KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 16 — DAP deputy secretary-general Liew Chin Tong has urged Pakatan Harapan (PH) to move towards nation-building to unite both Malay and non-Malay voters, instead of finding a common enemy.
He said PH should not hope for another scandal like 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) to unite voters in its attempt to gain at least half of the Malay votes and maintain support among non-Malays.
“For the longest time, at least since the 2008 election, elections were fought almost solely on negative emotion. To vote for a party is to fight against someone or something else. No one seems to believe that voters would respond positively to positive campaigning.
“To put it plainly, PH supporters cannot forever hope for another 1MDB scandal so that they can have a common enemy to fight against,” he said in an opinion piece.
He compared this situation to how Umno supporters are now clueless on how to treat former bogeyman DAP as an ally, and how Perikatan Nasional (PN) has realised it can no longer play up Malay sentiments to gain more votes from non-Malays.
Therefore, Liew proposed for the PH-Barisan Nasional (BN) alliance to instead focus on “Malaysian nationalism” to bring together a nation that has been divided.
“To envisage such a winning coalition of voters, under the Unity ticket, PH-BN needs to articulate a ‘Malaysian nationalism’ that brings together more than half of the Malays and an overwhelming proportion of voters from all other ethnic groups.
“I define Malaysian nationalism as having a common goal of building the nation together, prospering together, regardless of one’s background. It is the idea of a true Bangsa Malaysia,” he said.
This comes as the DAP strategist suggested that PAS may gain up to 30 per cent of Malay support since 1955 by capitalising on widespread discontent against Umno.
“A vote for Perikatan Nasional can never be assumed as a vote for what PN stands for. Just as a vote for PH or Umno cannot be assumed as necessarily a vote for the ideas they represent. It could just be a negative vote against the other options,” he said.
He also highlighted that PN has now appropriated the anti-corruption platform as Umno is now part of the ruling coalition together with PH.
“To move forward, the Unity ticket should no longer think it could win by defining itself against the PN alone. The Unity ticket needs to win by being embraced positively by as many Malaysians as possible,” he added.
Over the weekend, both the PH-BN alliance and PN kept their state administrations.
However, PH was denied a two-thirds majority in Selangor, while PN made a clean sweep in Terengganu resulting in no Opposition in the state assembly.
