“I am prepared to work with any Malaysian to save Malaysia, not only Dr Mahathir and Muhyiddin but even with Najib if the prime minister is prepared to admit that he had led the country on a wrong tangent and that Malaysia must be saved with far-reaching democratic and institutional reforms.”

– DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang (2016, Malay Mail)

COMMENT | With 'prime minister in perpetual waiting' Anwar Ibrahim making moves, Umno in perpetual schizophrenia mulling a reset, PAS in perpetual hypocrisy waiting to see which side comes out on top, Bersatu in perpetual fear of losing power and willing to throw even the kitchen sink at any problem, it is plausible to consider the option of Umno working with Pakatan Harapan to buy time while the Malay establishment gets its bearings after the recent political upheavals.

While nobody is surprised that Anwar may be making moves with elements from Umno to dethrone Muhyiddin Yassin's regime, the big question remains if a DAP/Umno combination is in the short-term works. Anwar may be playing some sort of game with no purpose, but it does bring up interesting questions.

I have no idea why Umno and DAP in some sort of “unity” government is such a horrible thing to consider. This idea that there is something “morally” questionable about the DAP working with Umno is absurd.

The ever-earnest James Chai, in his comment piece, makes his case that one of the moral dilemmas of a possible Anwar government is the partnership between Umno and the DAP. Funnily enough, his first two moral dilemmas, working with corrupt Umno politicians and changing governments during a pandemic, makes the case that in reality, all these supposed moral dilemmas are red herrings.

The DAP, by making its Faustian bargain and working with Bersatu, demonstrated that working with morally-suspect and corruption-tainted politicians was not an impediment to “saving Malaysia”. Indeed, when Harapan briefly formed the government, and Bersatu was accepting Umno frogs, the DAP bent over backwards attempting to justify why Bersatu accepting Umno members was part of the grand plan to save Malaysia...