KKB polls: It doesn’t matter if PSM or Muda loses By Commander S THAYAPARAN (Retired) Royal Malaysian Navy

Malaysiakini : “Small differences in a system of great power can have enormous consequences.” - Noam Chomsky [Source: Al Jazeera “Upfront” interview]

COMMENT | PSM and Muda are in talks to see if they will field a candidate in the upcoming Kuala Kubu Baharu by-election. If they do field a candidate, it would be an uphill task for an electoral victory.

Partisan interests are entrenched and no doubt even if Muda or PSM wins, they will find their candidate in a hostile environment with establishment parties undermining their every move, even if it means going against the will of the people.

The existential crisis facing the non-Malay/Muslim polity is not that they have no choices but the reality that this polity is not committed to a secular and egalitarian agenda.

This is not only demonstrated in the polity’s allegiance to a political party that arrogantly assumes that it is the gatekeeper to the definition of what it means to be Malaysian but also the so-called adherence to realpolitik when it suits the purposes of this party and its hardcore base.

Partisan echo chambers are not reverberating with calls for equality and justice for all but rather crypto-racism and a disdain for anything that would jeopardise the status quo of establishment coalitions. It has gotten worse with the ascension of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim to the hot seat in Putrajaya.

Moderate Malays are left to their own devises. If they speak up against religious extremism, there is a good chance they would be sanctioned with Pakatan Harapan in power or disavowed if Harapan was in the opposition.

Maybe if DAP had remained strictly secular instead of attempting to use religion - donning the headscarf, wandering around mosques, remaining silent when moderate Malays were speaking out against the injustice they experienced and enabling religious policies - things would be different. They would have been a foundation to build an alternative. But that time has passed.

All of this does not mean that the base is willing to give up on DAP and Harapan. Keep in mind that the fear of the Green Wave is an extremely potent distraction meant to lull non-Muslims into believing that our secular fundamentals are still strong. It is not.

Why PSM?

I have seen opposition politicians attack PSM while making excuses for other opposition political parties and their own parties who have engaged in behaviour that is corrupt, mendacious, and betrays the principles that the opposition insists they have.

Muda ex-president Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman and PSM deputy chairperson S Arutchelvan

While the mainstream political coalitions are busy finding easily identifiable “enemies”, what PSM identifies are deficiencies in the system and misguided policies that essentially encourage the working-class Malay base to vote against their long-term interests.

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