COMMENT | Umno defectors are having a field day. But if they are corrupt, their move is akin to jumping from a frying pan into a hot pot. Period.

Pakatan Harapan was not built like a Noah's Ark. To the degree Umno's proverbial rats and all want a spot in it, they had better be disease-free: which means zero corruption, and zero toleration for past, present and future corruption.

In the legal justice system of the US, the spiralling crimes have led judges to declare "One strike and you are out". The same analogy and dynamics should apply to the Umno defectors.

Corruption, as the late professor Syed Hussein Alatas once wrote, is a "cancer". If Pakatan Harapan takes more defectors without any stringent process of vetting, what started out as a process to liberate the country - the storming of the Bastille equivalent to the French Revolution in 1789 if one may - will lead to the terror of Robespierre.

Former PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli's argument that blind defections can be counterproductive, in this sense, echoes the view of veteran newsman A Kadir Jasin - that Bersatu or any other party from Harapan cannot be too “cheap".

Some of these defectors have files of alleged corruption, malfeasance and abuses of power as thick as the Petronas Twin Towers. Receiving some of those unworthy lot would be similar to committing collective suicide even before  Pakatan Harapan can reach the halfway line for the next general election in 2023.

As things stand, Pakatan Harapan and all should be focused on getting the economic statecraft right. The ship is listing. If Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the prime minister who got Pakatan Harapan on a dry path on May 9, is being deeply affected too, with his popularity diving by almost 20 per cent, as claimed by Rafizi Ramli in each state, then the policies of Pakatan Harapan either at the federal or state levels are not working.

Unclear poll methodology

Though it is to be construed as an early warning signal from Rafizi, the poll methodology employed to arrive at the decline of 20 percent approval rate is not clear and at best murky. Be that as may, Rafizi is not the type to shy away from making abrasive comments publicly with specific design behind it.

Sometimes he gets it correct, other times he gets it wrong like his findings on PAS pre-GE14 where he predicted zero seats for them based on his polls. The strength of any research or polls are hugely contingent upon methodology as sometimes there can be an “outcome-based research” or “research-based outcome”. In the former, one would want to control narratives by pre-determining the outcome, then justifying it through research verbosity.

Yes, one can continue to blame the previous administration. As one should. But “in the long run we are all dead," as British economist John Maynard Keynes once said, when designing any economic policy.

Thus Pakatan Harapan cannot sit on its laurels. On May 9, those who rose earliest to queue at the polls were economic voters, driven by their aspiration for a better future. Factors like race and religion have always been important but not the necessary nor sufficient trigger to rally the people to the front of the anti-corruption war against Najib.

In fact, any attempts to ignore the economic reality at hand - with an undue neglect of vetting - will lead to a systemic short circuit.

When the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in Mexico lost its power in 2000, it marked an electoral victory which allowed Vicente Fox to be the president, after breaking the monopoly of PRI on the country since the early part of the 20th century. Mexicans from around the country continued to insist on gauging the performance of Fox, a senior decision maker at Coca-Cola, on his ability to govern well.

When he couldn't measure up, Mexicans threw him out of office by the end of his first term. Nor did Fox demur. As a top corporate person, he knew that if he couldn't perform his head would roll. He took it like a man.

Malaysians of all creeds and class backgrounds should be wary of things that are too good to be true too. Foremost of which is the massive defection of and from Umno leaders.

Unless Pakatan Harapan has the courage to cleanse and reform the entire system, the implications from these defections can be dire; even if not all Umno leaders are bad to to core.

The vetting process

As things stand, however, the reality is also this: some MPs and state assemblypersons from Umno, while guilty by association with the kleptocracy of Najib, may not be entirely guilty per se as yet.

Guilt by association is how US senator Joseph McCarthy launched his crazed anti-communist crusade in the United States. It is also how the Chinese Communist Party is now punishing the Uyghur Muslims.

Not unless the evidence is strong that they committed or abetted some form of grand larceny connected to 1MDB or Tabung Haji, some process of vetting must still be given a chance to breathe its first life before it is savaged as a ridiculous idea to begin with.

Indeed, granted the moral opprobrium of defections - justifiably contemptuous too - the righteous leaders in Pakatan Harapan need to consider the various scenarios now.

Those who looked the other way, when the kleptocracy was in full bloom, especially after the revelations of the US Department of Justice in July 2016, must be penalised.

They cannot come into any political parties, let alone any corporate entities which belong to the government, expecting the chance to, once again, reap the rewards of incumbency.

More likely they took some things too. If so, what then are the conditions for restitution? Would it involve a (political) debarment of five years, which is an electoral cycle? Or a two-year moratorium on holding any political leadership in the party? Or what?

And, if the investigation of MACC and the Police Commercial Crime Investigation Department is ongoing, they cannot be allowed to join any party. If anything, they cannot be permitted into any party as a full member too, let alone be nominated as a future senator.

A full checklist of the disclosure of their assets and their family’s over the last three to five years is also something that can be explored. Furthermore, they must be prevented from any prospective cabinet positions. These are some of the conditions that must be brought to the attention of the Harapan presidential council as soon as possible.

It is important that these discussions best be done behind closed doors amongst the Harapan leaders at the Harapan presidential council to address these issues carefully and tactfully.

Yes, Rafizi has sounded the proverbial trumpet as an early warning signal, as bad news is better to be known now and today than later, so that Harapan can address it credibly and deliver on the promise. Only that it would have been better if it had been done through internal channels, as I have always argued for coalition discipline towards rebuilding the nation.

RAIS HUSSIN is a supreme council member of Bersatu. He also heads its policy and strategy bureau.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.