COMMENT | Chinese Malaysian voters are angry that DAP could not get UEC (the Chinese school-leaving exam) recognised, and was unable to stand up against Dr Mahathir Mohamad when he was prime minister, said respected political analyst James Chin of the University of Tasmania.

“The Chinese electorate can be unforgiving,” he added.

But, I wonder, how could DAP “stand up” against Mahathir when even PKR (which had more Parliament seats than DAP – 47 vs 42) was unable to do so?

What did the Chinese want DAP to do back then? Pull out of the government? And then what? See PKR and Bersatu form an alliance with Umno or GPS to form a Malay-majority government? That’s called cutting your nose to spite your face.

If DAP did withdraw, one suspects the same hypercritical kopitiam crowd would then condemn it for “abandoning the mandate” to do reforms and for being the “most stupid politicians in the world”! Oh, they would moan, better for the ‘sei sor ha’ DAP to stay in government and “do something” rather than have no voice at all.

The Chinese are supposed to be good at numbers but perhaps they had forgotten that Harapan could not form the federal government after the 2018 elections without the 13 seats from Mahathir’s Bersatu party. If you add up all the Harapan + Warisan + independent seats but minus Bersatu, you only get 109, three short of a simple majority in the 222-seat Parliament.

Don’t forget that Bersatu later managed to double its number of MPs to 26 by enticing frogs from Umno to...