Pakatan comes together in Perak

By Clara Chooi, The Malaysian Insider

After months of having its viability as an alternative government questioned, the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) alliance finally moved to clean up house today by hosting its first convention in one of the states that had caused its formation in the first place – Perak.

With troubles currently brewing within the inner workings of the alliance, through its three component parties of PAS, DAP and PKR, the convention has come at an appropriate time.

Its launch at the Syuen Hotel here this morning saw some 600 delegates from PKR, DAP and PAS congregating under one roof to refute doubts of their unity and to draw out a single, unified strategy that would convince voters of their viability as an alternative government to the Barisan Nasional (BN).

The convention is the first such event where top leaders and grassroots members of each component party were given an avenue to thrash out their differences.

Ousted Perak Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin, in his opening address at the convention, was quick to remind the delegates of the chronology of events that had caused the PR to exist.

He reiterated tales of the exciting moments on the late night of March 8, 2008, when the shocking results of the election reached all Opposition assemblymen.

That night, he said, the results had caused jubilation not only because the BN had lost its grasp on many of the state seats in Perak, but because it had caused the three Opposition parties – DAP, PAS and PKR – to pool their strength together to work as one.

“It was late night on March 8 when we rushed to Ipoh and sat down together to discuss a combination government. Never in our dreams did we imagine it would happen,” he said in his speech.

Nizar added that it was then that many realised the very reason why for 52 years, the BN government had never been toppled.

“It was because we were working as individuals – fighting for the same cause to oust the BN government, but doing it on our own, as individual parties and with our individual weaknesses.

“We would never have made it if we have continued struggling that way,” he said.

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