“Are there good governments and bad governments? No, there are only bad governments and worse governments.”

- Charles Bukowski, ‘The Most Beautiful Woman in Town & Other Stories’

[Full disclosure: I made a trip to Kuala Kangsar in a show of support for Amanah candidate Dr Ahmad Termizi Ramli]

A Malaysiakini subscriber who regularly reads my articles - everyone I suppose has a silent majority or likes to think they have - referenced my article on the just concluded by-elections and asked if the schadenfreude tasted good. “The opposition got a black eye and rightly so,” he wrote.

This particular reader has been a strong opposition supporter but reading his regular emails for the past year, I have noticed a waning of enthusiasm. A self-described loyal Malaysian of Chinese decent, who in his spare time teaches underprivileged students English and Maths, his rhetoric has displayed a cynicism uncharacteristic of his usual hopeful banter. He has been agreeing with me more often - unlike before - and that is never a good sign.

In a previous article, I wrote: “In other words, it is not a question of Najib receiving a black eye, it is the possibility of the opposition receiving a black eye. And this is by far the more troubling proposition.” Expectations were high that the miraculous could happen. If ever there was an argument to be made of keeping religion out of politics, this is it.

In my experience, the average politician attempts to justify his or her loss by impugning the competitor’s win. Politics has always been a dirty business and nowhere is the filth more accepted than in Malaysian politics. Already the opposition and its supporters are looking outward instead of gazing inward.

While the Umno regime basks in its win, the opposition is scrambling to blame everyone but themselves for their electoral loss. From hyping the by-elections as a referendum on the Najib regime to dismissing its political and symbolic value, but more importantly, with the win by BN, the opposition is falling back on its pattern of victimhood and blame.

Although the Dr Mahathir Mohamad factor took a beating in the by-elections, I would not dismiss the shrewdest political operative in this country, just yet. I would not be surprised if Mahathir decides the best course of action would be to burn the Umno house of cards down. Pure speculation on my part, but not something that is inconceivable.

Josh Hong, one of the more intelligent partisans out there, but whom opposition supporters routinely vilify, made some very interesting points about the outcome of the by-elections. There is indeed going to be a realignment in the oppositional structures of power in this country, but I have my doubts about any kind of reconciliation process.

This brings to mind Thomas Edison, who said: “There are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something”, which is the kind of thinking that is absent in the opposition. The opposition seems myopic in vision of regime change at the expense of everything else.

Politics is local and when opposition supporters, especially online supporters, dismiss voters who vote for the Umno establishment for short-term gains as stupid, ignorant, racist, or deserving of what they get with nary an objection from opposition politicians, the partisanship overwhelms the goodwill of people struggling to make a living.

Actually, I would argue that the opposition is fast losing its grassroots appeal, buoyed by fickle mainstream acceptance and drunk on their own Kool-Aid. Arrogance has become the mode of communication and any form of bi-partisanship is rejected in favour of grandstanding.

Umno’s bull and opposition’s crap

The sins of PM Najib Abdul Razak, although great, are used as a yardstick to measure the ‘accomplishments’ of the opposition. The opposition, meanwhile, is making deals with plutocrats who sustain a culture of corruption in states run by the opposition. All this is of course dismissed by partisans but people on the ground, the average Malaysians, know how the system works and can appreciate the difference between Umno’s bull and the opposition’s crap.

I am just as cynical about the ‘one party’ meme some seem to be pushing and which has been around for some time. How exactly parties routinely characterised as having an Umno DNA (PKR), being “chauvinist Chinese/evangelical” (DAP) and “moderate Islamic” (Amanah) can form into a cohesive block when leaders like Azmin Ali and Lim Guan Eng, have problems playing well with others but more importantly, among themselves. Furthermore, those characterisations are from opposition supporters.

Meanwhile, A Kadir Jasin, a stalwart Mahathir supporter, offered a mea culpa when he acknowledged that he was part of the brainwashing that went and goes on in Umno. They say admitting you have a problem is the first step but I doubt that the indoctrination of Malay youths will cease any time soon when the opposition is made up of Islamic groups determined to use Islam as a political tool.

Which brings me to another point Kadir made. “Najib has succeeded in turning PAS into his mercenary soldiers. They are doing the fighting for him,” he said and apparently, this is confirmed by “the Youth chief of PAS who said that PAS "need not be “bound by any group”, but should “only be bound to Islam”.

PAS Youth chief Nik Abduh Nik Aziz speaks for many in PAS who do not want secular allies but instead want to hitch their wagons to a corrupt regime so that they can have their Islamic paradise. I have warned my opposition friends that injecting this virulent party - mind you I have far too many PAS friends who send me emails objecting to this kind of ‘speech’ - in the Malaysian political mainstream but as usual was told that I was someone “out of touch with the new Malaysian political landscape”.

Kelvin Yii, an assistant to a DAP MP, asked “So, would the Chinese want to have a say in the government, or stay out there in angry isolation?” All I can say is that if you were a truly multi-racial party with a race blind agenda, this type of question would not need to be asked.

But since this is still a thing, why doesn’t Yii define the “rights” of the Chinese community which he thinks is lacking under the Umno regime and demonstrate how Pakatan Rakyat has secured these rights on a state level or even made it an issue on a federal level. In other words, Yii, you don’t get to berate the MCA for playing the race card when you have no problem playing it yourself.

Suaram adviser Kua Kia Soong, doesn’t mince his words when it comes to the reality of oppositional politics. His writing never seems to go down well with opposition supporters who usually just mock or straw man his arguments.

However, he makes much sense when he warns that the opposition needs to find their marbles. What really frustrates me is that the opposition has many principled, committed people who are sidelined by the bureaucrats and mocked by opposition supporters.

Maybe it is because they know “Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light”. As has been said, the first step is admitting you have a problem. Sometimes the problem is you.

S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy.