Politicians make strange bedfellows (UPDATED with Chinese Translation)

ARCHIVES 2013

By MT Webmaster On Apr 14, 2013

Some view Mustafa Ali as a threat to Pakatan Rakyat solidarity. They view him as an Umno mole who may sway many in PAS to agree that their party go to bed with Umno in the event that Umno or Barisan Nasional does not win enough seats and DAP ends up getting the most number of seats compared to PAS and PKR.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Whoever thought that my party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LibDem) of the UK, would go to bed with the Conservative Party after saying that in the event of a hung parliament they would go to bed with the Labour Party. “Why the ‘U-turn’?” as what Malaysia Today readers are fond of saying.

This is not about doing a U-turn. After all, politics is all about U-turns. Even the most famous Prime Minister in UK history and the most famous Prime Minister in Malaysian history (meaning the Tunku) changed parties. This is about political expediency and who can offer a better deal.

What LibDem wanted was reforms, the same thing that Malaysians have been clamouring for since 1998 but did not almost see until ten years later in 2008. However, while Labour offered only electoral reforms, Conservative offered a bigger and more complete package, political reforms — part of that package being, of course, electoral reforms.

This is not about what LibDem wants for itself or about what is good for LibDem. This is about what is good for the people and the country. And political reforms are by far better than electoral reforms.

Of course, whether they can deliver these reforms or whether they will keep to their promise is another thing altogether. Time will tell. But we must at least start off by promising first. If you won’t even promise that, then for sure you will never deliver it.

Malaysian politics is no different. Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat are both coalitions, just like the Conservative-LibDem coalition in the UK — and many other coalitions all over the world that will not be able to form the government on their own unless they enter into a coalition because no one party won enough seats to form the government.

So Malaysians had better get used to this new political culture. All over the world very few political parties can win enough seats to form a government on its own. Governments need to be formed via coalitions. And coalition partners are political parties, most times parties that are at odds with one another. And coalition partners can and do change from one election to another.

In 1957, Umno could have never gained Independence or Merdeka for Malaya on its own. So it was forced (by the British) to go into a coalition with MCA and MIC, which they called the Alliance Party.

Just 12 years down the road and the Alliance Party (or coalition) could no longer sustain itself. So they needed to form yet another coalition called Barisan Nasional and the opposition parties were invited to join this new ruling coalition. DAP was the only party that did not join Barisan Nasional.

Umno says DAP refused to join while DAP says it was not invited. I suppose this debate would go on forever — just like the debate about whether Singapore was kicked out of Malaysia or Singapore left Malaysia.

Nevertheless, PAS stayed in the Barisan Nasional coalition for just three years. In 1977, PAS left Barisan Nasional to join DAP in the opposition ranks.

But not everyone was happy for PAS to leave Barisan Nasional. Once such person was (or is) Mustafa Ali who was a Deputy Minister (and for less than one year on top of that). But Mustafa Ali and the rest of the ‘Umno-friendly’ PAS leaders had no choice. They were members/leaders of the party and the Cabinet post ‘belonged’ to the party. Hence if PAS left Barisan Nasional then they too had to leave, like it or not.

There are still leaders in PAS who have no objections to a ‘unity government’ with Umno or Barisan Nasional in the event that Umno or Barisan Nasional does not win enough seats to form the federal government or state governments.

If you can remember, soon after the 2008 General Election, I wrote about the secret negotiations going on between some leaders in PAS and some leaders in Umno to form unity governments in Perak and Selangor — two states that fell to the opposition Pakatan Rakyat.

At first, and as usual, they denied this and called me a liar. Later, it was revealed that the secret negotiations did, in fact, take place. However, not all the PAS leaders were excited about going to bed with Umno. Only a few of the ‘Umno-friendly’ PAS leaders wanted it to happen. Those such as Kelantan Menteri Besar Nik Aziz Nik Mat, who has never forgotten and forgiven Umno’s ‘betrayal’ of 1977, would not go to bed with Umno ever again even if their political life depended on it.

Hence, without a clear consensus, the secret negotiations failed. And later some of the PAS leaders came out to confess that the secret negotiations did take place. They also confirmed that one of the carrots that Umno dangled in front of them was that PAS would become the Menteris Besar of both Perak and Selangor.

