NORMAN Lamont, a former Chancellor of Exchequer for Britain, once said the UK conservative government he supported gave the impression of being in office but not in power.

Instead of governing from a position of power, he said, the government was too reliant on pollsters and party managers; decisions and policies were not based on what the government believes to be good but rather to appease and seek publicity.

This was perhaps the Achilles heel of the first Pakatan Harapan government, which led to its untimely demise in 2020. It had spent too little time on governing but on trying to over those who had never supported it in the first place.

Both the 2018 Seafield Temple riot which led to the death of a firefighter, Muhammad Adib and the anti-ICERD rally significantly dented the government’s zeal for reform, leading it to abandon two of its main policies.

The temple riot, which heightened racial tensions, forced the government to lift the moratorium on the use of draconian laws in the name of national security.

The PH government, clearly rattled by the idea of Umno and PAS uniting to oppose ICERD, was also compelled to make a humiliating U-turn on its decision to ratify the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination

It is worth noting that the anti-ICERD rally is the only political demonstration in Malaysian history to have its demands met even before the event began.

PH might have held the executive office, but it clearly had no power and political capital to implement policies.

More crucially, even though BN and PAS were in the opposition, they knew they had the political power to paralyse a government which was more concerned about not being seen as less Malay than implementing the policies they had promised to the electorate.

In the end, their cynical strategy was successful because they convinced Bersatu that its political future lay in leaving the PH coalition to form the government with them.

Come 2023, PH is operating on more perilous ground than ever because its share of Malay support has been further reduced since the 2018 general election.

As for the opposition, Bersatu and PAS have again resorted to the proven method of starting culture wars to unsettle the current PH-BN government and hopefully, create internal division.

It is not surprising that most of Perikatan Nasional’s political discourses is race-based. This is done to sow distrust and weaken the Malay credentials of the government, if there was any to begin with.

It is too early to tell whether this strategy will benefit PN but the PH government looks to be aware of the danger and is clearly still haunted by the spectre of 2018-2020.

The overreaction to the movie “Mentega Terbang” and the Jom Ziarah programme shows that the government is still beholden to the reactionary force and unable to stand firm on its principles.

This has also led to reforms being held back. For instance, what the local government minister did first thing was to shoot down the idea of reviving local elections.

Needless to say, the only reason to not even consider local elections is the potential they have for fearmongering among the Malays.

Similarly, there will be no plans to abolish the Sedition Act which countless PH politicians have suffered under.

Religious affairs minister Na’im Mokhtar recently said the RUU355 amendment bill will be brought before the cabinet for a final decision, sparking fears the government is trying to bolster its Islamic image to outdo PAS.

PH’s continued pandering to the conservative Malays has led some to wonder if there is any difference at all between this and the PN government.

This brings us back to the question of whether PH is once again in offic but not in power.

While it is important for the PH government to wrest back Malay support, I suspect voters nowadays would not be easily duped.

No amount of pandering will satisfy the hardened PAS supporter.

Worse still, the PH government is at risk of losing the middle ground as a political party that promised a change but did nothing except maintain the status quo.

In the same speech, Lamont insisted that the government should do the right thing even if it proves to be unpopular because a government never wins by trying to appease its detractors.

It is a lesson the PH government should pay heed to. – March 26, 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.