Anwar cries wolf again, but DAP and Pas tolerate it

The first time the infantile shepherd cried wolf, the genuine scare engulfing the villagers turned to relief because there was no wolf.

The second time the kid tried it, the villagers were concerned enough to scramble to the hills but their anticipation turned to disgust as it was another inane prank.

The third time the punk pulled the “cry wolf” prank, the villagers ignored it and, wouldn’t you know it, the big bad wolf had appeared and had a rampaging day gobbling up the shepherd’s flock.

Anwar’s repeated proclamation: the prediction that Pakatan Rakyat would win the parliamentary majority in the 13th general election this time with a comfortable 10 seats, make significant inroads into Umno’s Johor stronghold and dent Barisan Nasional’s Sabah and Sarawak fortresses.

If that’s not enough to rouse even the most jaded Anwar supplicant, the man hinted at a “surprise” announcement in Sabah that would radically alter the state’s political landscape. Sorry, saudara, we’ve heard it all before as a big fat nothing. Why should this new pronouncement be any different?

Kota Belud member of parliament Abdul Rahman Dahlan, a key Sabah Umno MP, tweeted with incredulous indignation: “Whatever happened to Anwar’s announcement that a political shock would happen in two weeks in Sabah? I mean, it has been two months now!”

Recall Anwar’s pre-Sept 16, 2008 bragging that he had convinced Sabah MPs to jump ship and force a coup to topple the Abdullah administration, which was regarded then to be at its most vulnerable. Was it a surprise that it came to a big fat nothing?

The Sabah MPs stoutly stayed put in BN although their metaphoric grievance of “living inside the toilet of a beautiful bungalow” were resolved with some satisfactory federal concessions.

The sham Sept 16 coup was Anwar’s most “believable” claptrap when compared with his earlier doozies. But taking over Putrajaya is his hoariest, recalibrated occasionally to rally the faithful, especially after missteps that bedevilled him.

Notice that a bold advertisement of his Putrajaya aspirations is chimed in the event of misstep, this time to neutralise assertions of loyal right-hand man Azmin Ali’s alleged corruption-induced wealth and Azmin’s weird rebuke of political parties’ dynastic tendencies, yet defending the Anwar-Dr Wan Azizah-Nurrul Izah’s dynasty as legitimate.

It is that time of the year again when gaps in Anwar’s memory — on what he selectively chooses to remember, forget, ignore or evade — resurface. Come to think of it, with the polls looming and reports of a disaster for him in his home state, it’s now all Anwar, all the time. If there’s a grudging nod to be given to Anwar, it’s his and his people’s indefatigability to spin distractions. But Anwar’s “cry wolf” strategy is no longer a viable distraction, simply because folks aren’t living in feudal times, although the politics of feudalism is still actively practised in Parti Keadilan Rakyat.

The morale of the “cry wolf” mythology is that even the most gullible of people will wise up. They will be suckered into the first con, some may still fall for the second, but none will fall for the third because the alternative is worse: dubbed as an abject idiot.

The dictionary defines Anwar’s confabulation as “replacement of a gap in a person’s memory by a falsification that he … believes to be true”, meaning that in Anwar’s case, there are inquiries to be made on his state of mind.

But Anwar’s sanity does not matter. In his colourful career as oppositionist gadfly, Anwar is the glue that holds the unholy PKR-DAP-Pas alliance and that is why his nonsensical approach to politics is tolerated by senior DAP and Pas leaders, who understand too well that without Anwar, the opposition tripartism will collapse.

By the way, how did the villagers react to the shepherd boy’s hoaxes-turned-sheep massacre? “Nobody believes a liar … even when he is telling the truth” goes the aphorism. But has Anwar even reached the point that he is proclaiming the truth, given his past fancies? One day, perhaps, when the opposition somehow edges BN to take over the Federal Government. It just won’t be a government with Anwar or his ilk at the helm.