PKR faces many enemies, and the Selangor chief faces a ‘Brutus’?
A point to note is that DSAI and Kamarul were roommates at Malay College Kuala Kangsar. Kamarul had joined his ally from schooldays and UMNO, dismissing the talk about Anwar’s sodomy offences as ‘all nonsense”. Knowing the gentleman that Kamarul is, it’s quite unlikely he would be involved in a plot – playing a minor Brutus’ role to the bigger, more ambitious Azmin.
YL Chong, Malaysia Chronicle
In politics, arrows shot by the enemy contain poison, but are expected and can be countered by preventive firing of the first bullets. It’s the enemy from within that any party has to be most watchful, and Parti Keadilan Rakyat can easily sing this clichéd woe. With such friends like departed MPs Zulkifli Noordin and Wee Choo Keong, my citation as examples, who needs enemies?
If one were to believe the mainstream media like the NST and The Star, one would think the Selangor Menteri Besar is truly under near-fatal siege from within, and the Brutus-in-brewing is PKR vice-president Azmin Ali, who resigned as PKNS director last Wednesday.
The NST report yesterday headlined it as “Shah Alam showdown”, citing party insiders as saying that “15 PKR MPs (are) seeking to oust Selangor MB”. Incidentally, being both an MP, and state assemblyman for Bukit Antarabangsa, Azmin is hence the obvious replacement to take over the chief ministership of the most developed state in the country should Khalid be indeed overthrown by an internal coup. In that case, Azmin would then be deemed to be motivated chiefly by self-interest, but I think his ambitions reach out to farther horizons encompassing even the Prime Minister’s throne, not a mere state honcho vista.
The Star reported, quoting an unnamed MP, as saying that “the MPs were also unhappy with Khalid’s inability to make quick decisions, which they felt could threaten Pakatan Rakyat’s position in Selangor.
Khalid’s decision to appoint Faekah Hussin to replace his previous political secretary Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad without first consulting the party’s political bureau and other leaders was the last straw for the group.”
This was scoffed at – the last straw reference by The Star – by PKR insiders, who admit that the party would continue to see differences among the ranks, but this is because the party has opened up public discourse and won’t go the way of Barisan Nasional’s big brother in dictating to its siblings, whether at federal or state levels.
A reliable source told the Malaysia Chronicle that he definitely knows there is no “plot” as far as top leaders in PKR are concerned. He admitted there are indeed “moles” who had penetrated the party to create instability and havoc, helped along by the mainstream media spin that always exaggerates any internal strife within any PR party, be it DAP, PAS or PKR.
He stressed that Khalid as MB had always given encouragement and opportunities to newer, especially the younger members, to serve in key positions within the State administration, and the process of “talent-hunting” would be stepped up.
Party sources said that Seri Setia assemblyman Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad’s move to PKR headquarters as Communications chief (to replace Jonson Chong) – and the subsequent appointment of Faekah, a party loyalist, as Nik Nazmi’s successor was precisely one of several impending changes taken by the party to improve overall performance. It is the appointment of “outsiders” – including froggie MPs like Wee Choo Keong, ex-MDP, and Tan Chee Beng, ex-Gerakan, as PR candidates in March 2008 – that PKR has now learnt to beware as potential moles wreaking havoc from within.
My take is that Khalid will not allow himself to be pushed into a corner and be stabbed in the back – as fatally as did best friend Brutus plunge his ‘most unkindest cut of all” into Julius Caesar’s chest eon years ago at Da Capitol in Rome, an episode yet so relevantly fresh in any creative and politically-informed writer’s mind.
De-facto party chief Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim (DSAI) is going to be the decision-maker at all important crossroads that the party reaches. The takeover of the federal government depends on the remaining two to three years on how PKR-led Selangor government performs, and Anwar will not allow recalcitrants to derail the Putrajaya horizon now already within the PR’s sight.