And hence, also, Raja Petra Kamarudin did not lie after all, as they had originally alleged.

And the man who would become the Menteri Besar of Selangor would be Hasan Ali, one of those who together with Nasharudin Mat Isa were involved in the secret negotiations — and who have both since left PAS (or got kicked out) and are now ‘independent cum Umno-friendly’ ex-PAS leaders.

In fact, as far back as 1999, Hasan Ali already indicated that he wanted to become the Menteri Besar of Selangor and this was the reason why he and Azmin Ali could not see eye-to-eye — because Azmin too wanted to become the Menteri Besar of Selangor. (Now you know why Khalid Ibrahim got the job instead — to keep both these sons of Ali from tearing into each other).

You will have noticed that many of those PAS leaders involved in the unity government secret negotiations have since drifted away from PAS. But there is one man still in PAS and who is considered very influential and who could play an important role in bringing PAS and Umno together in the event Umno or Barisan Nasional does not win enough seats to form the government on 5th May 2013.

And this man is Mustafa Ali. And Mustafa Ali does not want to state in very clear terms that in the event Pakatan Rakyat gets to form the federal government then Anwar Ibrahim is without a doubt going to be the Prime Minister.

You must remember, most of the top PAS leaders are ulama’ (religious scholars). Mustafa Ali is not and that is why they call him Cikgu Pah and not Ustaz Pah. Mustafa Ali is more a Malay nationalist than an Islamist. Hence Mustafa Ali would have no problems if PAS went to bed with Umno, a Malay nationalist party.

So who killed off Mustafa Ali (and I can only assume that with the latest Mustafa Ali sex video going viral on the internet we can consider him dead)? Is it Umno? Why would Umno want to kill the best friend they have in PAS? Or are the people behind the video those who view Mustafa Ali as a threat to Pakatan Rakyat as well as a threat to Anwar Ibrahim’s ambition to become Prime Minister?

Honestly I do not know. But if I had to hazard a guess I would guess that Umno would be the last one who would want to see Mustafa Ali killed off.

I have always said, in politics you need to keep your friends close and your enemies even closer. And has this not been proven so many times?

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從政者：一群很奇怪的同枕人

有些人把Mustafa Ali看成民聯團結的絆腳石。他們把他看成巫統派來的内鬼，而儅伊黨和巫統贏不了多數席且行動黨贏得多於伊黨和公正黨的席位時，他的首要任務就是把伊黨和巫統‘睡在同一張床上’。

原文：Raja Petra Kamarudin

譯文：方宙

很多人會以爲我在英國的自由民主黨（Liberal Democratic Party ，LibDem)在國會懸吊的情況下會如他們之前所說的跟工黨聯盟，但事實上他們是跟保守黨聯盟的。“爲什麽要U轉呢？”這是MT讀者們很喜歡問的。

這並不是U轉，因爲政治本來就是U轉的。就連英國最出名的首相和我們最出名的首相（即國父）也曾經換黨。很多時候政治是要看便利性和哪方會開出更好的條件的。

LibDem要的是改革，正如很多大馬人從1998年就開始想要的, 當然要到了2008年大馬人才真正開始看到改革。無論如何，工黨提供的只有選舉改革，但保守黨提供的是一個更全面的政治改革配套，當中當然包括選舉改革。

在這裡我們並不看重LibDem 要的是什麽，或對LibDem有利的是什麽；我們著重的是對人民和國家有利的到底是什麽。而政治改革在這方面相比選舉改革要好得多。

當然，他們能不能實行這些改革和他們能不能堅持他們的承諾是另一回事。時間將會證明一切，但我們必須先從他們的諾言開始。如果你連承諾都給不了，那你肯定會做不了那些東西。

大馬政治其實沒有太大差別。囯陣和民聯都是政治聯盟，正如英國LibDem-保守黨聯盟般。世界各國也有很多的政治聯盟，因爲很多時候單一政黨並沒有足夠的席位來組織政府。

所以大馬人最好要能熟悉這個新的政治文化。全世界只有區區那幾個國家擁有單一執政黨，所以有很多政府都是靠聯盟組建的。很多時候這些聯盟的成員黨的信念是相互不合的，而且還會時不時地替換成員。

