By Tunku Abdul Aziz

It must have to do with the unusually hot weather we are experiencing that has brought about a touch of mid-summer madness among one or two senior members of PAS who have decided against their better judgment to break ranks to engage Umno in talks about the prospects of forming a national unity government. Otherwise why would reasonably sane people want to risk peer condemnation and denunciation by doing the unthinkable? This is the most charitable explanation I can offer.

We need a national unity government like we need a hole in the head. The thought of sleeping with the ethically debased and morally detestable Barisan Nasional government is simply too abhorrent to contemplate. Are we such reckless and irresponsible gluttons for punishment that in spite of having endured the Umno excesses in social, economic and political terms these last three decades, we are now asking for more of the same? That, believe it or not, is what we will get for our trouble. Umno will be more than happy to oblige.

They have nothing to lose and everything to benefit from our mindless gamble with our future. Why are some of us so eager to go to bed with a political party that has not one redeeming feature left to justify our risking our hard-earned reputation? Where are our much trumpeted principles of honesty and integrity? Are we no different, after all, from the Umno that we despise? Don’t we care two hoots about the people up and down the country who campaigned and voted for us and gave us five states to govern because they were disgusted and fed up with the Umno majority government and its antics?

That some members of the top PAS leadership could even think of getting under the blanket with BN, and Umno in particular, is extremely worrying. We must never lose sight of the fact that when voters across the nation threw their very considerable support behind the DAP, PAS, and PKR on that fateful day of March 8, 2008, they wanted change, not just any change, but the sort of transformation that would put paid to the unbridled, wonton political corruption that has left this country in total disarray on every conceivable front.

Yes, this country with all the natural resources at its disposal could quite easily have been catapulted to the top of the high-income countries league table without too much difficulty under a different management. Talking about making Malaysia into a high-income country under BN is self-deluding, and Najib knows it. He must know that corruption and competitiveness make strange bedfellows. Najib, who must know a thing or two about corruption in Umno, must realise without any prompting from me that unless he is prepared to confront corruption decisively, he can kiss goodbye to any dream of a prosperous Malaysia on par with the likes of Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea and Japan in our corner of the globe.

That vast numbers of people wanted an incorruptible government was precisely the reason why they cast their votes against the BN component parties to deny them their accustomed two-thirds majority that they had had taken for granted as if it was their divine right. The magical two-thirds gave them the legitimacy to trample on our rights to good governance. They did not give us the votes so that we may traffic with the likes of Umno. They wanted us to act and behave differently and to give substance to the notion of public duty in the public interest.

To be seen associating with Umno whose moral reputation is in tatters is tantamount to giving comfort and succour to the corrupt in our midst, and betraying the trust and confidence of the rakyat in our integrity. That cannot do our own reputation any good at a time when people are starting to ask what is it that we are doing that is going to make a difference to their lives. We had better have the answers ready, sooner rather than later.

What do we hope to achieve by working with Umno when we have absolutely nothing in common with them that will benefit the nation. Umno has been stuck in the same old corruption groove as long as I can remember, and it wants to remain where it is because corruption is the opium that feeds its soul and dulls its sensibilities. Is this really where we see ourselves fitting in? PAS has to think through all this very carefully because it owes to its supporters, well-wishers as well as its partners in Pakatan Rakyat a clear and unequivocal explanation for this aberration. Or there more to this than meets the eye?

We who have long been in the opposition should know how difficult it is to earn public confidence, and surely we do not need this madness now to terrify those sitting on the fence from coming down on our side. If earning confidence is difficult, think how much more difficult it is to retain it. We must not put our supporters’ goodwill to the test by this highly risky and dangerous venture. The consequences are too terrible to imagine.

Umno will like nothing better than see us sow the seed of our own destruction. That party and its leadership have fritted away their ethical capital and have no moral authority to lead this nation. We have and we must protect our reputation by distancing ourselves from the scams and scandals that dog their every step.

A national unity government is totally irrelevant because there will be no change in the way the affairs of this country are managed unless the BN government is shown the door at the first opportunity.

Let us work towards that objective by coming up with practical and sustainable policies based on social justice and equality of opportunity for all Malaysians that will transform this country into one that will have an honoured place at the top table of the world’s respected nations. My advice to Umno is that there is life beyond corruption.