WHILE currently we are inundated by the highs and lows of politics that is a signature of life before elections, it is imperative to see what accounts for life after elections.

According to those who had just gone through a hard-fought campaign, it would appear that healing and reconciliation are the major priority.

“To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people”, says President Donald Trump in his victory speech.

Nevertheless, the deeply polarised American landscape today shows that any talk of healing is probably out of the window. Our less magnanimous response to the outcome of the previous Malaysian election, by contrast, is at least more honest about what is to come.

In fact, many are even questioning if the emotional damage wrought by elections is even worth the entire exercise?

The inability of elections to provide any closure to the divisive politics of the United States and the United Kingdom, both coincidentally, like us, practise the first-pass-the-post (FPTP) electoral system (in degrees of variations of course), is by itself a vote of no confidence.

Such confidence is further eroded when those who pedalled the ‘strong and stable’ message fail to achieve it through an electoral mandate, opening up the space for ridicule by countries like China, which seemingly achieve strength and stability without any elections thus far.

Honestly, I don’t blame the sceptics. Many simply gain no pleasure in seeing their fellow citizens continue arguing with each other in a highly toxic manner as elections are supposed to draw a close to all of this. The hype and hysteria associated with elections, for them, should occur in a cyclical manner, not running in chronic overdose.

Considering Malaysia will see a polarised public sphere for some time to come no matter the results of the upcoming elections, it is pertinent that we address the question if we want to subject ourselves to a cycle of fighting and healing for every 4-5 years.

Are we divided only by elections?

 That is, unless we question some of the assumptions made first.

The assumptions are, (i) the divisions we see are purely, if not significantly attributable to the running of election and (ii) if a society is divided, elections can do no good as it only exposes such ruptures.

First, on the issue of divisions, it’s rather facile to conclude that elections are the sole contributor to them, as if the different attitudes of our citizens towards education (single vs multi-stream), views on morality (conservative vs liberal), identity (parochial vs multicultural), language (Malay-, Anglo-, or multilingual-centric), legislation (Syariah- vs secular minded), welfare (ethnic-vs needs-centric), or developmental policies (state- vs market-driven) are all made by, and for elections. Anyone with a moderate grasp of our history would know that some of these debates have raged on since our colonial days.

The fact that the largest opposition party in Malaysia, PAS, was formed prior to Malaya’s independence shows that the issue of the type of nationhood, governance, and jurisprudence we ought to take has been in contention since the nation’s gestation.

In fact, I observe that the average Malaysian today is actually less wound up over party affiliations but rather with issues concerning religion, language, and race. The outburst of emotions surrounding the Malay-language requirement for doctors is a sign of it.

Politics can still be fluid in divided societies

Naturally, many will take from that and advance the second point, that an electorate divided at the centre will result in a government that is unlikely to be centrist in position. The electoral system will manifest either an unstable government with a weak mandate, or one that panders to one extreme position over the other as the votes to grab are zero-sum in nature.

Such thinking is guilty of fatalism and the absence of any long-term view of history. While divisions do persist in society, voting outcomes were never fully reflective of them.

Perhaps it’s due to our optimism deficit that we tend to project our own anxiety about the stasis Malaysia faces today onto electoral outcomes, over-exaggerating the un-winnability of certain constituencies by either one party or the other.

But the reality is that, it’s not the electorates that have their minds fixed but rather the political actors and agents that have their methods, strategy, and imagination fixed.

Recent electoral outcomes have shown upheavals are possible if politicians can reinvent themselves. Jeremy Corbyn, even with his highly progressive views on immigration, managed to win the voters from the anti-immigration UK Independence Party (UKIP).

Just across the English Channel, French president Emmanuel Macron, with a barely one-year old party, won both the presidential and legislative elections, albeit with a worrying low turnout.

Four states that Obama won flipped and delivered Trump’s victory.

Seen in the long-term, none of this is surprising. Many of the blue states in America today were red, considering that the Republican Party was once the party of Lincoln.

Such swings do not indicate the core values and beliefs of voters have changed. Even the landslide victory won by Barisan Nasional in 2004 (winning 198 out of 219 parliamentary seats) was gained by a popular vote of only 64%, hardly a show of solidarity if we go by the numbers.

But very few saw that as a divisive election and instead celebrated it as a come-together of sorts in rejection of Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s strong-fisted rule to welcome Badawi’s more moderate approach. The contentious politics, such as the infamous pendatang remark made by one UMNO division chief, came not because but rather, in spite of, a conclusive electoral outcome.

Pessimism misplaced

To conclude, our current pessimism about politics (or elections) should not be wrongly premised on the seemingly irreconcilable nature of our fractious society. Contrary to some rose-tinted nostalgia, societal divisions have always been here.

Most differences should not be pathologised, nor can they be healed.

More often than not, it is the fluidity of politics that helps us to overcome these entrenched cleavages to forge new alliances, understandings, and possibilities.

Without free and fair elections, the chances of radicalisation within a divided yet repressed society would be higher, as seen in the case of the Arab Spring.

We ought to remember that it is politics, the ‘art of the possible’ as Bismarck puts it, that brought us together as a relatively congealed nation (as compared to more violent trajectories taken by many postcolonial nations such as South Africa, Rwanda, or even Indonesia) in the first place.

Just because the craft is seemingly gone today doesn’t mean we should stop drawing altogether. – July 19, 2017.

* A Forensic Science-Asian Studies hybrid, Nicholas Chan is interested in how authority is shaped, exercised, and more importantly, resisted in Southeast Asia.

* 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.