Pakatan needs revamp and reboot, not just recommitment

– T K Chua
The Malaysian Insider
22 October 2014

Lim Kit Siang is one politician I admire and respect for a long time. Usually he is realistic and accurate in his assessment of events or happenings in the country and abroad.

However, his recent warning to Pakatan Rakyat (PR) against complacency and his call for the coalition to “regain bearings” and a recommitment to Common Policy Framework and Operational Principle of Consensus may fall short of his usual astute discernment.

I think what happened to PR lately was more than what he described. I think PR needs total revamp and rebooting, not just refocusing or recommitment, if the coalition ever harbours the hope of governing Malaysia someday.

The dichotomy within PR is just too wide and too irreconcilable. The Common Policy Framework is just a Panadol, not a cure. It states what the coalition partners agree, but it ignores and denies what they disagree.

When fighting with a common enemy, they put what they disagree in the backburner. But they probably have attached greater importance to what they disagree than what they agree.

Hence it is a matter of time whatever disagreements simmering beneath the surface would erupt into open fissures.

To me the common policy framework must override individual party policies. If the common policy framework mandates parliamentary democracy, then we can’t have certain party in the coalition still believing in theocracy. If the common policy framework says rule of law and secularism, then we can’t have certain individual party within coalition still believing in hudud.

Maybe it is time for all the coalition partners to do two things and without exception: (i) they must subscribe to the common policy framework fully and unequivocally and (ii) they must abandon all the policies and beliefs which are in conflict or contradict the common policy framework.

If they can’t do these two, then it is better for them to be on their own fighting for their own cause and objective.

PR’s Operational Principle of Consensus may sound reasonable but is devoid of practicality. Making decisions based on consensus is making decisions based on expediency or even hypocrisy.

Henceforth, PR should be making decisions based on agreed principles and policies, otherwise there is nothing to prevent the coalition from having a “consensus” to make stupid decisions or to do stupid things.

Right now, each of the parties within the coalition is recruiting members or courting support from among Malaysians based on its own core policies. PAS has its Islamic state and hudud, PKR has its equality (with a little of “ketuanan”), and DAP has its democratic secularism.

If they have recruited people and solicited support based on very different objectives, how then is the coalition able to promote one common policy framework and one objective?

I think it is time for PR to put upfront what it stands for, not what PAS, PKR or DAP stands for.

I know many of us have argued that getting rid of BN is already a sufficient reason for PR to exist despite its inability to forge a common stand.

Well, the Selangor MB saga has shown that a common enemy is not enough. Once the coalition has attained power, component party’s policies and objectives would start to rear their ugly heads. – October 22, 2014.