Pakatan Harapan: between hope and challenges

I am pleased and excited at the formation of Pakatan Harapan (PH).

Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, Lim Kit Siang and Mohamad Sabu have all shown great courage in continuing the alliance. United, PKR, DAP and Amanah can do great things for Malaysia.

The usual anti-opposition crowd has been quick to dismiss PH. But our country clearly and desperately needs unity in the ranks of the opposition in times like this.

As a politician and Malaysian, I don’t regret a single moment I spent as part of the old Pakatan Rakyat (PR). The old Pakatan was – for all its flaws – one of the greatest experiments in multiracial opposition politics in our history, thus far.
It showed Malaysians that there could be a genuine, viable alternative to the tired old Barisan Nasional (BN) system.

But it has run its course. 2008 and 2013 are history. There are no laurels left for us to rest on.

PH gives us the chance to do something new and exciting for the people.

But it comes at a difficult time for Malaysia and the opposition. The voting public is becoming more complex and fragmented.

We’ve all heard about the rural v urban divide, as well as between Malay and non-Malay, East and West Malaysia.

Yet intra-ethnic, intra-class and intra-geographical cleavages are growing. There is growing cynicism and distrust for politicians in general. The leadership vacuum is widening, leaving voters vulnerable to lure of the lowest common denominator: transactional politics or, even worse, appeals to sectarianism.

PH needs to step into this breach.

We must fight now only for the 51% of voters who backed PR in the last election, but also win the support of all Malaysians, including those in the rural areas as well as Sabah and Sarawak.

We must continue to expose the mismanagement and impunity that is rocking our country’s economy.

We must put forth viable policy alternatives that do right by the people. We must also change the very structure of Malaysian politics, to close the racial silos and forge a progressive coalition between ethnic groups.

We must pursue genuine national integration and intercommunal harmony, as well as combat all attempts to damage these for political expedience. We must, in short, give the people hope.

PR was criticised as being too loose, a mere marriage of convenience.

Make no mistake: politics requires pragmatism. We need to be very careful and open-minded in how we manage ties with the parties outside PH, particularly PAS,PSM and parties in Sabah and Sarawak.

Personally, I feel that we should always leave a door open to them.

But they must realise that the future of the country lies not in pursuing rigid ideology or dogma, but instead on a willingness to find common ground in a diverse society.

When all is said and done however, PH cannot be merely just an agreement to avoid multi-cornered election fights. Those are important and essential.

But oppositional alliances must be more than that.

PH must be more than that if it is to make a genuine contribution to democratising Malaysia, reviving its economy and uniting its people.

There must be unity, not only in how we fight elections, but in our ideas and in our work in Parliament as well as the states we govern.

We must want the same things for our country. We must agree on how to achieve these goals and how we are going to get to Putrajaya to accomplish them.

As a youth leader of one of the PH parties, I intend to push the parties to go where PR could not due to various reasons.

I want us to have proper, permanent institutions within our alliance, including those for the youth, women and policymaking think-tanks.

I want us to come up with a policy platform that will appeal to all Malaysians.

I want real unity between PKR, DAP and Amanah. We must become one team. I want a genuine, democratic openness in PH.
No one party should be able to dictate to the others.

PH will only work if it can break the moulds of the past. We must show that we are different from BN and Umno but also better than PR.

But more importantly, we must show we have a vision to take Malaysia forward and can deliver on our promises.

I am committed to PH. I hope and believe that this will be the vehicle through which we can redeem our country. I want and will do all I can to ensure my fellow Malaysians share this faith. – October 18, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.