Last weekend, Umno and archrivals PKR were eyeball-to-eyeball and both sides just blinked – and thereby lost a good opportunity to get ahead in the perception game.

If politics is also about perception, the rivals let slip a grand chance to decisively foist the ‘Lost it’ tag on the other in the battle to show voters which party ought to be trusted with Malaysia’s future.

Umno was under pressure from Perkasa, who on Saturday had organised a one-day symposium on Prime Minister Najib Razak’s New Economic Model.

NONE The Malay pressure group hosted the occasion to fortify opposition to NEM which is Najib’s bid to check Umno’s sliding popularity with an economic agenda - incidentally, largely borrowed from PKR’s Malaysian Economic Agenda - that is more equitable than the four decade-old NEP.

Najib, by being present at the tail-end of the symposium and by assuring the audience that the NEP will not be consigned to oblivion , only succeeded in conveying the impression his much-touted NEM is going to be window-dressing.

However, he need not have worried too much about the effect of this seeming retreat.

Last weekend also saw a slip slide of sorts by Umno’s rival PKR which held its sixth annual convention in opposition-friendly Kota Bharu.

Under pressure from by-election results from Bagan Pinang and Hulu Selangor where Malay support was seen to have slipped for the opposition and intent on countering Perkasa’s attempt at stirring Malay anxiety over their future under a Pakatan Rakyat government, PKR wavered from their stance of looking at issues without racial blinkers.

Conference on Malay poverty

Sections of the party felt that they had to throw a sop to Malay anxiety: they decided PKR must hold a congress on how to tackle Malay poverty.

Better still, this congress would canvass inputs from non-Malays on how to reduce poverty among bumiputeras. Presumably, the gesture would dim the racial overtones of the whole venture.

Never mind it has been said countless times that the majority of the poor in Malaysia are Malays and PKR’s touted Malaysian Economic Agenda is geared to reducing their numbers, irrespective of race.

pkr congress agm kota baru 300510 anwar saifuddin But PKR last weekend appeared to have lacked faith in their largely accurate diagnosis and in their vote-winning prescription.

Thus both Umno and PKR squandered a good chance to show the Malaysian electorate that their worldview - a decade into the 21st century when issues of race have become horribly passé - no longer revolves obsessively around the antic.

The irony in this was more marked for PKR than Umno, which is widely viewed as the party of stagnation and resistance to change.

No less than PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail had asked the party faithful to be bold about proclaiming that they are the party of the Malaysian future.

That future would only be different from the Malaysian past if it is less obsessed with race.

TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for close on four decades. He likes the occupation because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them.