Sept 16 And The Morality Of Party-hopping

Anwar Ibrahim has been bragging that come Sept 16, thirty lawmakers from the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition will cross over to the new opposition Pakatan Rakyat coalition, giving just enough numbers to make him the new prime minister of Malaysia. The incumbent party in power will then exchange place to become His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. Some have since questioned the morality of this uneasy scheme of things.

A few ethical issues have been raised. First of all, it’s a betrayal of the voters who elected them in the first place since they elected the lawmakers based on BN platform. Another is that it involves corruption since the party-hopping is also seen as a buy-over, with massive amounts of money changing hands. The third contentious issue is that it is an all out power grab by toppling the government in power, hence it highly unconstitutional.

Semantics is important. The words bandied about in the media are betrayal, corruption, unconstitutional and unethical. But they can be meaningless in our Malaysian context. Not that they are unimportant.

Musa Hitam, the former deputy prime minister and Umno kingpin, has the uncanny ability to simplify things profoundly political. To him the object of politics is to be in power. Period. He who grabs the most numbers, fastest, wins.

Indeed he, together with Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, made an unsuccesful power grab in 1987 that nearly saw the defeat of Dr Mahathir Mohamad as party chief and prime minster. Ironically, it was Anwar who was the beneficiary of this infighting in Umno as Mahathir made him the new DPM in place of Musa.

The infighting continued nonetheless and it was Anwar’s turn to lose power when Mahathir sacked him in favour of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. To cut the story short, Mahathir was forced out in the ensuing fracas and Abdullah became the new PM supposedly duly annointed by Dr M himself. But now Mahathir wants him removed as Abdullah is now found wanting in the former prime minister’s considered opinion. Not a few concur with that.

So there are now two PMs-in-waiting, Najib Razak the current DPM and Anwar, the former DPM and now Mr Opposition since his phenomenal victory at the recent Permatang Pauh by-election that brough him back to parliament after a forced hiatus of ten years. The moral of the story is… Wait a minute, what morality are we talking about? Bah!

Let’s go back in history a little. When we became an independent nation 51 years ago, it was so blissful to the extent that the Tunku, our first PM and Bapa Malaysia, used to boast that he was the happiest PM in the world. But that was until 1969. In the aftermath of the bloodbath, it was Dr Mahathir who set the power grab in train by demanding the Tunku hand over power. Ironically, it was also Anwar, who was then leader of the Malay Language Society at University of Malaya, who chorussed Mahathir’s line among Malay students. There was a place coup subsequently, and Razak Hussein, Tunku’s deputy took over the reins of power.

It was in 1969 that the ruling coalition lost popular vote in the general elections although it succeeded in holding onto the crucial two-third majority in parliament by a whisker by retaining 95 seats out of the 144.

But it lost Penang state government to the new Chinese-based Gerakan while in Perak and Selangor, it was a hung assembly. The solution was to invite (read crossover or buy-over) one or two of the opposition members to enable it to form the two state governments. In due course, the Gerakan was also “invited” to join the enlarged coalition. PMIP or what is known as PAS, the Muslim party, which was making increasing inroads into the Malay heartland, was similarly extended an “invitation.” PPP, the popular opposition party in Perak founded by the Seenivasagam brothers also accepted the “invitation” to join BN after their founders’ demise.

In Sabah and Sarawak, the situation is more muddied. For instance, PBS under Joseph Pairin Kitigan, crossed over to team up with Tengku Rzaleigh’s Semangat 45 to unseat the ruling coalition in 1990. Both were mauled and later PBS as well as S45 made another crossover and re-joined BN.

Of the 14 component parties in BN, nine are from East Malaysia - PBBB, SUPP, SAPP,PBS,LDP,PBRS, UPKO, SPDP and SPR. Now make a guess which one has not crossed over yet. Anwar is spoilt for choice and undoutedly having a pick of the alphabet soup there to make up his numbers for Sept 16.

So what’s the big deal about party-hopping or crossovers, or power grab and the morality of it all? Bah! (By BOB TEOH/ MySinchew)