Sarawak Premier Tan Sri Abang Johari Openg was not wrong when he described the results of the six state elections in the peninsula as reflecting the country's racial divide.
Not that the divide suddenly appeared now. The real concern, though, is that the elections were particularly polarising. The question is if there are things we can do to ensure future elections do not exacerbate this polarising tendency.
Last week, I wrote about our fraying political consensus pain-stakingly arrived at in the prelude to Merdeka. That consensus was underwritten largely by Umno as the lynchpin party of first the Alliance and, after 1974, Barisan Nasional (BN). These were multi-racial coalitions of communal-based parties.
Such a consensus faced an early challenge even prior to Merdeka, when Dato Onn Jaafar left Umno for the multi-racial Independence of Malaya Party in 1952. The party was almost still-born and dissolved a year later after winning just a single seat
in municipal elections in Kuala Lumpur.
A more serious challenge came from Singapore's People's Action Party with its battle cry for a "Malaysian Malaysia", again under the auspices of a multi-racial party. It led to Singapore's exit from Malaysia after just two years.
Then came the seismic general election of 2018 when Umno came to grief, at the hands of its longest-serving president, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, no less.
Dr Mahathir, however, was no convert to the idea of single-party multi-racialism although he headed a new ruling coalition of two major multi-racial parties, PKR and DAP.
Only the hotchpotch coalition of PKR, DAP, Parti Amanah Negara and Umno breakaway Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia could finally unseat the once mighty BN. Come the general election of last year, it was BN which replaced Bersatu in the ultimate winning coalition led by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
The fall of BN in 2018 only blurred the long-standing political consensus of ruling multi-racial coalitions, but did not replace it with ruling coalitions of multi-racial parties since post-2018 ruling coalitions still needed communal parties for governing majorities.
Thus, 2018 did not afford Malay-sian voters the satisfaction of clear choices between a coalition of like-minded multi-racial parties and a multi-racial coalition of communal parties.
It may even be argued that a viable — if murky — choice between a multi-racial party-led coalition and a communal party-led coalition was upended in the latest state elections as voters thoroughly rejected the multi-racial Gerakan's participation in Perikatan Nasional (PN), in overwhelming favour of DAP in Pakatan Harapan (PH).
In the interest of democracy's progress without further accentuating racial polarisation, both sides of the political divide must exercise great caution and not heap accusations on the other which are likely to incite or lead to political extremism.
Thus, PH must desist from fear-mongering about a potential green wave, while PN must stop demonising DAP.
The reality of Malaysian politics is that any sustainable ruling coalition has to rule from the centre. Sitting in government is the surest way to moderate whatever extreme positions politicians take while out campaigning.
In the final analysis, PN demonising DAP will only reinforce Chinese support for the party, while PH doing the same to PN's Pas will only strengthen Pas' appeal to Malays and Muslims.
Statesmanship is sorely needed under the current conditions of heightened political posturing and politicians in the government have a particular responsibility to look beyond short-term political gain or advantage.
Leaders in the unity government must grapple with conceptualising and introducing the next big political idea to capture popular imaginations and overcome the prevailing national rut.
I think they can do no worse than toying with creating a big multi-racial ruling party, possibly through a PKR-DAP merger. With luck, such a political entity may yet prove as successful and durable as BN once was.
* The writer views developments in the nation, region and wider world from his vantage point in Kuching
