Before the elections, I expressed some doubt about the governing experience of the opposition parties, especially the DAP, and unfortunately, it seems that I’m being proved right. The opposition so-called Barisan Rakyat has shown a crack just days after winning historic gains in the election when DAP leader Lim Kit Siang publicly spoke on behalf of the DAP Central Executive Committee to state that they disagreed with the decision of the Regent of Perak Raja Dr Nazrin Shah to appoint Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin of PAS as Menteri Besar of Perak and even called for the DAP to boycott the swearing in ceremony. Their grounds for doing so is that PAS won the fewest number of seats in Perak and that they would be happy to accept either DAP’s or PKR’s candidate for the post instead.

This is a ridiculous stand to take when even Ngeh Koo Ham, the DAP candidate for the post, had already stated that all three candidates from the DAP, PKR and PAS would accept whichever one of them that the Regent picked to be Menteri Besar and that all three parties would cooperate to govern the state properly. It looks like Lim Kit Siang is determined to make a liar out of his Perak state party chief. Predictably, MCA Perak state chief Ong Ka Chuan is trying to widen the crack as much as he can by saying that if DAP allows a PAS member to become Menteri Besar, they would be betraying the trust of the Chinese who voted for them.

Happily, it looks like Ngeh Koo Ham and his colleagues in Perak have chosen to be saner than Lim Kit Siang and have announced their intention to defy Lim’s order and attend the swearing in ceremony anyway later today. On the other hand, this isn’t the only example of DAP’s incredibly childish pettiness. PAS has offered a state government seat in Kedah to DAP even though Kedah was mainly won by PAS and PKR while the DAP has refused to give a state government seat in Penang to PAS because it was won by DAP and the PKR. As much as the Chinese in Malaysia love to talk up the scariness of PAS, it’s seems pretty clear here who is the more mature and reasonable party. As blogger Jed Yoong writes, DAP likes to portray itself as the party for all Malaysians regardless of race or religion and is above race-based politics, but if they keep doing this kind of stuff, they will forever be the party of only the Chinese.

I’m not thrilled about Lim Guan Eng’s recently announced populist measures in Penang either. Unilaterally abolishing the NEP without any warning or consultation? Announcing a state-wide amnesty for summonses? These look like poorly considered moves to throw some quick rewards to the DAP’s core constituency while ignoring wider implications. Sadly, I have to agree with Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi here that the DAP is stupid to abolish the NEP without first stating what their development plans for the Malays and Indians in Penang are. It’s politically short-sighted as well. I’ll let you choose whether this or Lim Kit Siang’s overt disrespect towards the Regent of Perak is better designed to convince Malays never to vote for the DAP ever again. Maybe the DAP is content to win Penang and just stay there forever.

As for the summonses issue, as my wife noted, did they even think about how stupid this will make the people who, for example, properly and conscientiously obeyed traffic laws feel? What about those who got summonses but paid for them on time? I know Lim Guan Eng has declared that this is a one-time only thing and that they expect the law to be followed in the future, but surely we’re not the only people who think that this will just make the people who actually do obey the law feel foolish. And did they even examine the state budget and determine how this would impact the budget before announcing this?

The opposition has a few more years to prove that they can fix what the Barisan Nasional has broken, but so far the DAP has just made a terrible mess of what should have been a terrific opportunity. At this rate they’re turning out to be just another MCA.