Winning the battle, losing the war

The president may have won the battle, but many people think he has lost the war.

He may have checkmated his now-demoted vice-president by limiting his options by getting the reinstated deputy to be head of the Greater Unity Plan task force and including all his enemies in it, but he seems to have forgotten about the greatest war - to regain the confidence of the Chinese community.

For the demoted deputy, he has the choice of either taking part in the task force which will make it appear that he is all for it or he can boycott it which will allow the president to accuse him of derailing the plan.

At the same time, the demoted deputy is also leading the group of 16 to call for an EGM to decide whether to hold new party polls.

Advertisements have already been placed in Chinese newspapers - there seems to be no turning back for the demoted deputy. It is all or nothing for him.

But back to the Chinese community. Many Chinese, especially the English-educated ones, are not bothered at all - in fact they are laughing at the fumbles and tumbles of the Chinese politicians - simply because they have already been converted to the Pakatan Rakyat cause.

As for the Chinese-educated Chinese, they are being bombarded with reports from the Chinese press that the president is the worst ever in the history of the party. Will their opinions differ from that of the Chinese press?

The Chinese media are quite influential at moulding the opinions and mindset of the Chinese-speaking community and surely a large portion of them agree with what is written by analysts in the Chinese newspapers.

Thus the president has won the battle by ensuring that he keeps his position of power by sleeping with his old enemy and killing his new enemies (who were former comrades), but the feeling is that he has lost the war - the support of the Chinese at large.

It looks like an uphill task for Barisan Nasional to win the Chinese votes in the next general election.

Pakatan Rakyat will simply exploit the infighting and champion the "Teoh Beng Hock cause" to convince even old Chinese aunties and uncles to vote for, of all parties, PAS.