Why Pakatan needs Penanti

ARCHIVES 2009

By admin-s On May 22, 2009

NOMINATION day for the Penanti state by-election takes place tomorrow (23 May), but this time around, the traditional blue and white banners of the Barisan Nasional (BN) will be missing from the scene.

By Shanon Shah (The Nut Graph)

The coalition announced on 18 May that it would not contest the Penanti by-election. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said the BN supreme council had concluded that the by-election, necessitated by the resignation of Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR)'s Mohammad Fairus Khairuddin, was "unconstitutional".

The BN has been consistently criticising PKR of triggering by-elections to shore up support for the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) — Penanti, says the BN, is no exception. But not everyone agrees.

"BN's accusations that Pakatan is purposely instigating the Penanti by-election are rubbish," says Parti Rakyat Malaysia (PRM) vice-president and Penang chief Gary GV Nair. PRM is an independent opposition party that is supporting PR in this by-election.

Pakatan Rakyat is scared of by-elections too

"Come on, PR is also scared of by-elections!" he tells The Nut Graph in a phone interview. The Penang-based party veteran of more than 30 years says he has been surveying the state's politics for a long time.

True, Nair says, the by-election has been called because Fairus, who was also Deputy Chief Minister 1 (DCM1), had to resign. But, he says, Fairus's resignation cannot be blamed on Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng. And neither is it PKR advisor Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's fault.

"You see, if they had removed Fairus as DCM1 and left him to stay on as Penanti representative, you think he would be able to retain the seat in the next election?" asks Nair.

Nair continues, "He'll lose. And between losing on a PKR ticket and losing after taking a million ringgit to cross over to Umno, which do you think he'll choose?"

But then why did Fairus need to resign in the first place? According to Nair, Fairus had been dogged by reports that he was incompetent and tainted by corruption allegations. Though the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission launched an investigation into those allegations, it eventually cleared Fairus, but only after he had resigned his post.

Even PKR candidate Dr Mansor Othman does not mention Fairus when The Nut Graph speaks to him on the phone.

"I would rather let my own credentials speak for me in convincing the voters that I am the right choice," he says.

And his credentials, apart from being an academic with Universiti Sains Malaysia, show that he has been a party loyalist since 1999.

Why Fairus was chosen

This begs the question, why then was Fairus chosen to contest in 2008? Nair says, "This was Anwar's dilemma: of all the Malay (Malaysian) candidates to contest in Penanti for PKR in 2008, Fairus was the most qualified. But after he was elected, the party found he could not deliver the goods."

In 2008, Mohammad Fairus won his seat in Penanti by a majority of 2,219 votes

He likens Anwar's situation to an employer who has hired someone with the best curriculum vitae and job interview, but turns out to be a nightmare at work.