Pakatan Harapan’s honeymoon has truly ended


Raja Sara Petra

During an Umno assembly 18 years ago Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said the Malays are too sentimental and emotional while the Chinese are more pragmatic. Mahathir said he wished the Malays would be more like the Chinese and used their heads rather than their hearts in making decisions.

That is true to a certain extent. In the May 2018 general election or GE14, Mahathir successfully stirred up the emotions of the Malays to enable Pakatan Harapan to win the election and form the new federal government and a number of state governments. Basically, the Malays voted with their hearts, not with their heads.

Mahathir knew the sentiments of the Malays and he played on these sentiments, the same “weakness” that Mahathir said the Malays possessed but which Mahathir exploited to win the election. The “pragmatic” Chinese, on the other hand, were exploited by DAP with promises of a land of milk and honey and roads paved with gold if Pakatan Harapan were to win the election.

The Chinese are more “commercial” and they are guided by materialism, while the Malays follow the adage “biar mati anak, jangan mati adat”, a very sentimental attitude towards life. So, all had their own reasons for voting Pakatan Harapan.

Yesterday’s Slim by-election, the seventh by-election in a row that Pakatan Harapan lost, has shown that the Malays now see Pakatan Harapan for what it is, a party that dabbles in lies, slander, propaganda and false promises. And the Chinese, on the other hand, realise that Pakatan Harapan is not capable of delivering its promises, which Malays would call indah khabar dari rupa.



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