Safe to vote against BN
Before I address the main issues raised by Tai, I would like to point out that Tai has misread a scenario painted by me when he said "Even in the scenario of BN losing, according to the writer's own table of projection, PAS will have twice as many seats (40) over Keadilan's 20, with DAP having 27."
Tai's reference to my above configuration of seats as that for the scenario of BN losing is incorrect. The above configuration was not for the case of BN losing, as obvious from the combined opposition seats of only 87 out of the total of 193; but rather it was for the worst imaginable scenario for BN under the present circumstances, where BN had its overwhelming majority substantially slashed.
In fact, I had never considered an imminent win by the opposition in the present circumstances as a possibility. I mentioned BN losing, only for the purpose of driving home the points that even in that unlikely scenario, a) it is impossible for PAS to win a simple majority on its own and b) in the event of an opposition coalition, PAS could not dominate if the middle ground electorate had given its full support to the middle ground parties.
For argument's sake, even if the impossible — BN losing — should happen, this can only be brought about by a convulsion so out of the ordinary that surely my above configuration of 40-27-20 does not apply.
Hence, in that imaginary scenario of BN losing, we certainly cannot assume that PAS will have twice as many seats as Keadilan, or even PAS will have the highest number of seats among the opposition.
In spite of my above comments, and for the sake of dispelling some misconception, I will proceed to examine Tai's discourse fully, as it contains important political issues of the day that need to be sorted out.
However, before I start on my deliberations, I would like to remind readers once again that my following discourse is based on an imaginary and highly improbable scenario of BN losing the majority in the imminent election.
In Tai's letter, he continues to maintain that either Malaysians support BN, or Malaysia will become a theocratic Islamic state.
To arrive at that conclusion, he insists that PAS can be equated to the entire opposition, and that if BN loses, PAS will dominate the opposition coalition government so completely that Malaysia will become a theocracy.
We will start with the second part: in the event of an opposition coalition government. Assuming PAS has most seats among the opposition (which assumption is not at all certain), will PAS dominate the coalition the way Umno overlords over BN?
The answer is a resounding no. It is completely nonsensical to equate DAP to MCA or Gerakan. DAP has a record of total consistency in adherence to political principles in its struggles for a democratic and just Malaysia throughout its existence of more than three decades, while MCA is only an opportunistic sycophant to Umno.
Witness the decisive manner and the sacrifices put up by DAP in opposing the Islamic state, as opposed to the servile posture with which MCA and Gerakan chorused with Mahathir when the latter announced that Malaysia was already an Islamic state. Knowing DAP's impeccable record, can any one imagine DAP (as a coalition partner) ever voting in favour of an Islamic state in the Cabinet and in Parliament? Honest answers, please.
Tai is right that in a conflict of principles, DAP may be forced out of the coalition. But can the coalition maintain its simple majority without DAP? As it is, an opposition (including DAP) winning a majority is already a remote possibility. Without DAP, it is an absolute impossibility.
Tai was questioning whether Keadilan deserves support from the middle ground in view of its ambiguous stand on the Islamic state issue. The answer is that Keadilan has in the past repeatedly issued statements that opposed the Islamic state and favoured the present secular Constitution which befits a multi-racial and multi-religious country.
However, on the recent controversial issue of hudud law in Terengganu, Keadilan has issued statements over the past few days that displayed an oscillation of policy thinking. While insisting the secular Constitution should be adhered to, it does not object to the hudud law passed in Terengganu.
The above contradiction in principles reflects weak leadership in Keadilan. In fact, ever since all Keadilan's vocal and activist leaders were imprisoned by BN more than a year ago, the party has been sapped of its original vitality and is now suffering from a leadership vacuum. That explains its relatively weak stand against PAS' Islamic push, compared to DAP's vocal opposition.
While DAP, being Chinese based, has won an instant boost to its electoral strength from its decisive break from PAS on the Islamic state issue, it is a completely different story for Keadilan, which is Malay-based. In its present weakened form, Keadilan has to lean on PAS to some extent to sustain its political life.
An outright condemnation of PAS Islamic agenda would have severed that link, besides making itself vulnerable to accusation of betraying Islam. (Please note that even Umno assemblymen in Terengganu dared not vote against PAS hudud legislation out of the same fear). And Keadilan can ill afford that.
However, it is poor political judgment to write off Keadilan as an appendage to PAS at this extraordinary time, when the former is practically crippled, due to the incarceration of not only all its vocal leaders but also its supreme leader and founder of the reformasi movement Anwar Ibrahim. Viewing it in totality, the Reformasi movement is the best thing that ever happens to this country.
It is a Malay-based mass movement that has declared war on Umno's corruption and exploitation of the racial divide. It proposes to build a national consensus embracing all races and religions based on universal principles of democracy and justice, in full accord with the spirit of the Malaysian Constitution (which is secular), as clearly spelled out in the Permatang Pauh Declaration, announced by Anwar on the launch of the reformasi movement in 1998.
It is true that Keadilan has taken a winding course, itself a manifestation of its internal conflicts on religion and politics, and has allowed its noble objectives to be obscured. Without denying that this unsatisfactory state is attributable in part to the lack of a strong leadership such as can be provided by Anwar or some one of his calibre, the main culprit is the great oppressor BN. The latter has effectively incapacitated Keadilan by jailing virtually its entire leadership, muting its voice and defiling its image through BN's total control and exploitation of the local media.
Referring to Tai's reference to Anwar's image as an Islamic activist accrued in his younger days, my answer is that we should judge a leader as he is, not what he was.
If the behaviour of yesteryears can be used as a criterion to judge the fitness of a present leader, then Mahathir should be the first one to be condemned as an unfit national leader now, considering his firebrand days as an ultra-Malay nationalist when he unleashed some of the most racialist and vitriolic anti-Chinese rhetoric before and after the May 13 riot in 1969.
Similarly, can anyone claim that Rais Yatim is now a champion of democracy, simply because he was once a political campaigner against BN's transgression against our democratic constitution as expounded in his book written some years back, ignoring his current role as chief henchman for BN's autocratic agenda?
People who have read the Permatang Pauh Declaration and Anwar's book The Asian Renaissance should be able to vouch for the soundness of the democratic and humanistic values expounded therein, and they must also have been reassured that there is no room for a theocratic state in these discourse. No one should then denigrate Anwar's political ideology unless the latter is considered a hypocrite and a cheat.
Speaking of Anwar's honesty, perhaps the most eloquent statement is the fact that in spite of the full might of the entire BN government machinery being employed to prosecute him, the government has not uncovered an iota of evidence to charge Anwar of personal dishonesty with regards to acquisition of wealth. No other Umno leader can stand up to this kind of scrutiny.
At this stage, I am able to summarise a few salient conclusions from my two articles:
