COMMENT | When PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli told Malaysiakini a few days ago that a realistic benchmark for Pakatan Harapan in the next general election would be to win about 80 parliamentary seats, a friend scoffed saying that even that was being optimistic.

This friend is a typical Malaysian – didn’t lift a finger during Reformasi, Bersih, Lawan, never active in politics, kept quiet about injustice, complained about Harapan all the time it was in power and seems willing to brush off the much greater faults of BN rule.

Thus, having never experienced differences in press freedom or being able to calculate the extent of...