Heads must roll after town hall fiasco

By Muaz Omar (The Malaysian Insider)

SEPT 8 – Selangor Mentri Besar Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim was given a rude awakening when the meeting that was meant to discuss the relocation of a 150-year old temple turned to chaos and almost a ruckus.

Khalid called for a residents’ meeting following the highly charged protest on the relocation of the temple made infamous by the stamping of a severed cow’s head in front of the Selangor state secretariat building.

The Selangor MB felt that he had to take matters into his own hand after experiencing first hand how the issue deteriorated turning into a very sensitive one with negative political consequences.

While it is too obvious that Umno has played an active role in riling up the local Malay residents of Section 23, Shah Alam; it also reflects the weakness of the Pakatan Rakyat local machinery so much so that it was unable to counter the propaganda that Umno has been feeding into the minds of the local Malays.

Pakatan Rakyat state representatives were unable to ride on their position, influence and most importantly their newly found authority and power to dispel or stem the flowing tide of divisive elements from Umno.

They had also underestimated the nature of the resistance against the state government reflected by the emotional and surreal cow-head protest.

Everyone except the local Pakatan Rakyat machinery and some state government officials expected Umno, through its agents, to subvert the meeting. Hence, it was very naïve of the organisers to expect the meeting to be held in a cosy and warm atmosphere.

The rest, as they say, is history and Khalid, of all people, should not have received the level of abuse that was directed at him.

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