COMMENT ‘Agreeing to disagree’ has got a bad press recently. Hazlan Zakaria of Malaysiakini described it as bunkum and blamed it for Pakatan Rakyat’s “inability to come up with clear decisions”, while PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli says “Pakatan Harapan will no longer agree to disagree.”
But consider. Religious tolerance is just an instance of ‘agreeing to disagree’ on whose God is the one and only true God. Without ‘agreeing to disagree’ nations and political parties would split apart.
Agreeing to disagree allows those who disagree with Noor Farida Ariffin of G25 to threaten to rape and kill her. Of course, the extreme example of not ‘agreeing to disagree’ is the IS, who behead all those who disagree with them.
UK political lessons
So from a political perspective, when is ‘agreeing to disagree’ good because it keeps political parties together and bad because it prevents clear decisions? Let us learn from an example from UK politics.
Following the IS attacks in Paris that killed 130 people, British Prime Minister David Cameron moved a motion (resolution) in Parliament to bomb Syria. There was wide support for this motion, including from opposition Labour Party MPs.
Newly-elected Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is a lifelong pacifist who would not support any military action. As leader, he had the authority to order Labour MPs to oppose the motion, but this would have split the party.
Instead, Corbyn allowed his party to ‘agree to disagree’ by allowing a free vote so that Labour MPs could vote according to their own conscience.
In four years’ time, in the next general election campaign, the Labour Party will not be able to avoid a split by ‘agreeing to disagree’. It will have to decide whether its candidate for prime minister will or will not press the nuclear button to launch Britain’s atomic bombs to protect the nation when attacked.
If the answer is yes, Corbyn will be replaced by someone else who is willing to press the nuclear button. If the answer is no, some Labour MPs will leave the party.
Thus, for issues needing an immediate and unavoidable decision, the party with executive power cannot offer ‘agree to disagree’ as an excuse for inaction. But for less immediate issues, which are to be decided by a parliamentary vote, every party has the luxury of ‘agreeing to disagree’ and allow its MPs a free vote.
Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory
Let us apply these principles to the issue of hudud in Malaysia. Pakatan Rakyat (Pakatan) did not have the executive power to stop or promote hudud. Pakatan therefore had the luxury of ‘agreeing to disagree’. It could have allowed PAS and DAP to campaign against each other with the final decision to be taken by a free vote in Parliament.
Following that, DAP, PKR and PAS could have come together again to fight for the Pakatan common policy framework. Instead, unwilling to ‘agree to disagree’, DAP was allowed to split Pakatan down the middle.
The lesson to be learned from the failure of Pakatan is not that ‘agreeing to disagree’ prevented clear decisions. The real lesson is that, because it had never happened in Malaysia before, Pakatan did not realise that implementing its very clear political decision to ‘agree to disagree’, meant allowing its MPs a free vote.
If that had been agreed on, Pakatan would have remained united and in a strong position to win the forthcoming 14th general election (GE14). Instead, it snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
Dissent
Will the policy of refusing to ‘agree to disagree’ mean the end of dissent in Pakatan Harapan (Harapan)? Will such action, as that of the five PKR backbenchers, who abstained on the Umno motion on land reclamation at the recent Penang State Assembly session, no longer be acceptable?
The five backbenchers won, rather than lost votes, for Harapan as the people want to see checks and balances within a political party or coalition, as well as in the national government. The people know that scandals like 1MDB occur when political leaders become so powerful and feared that no party member or elected representative dares to question him.
In a coalition with roughly equal parties, such as Harapan, each party will have positions that the other parties do not agree with. If the parties see eye to eye in everything, why bother to have different parties?
They may as well amalgamate to form one party. It is only in a political coalition dominated by one party to whom the others are subservient, such as Umno/BN, that there is no need to ‘agree to disagree’
Umno is already attacking Amanah for being the lapdogs or lackeys of DAP. These attacks cannot be defended by rebuttals and press statements alone. They must be defended by action. Amanah must show that it is willing to stand up to and fight DAP publicly when it thinks DAP is wrong.
But if the policy of refusing to ‘agree to disagree’ prevents this, then Amanah will be destroyed, just as MCA, MIC and Gerakan have been destroyed in BN.
Below, I discuss two current political issues, arguing that the first is best dealt with by ‘agreeing to disagree’ but not the second.
Beauty Pageants
The Wanita wing of Amanah Malacca wants the Miss Tourism World pageant in Malacca to be banned . Presumably PKR and DAP do not.
According to news reports, the Harapan agreement does not prevent component parties from forming their own political positions, but these decisions must not violate the common positions made by Harapan’s presidential council.
The presidential council has made no ruling yet on beauty pageants and similar events. So for the moment, Amanah Malacca is safe. But beauty pageants and similar events are of sufficient interest to the electorate to force the presidential council to take a decision, which presumably may be in favour of holding such events.
If Amanah complies with the expected presidential council decision, this will be against its Islamist beliefs and social norms. It will lose members and the support of the rural Muslim community. It will be attacked as a lackey of DAP. If it does not comply and leaves Harapan, both itself and Harapan are weakened.
On the other hand, under a policy of ‘agreeing to disagree’, Harapan can leave the final decision to be made democratically by the relevant state executive council or State Assembly.
Malaysians are thus taught to accept dissent, to respect different social and religious viewpoints, and to understand that the democratic process can overcome these differences to produce a clear decision.
The PAS, PKR, Pakatan Harapan triangle
Can PKR have friendly ties with PAS and at the same time be member of Harapan? At times, this seems to be possible. PAS Dewan Ulama chief and Johor PAS commissioner, Mahfodz Mohamed said PAS will fight DAP and Amanah, but not PKR in the next election.
However, can such an arrangement hold if, in a seat which PAS is competing, PKR campaigns for DAP or Amanah as a member of Harapan? Even now, without the pressures of a general election, Kelantan PAS raised concerns over the presence of PKR leaders at a recent Amanah event in Kelantan.
PAS proclaims that it is not willing to give up even one seat to component parties of an electoral pact, while DAP announces it will contest in winnable PAS seats.
The only way PKR can bring the squabbling parties together is to generate a sense of an impending national disaster, which can only be averted if we act together, as Lim Kit Siang tried to do in his ‘Save Malaysia’ speeches: “The greatest challenge is… how to save Malaysia from continuing with the policy disasters leading Malaysia to a failed and rogue state.”
I have argued in a previous article that such a ‘Save Malaysia’ unified opposition is most likely to be formed if there is agreement that it will serve for only a limited period to implement an agreed, limited programme to restore good governance to government and return proper democracy to the people.
This is an instance of a political issue which needs clear decisions and cannot be avoided by ‘agreeing to disagree’. If PKR cannot mediate a unified opposition, then it must have the courage to face reality and choose between remaining in Harapan, or joining PAS.
DR RONNIE OOI is a retired medical doctor, who was active in Malaysian politics 25 years ago, until he left for the UK where he lived for 20 years. He is also knowledgeable about UK politics. He returned to Malaysia seven years ago. No longer involved in politics, he is politically neutral but believes strongly in a two-party system.
