COMMENT | The upcoming election for the PKR deputy president post will determine Pakatan Harapan’s trajectory either into oblivion or as a stable opposition if the deputy president can exert any influence in the party.

The two dominant narratives, the “big tent” or “no short cuts” are the kind of false choices that political operatives offer when the reality is that both choices are in fact a necessity of coalition politics. The problem is that the leadership of Harapan has ruined these choices but more importantly, we are talking about the ketuanan system.

Any political party has to stand on its own before it can make alliances with other parties. Not only does the political party have to have ideological bedrock on which it furthers its agendas, it also has to agree on common ground issues when it makes alliances, which each party, in turn, has to sell to their respective bases in case of a political hook up.

Even the new DAP secretary-general, Anthony Loke, acknowledged that...