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Umno’s desperate strategy, Harapan’s counter-strategy

With even more Chinese turned against Umno/BN, and no hope of reversing such a trend (Chinese support had dropped to 5 percent , according to a Merdeka Center poll in August), and Malay support also not looking good (it had dropped to 31 percent in the same poll), Umno is, frankly, in a state of panic.

So what better strategy to save its skin than to fall back to its time-tested panacea of exploiting racial and religious issues to the hilt? Hence, its seduction of PAS, and demonising of DAP.

Such twin strategy, in Umno’s calculations, will pull in Malay supporters from both directions - from PAS through its new partnership with PAS, and from Pakatan Harapan by creating the ‘Chinese dominance’ bogeyman.

No one should underestimate the potency of such strategy, particularly the latter, for which DAP has already been hoisted as public enemy No 1 of the Malays.

In fact, the ‘Chinese dominance’ bogeyman, if successfully established, can even override the heavy handicap of the 1MDB/RM2.6 billion scandals. This is because, driven to the choice between ‘Chinese control’ and ‘hopeless corruption’, many Malays would pick the latter.

For this reason, Pakatan Harapan must have a counter-strategy, which is to maximise the projection of the collective image of ‘Pakatan Harapan’, while minimising unilateral exertion of political position by individual component party members.

A joint leadership council and joint secretariat must be vigorously activated and frequent inter-party meetings and consultations conducted. Joint statements should replace party statements, and Harapan forums should replace party forums, as far as possible.

The current political conditions are so heavily tipped against Umno/BN that I don’t see why Harapan shouldn’t win the next election, unless Harapan defeats itself by succumbing to oversized egoism and inter-party conflicts.


KIM QUEK is the author of banned book ‘The March to Putrajaya’.

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