PKR leaders miss main message from GE13 results
The grassroots leaders boldly admitted that the party’s machinery was weak in rural areas and even gave suggestions to improve it but the national leaders preferred to focus on the “blatant acts of fraud” in GE13.
Merely three weeks after the 13th general election, Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) held its 9th national congress which was postponed from last year.
Instead of using this opportunity for a little soul-searching to address its weaknesses in order to make further strides in the coming five years, the rhetoric and the message of its leaders – including president Datuk Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, de-facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and secretary-general Datuk Saifuddin Nasution – clearly deferred from the message the grassroots delegates were trying to convey to their leaders.
The grassroots leaders boldly admitted that the party’s machinery was weak in rural areas and even gave suggestions to improve it but the national leaders preferred to focus on the “blatant acts of fraud” in GE13.
The delegates, all fresh from the bruising election, stressed one message which became clearer within the two days: that the PKR central leadership needed to assist and support the branches and divisions if it expected PKR candidates to win in elections, especially in the rural areas.
Speakers at the two-day congress last week also emphasised on the need to field more women candidates.
One delegate from the women’s wing spoke on the importance of building a proper network in Felda settlements in order to break Umno’s hegemony there as the party is surprisingly not even known in some of the settlements.
“They will ask you, what is PKR,” she said.
Feisty Pahang representative Murnie Hidayah from the Srikandi wing, who contested and lost the Paya Besar parliamentary seat, also spoke about lack of support from the party central leadership.
“There are 10 Felda settlements in Paya Besar and we lost every single one of them. We have a central bureau for Felda and another for women’s support so why can’t the central party play a bigger role in ensuring the victory of the women candidates?” she asked during discussions by the women’s wing.
Many delegates stated that the women were left high and dry with hardly any support to go all out during the election.
PKR’s Youth wing emphasised the importance of creating a solid machinery to penetrate the rural areas, stressing that youths, especially women, in rural areas were not aware of Pakatan Rakyat’s messages.
PKR Youth chief Shamsul Iskandar Mohd Akin was unabashed in his speech, saying Pakatan also needed to address the competition within the coalition, as exhibited by the seven seats both PKR and PAS had vied for in the election.
He also stressed a grassroots-based marketing of the party, relying on youth members to convey the much-needed messages and policies of Pakatan to the rural electorate.
Selangor representative Najwan Halimi said that PKR needed to fend for its own and build the strength of its own machinery rather than relying on the machinery of other parties namely PAS.
Another delegate who really struck a chord was Sarawak representative Joshua Jabeng, who plainly said the only way for PKR to penetrate rural areas in Sarawak is to be creative in its approach in order to break the money-politics promoted by Barisan Nasional, which has kept village heads subservient to the ruling coalition.
All this hard-hitting messages and keen analysis of PKR’s performance in the May 5 polls was lost on its top leaders.
Read more at: http://fz.com/content/pkr-leaders-miss-main-message-ge13-results#ixzz2UYZC23KY
