COMMENT Communist China’s reformer Deng Xiaoping’s maxim that it does not matter if a cat is black or white so long as it can catch mice should serve as a useful reminder to Malaysia’s opposition and civil society groups.

They are sceptical about cooperating with Dr Mahathir Mohamad in his campaign to oust Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

There are good grounds for the wariness: Mahathir views Najib as an aberration whereas the opposition sees the PM as the logical product of the devices and methods employed by Mahathir to circumvent safeguards written into our constitution before Mahathir began to tamper with it.

Whether to go along with Mahathir’s ouster attempts or refrain from joining him and thus, in all probability, to allow a sorry mess to culminate in disaster for the country - even as that may well translate into an opposition victory at the polls - is a vexing question to the opposition and civil society groups.

Few among the latter dispute that Najib is Mahathir’s political offspring, which is why most feel that if it is Mahathir’s objective to remove Najib but not the system that produced him, it’s an exercise in futility: replacing a corrupt head without reforming the body only invites the day when another and, more abominable, clone will take the helm.

But declining to assist Mahathir ignores a clear and present danger: the compulsion Najib will feel to resort to ever more repressive measures to stay in power.

Those who choose to ride the back of the tiger seldom know when to dismount.

The list of opposition politicians, civil society activists and media organisations hauled up for sundry offences is growing.

As only some elements in the judiciary have shown that they are prepared to thwart overweening executive power, there is little else to stand in the way of a marauding executive than a condominium of oppositionists, regardless of whether some in the latter combine are tainted by their past record.

This where the pragmatism of Deng Xiaoping ( photo ) in respect of methods he employed to drive a moribund Chinese economy caused him to formulate in the late 1970s the maxim that a cat’s colour matters little insofar as its utility in catching mice is concerned.

A similar utilitarian calculus should be applied with regard to Mahathir’s campaignto oust Najib.

It’s useful to opposition activists to back it for the purpose of removing Najib even if the former MP does not share the opinion that one individual’s removal is not going to make much difference if the system that produced the same individual remains intact.

Ideal approach to take

Dismantling the system is going to take a long time and, sure, convincing Mahathir that that’s the thing to do in concert with Najib’s removal is the ideal approach to take.

But this heightened consensus isn’t attainable and if it’s agreed that Najib’s continuation in office poses more danger to civil liberties of oppositionists, the latter should settle for alleviations rather than panaceas.

Thus a Deng-like pragmatism should impel the opposition and civil society to work with Mahathir for Najib’s removal.

From what is known, Najib has practically bolted the door against the possibility of a putsch by way of ministerial, party or parliamentary manoeuvre against him.

Only a surge of popular opinion against him can prompt an internal revolt leading to his removal.

The best way for the surge to take place is for the feisty Mahathir to foment it is by continuing his public campaign for Najib’s ouster.

The latest move by the police to question Mahathir, with the implication that the Attorney-General’s Chambers may file charges, speaks of government anxiety over the former premier’s capacity to disturb Najib’s sleep.

Knowing Mahathir’s character, he won’t relent and one can be sure that the powers that be will not stay cool before their tormentor-in-chief’s verbal onslaught.

Both parties are locked in a mutual pantomime of destruction, with the opposition going along with the one against the other even if the result in sight is a half-measure rather than the whole hog.

TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for more than four decades. A sobering discovery has been that those who protest the loudest tend to replicate the faults they revile in others.