COMMENT | The generation that has seen the DAP’s trolling of MCA leaders (for wearing the songkok, among other things) throughout the post-Independence years must be chuckling at the way the two political parties have now changed roles.

The picture of DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang wearing an ill-fitting songkok over his helmet of hair accepting an honorific “Tan Sri” - something the DAP said they would never ever do (“unlike the MCA leaders…”) just about sums up this comic transformation of Malaysian politics.

If an apology is all it takes for DAP leaders to assume their new role as the lesser partner of Umno, that seems like a small price to pay for the historic compromise they have made in terms of hanging up their past manifestoes to dry in the Malaysian sun.

Like the role MCA played during the heyday of the BN, DAP has...