COMMENT | What’s wrong with Pakatan Harapan? This is one question that can beg dozens of answers, some complementary while others contradictory. Here is mine, for your consideration alongside those that put heavy emphasis on personalities and communalism.

As this is not answering “what’s right with Harapan”, I will not list its achievements. Don’t misconstrue that Harapan has achieved nothing or complain that this does not do it justice.

In hindsight, nearly four years after GE14, Harapan’s fundamental failure is its inability to understand, steer, and adapt to political transformation.

This failure contributed to its fall in the Sheraton Move but more damagingly, disables it from making a comeback after Sheraton.

Handicaps as a product of history

Many are disappointed with Harapan’s performance in its brief 22 months in power but such disappointment, while legitimate, must be examined against this question: how likely can any first non-Umno government do better...