Hint of trouble in Kedah PKR
Despite obtaining full attendance from all 20 state assemblymen at a rally to prove its solidarity last night, all may not be well for the Kedah Pakatan Rakyat government yet.
Written by Clara Chooi, The Malaysian Insider
ALOR SETAR, May 23 — Despite obtaining full attendance from all 20 state assemblymen at a rally to prove its solidarity last night, all may not be well for the Kedah Pakatan Rakyat government yet.
Kulim assemblyman Lim Soo Nee, one of the three Kedah PKR assemblymen who were touted as about to defect and topple the administration, raised doubts over the government’s stability when he openly voiced dissatisfaction against his party and the state leadership.
In his no-holds-barred speech during the rally, Lim, caused a stir when he expressed disappointment with his party’s and the government’s failures to study their many faults.
In one breath, Lim said he had no plans to defect, but in the next, hinted that all was not well with the PKR — especially in Kedah.
“I will be very frank here tonight. Perhaps what I may say may upset out mentri besar (Datuk Seri Azizan Abdul Razak) but I will not let it stop me,” he told a crowd of thousands who fell into pin-drop silence at his words.
Lim said the recent spate of PKR defections had stemmed from two factors — push and pull factors.
“The pull factor is based on the disturbances coming from our opponents in the Barisan Nasional. We know their purpose is to topple the government.
“The push factor is even worse — it comes from those in our inner circle, spreading malicious lies and information that could cause us to fall,” he said.
Lim said that “he could not deny” that there were antagonists within PKR itself, working against the party and its members by spreading these rumours.
“I feel sad that we in Kedah have lost two of our assemblymen due to defections.
“Even more sad is that, until today, we have not even bothered to conduct post-mortems to discover the reasons behind their departures,” he said.
Lunas assemblyman Radzhi Salleh and Bakar Arang assemblyman Tan Wei Shu were the two PKR assemblymen who left the party to become BN-friendly independents.
Pakatan Rakyat (PR) presently has 20 seats in the 36-seat assembly, with PAS holding 16 seats; PKR, three; and the DAP, one.
“It is wrong for our people to just defect because they are unhappy for no matter how unhappy you are, we can still sit and discuss things. But still, we cannot ignore that they were not the only ones who had left the party,” he said.
