OH, my word. It has been a breathless week.
 

AFTER the election on November 19, we had to wait for nearly a week to know the composition of our government. And who would lead it. None of it was down to the number of votes. On that score, our election commission body slammed most other countries. The rate of reporting the returns that night was frankly peerless.

As we all know, what kept us on tenterhooks was the politics. First up to the wicket was Muhyiddin Yassin and his bully boy Hamzah Zainuddin, fronting the Bersatu-PAS coalition.

They were responding to the speaker’s request for statutory declarations before 2pm on 21 November. As it later transpired, this lot had 115 MP’s supporting Muhyiddin’s bid for the top post, proven they say, by statutory declarations. 

The most significant problem with this was that the speaker’s instructions for statutory declarations did not match what the Yang di-Pertuan Agong actually stated in the palace’s statement on November 21. That statement did not mention statutory declarations at all. It clearly asked for the coalitions to present their nominations. In other words, quite properly the palace was interested in party political support. Not the whims and fancies of individual members of parliament.

The reason for this is clear. What the palace and the king were looking for was not support for a prime minister that was captured in a snapshot of time. Rather the palace was looking for support for a prime minister that was sustainable and continuing. There surely must be no examinable reason to breach that logic.

Muhyiddin’s ploy, acting on a whim by the speaker he appointed, was doom laden. The operating strategy was simple and by its design simplistic. It was premised upon the supposition that the moment you show you have the numbers, other bees will be drawn to the honey pot. This was the gambit, successfully executed in the Sheraton move. It failed this time.

This was down to the actions of a handful of good men. If women were involved, I vouchsafe that none of the drama that unfolded would have played out. They would have herded the cats into a bag well in time. 

Who then were these men? Let us see if we can determine from the public record, the role they played in delivering the right result.

Not because of any individual but because of a basic principle. Sadly, it is a principle that does not present itself in even the most mature democracies. It is simply this. That the party that got the most popular votes gets to govern.

Again, there is surely no examinable reason why this argument fails. Let us now turn to these good men, who we will be examined in no particular order.

Ahmad Zahid Hamidi

Who on earth would have thought he would be on this list? But he is. In an Umno riven with dissention, after the results and members baying for blood, he drew upon a strength that one would never see visible on his sleeve.

Boxed in by politics and criminal charges, he elbowed and barged his way to whipping all Umno MPs to do what was right for the party and most importantly the country, He may have done this for personal reasons, but I will still draw the card. As for the Barisan’s component parties, they have signed up for comedy fodder and need no mention for moral or indeed any other fortitude.

Anthony Loke and Gobind Singh

DAP is the bogeyman in Malay propaganda. The riddance of Lim Guan Eng has brought the cream to the top of the milk. These two gentlemen are the silent heroes of the result. Simply by their masterful silence.

DAP is the biggest parliamentary party in Pakatan. Yet, they were not present at the meeting between Anwar and Zahid. They stayed completely silent until Thursday, the day Anwar was sworn in. When they did speak, it moved the earth. The apology to GPS was a stroke of genius at precisely the right time. These two have a political nous like no other : knowing when to shut up.

Anwar Ibrahim

Finally. Well, time will tell if he survives. The last five years have shaped him in a different way. They have made him circumspect and accurate. His temperance against Muhiyddin’s arrogance and hubris made Umno accept him. The man still has an elegant leg glance. Above all however, were his first coherent words in the press conference after the election. His first message was that this was a government for all Malaysians. It was not the last message.

Yang di-Pertuan Agong

In a constitutional monarchy, there should be little role for the king. That is a debate for a different time. His Majesty has however been the centre of our political life for the last 4 years, with three different governments.

His assessment that a sustainable majority, not one based on whims, spoke for the nation. His blunt message that we needed a government for all Malaysians was powerful. The assembly of the council of rulers to all accept the appointment of Anwar Ibrahim shielded the decision he made, from north to south and east to west.

Muhyiddin Yasin

Your arrogance ensured the result. – November 28, 2022.

* Gopal Sreenevasan reads The Malaysian Insight.