“And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything.”

- Thomas Merton

COMMENT | Some people say that Harapan needs to be taught a lesson in the Tanjung Piai by-election. The perception is that non-Malays are weighing their options when it comes to voting for the Bersatu candidate. The idea is that losing this by-election will teach Mahathir some sort of lesson.

This is problematic for a variety of reasons. The most important reason is that elections are but a small section of the old maverick’s political chessboard. Control of GLCs, the leaping of political frogs, fermenting discontent in various power groups in his own coalition, enabling the deep Islamic state and various other bureaucratic malfeasance are the instruments of strongmen. The big question is, do his allies enable the strongman?

Barisan Nasional (BN) played a good hand by picking a non-Muslim candidate. The optics look good as far as playing nice with the MCA, and it gives PAS an opportunity to demonstrate that it would support a non-Muslim candidate like how it was in the good old days of Tok Guru...