election.
“The former premier pointed out that this was seen when the opposition coalition won 52 percent of the popular vote in the last general election (2013) but still failed to capture Putrajaya.”
This is what the ketuanan types are betting on. PN continues to demonise DAP (proxy for non-Malays) even though they know that the non-Malays (DAP) are bending over backwards for Anwar.
Anwar meanwhile understands that the non-Malays will probably never abandon him or DAP because they fear the “Green Wave”.
So where does this leave the non-Malay voter? Well, either you support a process of further religious and racial radicalisation through the coalition you vote for which would lead to a theocratic state or do not vote and get a theocratic state.
The question is, with time running out, will the non-Malay vote continue to keep Anwar afloat? But more importantly, will it matter on our current trajectory to an Islamic state?
S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy. Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum - “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”
Al Juburi is a proven Bullshit artist.
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