COMMENT | “He serves his party best who serves his country best.” ― Rutherford B Hayes

Anthony Loke’s idea of a ceasefire with the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government to tackle the issues that the country is facing is the kind of rational ideas that are lacking in this highly partisan political terrain.

Of course, Loke had to qualify this rather constructive idea with the usual “personal opinion” caveat which just goes to show you that in this milieu advocating for putting country before party – any party – is a radical or controversial idea.

Here’s the thing; it is not really such a controversial idea in the first place. In most functional democracies, ideologically disparate political parties work together on major issues. The idea that any Pakatan Harapan party ab initio cannot work with this PN government because this government has demonised the DAP or the opposition is ludicrous.

The fact is when the opposition buried the hatchet with the old maverick, it paved the way for the Harapan, theoretically at least, to be able to work with any Malay uber alles political entity.

The fact of the matter is that Harapan-led state governments are already working with the Federal authorities...