THE recent victory for Barisan Nasional (BN) at the Tg Piai’s by-election speaks a lot to the rakyat.

But somehow, when in power, it may be difficult for Pakatan Harapan (PH) to learn precious lessons from a defeat.

I am a man-the-street, and here are my two cents worth of take on the by-election:

PH has not learnt the lessons from the defeat of BN at GE14 and they repeated the very thing that BN did and was defeated, that is, to give out goodies to the constituency.

They are now the “pot calling the kettle black”. They used a lot of excuses to do it, but it didn’t work.

It didn’t work for BN in the GE14 election, and it didn’t work again for Tg Piai by-election.

Do you need more reminders not to play this kind of politics? The rakyat is not stupid and cheap to be easily bought over by your goodies.

In fact, it is an insult to a constituency to throw out goodies to win votes. There should be a law that once the announcement for the by-election is made, suspend all “goodies” by the ruling government until after the by-election.

PH made a lot of promises in their manifesto for the GE14 election and most of them are not fulfilled.

To add salt to the injury, they gave all sorts of excuses, and claimed naivety and ignorance to the mess in the country and that they did not expect to win the election.

Hello PH, when you make promises to the rakyat and not able to fulfil them for whatever reasons, there is no need to give excuses and defend yourselves.

You owe it to the rakyat to fulfil them, even though it is difficult. If you don’t fulfil it, come the next election, no one will ever believe your manifesto again. It will be all empty promises.

If you do not know the gravity of the problems in the country, and find that some promises made are impossible to fulfil, the right thing to do is to apologise and seek forgiveness of the rakyat for making such promises.

If you don’t, you will eventually lose the trust of the rakyat. Don’t be stuck up and arrogant just because you are in power.

You can be voted out by the rakyat if you keep on being arrogant. You have not learnt the lesson why BN was defeated and you are mimicking their folly by being arrogant.

For example, Zakir Naik is never a Malaysia’s problem but India’s problem, but you have allowed him, not only stay in Malaysia, but allowed him to sue and bring Malaysian MPs and activists who stood to defend the rakyat.

The duty of the government is to defend the rakyat, but PH’s government lost its compass and defended a foreigner by the name Zakir, instead, and this comes at the expense of her own citizens, and votes, in coming election.

Try and ask any non-Muslims on the street, and they can tell you with anger: why should PH’s government harbour a wanted man in Malaysia?

Even rational and right thinking Muslims spoke up against letting Zakir stay in Malaysia. But PH is too arrogant and disconnected with the non-Muslims and the rakyat. They refused to listen.

If Zakir continues to stay in Malaysia until the next election, this will definitely have drastic consequences to PH’s support base.

Education is esteemed and valued highly by the Chinese community and it must not be mixed with politics. But someone in power tried to misuse his power to “force MCA” relinquish their control over TAR UC.

This is an unwise and wrong move. It will definitely backfire on DAP. Lim Guan Eng cannot deny the fact that TAR UC has contributed much to the education of the Chinese.

You are using the wrong strategy to make them kow-tow to you. This has become vindictive. Stop that and let the grant be released to them as soon as possible.

Please don’t underestimate the negative ripples it has caused.

The education minister has proven himself, for the last 18 months, that he is not the right man for the job. In a country where our education badly needed a revamp and overhaul, this man has no clue how to do it except to attend to minor issues of his department.

If he continues, the rakyat will lose confidence with the PH government. Come next election, it will be shown with votes.

PAS has used religion to gain support and power. At one time, they said it is “wajib” (compulsory) for a Muslim to vote a Muslim candidate, even though he may be tainted with corruption.

But at Tg Piai by-election, they said it is halal to vote a non-Muslim. Isn’t this using religion to manipulate the voters for political power?

PH has made the promise to approve UEC when they come into power. Until today, this matter is still standing.

As education is close to the heart of Chinese community, the delay is seen that PH’s stand is now wavering due to the pressure from the right-wing.

In the first place, UEC qualification is an education matter, nothing political or racial.

Why bring race into this issue? Isn’t this not making it a political issue? Even some Malays possessed UEC qualification.

It is ridiculous when Singapore, Australia, NZ and many other countries recognises UEC as an entry qualification but not Malaysia.

Meanwhile, the Perak menteri besar has been a reflection of Umno genes. Though he has left Umno, Umno has not left him.

If he continues as an MB until the next election, be assured that BN will retake Perak. The Chinese will not support DAP because of him.

We all know that respect, honour and dignity does not come by demanding it but by earning it.

Organising a Malay Dignity Congress will never make others respect anyone. Furthermore, Bersatu insulted the non-Malays by calling them foreigners.

When come election, they wanted their vote and support. After attacking them, you got the cheek to ask for their support?

Even after 62 years of independence, almost every high ranking positions were occupied by Malays, with more than 90% civil servants and positions were Malays, and yet it was said that their position were threatened.

How can this be? This does not make sense. True dignity is earned by hard work, integrity, exercising justice and fairness when governing the land.

These, in my opinion, are some main issues that if PH does not take stock and re-calibrate themselves, they may end as only one-term government. – November 17, 2019.

* Lembususu reads The Malaysian Insight.

* 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.