Remember the big news write-ups that would routinely get published in the government’s mouthpieces about the rift and in-fighting in the PR coalition? Oh, how fast the tables have turned yet again on the BN.
The recent rancour and seemingly tense relations between Najib/Umno and the MIC is has certainly cast more light on the supposed – and much touted “BN partnership” we’re so prone to hearing through the government’s propaganda channels. Looks like this “partnership” is undergoing some serious rift after all. Amazing…who would have thought this could happen to the BN component parties too? And here we were being reminded – at every possible chance – now disorganised and divided the PR coalition seemed to be.
I recall the endless drivel of the government’s mouthpieces propagating about PR’s inability to govern because they can’t seem to even get their own house in order. My goodness, this must surely come as a shock to all these propagandist that the BN seem to actually have perfected the art of bickering, back-biting, and back-stabbing one another.
Stoking the MIC-Umno flames, and all the related developments that have fuelled this rapidly intensifying fire, must surely come as a very bitter reality for many within MIC to swallow. It’s not surprising that there is a prevailing thought in BN and some quarters of the MIC that by hastening Samy’s departure – if not minimising his significance (thus the manoeuvre to legitimate the puppet Makkal Sakti party) - might salvage or even bring back the Indian voters into the BN’s fold.
Well, one thing about this scenario is not surprising: that is, precisely how shallow the thinking within the Umno/BN hierarchy seems to be. Indeed, the mere high-jacking of the slogan “Makkal Sakti” to obfuscate the fracturing of the Indian support for BN and seemingly confuse the Indian electorate illustrates precisely how shallow the Umno/BN regime itself happens to be. It is but another manifestation of its lack of ability to comprehend the seismic shifts that have occurred in the consciousness of millions of Malaysians.
This ploy – that presumably by high-jacking the Makkal Sakti slogan the BN could regain the Indian support – personifies precisely what is wrong with the BN: It is incapable of real change; it is incapable of a fundamental departure from a failed ideology of race-based communal politics. Yet, it persists, not in trying to reinvent itself to a changed Malaysia, but to repackage itself with the same old ideology. In the final analysis, we get the same old wine with a new label.
We know the BN is expert at coming up with rosy slogans and empty promises. Now, we are indeed witnessing an Umno/BN regime – like a lost ship - adrift at sea, without an ability to articulate a new vision for Malaysia – at least not one that is consistent with the values of a truly multicultural society.
Unfortunately for the BN, more and more voters have caught on to this game of theirs. So while I am keeping my glass chilled to toast the day that Samy’s MIC become irreversibly defunct and inconsequential, that will only be a minor cause for celebration.
The true celebration will be to see this BN bickering – and not to mention the scandals that expose its sheer corruption - continue right through to the next general election.
G. Krishnan
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