The Gerakan AGM last week saw the party delegates venting off steam: forming a Royal Commission, the merger of all BN component parties and criticising UMNO’s racial politics.
Clearly, all this demands were denied by the government. For all its posturing, ultimately in Parliament and the state assemblies the party will always follow the BN line. It does not even have the liberty that PAS was granted when it was a part of the ruling coalition in the 70s whereby they could abstain from supporting the government on issues of religion.
Now, while Gerakan remains as the conscience of the government, it is a pale shadow to the party formed by Allahyarham Syed Husin Al-Attas and Tan Chee Khoon. It is a predominantly Chinese party, and it does not seem that the experience of 1969 whereby four of their Malay candidates defeated UMNO candidates would ever be repeated.
With the trend of demographics as well as the deterioration of the multiracial politics within BN, I see that the party has little if any future in the ruling coalition.
The idea of multiracial politics, while not new in our history, still faces hurdles as it goes against the dominant thinking in the country. Therefore what makes sense is for all those who believe in progressive multiracial politics to support the one genuine party that carries the torch – Keadilan.
Ada berani?
[...] By Nik Nazmi [...]
October 12th, 2007 at 1:41 am