The Malaysian Insight

LET’S cut through all the fluff, and look at the facts:
 
Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad is offering politicians from a political party he derided and ridiculed in the run-up to GE14 admission into Bersatu and a backdoor into the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government.

By accepting these former Umno politicians – products of the same system that gave us Najib Razak and 1MDB – he is giving Bersatu a more respectable number in parliament and perhaps a stronger footing in the PH coalition. 

He may even be speeding up the demise of Umno by encouraging the hollowing out of its ranks.

At what cost, though?

Is it acceptable to welcome politicians from a culture that accepted and promoted corruption, abuse of power and patronage? 

Is it acceptable to offer a soft-landing to politicians who were rejected by the same voters who gave their all to Dr Mahathir and PH, and made the improbable happen on May 9?

Should the preoccupation with adding flesh to the spine of Bersatu take precedence over concerns that the Umno virus will  contaminate PH?

These questions are being raised in PH circles following news that former Puteri Umno chief Mas Ermieyati has joined Bersatu and that a swathe of Sabah Umno elected representatives have left the party. 

DAP’s Ramkarpal Singh said PH’s admittance of elected representatives from Umno goes against the government’s commitment to reform. 

“The more PH entertains these crossovers, the more disillusioned the rakyat will become with PH. It is a dangerous development and completely against the will of the people who voted out BN in GE14,” he said. 

He is right.

The Malaysians who voted PH into power did not do so on a whim. They thought long and hard about the choice before them. 

They decided to reject the familiar and went with a motley crew of novices led by Dr Mahathir. They believed that Dr Mahathir was sincere about wanting to atone for his past mistakes and making a  clean break from the past.

Surely bringing back the old from a discredited political culture does not represent a clean break from the past. ‎It can’t. 

Also troubling is the speed at which some of these Umno types have been willing to jump ship. Many of them have been drinking from the Umno trough for decades but found it so easy to abandon their struggle.

So just what type of individuals is Bersatu admitting into its fold?

Political opportunists and men and women of straw? 

Dr Mahathir and his supporters may argue that those admitted into Bersatu have passed a background check and are relatively unstained by the muck of the Najib years.

Perhaps so, but they fail the ultimate test: they are not supported by the people who put Dr Mahathir and PH in power. – December 13, 2018.