The tai chi master fights back

Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim’s intention to vie for the PKR deputy president’s post signals his determination to stay on as Selangor Mentri Besar.

Joceline Tan, The Star

SELANGOR Mentri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim has often been portrayed as a master of political tai chi by friends and foes in the PKR.

When his supporters talk about his tai chi, they are referring to his low-profile yet controlled approach to achieving what he wants to do. But when adversaries say that Khalid is a tai chi master, they are probably referring to how he often out-manoeuvres others with his slowly-slowly style.

Khalid’s tai chi politics has been in full bloom the last few weeks.

For instance, the water agreement between the state and federal governments last week apparently caught his Pakatan Rakyat colleagues by surprise. His refusal to resign as Mentri Besar has also put his party, especially Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, in a quandary.

But the trail of clues and red herrings leading to the announcement that he was going for the PKR deputy president’s post was perhaps the most classic of Khalid’s tai chi politics.

On Friday afternoon, reporters got wind of an SMS indicating that Khalid would declare his candidature at a party gathering at the Mentri Besar’s official residence in Shah Alam on Friday evening. There was a scramble to get there as conflicting reports about whether he would or would not be making an announcement flew back and forth.

The man himself kept everyone guessing till the very end and when it finally came, his supporters were relieved as well as elated.

“We gave him the greenlight to move but he was reluctant to announce it because of Kajang. I think he only decided to announce when he was standing on the stage,” said Pandan division chief Zakaria Rahim.

The last one month has been akin to a rollercoaster ride for Khalid. His career looked like it was over when the Kajang Move was revealed. But his supporters rallied around him, they told him not to resign and now they are set to help him in his deputy presidential bid.

“He is clean, he’s not into any of that crony nonsense. That’s why we are here for him,” said Kuala Langat chief David K.Y. Cheong.

The man whom some in the PKR had dismissed as having “no political skills” is about to make his debut in big-time PKR politics.

The party’s division or cabang elections will start this month followed by the national congress in April to elect the national leadership.

Khalid’s move spells a head-on collision with his arch rival Azmin Ali who is seeking a second term as deputy president. It is also seen as his way of telling the powerful Selangor party chief to stop eyeing the Mentri Besar post.

It is obvious that his decision is also aimed at strengthening his hold on the Mentri Besar post despite his repeated appeal throughout his Friday night speech that the top most priority of everyone in the party is to help Anwar secure the Kajang seat.

He wants to help Anwar win Kajang but there is no way he is stepping aside for Anwar to become the Mentri Besar.

His political secretary Azman Abidin was quite direct about the whole thing.

“We decided long ago that Tan Sri must contest the post. It was a matter of when to announce it,” he said.

His supporters had told him that they cannot help to “sell him”, as they put it, if he does not declare his interest in the post. They told him that they need to start now because Azmin is tough to fight.

The gathering was also a show of strength on Khalid’s part. A total of eight PKR division chiefs from Selangor as well as about a dozen division chiefs from Perak and Negri Sembilan were present.

Apparently, his supporters had begun pressuring him as early as after the general election when there was the usual politicking over his reappointment as Mentri Besar.

They told him that the perception in the party is that he had a red carpet walk into the Mentri Besar’s office while others had to fight for a party position before they got any government posts.

“They said he is picking the fruits from the tree of our election success without having to water the plants,” said an aide.

One of the reasons holding Khalid back actually had to do with his interpretation of the advice he received from the Palace after becoming Mentri Besar. The Sultan had advised him to focus on the state administration rather than on politics and Khalid had heeded the advice seriously.

But he is now convinced that he needs to tackle party politics in order to ensure stability in the Selangor administration.

“There is a momentum for Khalid. He is riding on it,” said PKR’s Dr Aziz Bari.

There is, however, a danger to equating the top party post with that of a top government position.

If he loses to Azmin, would that mean that the party prefers Azmin as the Selangor Mentri Besar? Or would Anwar then use it as grounds to elbow him aside and claim the Mentri Besar post for himself?

Khalid is taking a huge risk but as they say, no risk, no gain.

The tai chi man wore a big grin throughout the evening although it had been an awfully long day for him. Shortly before the gathering, he had chaired a session to brief Pakatan politicians on the water deal. Some were satisfied with the explanation, some were not. But the noisiest critics of the water agreement failed to turn up for the briefing.

Khalid, the man whom some in his party had labelled a “lousy politician”, is about to enter the most political phase of his career.