Hard Wood to Crack

By Nora

In Raja Petra’s article ‘The Wood for the Trees’ dated 12th May 2009, he asked, ‘How do we counter the argument by Umno that we started this crossover business first so we have no moral grounds to scream about our people crossing over to BN?’

First of all, I am neither ‘we’ nor ‘they’ nor whatever. I just recently stumbled onto this ‘imbroglio’ quite by accident, not having been in the country for a good many years. But having read Raja Petra’s article, something piqued my attention. Did a quick overview search and have the comments/questions below to share. Correct me if I am in error, please.

1.      The ‘crossover threat’ was probably first voiced by Anwar Ibrahim last year or so.

2.      However, Karpal Singh and Lim Kit Siang did mention in press reports that they prefer fresh elections by the people rather than takeover by crossovers. This fortunately is the stand that must be highlighted i.e. PKR prefers to go back to the people for fresh elections. Also if crossovers occurred.

3.      The ‘Perak Trojan’ who crossed from BN to PKR and back to BN: I am not sure if the Trojan was paid off by PKR. If the Trojan was not paid by PKR, then PKR has an advantage to counter the argument i.e. crossover threat was voiced by Anwar but it was not really implemented. It was a reverse-psychology trick used by Anwar – such that BN jumped the gun and engineered the Trojan entry into PKR. (See also Point #7 below).

4.      If the Trojan was paid by PKR, then not much for arguing. IF paid by PKR, how much? And how much was the double-agent Trojan paid by BN to return to BN?

5.      The other 3 ‘frogs’ who crossed from PKR to BN were paid? How much? By whom?

6.      Assuming Trojan was paid by PKR, then compare:

a.       the number of persons and amount of bribe given for crossover to PKR,
          Versus
b.      the number of persons and amount of bribe given for crossover to BN.
         (Rationale: PKR crossover is of lesser amount/evil than of BN. OK, it’s weak but ….)

7.      The original crossover idea by Anwar – was that based on bribes or based on convincing the other people to cross to PKR via mere change in ideology/beliefs/etc? This is the crux.

Unfortunately, I am a newbie. If the veterans in this matter can remember what took place the past one or two years, maybe that will be of more help.

Finally, the question of who started the crossover mess is moot. The basic democracy principles of going back to the people and the separation of powers must be adhered to.