就講我們好了，在1957年巫統根本不可能獨自取得馬來亞獨立，所以它被（英國）強迫和馬華和印度囯大黨聯盟，通稱Alliance Party聯盟黨。

僅僅12年内聯盟黨就支撐不住了，所以他們開始邀請反對黨來組織新的聯盟，這次稱爲囯陣。行動黨當時是唯一一個沒有加盟的政黨。

巫統聲稱是行動黨自己不想加入，但行動黨則聲稱他們根本沒有受到邀請。我想這件事情會辯得永遠也沒有答案—-就正如新加坡是自己要退出馬來亞或是被迫退出馬來亞這個問題。

無論如何，伊斯蘭黨只加入了囯陣3年，在1997年伊黨就離開了進而和行動黨組成反對黨。但並不是伊黨的所有人都對此擧感到開心的。Mustafa Ali 就是其中一個，他當時當了1年的副部長。但是Mustafa Ali 和其他親巫統的領袖們沒有得選擇，因爲内閣部長的職位只是公開給囯陣聯盟成員而已，他們得跟伊黨一起退出囯陣。

至今爲止，伊黨還是有人很願意和巫統組成聯合政府，尤其是儅巫統沒有足夠的席位來組織中央/州政府時。

如果你還記得的話，在08年大選后，我寫了一篇文章，内容是伊黨某些領袖和巫統領袖進行秘密談判來商量在霹靂和雪蘭莪組織聯合州政府—-霹靂和雪蘭莪當時都是民聯的州屬。

一開始他們如往常般跳出來否認和指責我講騙話，但後來事實證明那個秘密談判確實是存在的。無論如何，不是所有伊黨領袖都想和巫統‘同床’的。吉蘭丹州務大臣聂阿芝就是其中一個。他從未忘記巫統在1977年所作出的背叛行爲，他永遠也不會想要和巫統‘同床’，即使他的政治生涯會因此結束。

之後，那個秘密談判在未有清楚的共識下宣告破裂。有些伊黨領袖後來有站出來承認那個談判的存在。他們也確認巫統當時開給他們的條件是霹靂和雪蘭莪的州務大臣一職歸伊黨所管。

這也證明了我，Raja Petra Kamarudin，並沒有像他們指控般的説謊。

當時雪蘭莪州務大臣的内定人選為Hasan Ali，他當時和Nasharudin Mat Isa一樣參加了那個秘密談判。他們兩人之後退出了（或被踢出了）伊黨而成爲了‘獨立但親巫統’的前伊黨領袖。

事實上，早在1999年Hasan Ali 就表示他要成爲雪蘭莪州務大臣，而這也是爲什麽他和阿芝敏Azmin Ali 互相看不順眼的原因—–阿芝敏本身也想成爲雪蘭莪州務大臣。（你現在知道爲什麽卡立會被命名為大臣了吧，那是爲了防止這兩個阿里互相把對方撕爛）

你也應該看到了很多出席那場秘密談判的成員日後與伊黨漸行漸遠。但還有一個人到今天爲止還留在伊黨，而他還擁有很大的影響力。如果5月5號伊黨和巫統都贏不了多數席位的話，那他很可能能把雙方拉在一起組成聯合政府。那個人就是Mustafa Ali。Mustafa Ali至今爲止都不願闡明如果民聯真的贏得政權的話那安華是否會成爲首相。

你必須記得，多數的伊黨領導都是宗教師‘ulama’。Mustafa Ali他本身並不是，所以人們都把他稱爲Cikgu Pah而不是Ustaz Pah。他本身更像的是個馬來民族主義而不是穆斯林主義者。所以說要Mustafa Ali和巫統這個馬來民族主義政黨同枕的話，他絕對沒問題。

所以到底是誰‘謀殺’了Mustafa Ali呢？（我在這裡會這樣講，是因爲網上瘋傳的性愛片足夠要他性命了）是巫統嗎？爲什麽巫統要把他們在伊黨的好朋友給幹掉呢？還是幕後操手其實是在擔心民聯的前途和安華要成爲首相的野心而下此對策？

老實講我真的不知道。但如果你要我粗略的猜測的話，我會說巫統會是最後一個想把Mustafa Ali 給幹掉的。

我已經說過很多次了，在政治世界裏，你必須親近你的朋友，但你更要親近你的敵人（keep your friends close but your enemies closer）。這不是已經上演很多次了嗎？