COMMENT | Malaysians have matured, but not its political parties

COMMENT | We often look to the US and its two-party system as some sort of a model for democracy. There is the Democrat party and the Republican party. One party acts as government and the other as opposition, depending on the flavour of the day, for the check and balance to happen.

In Malaysia, as we see how the recent Sarawak, Melaka and Johor state elections have been, BN has been making almost clean sweeps in winning both states, resulting in many people criticising the opposition for not being united. It’s not just disunity within the Pakatan Harapan coalition, but there is now a third coalition in the form of Perikatan Nasional.

Since 2008, the opposition has tried their best to come together to become a force to challenge BN. It started as Pakatan Rakyat and evolved into Harapan. Many times, it would seem like parties with totally opposite ideals are just coming together, such as the DAP and PAS. But that was seen as something necessary.

In my opinion, this type of two coalition politics can definitely work if, like in the case of our beloved country, there is a common enemy that one side would like to defeat.

Obviously, we are looking at how BN has always been seen as the enemy that everyone else needs to destroy. This was put in motion in 2008 and 2013, with it becoming a success in 2018.