Political cooperation always comes with compromise, says Nik Nazmi
The Bersama leader questioned suggestions that his party team up with more influential parties to improve its chances of winning seats.
Political cooperation always comes with compromise — not only on political matters but also on policy, which can ultimately erode a party's principles, Bersama leader Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad said.
Writing on Threads, the former PKR vice-president said this was among the reasons many Malaysians had become cynical about politics.
"This is among the reasons why so many Malaysians became cynical about politics from the very start," he said.
His remarks followed suggestions that Bersama work with more influential parties to improve its chances of winning seats in elections.
Nik Nazmi was responding to political analyst and FMT columnist Tajuddin Rasdi, who said yesterday that Parti Wawasan Negara's (Wawasan) performance in the Negeri Sembilan state election on Aug 1 should serve as a lesson for Bersama. According to Tajuddin, new parties need to align themselves with stronger, more influential parties.
Wawasan won three of the four seats it contested in the state polls under the Perikatan Nasional (PN) logo.
Nik Nazmi then questioned which party Tajuddin had in mind as a potential partner for Bersama.
"With Bersatu? Which obtained slightly more votes in Negeri Sembilan than Bersama did in Johor. Or the new BN-PN coalition? Which now looks like a marriage of convenience and may collapse under its own internal contradictions," he said.
He also said Pakatan Harapan (PH) had been "too slow" in carrying out many of the institutional and economic reforms it had promised.
Nik Nazmi said that if the main aim of politics were merely to become an assemblyman, member of parliament or cabinet minister, he and fellow Bersama leader Rafizi Ramli had already held such positions.
He said the pair did not set up Bersama because they wanted another post, but because they wanted to push for reform and offer an alternative.
"Ultimately, the most influential partner any political party should seek is not another political party, but the Malaysian people themselves," he said.
This article was produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI), in accordance with our editorial policy.