COMMENT One way of assessing Pakatan Rakyat’s chances of gaining Putrajaya at the next general election is to gauge the shift in the tactics of its detractors.

These tactics have changed from derisive dismissal to unabashed invitation to join the ruling coalition; from sarcasm about Pakatan’s capacity to come up with the parliamentary arithmetic to govern to misgivings of its capability to craft and implement the agenda of governance.

Besides, of course, the obvious point behind this tactical shift - recognition that Pakatan has a good chance of winning Putrajaya - it shows up its proponents as captives of a time warp from which they can’t seem to liberate themselves.

NONEDe facto law minister Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz’s floating the idea that DAP could represent Chinese interests in a ruling coalition currently short on representation of that ethnic bloc throws up the point of this captivity into sharp relief.

No doubt, Nazri is up to political mischief, deviously playing on strains within the Pakatan coalition that could presumably goad DAP to leave the coalition and head for BN’s embrace.

Still, he could have put the idea across with a little more panache; to wit, that non-Malay interests would be better served in the BN through the latter’s cooptation of a Chinese dominant party that also espouses the interests of the other communities in Malaysia.    

This would have been a better way of enticing the DAP to circle the bait. Instead, Nazri’s lack of subtlety drew a predictable response: the DAP responded that it is not a communal party and any hopes the BN had of enfolding it is a dream doomed for disappointment.

One would think the Bersih-boosted possibility of a Pakatan win at the 13th general election would have jolted the ruling though tottering coalition into refreshment of its thinking.

With defeat no longer just a scudding possibility on the horizon, its stalwarts would be scurrying about for novel methods of assuring survival. Perhaps, too long a stay of unthreatened supremacy has dulled the instincts for survival.   

PAS’ ‘inferior status’ in Pakatan     

Nazri’s failed enticement of the DAP is being matched, this one with a dose of subtlety, by the attempt to induce competitive envy in PAS about its supposedly inferior status in Pakatan as the third party in the opposition coalition.

Architects of this strategy play on the PAS aspiration to be the dominant Malay party in the country, supplanting Umno in that role.

These strategists discount a defection-battered PKR as too weak to assay that role, arguing that PAS, on account of its greater discipline and organisational maturity, has the better chance to pull off the part.

But, as proponents of this damn-with-faint-praise school contend, PAS cannot hope to become the dominant Malay party in Pakatan if it has to share Malay parliamentary seats with PKR.

As with Nazri’s case for the adhesion of DAP to BN, the argument for PAS’ aspiration to dominate Pakatan misses an important point: there is an unspoken meritocracy in Pakatan where the mantle of its leadership accrues to the one most capable of wielding it.

NONEIt is not yet an infrangible principle. But in unanimously supporting Anwar Ibrahim’s tenancy of the opposition leader’s role although PKR has lost its parliamentary superiority; and in agreeing that Nizar Jamaluddin would be the Perak menteri besar should Pakatan regain the state at the coming polls, it has nailed that principle to its mast.

Prone to egregious error

By contrast, the Umno-BN ship has mediocrity built into its hull. If there be doubt about this, suggest another reason why Hishammuddin Hussein, the son of a prime minister and grandson of one who could have been PM, is so prone to egregious error?

Leaders with his propensity for mistakes would have been jettisoned by Pakatan but Hishammuddin stays put, not only exempt from internal criticism but also safe from the downward pulls a less mediocre system would have dealt him.

NONEPakatan won’t tolerate a leader with his record of serial mistakes and though some of the leadership of Pakatan’s components is susceptible to charges of nepotism and cronyism, a Hishammuddin-like immunity - owed to his family legacy - would not be enjoyed by anyone in Pakatan.

When Anwar’s mantle wobbled over the ‘September 16 caper’ and the myopic decision to allow a contest for the deputy leader’s position in PKR, his was not free from the barbs hurled by critics from within and without.

In sum, a career free from criticism is not available in Pakatan. And a good thing that: it would help to keep the coalition’s leadership salt and sane.

Hard act to follow

This brings us to the view that is most redolent of cheek and bravado among several adduced in support of the stance that even if a Pakatan component succeeds in supplanting Umno in the political allegiance of the Malays, it would find Umno’s a hard act to follow.

In this view, Umno is adept at the arts of governing a complex and sensitive polity while Pakatan’s record in the two of five states (Selangor and Kedah) it has governed since the tsunami of March 2008 is dubious at best for precisely the reasons why Umno-BN has been a successful governor for more than a half-century.

In other words, Umno-BN is soberly skilled in the complexities of governing Malaysia, possessing the subtle knowledge of balance and proportion in a multi-racial, multi-religious society, in its economic management and political pacification.    

Aspirant replacements of Umno are parvenus, who may be gifted with a few traits of good governance but are lacking in the overall acumen.

Given the panorama of all that has happened in the last 13 years, this view is akin to the man who jumped out of a skyscraper. When he passed the 26th floor, he was asked by bystanders for his feelings: “So far so good.”

 

TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for close on four decades. He likes the occupation because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them. It is the ideal occupation for a temperament that finds power fascinating and its exercise abhorrent.