Political analysts feel this may happen to maintain the racial composition of the government.KUALA LUMPUR: It may seem like a most unlikely scenario – the DAP and Barisan Nasional – working hand in glove. But political analyst Farish Noor feels that in order to maintain the racial composition of Malaysia in national politics, BN may approach DAP.
He said this could take place if the Barisan’s Chinese coalition members, MCA and Gerakan are to lose badly in the coming general elections.
“I will not be surprised if the DAP is approached by the BN in the eventuality where MCA and Gerakan are completely wiped out in the coming elections.
The BN may feel it necessary (to do this) in order to create a government of national consensus,” said the senior fellow at Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
He said that these offers made by a party in one coalition to another party in a different coalition were all part of the reality of coalition politics in Malaysia where no one single party could form the government in Malaysia.
“In order to be a national party which represents the racial demographics of Malaysia, it can only be done based on a coalition, even Umno realises this.” he told FMT.
The MCA had recently said that if the party’s performance in the coming elections is poorer than the 2008 polls, it might not to accept any post in the Cabinet.
Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak had also said recently that the Chinese risk losing government representation if they keep voting for the opposition.
Farish said this when commenting on Najib’s offer last week for PAS to ditch their Pakatan Rakyat coalition and join the Barisan.
Offer to PAS not new
Farish said that the offer was a part of the political games but also the nature of Malaysia’s coalition politics.
He added that the offer to PAS was nothing new as offers to the Islamic party has been made since the 1970s and the party joined the the ruling coalition from 1973 to 1978 under its then president Mohd Asri Muda.
However he said there were still veteran members of the party who will not accept the offer to join the ruling coalition as they felt they were played out by the federal government before.
“The condition set for PAS membership joining the ruling coalition (in the 1970s) was that the federal government will not intervene in the party’s internal politics and the domestic politics in Kelantan.
“But what happened in 1978 showed otherwise resulting in PAS puling out from the coalition,” he said.
Another analyst Ooi Kee Beng echoed this view saying that the offer made by Najib was merely a part of “coalition elbowing”.
“No Malaysian political party is big enough to rule the country, no matter what Umno people think,
The co-ordinator of Malaysia study programme at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies said that the mere offer could “cause ripples” within PAS which may in turn unsettle the Pakatan.
“Umno knows some of their leaders could take a short cut to Putrajaya if they ditched affliation with Pakatan.
ByTarani Palani
This analysis is way out of line.First of all the chinese did not vote for DAP because they are a chinese-based party.They voted for DAP because the chinese want them to air their grievances,submit their problems to Parliament and defend the community against any policy that would be detrimental to the chinese.The chinese do not trust Gerakan and MCA on these issues as they had seen how these two parties were being patronised and subdued by UMNO.In other words the chinese do not trust UMNO.
ReplyDeleteIf for whatever reasons DAP joined and be part of BN then I think its strength amongst the chinese will deteriorate and they will start looking for alternative party to give their support for reasons mentioned above.In other words DAP will lose its based support.The chinese trust PKR and PAS because to this far they have never been oppressive towards the chinese unlike UMNO which is always playing the BIG BOSS in BN.Whatever they say is final.In Pakatan its stand and approach is by consensus as no single party can outmanoevre the other.This is the spirit of Pakatan and no Pakatan-linked NGO is being bashful towards the chinese unlike Perkasa which had being making hurtful statements towards the chinese.On these factors alone DAP would become a strange bedfellow if it works with UMNO.
Again if that happens where will MCA and Gerakan stand in BN on the argument that they lose all their seats to DAP.Will DAP being in BN sacrifice their seats in the next GE to MCA and Gerakan in the spirit of BN?
DAP it seems is most comfortable in Pakatan for in spite of some misunderstanding amongst them the party prevails.No one is hurting each other feelings in Pakatan which is in sharp contrast to UMNO,MCA and Gerakan relation which is dying and just waiting for the day for it to end.
They have already worked together in Batu Sapi by elections. just ask Dr Hiew King Chiu.
ReplyDeleteIni terpulang kepada mereka sendiri sama ada boleh bekerjasama ataupun tidak.
ReplyDeleteSabah Dap has received their commission from Musa during Batu Sapi By-election..Cooperation had actually made.
ReplyDeleteitu bergantung dengan mereka sendiri.
ReplyDeleteSabah DAP masih lemah lagi tidak seperti di P.P.
ReplyDeletejika berlainan fahaman dan ideologi, susah nak bekerjsama.
ReplyDeleteas the Pakatan mission is to gain power and money, it is not impossible if they are willing to cooperate with BN just because of money.. they don't have the tenacity in defending and to fight for the people.
ReplyDeleteKita lihat saja bagaimana keadaan DAP dan BN bersama di Sarawak..
ReplyDeletehmm, hard to say now.
ReplyDelete