WHENEVER the British Conservative Party meets for their annual conference, a leader will remind the party faithful that they are the oldest and most successful political party in all of Western democracy.
This history is invoked to remind members that the party truly represented the hopes and aspirations of the people, convincingly winning elections and delivering development, peace and progress under the aegis of effective leaders. Naturally, over its 180-year history, policies on particular aspects have changed, such as on the slave trade or National Health Service – but the leadership will claim that the party’s ideology has remained intact. Those who disagree will form or join other parties, as many are doing now in favour of Ukip.
Furthermore, today’s party members will claim that they are the heirs of the party’s achievements and place themselves in its narrative: “we” gave the country a, b and c, and “we” will provide the country with x, y and z. This narrative is largely defined by its sitting leaders and deployed for electoral purposes (all the better if they can enlist the machinery of state to turn the party narrative into the national one). As such, contests within political parties can have profound reverberations across the entire country.
Such contests within political parties – whether triggered by ideological schisms or clashes of personality – are normal in Malaysia too. Now in PAS, long-simmering tensions between the conservatives and progressives (the term ‘Erdogans’ must now seem unappealing) have become more pronounced with the emergence of PasMa. In PKR, the fallout from the Selangor Menteri Besar crisis will continue to feed speculation on future leadership choices. But this week all eyes are on PWTC, surrounded by the Sang Saka Bangsa taped to trees and poles.
The United Malays National Organisation wasn’t the first political party to be established within (what eventually became) Malaysia, but it currently enjoys the accolade of being the longest continually serving political party in the non-communist world, assuming that the party founded in 1946 lived on in the entity that was founded in 1988. Certainly, since the disbandment of Semangat 46 in 1996, there are no challenges to that claim of legitimacy. The next party that was founded by former Umno members, Parti Keadilan Nasional, defined itself on different terms upon its foundation in 1999 – as PAS always had.
Since those parties don’t try to claim the Umno narrative, their supporters are wont to criticise the party’s entire record: on online portals you find scathing accusations that Umno has achieved little in 68 years. The hatred of the party transcends the heroic contributions of Datuk Seri Onn Ja’afar, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman and others. This is extremely unfair, particularly since the party and its allies repeatedly enjoyed clear and legitimate mandates to govern.
If these earlier leaders were around today, they would recognise the current contests within the party, for some of them also experienced challenges to their leadership. They were criticised, sidelined or even cast out entirely, and the idea that a former president might criticise a present leader is nothing
new.
As such, the dynamic between sitting leaders and the grassroots is crucial in the future direction of the party, but in the absence of consistent leadership the latter become enormously powerful. They too are split into camps, between the warlords who enjoy incumbency and the aspirants who believe they are destined to be the party’s saviours. They have an unenviable task, facing down the old guard on the one hand and a cynical public who believe every party member is a despicable rent seeker on the other. In the age of social media, they will be pulled in opposite directions simultaneously and the price of missteps can be costly.
This also causes leaders to adopt split personalities – at least, until one particular course of action is reckoned to garner more votes – in which case there is little compunction in ditching explicit promises. The alternative is to hide behind other institutions – such as the courts, international conventions, or the monarchy – to justify all manner of policy decisions. Such measures may pacify certain elements, but also prolongs the prevarication in articulating a clear consistent direction that those outside the party yearn to see.
In PWTC there is a mural that portrays the party’s own view of its contributions to the nation, from opposing the Malayan Union, through independence to the creation of institutions that uplifted millions out of poverty. That narrative can still be harnessed – and I know young members who are doing their utmost to resurrect it. If they succeed, their party of Merdeka could justifiably win free and fair elections for a long time to come.
Tunku Abidin Muhriz is president of Ideas.