YOURSAY | ‘Kua should take a practical approach. There is no one else besides Dr M who can do it.'

Have you lost your marbles, Suaram adviser asks those backing Dr M's party

CQ Muar: Suaram adviser Dr Kua Kia Soong, you raised a number of good points. I guess the nonagenarian Dr Mahathir Mohamad has not changed.

Dr M's current and only obsession is to defeat and oust his former protege (Najib Abdul Razak); and thereafter continue with his racist pursuit and principles. Apparently, Umno is still in his blood.

As soon as Najib has been purged from his premiership, this old fox will dissolve this new party and return to Umno as its senior adviser.

Under such circumstances, Pakatan Harapan must prevent such a possibility with a firm policy, or even legislation, should BN be defeated in the next general elections.

Ace: ‘Multi-racial’ parties are good in theory and look nice on paper but if they cannot win elections, they are of not much use, are they?

Obiwan: Kua should take a practical approach. There is no one else besides Dr M who can do it.

Malaysia is in dire straits. We can’t have the perfect solution, we can only hope to solve the problem one step at a time.

Hang Babeuf: Structures - especially disabling structures - go on reproducing themselves so long as mentalities, mindsets, forms of consciousness do not change.

At this time, I do not see any short-term answer, response, plausible repair measures to the Malaysian national predicament that will work. That have any serious hope of working under current conditions. As things now stand, it’s deadlock and a dead-end.

Yet most of the discussion and argument here among Malaysiakini readers is focused on short-term moves and considerations. No good. Futile. As the new proposed party to be founded on old ethno-sectarian lines proves.

One must recognise that on both the government and opposition sides alike, the current political game and dispensation is exhausted. Broken, unrepairable.

There is no way forward [‘Melangkah Kehadapan’] other than the long, slow, patient building from the ground up of a ‘new democratic Malaysian politics’ founded upon the underlying presupposition of the 1957 Merdeka Constitution, namely, on the axiom that the nation rests upon and its state organisation is there to express and promote popular sovereignty, of all the people, together, regardless of the different pathways by which their parents may have come into national citizenship in the 1950s and after.

Proarte: Kua has hit the nail on the head. The fact is that Pakatan Harapan offers no hope because they are a hotchpotch coalition of convenience. They offer no vision for a non-racial and united Malaysia based on equality and mutual respect.

If they are going to govern along racial lines and religious lines (DAP Chinese, Amanah Islamic, PKR Malay), how can they capture the imagination of the people who are sick to the back teeth with racial and religious division?

Why can’t Pakatan Harapan unite as one party under a common manifesto? The fact that they do not want to is because it affects their traditional support base.

Pakatan component parties apparently do not care a damn about the what is right and good for the nation. They can't think out of the box and persist in reinforcing division within our society.

Proof of this is their excitement over the creation of a new allegedly racialist party by Mahathir, the doyen of Malay privilege and institutional corruption.

Aktan: On the contrary, Kua, you don't realise that you are the one who has lost those marbles.

For now, the new party has to be inherently Malay and bumiputera to attract the general masses. How else you think at the GE14 you can transform those 'Umno hardcores' to accept the Malaysian Malaysia concept?

Ablastine: I do not quite understand the argument. The new party formed by Mahathir does not own or even head the coalition of opposition parties in Pakatan Harapan. Why does it matter really if its members are mainly Malays or from Umno?

As long as it can bring to the table valuable votes for the opposition to topple the hated regime and his lackeys, we will see a new beginning for Malaysia.

Assuming this does happen and Mahathir’s party insists on pursuing allegedly racist and suicidal policies for Malaysia, do you think they still has the clout to do so in the new coalition with so many other dominant parties? No, I think not.

We have had enough. When the present leadership gets toppled, a new equation, new formula and new consensus will emerge and nothing can be worse than a psychopath with unlimited power blatantly stealing money from the state coffers.

Hplooi: In my opinion, only an overwhelming 'uprising' by the constitutional Malays can change the political landscape, Dr M's new party or otherwise.

Reasons: (1) Citizens not constitutional Malays are too disenfranchised. (2) The system is too 'gamed' to favour the incumbent. (3) A significant segment of the population is too brain-washed, especially with religion thrown in.

Even with 50 percent constitutional Malays, this will not be sufficient to change the government due to (2). So it really is not about the Chinese or DAP, etc. And Kua is right on his analysis.

Quigonbond: Kua has said this many times before so this is nothing new. At the heart of the issue is whether one stays on his high horse, or one gets down to the reality of the situation. Most Malaysians prefer practicality.

Ideals are only as good as how realistic they are to bring about positive change.

Aries46: Kua, anyone can preach your kind of idealism. Are we anywhere near after six decades of Merdeka? It takes nothing more than an orifice to criticise others.

Hasn't this nation suffered enough by decades of manipulation and abuses in every sphere of national life by the corrupted Umno-BN regime? What is your efforts and achievement in ridding the most decadent party and its leader that suck the nation dry?

If none, why find fault with Mahathir who at least is willing to take on the monster in the pragmatic way he knows? Who better than him?

The people have tried their level best in 2008 and 2013 and find that the electoral system in itself is such that even a 55-60 percent popular vote does not assure victory, let alone the massive regime bribery and corruption of voters? So what is your alternative, Kua?

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