YOURSAY | ‘PKR back from the dead, the race is more competitive’

YOURSAY | ‘Sheraton Move’s negative outcome produced positive rewards.’

COMMENT | Hidden blessings of the Sheraton Move

BrownCheetah9736: PKR deputy president Rafizi Ramli’s return to the political arena is a major plus.

Before that, Pakatan Harapan was an aimless and rudderless ship, which kept harping on how they were betrayed by those in the Sheraton Move. They were also flogging the proverbial dead horse (former premier Najib Abdul Razak and his 1MDB scandal).

Both issues have run out of steam, while PKR president Anwar Ibrahim was stuck in paranoia land, still dreaming of what could have been.

Rafizi brought a renewed focus and re-energised the campaign which was bereft of ideas. Putting his foot down on ‘no big tent’, is the right decision, as can be seen from the disorganised and disjointed campaigns of BN and PN. Now the votes are split (due to multi-cornered fights), which may benefit Pakatan Harapan.

Moreover, Rafizi also seems to be the only one capable of digging up dirt on BN (for example, the Littoral Combat Ship fiasco) and exploiting it to remind voters that it’s the same old corrupt party all over again.

The unintended Rafizi effect seems to reignite the old fire in Anwar. I have not seen Anwar so fired up and energised for such a long time.

I am not saying that Harapan will win the general election this Saturday, but at least PKR now stands a fighting chance of regaining their seats. Several months back, many would have predicted a washout for PKR.

Now, with DAP also expecting to retain most of their seats, and PKR back from the dead, the race is more competitive.

OrangePanther1466: Based on all my past comments about Sheraton Move, I had always viewed it as a positive development. The breakdown of the Harapan government unleashed political forces which were shackled by two giant coalitions, BN and Harapan.

In the broader context, Sheraton Move re-engineered the political paradigm as many Malay leaders realised that they too have a chance at a shot for the top spot.

Another positive outcome was the toning down of the race and religion card - the old Umno playbook. These parties begin to realise that in this new paradigm, every vote would count, and they must also court the other races.

Today, we see that PAS and PN (no less former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin himself) still trying their luck at playing the race card. Umno has however quieted down.

The Sheraton Move has also taught us the essence of coalition politics, the diverse types and levels of political cooperation and the need to revert to the basics of politics as well as service to the people. This GE15 will test how far the political paradigm has shifted and whether it will remain sustainable going into the future.

The old paradigm based on race and religion and the domination of a single party and coalition over politics and government is just not sustainable going forward for a plural society like ours.

So, I hope people will realise that their efforts in GE14 were not a waste. The Harapan government did many good things in its 22 months in office and though it lost out in the Sheraton Move, there has been some good outcome in that move.

An outcome where the parliamentary seats are randomly distributed with no party having a controlling majority will be a good result. It is then left to like-minded parties to cobble a workable administration with its own in-built checks and balances.

There may be bumps along the way, but we will learn to do better.

Kilimanjaro: I have mentioned this a number of times. I would bet on my last dollar that Harapan would have been squarely defeated in GE15 had it continued to complete its full term. It would have been heckled and wrestled down by racial and religious rhetoric.

The odd two years the "Malay" government has been in Putrajaya is nothing other than disastrous. They could not wait for the ‘right’ moment to execute the Sheraton Move. They became so greedy and swam right into the eye of the storm.

I am just sad that Harapan failed to slam the dysfunctional government more by using issues such as the bloated cabinet, high numbers of Covid deaths, and flood victims left unattended, deprived and disgruntled. Harapan lacks ingenuity and special "marksmen" to hit them at their political failures.

BisingSahaja123: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. That negative loss produced positive rewards. The outlook today for Harapan is more promising since Anwar’s active involvement.

Former PKR deputy chief Azmin Ali and his group’s (who defected from PKR) path to power could very well be shortened come this election. Their departure in fact brought more stability to the party. As the saying goes, “A man's worth is no greater than his ambitions”, only time will tell.

In fact, to ensure conviction of the court cluster, Harapan could have agreed to work with caretaker Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob to extend the memorandum of understanding (MOU) until the end of this term (instead of prematurely calling for an election in November).

These three things showed that had Harapan remained in power, they might have better addressed the pandemic (better ministers to begin with such as former health minister Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad and there will be no unnecessary grab of power in Sabah) and its fallout.

BluePanther4725: Yes, Harapan became stronger after the Sheraton Move. We also benefited from a minority government that forced the parties to make compromises, for example, the Harapan-BN/PN MOU that made the anti-hopping law possible.

In addition, now people have more realistic expectations, and we understand that Harapan cannot perform miracles, while changes and reforms are likely to be incremental. We need to have patience and give enough time for Harapan to bring the reforms.

PN has proven to be the most incompetent government while BN the most corrupt. A Harapan government is our best choice, giving us hope and the way forward for all Malaysians of all races and religions.

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