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"Party honesty is party expediency."

- Grover Cleveland

De facto opposition leader Dr Mahathir Mohamad is drawing the battle lines with PAS. Former law minister Zaid Ibrahim is challenging a tethering kleptocratic regime to impose syariah law on everyone. PAS (as usual) is attempting to subvert the civil and criminal legal system because of a weakened Umno.

At a time when Malaysians are desperate for a cohesive opposition, DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang (in his personal capacity) makes the offer to work with anyone - including Chairman Najib - to save Malaysia from the ignominy of being a global kleptocracy.

Let us unpack this before going any further. I get the whole olive branch thing. I understand that the break-up with PAS is not entirely the fault of PAS even though this is the groupthink of the majority of online DAP supporters. I understand the symbolism of the rhetoric of working together. I understand the need for bipartisanship - even though the opposition has rarely ever attempted such political stratagems.

At the end of last year, I dismissed all this talk of bridge building as unproductive and disingenuous -

“Ultimately, all these attempts at bridge building are pointless. What the opposition should be doing is concentrating on formulating policies and spreading the message of how a Harapan government differs from the present kleptocratic regime. What the opposition should be doing is building a foundation to work from, and not repeating the mistakes that led to its fracturing.”

In numerous pieces, I have attempted to explain that while I disagree with PAS’ Islamic ideology, my main point of contention is that they are willing to betray that ideology by working with a kleptocratic regime. If PAS wanted to turn Malaysia into a Taliban paradise and was willing to forgo allies and win the vote and then abandon democracy - which is what these so-called Islamic parties are wont to do - then so be it.

However, what the leadership of PAS is attempting to do is rule by default. Like the hypocritical degenerate preachers who prop up the House of Saud, they want to rule in the background of the House of Najib.

The PAS leadership has already said that the whole 1MDB issue is closed. They have expressed interest with working with the Umno hegemon on “Malay/Muslim” issues. They are only interested in remaining relevant to Umno. Furthermore, I know Mahathir realises that all this talk of seat negotiation is merely PAS trying to buy time. So how is working with PAS going to help the opposition?

More importantly, how exactly is working with Umno going to save Malaysia from kleptocracy? What does the opposition working with BN mean? How does this translate to actual action or policy? How does working with the hegemon that the opposition has demonised, that a former prime minister and now de facto opposition leader has accused of selling this country to China, even possible?

The implications are far reaching. Let us assume that PAS and Umno - because really, what does BN have to do with anything - grab that olive branch. When election time comes, how exactly is the opposition going to explain to the voters that they are better off voting for the opposition when this same opposition is working with Umno (members) to “purge and cleanse Malaysia of infamy and ignominy”...

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