COMMENT | It’s fairly obvious that Azmin Ali and his supporters have been hoping for him to be named Pakatan Harapan’s candidate for prime minister.

I confess to have somewhat enjoyed reading the response of Malaysiakini readers to this idea.

However, putting my personal feelings aside, it’s of course fair for any politician (and his/her supporters) to have ambitions for high office - it goes with the territory.

That said, I think we can say, with a fair amount of objectivity, that there are better ways to go about it, and there are worse ways to go about it.

The recent advocacy for Azmin that I found most eye-opening emerged quite recently, contained the following statement:

“If Azmin did not make this challenge, the general election would have been called a long time ago and Harapan would not have been prepared.

“Did anybody say thank you? Nope. Totally ungrateful! Until today, he is insulted and accused of not being a team player,”

One cannot help but notice the ‘totally ungrateful” part (I believe the original was “tiada terima kasih”).

Where have we heard this type of exhortation that the people should be ever so grateful to our high and noble politicians before?

Fortunately, lest we forget, we are provided by a timely reminder in the form of Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi (photo), who soon after had his own similar exhortation:

“Past leaders should be appreciated as don’t think we are here today because of us. On the contrary, our presence is because past leaders don’t stab us from the front or back and the leaders who left the struggle.”

I’m not sure about everyone else, but I’m a little tired of being told how grateful we should be to our politicians - and of being told, no less, by those self-same politicians.

Having someone constantly scold and remind you to be grateful to a particular politician is probably the best indicator that the said politician really has not done enough to warrant genuine "gratitude."

Worst of all, it is yet another sign that opposition politicians are taking more and more pages out of the Umno/BN book.

Similar to respect, gratitude is something earned, not demanded.

It’s also Political Communication 101: angrily telling people that they should be grateful to your political boss generates disdain, not affection.

I can pretty much guarantee you that no one who wasn’t already a fan is sitting there, going “Oh dear, oh dear, they’re right, I really have been such an ingrate, I’m going to show all my love and appreciation from now on.”

Don’t delay naming candidate for PM

Speaking of BN, another criticism from the same source was that announcing Dr Mahathir Mohamad as the candidate for PM was to "trap ourselves in BN’s game."

However, in the same criticism, the argument is made that the parties should have explained to the grassroots before announcing Mahathir as candidate, not after.

This is a little confusing. It was wrong to announce Mahathir as candidate now, but it would have been right to go to the grassroots now and explain to them why they chose Mahathir as the candidate?

Frankly, if the Pakatan Harapan consensus was to pick someone else as a candidate for PM, I think I could easily live with that.

However, I don’t think there is any sound political justification for continuing to put off announcing who the Harapan candidate for PM will be.

As it is, Harapan suffers from enough perception of being disunited and disorganised. Without a commitment to an agreed-upon PM candidate at least, especially only months away from the election, the potential for further infighting and instability is infinitely more.

Azmin’s poisoned chalices

Azmin’s backhanded "compliments" to Mahathir also did not go unnoticed:

"If we are able to convince the rakyat to accept a 93-year-old (as the PM candidate), why not? We (Harapan) are democratic.

"We are not here to force the people to accept (Mahathir), but we are offering (as) this is the best option we can offer,"

This is obviously a dig at Mahathir’s age. I raised an eyebrow at a similar comment by Zuraida Kamaruddin (photo):

"I do not deny that to freshen local politics, there is a need to introduce a young candidate, someone who is millennial and has a tried and tested outlook for reformation."

I think the fact that she thinks Azmin is a millennial shows just how far any of them are from understanding (what is literally) the first thing about millennials.

Then there was Azmin’s dubious offer of Gombak for Mahathir to contest in.

Obviously having failed to inspire much confidence there as a parliamentarian, Azmin now offers the poisoned chalice to the man he sees as a rival, all the while smiling sweetly as if he were doing the latter a great favour.

Obviously, Mahathir wisely keeps his own counsel on seats, and had a jab or two for Azmin as well, in a battle of sarcasm.

I think Malaysians would all be more "grateful" to Azmin if he would simply say what he means and means what he says more often.

Nobody is so stupid as to believe that he genuinely has no ambitions, while his feudalistic followers continue to throw tantrums and keep pushing him for PM behind the scenes. Followers of a boss like Azmin would never dare do anything without his full approval.

A future without ex-Umno leaders

We all have our own preferred leaders, but I think it’s not terribly unobjective to ask: in what world does Azmin win Harapan more votes than Mahathir in the seats that matter?

Mahathir is neither an angel nor a saint. If we ask whether he "deserves" to be PM based on the merits of his time as PM, the answer could very well be "no."

I don’t think it should necessarily be a given that we choose a candidate for PM solely based on winnability. Other criteria can include how well the said candidate embodies sound moral principles and political ideals.

All that said though, I don’t personally believe Azmin scores any better than Mahathir on those fronts either.

At the same time, I think it’s reasonably fair to say that there’s no way Azmin will capture the imagination of rural Malaysia in the way Mahathir can. After all, you don’t see BN going out of its way to hit Azmin.

What I suppose we really hope for, ultimately, is a scenario one day where we don’t only have to choose between ex-Umno leaders.

Until then, I think we can safely say that some ex-Umno leaders are more palatable than others.

NATHANIEL TAN is hoping we can all unite to defend Malaysiakini in its time of need, in the face of injustice.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.