Shifting the political narratives

In politics, a narrative - the popularly held, sometimes unfair view that marks a party - is difficult to shift.

In Malaysian politics, the narrative about the Barisan Nasional is that it is corrupt and beyond redemption. Of Pakatan Rakyat, the word is that its component parties can't agree a common platform because of fundamental differences in ideology.

Into the recent Permatang Pasir by-election and after, the narratives of both coalitions stayed true to type.

The Umno-BN could not have chosen a more ill-equipped candidate in Rohaizat Othman to shift the common perception of it, while some leaders in Pas were busy undermining the recently agreed PR ground rule that consensus among coalition members must precede any major change in policy.

While there may be some truth to the claim that the Umno Permatang Pasir division were exceptionally careless in vetting Rohaizat (right), and that Pas has in its Selangor leader particularly, a maverick hard to rein in, the controversies in which both were embroiled were emblematic of the narratives that mark the coalitions they represent.

In their search for new faces to freshen its image, Umno-BN would certainly want to do better than come up with someone as compromised as Rohaizat. But can they? Short of engaging in what is certain to be a wrenching self-cleansing process that must start at the top if it is to be effective, the exercise is easier spoken about than attempted.

Baggage-ridden leaders

On the PR side, the principal leaders of PR's component parties can no longer kid themselves that the impressive spirit of concord whenever they confer would necessarily percolate through the ideologically disparate ranks of the coalition.

The problem with Umno-BN is that its ethos for the better part of two decades has been to make wealth acquisition, however dubious the methods, the mark of success; while the PR has in Pas a component party to whom Islam is not just an ethical ideal but also a polity.

At a glance, it would seem that Umno-BN has the easier task of ridding itself of its malady. A self-cleansing exercise does not require of it something as wrenching as ideological repudiation which would be the case with Pas, even if the party were to trim its sails to adhere to the mild secularism that is the stance of coalition partners PKR and DAP.

However, if Umno were determined to fight graft, it would have preferred less baggage-ridden leaders than the ones it chose at its elective congress last March to lead it in the era of its lost hegemony in Malaysian politics.

Hegemony of the religious kind would result if Pas were allowed free rein to carry through its ideological agenda. The kind of religious politics that non-Muslims in Malaysia would be comfortable with are the sort they are used to hearing from Pas' spiritual head Nik Aziz Nik Mat (left) - which is plenty of talk, much walking the talk but from what thus far seems so, not much enthusiasm for hudud enforcement.

But who is to say what would happen once Nik Aziz passes from the scene. No one else in Pas has his stature in holding the line against a conception of Islamic rectitude that unduly grates on liberal nerves.

That leaves us with what's to be done about the narratives that burden both the Umno-BN and PR coalitions, now looking more than ever like contending alternatives, vying for the support of the Malaysian electorate.

Only a spell in the opposition would enable Umno-BN to purge itself of the narrative that dogs them. Of course, it is too much to expect that they would choose that course for themselves, if only because so many have cause to fear the legal repercussions stemming from an ouster from power.

As for the PR's narrative, the only one who can shift it is Anwar Ibrahim, the man who put the coalition together in the first place. Thus far he has been more successful at conjuring up the coalition and making it stick despite centrifugal pressures than in charting a steady course for it going forward.

Good governance begins at home

He would be more successful at the latter if he is seen to act decisively against not only recalcitrant and corrupt elements in his own PKR, but also against incompetent ones. As it stands, a reluctance to take such action translates as latitude for mavericks in PR components to act as they please.

To Anwar (left) the art of conjuring may be easier to bring off than meeting the challenge of transforming his party into a more cohesive and formidable entity than the jerry-built one that began 10 years ago as a result of his sacking from Umno and his incarceration on trumped up charges.

Translating charisma and spellbinding oratory on the stump into the brass tacks of party management and discipline is not a task that can be deferred to when PR takes Putrajaya.

Indeed now that PR has won six out of seven by-elections and looks like a coalition that is here to stay despite fissiparous tendencies, this may be a prerequisite for taking power.

Perhaps then it can be said that while PR may find it difficult to agree a common platform, it has a leader, who in respect of his own party, can take the bit between the teeth when the time calls for it.

Otherwise, how is belief to be sustained in his capability to lead a coalition of different ideologies which must be straddled and which must be cajoled, beguiled, even coerced, to move in a particular direction?

Indeed, good governance, like charity, begins at home.