GE15: Will the Chinese and Indians have voices if PN comes into power?

There is no single representation of Chinese and Indians in the elected Member of Parliaments (MPs) under the Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition.

Earlier today we saw the entire nation waiting anxiously when Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and PN's Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin were summoned for an audience with the Yang di-Pertuan Agong at the Istana Negara.

It caused much unrest among the citizens with several questionable news reports by media agencies while waiting for an announcement on who will be the country’s 10th Prime Minister.

Anwar faced the media and remained tight-lipped while Muhyiddin left the palace via the back door. This could be a reflection of something brewing in the palace and hints on who could possibly be the next premier.

Meanwhile, Barisan Nasional (BN), in its statement today, maintained that they would be the Opposition bloc only to later be summoned by the King tomorrow in a bid to determine the majority confidence for PM, as per Article 43(2) of the Federal Constitution.

"The Agong has already met with the leader of Pakatan Harapan (PH) and Perikatan Nasional (PN), the next process is to individually meet with the 30 BN MPs at 10.30am tomorrow at Istana Negara,” read a statement from the Comptroller of the Royal Household, Ahmad Fadil Shamsuddin.

The 15th General Election (GE15) saw a hung parliament where no coalition won sufficient seats to form the government on its own.

The PH coalition have the highest number of seats with 82, followed by PN (73), BN (30), Gabungan Parti Sarawak (22), Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (6), Warisan (3), Parti Bangsa Malaysia (1), Parti Kesejahteraan Demokratik Masyarakat (1) and two independents.

Within the BN coalition itself, we could see there are two separate teams brewing whereby BN’s chairman Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi favours to PH while its treasurer-general Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein would rather ‘be sacked’ than to work with Anwar and DAP.

Similar situation could be seen with Pas where its secretary-general Datuk Seri Takiyuddin Hassan said the party was willing to work with BN while its president Tan Sri Abdul Hadi Awang said Pas would rather be an opposition than forming a coalition government with BN.

Abdul Hadi reiterated that Pas will not work with Umno leaders who “aren’t clean” to form a government and that they were fully committed to PN after severing ties with Umno ahead of the polls this month.

Looking at the overall PN coalition, there is no single Indian or Chinese elected representatives be it under Bersatu, Pas or Gerakan.

On the other hand, if we look at both BN and PH’s elected MPs, there’s a combination of Malay, Chinese and Indian representatives.

Looking back at the history of Malaya, Tunku Abdul Rahman had given a silver lining to the struggle of the Malayan nationalists when his action of forming the Alliance Party had started to open the eyes of British to allow the Malayans to govern their own country.

The Alliance Party was a political coalition in Malaysia whose membership comprised of Umno, MCA and MIC which was later registered in 1957 and revamped to the name “Barisan National” in 1973.

The government between the three major ethnic groups namely Malays, Chinese and Indians led to the London Agreement that was signed in 1956 had given signs that Malaya will achieve independence on August 31, 1957.

The basis of this country was formed by three major ethnic groups with Borneo to gain independence from the British, but now PN’s leadership was 100 per cent Malay elected representatives thus how will the Indians and Chinese have their voices heard?

To say the least, BN and PH does have a combination of all races represented in their coalitions. Now, is it a good governance if BN and PH work together or should PN come into power with GPS and other coalitions to form a government?

Although both PH and BN has its own indifferences, both coalitions did spaced out (if not equally) to the Chinese and Indians in Malaysia to be represented.

Will this be possible with the PN coalition?

We already saw how Muhyiddin slammed PH as an agent of Jews and Christians, out to colonise Malaysia prior to the elections. Spewing extreme messages and the playing racial cards to garner political mileage has to be a new low.

Our history tells us that all three heroes of this country, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun V.T. Sambanthan and Tun Tan Cheng Lock were determined to gain independence from Britain without bloodshed and to create a political and legal framework for this country that would enable Malays, Chinese and Indians to share power and live in harmony.

PN forming a government and ruling this country devoid of Chinese or Indian representation in the Cabinet, do you think it’s fair? Is this the vision Tunku saw for this nation?

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of Sinar Daily.