Sometime ago, there was this joke among us reporters about Gerakan. We called Gerakan a “multiracial Chinese” party.  The reason? Because the party professed to be multiracial but was (in fact, still is) dominated by Chinese, although there was a smattering of Indians in its midst. As for Malay members, well, it was negligible.

Hence the joke. Well, maybe it wasn’t a joke. Maybe we were being sarcastic. But we were “teasing” actually.

Anyway, it looks like that “honour” albeit dubious, of being a “multiracial Chinese” party now belongs to the DAP. So it seems. And all because of an unsuccessful attempt by eight Malay members to get voted into the party’s CEC (central executive committee) at the just concluded DAP Congress.

BN and other detractors of DAP were double quick to make this cannon fodder. And the irony is Gerakan was one of the earliest to pounce on it with its president Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon saying the non-election of any Malay in the DAP CEC “is against the Malaysian spirit”.

DAP has always suffered being labelled (by Umno) as a “Chinese chauvinist”, “anti-Malay, anti-Islam” party. And considering the perennial Umno attacks ever since the party’s inception in 1965, it’s a “miracle” there are Malays who are actually DAP members.

The “latest” as we all know, are Alias Aspan and Datuk Mohd Ariff Sabri Aziz, both big names from Umno. Their coming into DAP has been described as a coup of sorts, especially Ariff who was former Umno assembly member for Pulau Manis and information chief for the Pekan Umno division until 2004. Incidentally, the present Pekan Umno division chief is none other than Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

Relatively “big” is Hata Wahari, former National Union of Journalists president, who took on the might of his employer — the Umno-owned Utusan Melayu group — and lost his job in the process. Then there’s Zairil Khir johari, son of the former federal minister in the Tunku Abdul Rahman administration.

In the past there were big names as well, such as union leaders Ahmad Nor and Zainal Rampak. The late Ahmad Nor was a well-known civil servant serving Cuepacs. Upon joining DAP (it was big news then for a Malay civil servant to join a Chinese party) he was fielded as candidate and won the Bayan Baru state seat in the 1990 and 1995 general elections.

Back to the present. A  DAP insider admits:“If race is the only consideration, DAP is still Chinese in nature — based on votes by the delegates (at its recent party congress).”

And why the Malay hopefuls lost, the party insider had this to say: ”Either the majority Chinese in DAP have yet to warm up to the idea of having more Malays in the party or the Malays are lacking the credibility themselves as viable candidates.”

Ariff, a popular blogger under the pseudonym Sakmongkol AK47, posted the following in his blog: “The unsuccessful bid for places in DAP’s CEC is more a case for being relative unknowns.

“Malay DAP leaders, if they wish to get into the CEC, must catch the attention and imagination of DAP delegates. Which means the Malays in DAP must earn their keep and keep their peace.”

Ariff, who did not contest the party polls, went on to write: “The worst thing any Malay DAP member or leader can do is to read what has happened (at the Congress) with an Umno mindset.”

By “Umno mindset” he meant: “That you deserve to get something just because you are Umno.”

Still there are Malays in the CEC, namely Zairil and Dr Ariffin Omar. But appointed, of course. The DAP insider views this as “a good move” and by bringing back former deputy chairman Dr Tan Seng Giaw,  Karpal Singh’s “nemesis” Dr P Ramasamy and former Perak speaker V Sivakumar, “it can be seen as balancing the ethnic and capabilities’ gap within the CEC”.

As such, said the party insider, “it can be said the DAP leadership understands the political reality but thedelegates, representing the grassroots have yet to grasp the idea of the Malaysian political reality”.

Ariff agrees, to an extent. “This is not an issue of the DAP leadership abandoning its agenda for inclusiveness.”

However, he also wrote this: “But it has revealed some weaknesses in translating the agenda into practice.”

As he sees it, the leadership has not made sufficient efforts to educate the delegates and DAP members on the importance of inclusiveness.

For Ariff there was a “little misreading of the mood of delegates” (at the congress). To him the majority of the delegates “were not accustomed to adjusting their thinking after years of being perceived as Chinese chauvinists. It comes by as second nature if the majority of the delegates felt it wasn’t necessary to be inclusive”.
As such he felt maybe secretary-general Lim Guan Eng could have applied some moderating influence.

“The sec-gen missed the opportunity to apply some leavening influence in his speech. If the sec-gen had mentioned that in line with our agenda to evolve into a multiracial party for all Malaysians, he would very much like it if delegates in the convention also reflected that agenda with their voting — it may have made a difference.”

But critics and detractors alike would have cried foul had he done that. He would be accused of going against the very thing the DAP “holds dear”, i.e. democracy and the right to decide, etc. “moderating influence”, notwithstanding.

Perhaps the secretary-general was bent on consolidating, focusing on the general election (GE). Whatever it was, to the DAP insider, the delegates were already in a GE mood.
“This means that DAP will have to do some soul searching on how to instill a sense of political reality as well as social democracy and not ethnic politics within the DAP.”
The insider admits the DAP is “slow” in being a truly multi-ethnic party but “despite this, it is more than ready for the GE with its partners PAS and PKR which are seen by most DAP people as ‘Malay’ parties anyway.”

After all, Umno, MIC and MCA needed a coalition (BN) to make it “multiracial”.

Mohsin Abdullah is a specialist writer with fz.com — the website for freedom of expression and fairness in articulation.

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on Dec 19, 2012.