The results of the 12th Malaysia general elections have rekindled the hope of
forming an accountable opposition front.The 3 major opposition parties in the
country namely, Democratic Action Party(DAP),Parti Keadilan Rakyat(PKR) and
Parti Islam SeMalaysia(PAS), are forced by the prevailing circumstances to join
hands and form coalition governments in 5 states - Kedah,Penang,Perak,Selangor
and Kelantan (although PAS is able to form the state government on its own in
Kelantan). They officially named the front as Pakatan Rakyat (People's
Alliance),the state governments of the 5 said states will form a common
secretariat known as People's Alliance Secretariat. It is not the first time the
3 parties had formed an united front,they had formed the Alternative Front in
1999.It ended in a dismay failure when PAS went ahead to fullfll its dream of
establishing an Islamic state in Kelantan disregarding the feelings of other
component parties.DAP was swift to cut itself off the alliance to save itself
from being abandoned by its core base of supports.PKR was also starting to
distant itself from this fundamentalist action.So the alliance was sadly
disbanded. The formation of Alternative Front was at least carried out with some
planning prior to the general election,yet it failed.However, the current front
was fromed hastedly to cater for the prevailing situation, that is they need
each other in order to form the government in the 5 states. It is just a
"marriage of convenience". Many predict that if the PR did not win any state
control in the next general election,it will just die a natural death.Some even
predict it won't have to wait that long because soon the "honeymoon" period of
the PR will be over and differences between the 3 parties will soon surface.
Each of them has distinct ideology different from each other.Pas has its dream
of an "Islamic State of Malaysia" since the day of its inception; DAP though a
namesake multi-racial party defends the interests of the Chinese voters and PKR
is a Malay party which caters to the less fundamentalist Muslims. How long can
each of them hold off the demands from their core groups of supporters? It is
everyone's wonder. On the other hand, it is the first time in the history of
Malaysia the oppositions has a working "prototype" of an alliance for them to
experiment on. If they can get the knack of running a real government and have
sampled the sweet taste of power,they might try harder to blend together and
establish a realistic 2-party system in our nation? My personal take on this is:
as far as there are enough state goverments for PR to run,it will survive.
Otherwise it will be the same old sad story again, the component parties in PR
will go their separate ways, each on its own lonely trail of searching for a way
to rule Malaysia alone.
