FORMER Bangi MP Ong Kian Ming caused a bit of a stir when he reasoned that Khairy Jamaluddin and Shahril Hamdan should consider joining DAP after the first was sacked and the second suspended from Umno in a “night of the long knives”.

People were not so much irked by whether the two men should join DAP but by Ong’s descriptions of them as being the party’s potential prime ministerial candidates.

The idea must have annoyed Malay politicians such as Syahredzan Johan or Young Syefura Othman who started their political careers in DAP.

Surely the two of them, who were recently elected for the first time to parliament and who have been loyal to the party, would be better to lead DAP in the foreseeable future instead of Shahril, who has twice been defeated in elections.

There are other good arguments to persuade Khairy and Shahril that their political future lies with DAP; Ong could have talked about how the two men’s political ideas and values – revealed in their “Keluar Sekejap” podcast – were actually aligned with DAP’s social democracy.

Ong could even sell them the concept of “Malaysian Malaysia”, which is DAP’s founding principle. 

The prime ministerial candidates idea has also hit a raw nerve among some of the party loyalists because it appears to be an extension of an olive branch to Umno men and a compromise of the DAP’s values.

Lest we forget, Khairy was once a firebrand nationalist who was not afraid to dabble in race-baiting to drum up support.

Even if those remarks are now regarded as water under the bridge, the idea of taking in a former political opponent and instantly making him your party’s prime ministerial candidate is hard to stomach. 

Except that this is the political strategy that DAP has employed again and again in its quest for power and one that has failed just as many times.

Pakatan Harapan, with the ringing endorsement of DAP, made Dr Mahathir Mohamad prime minister in the belief that the nonagenarian could deliver the Malay vote.

The choice was perhaps good for winning the general election but not so good for sustaining a working government; the coalition’s inability to check the same prime minister proved fatal and led it to lose federal power.

After the Sheraton Move, DAP went on the hunt again for another viable prime ministerial candidate and this time it floated the idea of Warisan president Mohd Shafie Apdal.

This did not just damage relations with PKR and then opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, but it also turned out to be a strategical disaster as Warisan proceeded to field candidates in DAP strongholds in the 2022 general election.

In the same election campaign, we were told by DAP that Umno was morally bankrupt and that its president was a kleptocrat who should be rejected. Yet post polls, Umno is now sharing power with DAP while the alleged kleptocrat is deputy to the leader of the executive branch.

DAP, lacking the political authority to ask for the top job, has demonstrated time and again that it is more than willing to take in and raise up rejected Malay leaders so long as it is able to share the fruits of governance as a result.

It should therefor be no surpirse that a key member of DAP is dangling the ultimate carrot before Khairy and Shahril. 

Lastly, DAP has also failed to debate whether Khairy and Shahril are a good fit for the party.

It will be interesting to see how the Khairy could subscribe to a “Malaysian Malaysia” after believing in “Ketuanan Melayu” for most of his political life.

For DAP, however, it does not seem to matter whether you believe in human rights or economic justice as long as you are a prominent Malay personality who says what the party wants to hear.

This was why, despite all his flaws and disregard for human rights, Dr Mahathir could still make a return to office in 2018.

It is clear Khairy and Shahril are not the first and will certainly not the last Malay leaders to be courted by DAP in its bid for power – May 7, 2023.

* Kenneth Cheng has always been interested in the interplay between human rights and government but more importantly he is a father of two cats, Tangyuan and Toufu. When he is not attending to his feline matters, he is most likely reading books about politics and human rights or playing video games. He is a firm believer in the dictum “power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will”.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.