The venerable Mahathir still thinks that it’s still about him - where in his attempts to whitewash his failed political manuvering in Langkah Sheraton, he has decided that slandering his former colleagues in the Pakatan Harapan government is the best way to ensure that future generations are galvanised them into action to build a corruption-free government.
According to news excerpts, his new memoir “Capturing Hope: The Struggle Continues for a New Malaysia”, has a portion where Mahathir had to put a stop to an advisor to the then finance minister for overreaching his authority on civil servants.
By all accounts, and confirmed by the response seen after, it seems that Mahathir has decided that calling Tony Pua arrogant and behaving like a minister during his tenure as the political secretary to former finance minister Lim Guan Eng.
But why has he chosen now of all times to complain, when by all accounts he was in the driver’s seat when he was PM8 and more than capable of dealing with Tony Pua directly - if he was really a problem.
The unfortunate fact of all of this is that it seems in Mahathir’s case is that you can never change a tiger’s stripes. By all accounts, this is another round of the old man blaming DAP for his woes.
While one can go on and on about all the times that this has happened during PH’s time in government, it was most tragic in the aftermath of the Tanjung Piai by-election.
Where what was to be a call for unity, instead paved the way for continued internal drama and arguably set the stage for Langkah Sheraton.
The tragedy for PH that was Tanjung Piai was made doubly worse for the coalition when Perak Menteri Besar Ahmad Faizal Azumu arguably blamed his battles with the DAP “tribes” as a reason for the loss of Malay support in the by-election.
The subsequent public skirmishes between DAP and PPBM culminated with “open warfare” as threatened by Armada Chief Syed Saddiq.
This kind of tit-for-tat has unfortunately became a regular occurrence for the coalition, alongside the then ever-continuing drama of succession between Tun Mahathir and Anwar Ibrahim.
Reconciliation especially with DAP was especially elusive due to efforts by Mahathir to shore up his party’s continued survival such as his refusal to deport controversial Muslim preacher Dr Zakir Naik back to India and his attendance at Kongres Maruah Melayu (Malay Dignity Congress)–ignore the underlying economic arithmetic that fuels dissatisfaction against his government.
Inequality was and still is being felt by Malaysians of all backgrounds–our economic growth has not been accompaniedwith parallel job expansion and wage increases. A large proportion of our population live on income levels of less than USD 1,000 a month.
At the same time, the much-maligned GST has been abolished, but its replacement in SST has barely dented and even increased the cost of living for families everywhere.
In GE-14, the higher cost of living provoked a tax revolt that was fuelled by a sense of economic instability– an issue that will be pointed towards Pakatan Harapan if things remain the same.
Beyond this economic anxiety, Malaysians feel an intense cultural anxiety. The new culture wars we see today will be bitter fights for the right to define our national identity.
Ever familiar backtracking on key manifesto promises alongside government’s reluctance to recognise the United Examination Certificate (UEC), the removal of the RM30mil matching grant for the Tunku Abdul Rahman College and introducing khat calligraphy in schools fuel a sense of betrayal and capitulation amongst the Chinese.
Dominant ethnic groups never give up their power easily and many remain pessimistic over the capabilities of Bersatu to forward Malay-interests in “a DAP-led government”. Ironically, a result of the chauvinistic narrative that Mahathir himself pioneered in UMNO.
Indeed, while the excesses of the Mahathir-era have led to the banalization of corruption and apathy amongst the Malaysian public–many were optimistic that Pakatan Harapan would stem Malaysia’s slide into mediocrity.
Their manifesto provided a roadmap of where the country could go and even if used as a loose guide, could have been enough to inspire Malaysians that real change was possible.
Instead from Day 1, Pakatan leaders and their associates took every opportunity to deny its viability–leaving the rest of us at a loss of what we could expect from the future.
Recent events in Latin America have shown that “reformist” governments often face immense challenges and are often burdened with the reality of socio-political conditions that they become heir to.
This means that anything less than consistent adherence to principals and hard decisions risks Malaysia vulnerable to conservative forces that are well alive within Malaysian society.
Let’s be clear, irresponsible forces have reopened the Pandora’s Box of tribal politics – and it was a pity that Mahathir only chose to keep it open.
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