KUALA LUMPUR, June 21 — When Umno Youth chief Akmal Saleh demanded former rival DAP apologise to his party during its recent general assembly, the façade of reconciliation in the national unity government momentarily dropped.
Instantly, observers were reminded the two parties were once the antithesis to each other. For DAP, the Malay nationalist party had been the main obstacle to its vision of a “Malaysian Malaysia”, while Umno had portrayed the socialist democratic rival as a threat to its core struggle for the positions of the Malays, Islam, and the royal institution.
Strange bedfellows since the aftermath of the 15th general election, the two parties find themselves heading into six crucial state elections as partners and must find ways to burnish their credentials without resorting to attacking each other like before.
While University of Tasmania’s Asia Institute political analyst James Chin said this would be challenging as the grassroots of both parties have yet to come around, Umno and DAP have already shown they could co-exist comfortably in Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s unity government.
“But the way to understand it is that the number of clashes Umno and DAP have is almost zero. The reason is DAP goes straight on the urban Chinese majority or non-Malay areas, while Umno is almost certain to go after the Malay rural areas,” he said.
Chin also said Umno and DAP would not be depending heavily on each other’s supporters for the elections as they typically contested in seats with differing demographics.
Assistant Professor of Political Science at International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) Syaza Shukri said that with the seismic shifts since GE15, Malaysia’s political parties would need to learn how to cooperate with even the most unlikely of allies if needed, so long as they could find common ground.
For the impending state elections, she said Umno and DAP could skirt around their fundamental differences by stressing that their cooperation was in the interest of the unity government.
“I said so because the grassroots may not be too comfortable like in your example if DAP comes out campaigning for Umno and vice versa. They have their strong voter base, they just need to campaign to get them out to vote.
“But they have to mention the unity government because they need to portray to the people that voting for them means voting for stability and strength in numbers. That cannot be avoided,” she said.
According to senior lecturer with the Perdana Centre, Razak Faculty of Technology and Informatics at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) Mazlan Ali, Umno and DAP’s rift still existed as their previous enmity had existed much longer than the months they have been together in Anwar’s government.
However, he said this was improving with time as the leaderships of both parties have consistently tried to address the matter openly.
“As we know Umno and DAP have been in politics for so long, when they work together in the unity government, it will definitely cause some conflicts and misunderstanding on both sides.
“But until now, it seems that the situation is better as the top leaders have taken positive steps to defuse the situation,” he said.
Previously, Akmal said DAP should apologise to the members of the Malay nationalist party for its purported past attacks against the party, since the party did so to the Gabungan Parti Sarawak coalition (GPS) that was also in the unity government.
In his maiden appearance at the Umno General Assembly, DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke urged the party’s youth wing to move on from the past.
Umno’s Barisan Nasional (BN) and DAP under Pakatan Harapan (PH) partnered with other coalitions after GE15 to form the national unity government and prevent Perikatan Nasional from taking control of the country.
The two must now compete as allies for the first time in the elections for Kedah, Kelantan, Negeri Sembilan, Penang, Selangor, and Terengganu.
