The Najib-Anwar Weakly Show (Part 2)
Zaid Ibrahim
Did I make a grave error in my last posting when I said that the Pakatan Rakyat’s team, led by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, have been in negotiations with Prime Minister Dato’ Sri Najib Tun Razak for “unity talks”? Some friends who know better seem to think so. They pointed out that there never were unity talks with the Pakatan Rakyat as such – what’s been actually going on in the last eight months were negotiations between the two to bring Anwar and Parti Keadilan Rakyat into the Barisan Nasional. This prompted bloggers loyal to Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to openly attack Najib and his team, for this attempt to bring Anwar back into the BN fold is unthinkable for Dr M. His followers consider this to be most disloyal and disrespectful to the former PM.
I am not particularly concerned about how these unity talks would affect Dr M and his legacy. What I am interested to know is why Anwar would want to participate, knowing that Najib is not interested in the Pakatan as such. Has Anwar been truthful with his political partners about the talks? Najib just wants to win back some Malay support and since UMNO has not been successful in bringing PAS back after years of trying he is willing to settle for second best: Anwar and PKR.
The first question we have for the trio of Pakatan leaders, namely Anwar, Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang and Lim Guan Eng, is whether they collectively sanctioned these talks. What were the terms of the discussion and what had they hoped to achieve? The second question is, did Anwar tell Guan Eng and Hadi that the offer to return to the BN was restricted only to PKR and that both DAP and PAS were not welcome?
Since the unity talks have nothing to do with Pakatan, Anwar must explain the purpose of the meetings between his representative Saifuddin Nasution and Najib’s representative Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi here and in London (the preferred location where towering Malays meet). Anwar owes PAS, DAP and everyone who voted for change in the last General Election an explanation on why he considered talking to Najib in the first place. Of course, Teflon Anwar will not acknowledge that these talks even took place and if he did, it would be to call them private meetings among old friends which are not worth mentioning to the Malaysian public.
