“They said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians. Now, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my childlike faith in practical politics.”

- GK Chesterton

COMMENT | For the record as someone who agreed with Ong Kian Ming and Tony Pua on the subject of Muhyiddin Yassin’s olive branch, this idea of Ong’s that Pakatan Harapan needs to keep its options open is complete bunkum.

There is an ocean of differences between the olive branch deal and the big tent/options strategy that Ong and others are advocating.

The olive branch was a deal with a weakened leader which offered tangible long term benefits to this country and which could have possibly slowly started the process of dismantling the ketuanan system in place.

It was a gambit that only a desperate man like Muhyiddin and his coterie could have agreed to and the fight to get those reforms through would be part of the process of building bridges with disparate allies and bipartisanship that political parties had for decades told their respective bases was anathema.

When Ong says it was understandable why some DAP leaders found it difficult to accept Muhyiddin’s offer for a...