Fahmi Fadzil leaves Eastin Hotel after meeting with PH presidential council in Petaling Jaya Petaling Jaya February 27, 2020. — Picture by Ahmad Zamzahuri

KUALA LUMPUR, March 12 — PKR communications director Fahmi Fadzil has given the analogy that the current situation in Malaysia is similar to the original Star Wars trilogy of Episodes Four, Five and Six.

In an online forum on Facebook titled: “Never Despair — Finding Hope and Rebuilding Malaysia”, the Lembah Pantai MP called upon Pakatan Harapan (PH) supporters and those who voted them in during the last election not to give up the good fight.

“If our victory in 2018 was a Star Wars epic, you can consider that it was A New Hope.

“Now, in 2020, the Empire Strikes Back but after this, hopefully it will be the Return of the Jedi,” Fahmi quipped, sounding as hopeful and as idealistic as a young Luke Skywalker who had just picked up his father’s lightsaber for the first time.

Kuala Selangor MP Datuk Seri Dzulkefly Ahmad who was also a panellist, on the other hand, saw the political betrayal which led to the collapse of the PH administration as a football match with traitorous team mates and an unfair referee.

He gave the analogy that during a game, some members of his team had decided to work together with his opponent to score goals and defeat their own team with the tacit approval of the referee.

Another panellist, Hannah Yeoh, then reminded the voters that no matter how tired or disillusioned they get with Malaysia’s political situation, they should never give up.

The former deputy women, family and community development minister said that Malaysia’s children and the country’s future requires the average citizen’s help at a political level.

“I want to say to all Malaysians out there, no matter how tired or disillusioned you are, the children depend on you to continue fighting. That’s what makes me get out of bed and not to give up because of the kids in Malaysia.

“This battle is worth fighting for,” said Yeoh.

Both Yeoh and Fahmi added that they are confident that Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s government will face a lot of difficulties for a few major reasons — chief among them is the fact that it had no manifesto of cooperation prior to taking over Putrajaya.

The DAP lawmaker particularly singled out her former ministry and its current minister Datuk Seri Rina Harun from Bersatu and her deputy Datuk Siti Zailah Mohd Yusof from PAS.

“What is Rina Harun going to do with a deputy that didn’t sign up with a similar manifesto that Bersatu did during elections. Now we don’t know what’s going to happen to the anti-child-marriage roadmap that was just launched recently,” said Yeoh.

During the forum, she voiced her obvious concern that the anti-child marriage campaign which she championed as deputy minister will no longer see the light of day because of PAS’ extremist Islamic ideologies which refused to ban child marriage.

She recalled that when Putrajaya was spearheading the campaign to increase the marriage age from 16 to 18, Kelantan, which is under PAS rule, had refused to hop on the bandwagon.

Dzulkefly also reminded Muhyiddin that despite being Malaysia’s eighth prime minister, he can be betrayed by Umno and PAS akin to how he had betrayed the lawfully elected PH coalition.

“Their new friends in Umno and PAS may for any reason, big or small, leave them and the newly formed government will collapse. Tan Sri Muhyiddin doesn’t need to be reminded that just like how he betrayed us, he can be betrayed too.

“Among the Islamic principles is that a man is held by his word. He gave his word to be with us in our manifesto. And we decided on mutual benefit.

“They (Muhyiddin and his supporters) may have left us now because they are tied to personal interest, but one day, their personal interest will collide and we will meet again in an election,” predicted Dzulkefly.

*Note: A previous edition of the story contained an error which has since been corrected.