DOWN-and-out Gerakan found itself seeking a glimmer of hope from the most unlikely of sources today, after party leaders voted unanimously to leave Barisan Nasional, its home since 1974.
Gerakan deputy Youth chief Andy Yong said that despite many having written the party’s epitaph, he believed the party could draw inspiration from DAP, which he said had captured Putrajaya with its Pakatan Harapan partners despite its many setbacks.
“At one point, they were almost wiped out. But they bounced back,” he said.
The party was reduced to one seat in the Penang assembly in the 1999 general elections.
Its top guns, Lim Kit Siang and the late Karpal Singh, lost their Parliament seats.
“We have been a political organisation since 1968. It is wrong to say we are irrelevant. I don’t agree with that. We can still play a role as a political party,” he said.
The most charitable view among the general public, ever since the party of Lim Chong Eu and Lim Keng Yaik was pummelled on May 9, is that it will stumble along the road of political oblivion.
Yong said the party would find the going tough for the first two years.
“The public’s sentiment about Gerakan in BN is clear. There is a trust deficit because we were in BN.
“Now Gerakan will be more effective as an independent opposition party,” he said.
Yong said there should be checks and balances to ensure the PH government kept its election promises.
“There is euphoria now. Everything we say now (about the new government) will be useless. We will see in another year or two.”
Yong said just because Gerakan had not won any seats in the recent general election, it did not mean it could not be a constructive opposition party.
“Even civil society and the public can play that role to check the present government,” he said.
The party contested 11 parliamentary seats and 31 state seats and lost all of them.
Yong said there was nothing to look back on after the central committee had unanimously decided on leaving Barisan Nasional.
“There is no point hanging on,” he said.
Yong said the party’s elections later this year would be crucial to select the right leaders to lead the party into the future.
“The question now is how we will move forward. That is why having the right leaders will be crucial for Gerakan’s revival.”
Vice-president Dominic Lau said the decision to leave BN was not difficult, as state Gerakan chiefs had spoken with their grassroots members, who were in favour of leaving BN, before the central committee meeting.
“This is our second meeting since the polls. The last meeting was immediately after the general elections, and the central committee was split about the party’s next move,” Lau said of the decision to leave. – June 23, 2018.
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