An obituary for Keadilan's young leaders' Politik Baru ( new politics) is perhaps somewhat premature at this juncture but even the most exuberant optimist must now accept that its demise is very much a possibility in the wake of DAP's departure from the Barisan Alternatif coalition.

Away on a European trip for more than two weeks and the media there dominated by the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, I was naturally looking forward to get some national news soon after arriving home. And there it was.

But the DAP's decision to quit was hardly surprising, given the belligerence exhibited by both sides in the preceding weeks on the issue of the Islamic state. One watched in disbelief as the deputy presidents of the quarrelling parties continued their bickering in full view of the media, even as their colleagues in the coalition advised them to settle their arguments within the confines of a closed meeting room.

Instead of blaming the mainstream media and their common foe for this final falling-out, they should perhaps hold the mirror closer to their faces.

Sad betrayal

The biggest losers are the ordinary Malaysians who had pinned their hopes on the new coalition, who, for a while seemed capable of delivering the promise of a new Malaysia with their new political discourse based on justice for all, mutual respect, tolerance, and a balanced, equitable development, as a real alternative to the entrenched hegemony of race-based politics of the Barisan Nasional who has been ruling the country uninterrupted since Merdeka.

We have now come to the painful realisation that the 'KL spring' ushered in by the events of Sept 98 is probably short lived, a false dawn that has quickly receded into a perpetual political twilight.

It seems, in their partisan pursuits, the quarrelling opposition leaders have contemptuously turned their backs on the Malaysian people. With its ideologues incarcerated in Kamunting and the rout in Sarawak, the unproductive, nay, damaging 'Islamic state' polemics is drowning out the voice of Politik Baru.

It is a sad betrayal of those courageous and idealistic young men that their voice is becoming more distant and muffled, and finally smothered by this re-emergent, exclusionist partisan agenda.

Maybe none of them read their common manifesto except for the few idealistic ones who had prepared it. It seemed that the document was only meant for the voters, not for them. One could only read with much bemusement when the secretary-general and information chief of PAS dissected a phrase in the common manifesto to show us that the seeds are already there for the creation of a theocratic state as they interpreted it.

One could feel from that point onwards that those who had supported the BA's broad appeal have been hoodwinked and betrayed. The BA lost a good deal of credibility in that ruckus. The other leaders of the coalition seemed helpless and unable to persuade their quarrelling colleagues to repair the damage.

Racial tolerance

Many have commented that the partnership of PAS and DAP was doomed from the start.

But I do not subscribe to this view as I feel the unprecedented display of racial tolerance and understanding within the BA camp, especially at the lower levels of leadership and grass roots was genuine, and that it was a testimony of BA's greatest achievement, and for a short while, bodes well its future potential. This warmth was very much in evidence at ceramah (political gatherings) and functions leading up to the 1999 general elections.

I remember well during the heady days of the election campaign that year, in my home town near Klang, seeing a woman wearing the purdah (full veil), obviously a PAS worker, getting into her fiery-red Proton in a mosque compound. She hurriedly reversed her car and swung out through the gates at full throttle, with one big DAP flag fluttering out from her right window and another of PAS out the left, quickly disappearing in a cloud of dust.

To this day, I never doubted the sincerity of her new-found friendship with her party that had been so alien months before. Shortly after the elections, the DAP leaders paid courtesy visits to Kelantan and Terengganu to congratulate their PAS colleagues.

The Terengganu Menteri Besar addressed a mainly Chinese crowd at the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall, the Kelantan Menteri Besar was seen fielding questions from members of church organisations in Petaling Jaya and visiting financially ruined pig farmers in Bukit Pelanduk, and the PAS president visited a Chinese community defending their forcibly closed school in Damansara.

Of course there were bloopers, like the proposal to introduce a special tax on kharaj (non-Muslim businesses) soon after PAS took over Terengganu but the general atmosphere of tolerance and friendship gave one the impression that the BA was firmly anchored in the discourse of 'Politik Baru'.

Loose cannons

So what has made all this suddenly seeme so fragile? Was it the arrogance of power that they have all this time accused Umno of? Spurred by PAS' electoral success and relative strength within the coalition, one youth leader during this year's muktamar (PAS general assembly) stood up and suggested that PAS should be the dominant party in BA. But the wise president, in respect of his coalition partners and not wishing to create another monster, cut him down.

But PAS has too many loose cannons that had cost BA dearly, and the one fatal shot that led to DAP's eventual departure was the insistence by its deputy that if PAS governs the country, it will establish an Islamic state. The polemics that followed were silly and damning. Worse still, the challenge by the Umno president to spell out what it all means was ignored while continuing to stress that objective.

The DAP was certainly right to try to resolve the 'Islamic state' issue now rather than postponing it, but the open bickering could only lead to such a conclusion. Their parting shot that they will not tolerate neither PAS nor Umno's Islamic state, perhaps to return to ideological purity, displayed as much cultural insensitivity as what they had been accusing PAS of.

Was it through arrogance or a genuine thoughtlessness when its deputy president said that "if PAS gets to form the next government" instead of a "BA government"?

By extension, one wonders why the Kelantan and Terengganu state governments are called 'PAS governments' and not BA, unlike their BN predecessors in the two states which did not call theirs 'Umno governments'.

PAS has probably made its calculations that it has nothing to lose and perhaps more to gain by hardening its stance on its exclusivist Islamic state project. It will probably get to rule the four northern Malay-majority states but at the same time that will be the end of the dream for a new Malaysia and the death of Politik Baru.

Childish display

There will be the Malay-belt - Islamic and conservative, poor but contented - and the rest of the country much as they are now with pockets of prosperity and first world modernity, and wide swathes of poverty or just manageable existence, lorded over by a mediocre and corrupt elite.

But some observers are more optimistic. They would argue that with DAP's departure, Keadilan can now become a strong, truly multiracial party, the party of the future. But this requires one qualification - that the discourse of Politik Baru is revived as the driving force of what is left of the BA.

But if the fledgling coalition is perceived to be dominated by PAS with its exclusivist discourse, Keadilan might just remain a small Malay party with a fate not dissimilar to that of Semangat 46. That would, indeed, be very sad for Malaysians caught with no real alternatives and a betrayal for those young leaders who represent the voice of the new politics.

Even as I am finishing this piece, the running down of Umno's Islamic state by the two top PAS leaders as though there are no other important things to say is really quite disheartening.

With such display of childishness, it is difficult to remain an optimist, but I'm not writing an obituary yet. I wonder what that veiled lady in the fiery-red Proton thinks of all this now.