Commentary By Datuk Kalimullah Hassan
The floodgates are open.
It took a humiliating defeat in last week’s Sabah polls and widespread criticism on social media for the DAP to start telling Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim that the emperor has no clothes.
It started with the late DAP stalwart Karpal Singh’s children – Sangeeth’s Deo, its chairman Gobind Singh Deo and brother Ramkarpal Singh Deo.
And then former chairman Lim Guan Eng warned Anwar today that if he did not listen to the peoples’ voice, the whole ruling coalition would be in trouble come the next general election in less than two years.
To be fair, Guan Eng and Ramkarpal have raised issues publicly, but never vociferously enough to make a difference.
The rest of the DAP – unbefitting as the party with the most number of Parliamentary seats – have toadied up to Anwar and ignored widespread public criticisms of the Government on issues of taxes, human rights, corruption and power abuse.
They paid the price last week, losing all eight seats they contested in Sabah.
Anwar’s PKR won one of 14 seats.
More humiliating for them was that almost every member of the cabinet, led by Anwar, campaigned hard in Sabah but Sabah thumbed its nose at them.
Is it too late for the DAP to make up for its sycophancy of the last three years? Probably.
It’s a pity..
For 60 years, the DAP has been a thorn in the side of the Government, exposing scandals and keeping power in check.
But once given the chance to rule, they showed they were no better.
Not that PKR or Amanah, the two other original components of Pakatan Harapan, are in a different class.
They are not.
And their coalition partners, Umno, are as amoral as they were when they were kicked out of power after 63 years in 2018.
It is Malaysia’s tragedy that the other two peninsula based parties with sizable numbers of MPs – PAS and Bersatu – are just as abysmal, if not worse.
Anwar should not be blamed solely. But as Prime Minister, the buck stops with him.
Editor: The views expressed here are of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of the talantang.com
