COMMENT The past week has probably been the most exhilaratingly combative for Pakatan Rakyat since - well - some time.

Not only did they capitalise on the momentum given them by their 100-day new deal for the rakyat announced at their second annual convention in Kepala Batas on Dec 19, they have followed up with feisty responses in scrapes with Umno-BN.

Their decision to respond with an attempted amendment to the Selangor constitution in the matter of the appointment of a state secretary; their declaration that the Port Klang state seat was vacant for reason of its indolent representation by a quisling from its ranks; their unveiling of a formidable candidate for the Tenang by-election; and Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim's challenge to Prime Minister Najib Razak to debate him on the economy, are the more combative of the measures that have pushed Umno-BN back on its heels.

NONE The icing on this cake has been Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng's announcement over the weekend of Pakatan's promise to set up a RM1 billion fund for Dayak advancement in education and ancillary fields, should the opposition coalition win the upcoming state polls in Sarawak.

Sure, there were discordant notes in this aria of counter thrusts to the Umno-BN juggernaut. These were the Christmas Eve meeting between Kelantan Menteri Besar Nik Aziz Nik Mat and the PM and his deputy;  intra-PKR fissures in its Sabah chapter that have led to the departures of leaders like Dr Jeffrey Kitingan; and Zaid Ibrahim's launch of a new party that is will surely play the spoiler's role against the opposition at the next general election.

NONE However, we have heard from no less than Nik Aziz and PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang that the Dec 24 meeting amounted to shadow play without a script; while Jeffrey is on a course that is not destructive to the opposition if the latter responds to it realistically; and the manner of Zaid's launch of Kita indicated that while he willfully lost his role as Pakatan policy coordinator, he has not found a new one as its destroyer.

Hence even events that ought to redound to the disadvantage or discredit of Pakatan have been muted in their impact for the bad on the opposition coalition. The reason for this is the broader discovery by the public that Umno-BN is in a state of advanced decay and that while Pakatan are not yet its cohesive and coherent replacement, they are worth a try.

After all, the pretenders can be replaced four to five years down the road if they turn out to be just that – all form and no substance.    

Attack is the best defence

    

Thus the fourth year of Pakatan's occupation of critical beachheads in the general war to supplant Umno-BN as caretaker of Putrajaya has begun with the coalition knowing that attack may well be the best defense.

This is in stark contrast to what happened at the start of the second and third years of Pakatan's occupation.

2009 was scarcely into its second month when a Pakatan administration in Perak was overthrown by defections and Umno-BN chicanery aided and abetted by a compliant judiciary; and 2010 started with more defections that whittled down the PKR cabal in Parliament to numbers that made Anwar's occupation of the opposition leader's role dependent on DAP's sufferance.

Those setbacks have been weathered and the opposition coalition continues to be buoyant on the burgeoning realisation that it is an idea whose time has come and that change is inevitable in Malaysian politics.

Whence the signs that this change is inevitable?

From a tangential quarter below the causeway. Note the pessimistic tone of Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew's latest remarks about whether the status quo - PAP's hegemony - in the republic's politics will long endure.

No prizes for inferring some of the basis for this gloomy assessment. Could it be that because he sees that change is inevitable in Malaysian politics and that will spur the same down south?

Say what you like, the man could not have achieved the success he has gained for Singapore without being able to be prescient about what's coming round the corner.

 

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. It is the ideal profession for a temperament that finds power fascinating and its exercise abhorrent.