Coming home to roost
Kedah has since been lost to Barisan Nasional and the Menteri Besar has since died while Khalid was reappointed the Menteri Besar of Selangor a second term in 2013 in spite of the unflattering remarks Anwar made against him in 2010.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
The era was 2010, the venue London, and the issues were wide-ranging. Anwar Ibrahim and I were sitting down for breakfast where he wanted to know what my beef against Pakatan Rakyat was.
And I told him. And he told me that Rome could not be built in a day. And I reminded him that that was not what Pakatan Rakyat promised us back in 2008. During the 2008 general election campaign, we were told what Pakatan Rakyat would do if they gained power either at state or federal level and there were no qualifications or conditions attached.
Pakatan Rakyat should have told us what it aspires to do, given time, and not tell us what it will definitely do, given power. And not everything requires time anyway. Some may need a generation to complete while others just need a signature across a piece of paper and it is done. So why the blanket cover for all and sundry when we can compartmentalise things into ‘do now’ and ‘do later’?
Civil society is supposed to be the citizen’s watch that keeps watch over the government. What makes you think civil society should be watching only the federal government and not the state governments?
And why should civil society be declared ‘the enemy’ when it refuses to ‘toe the party line’? The very purpose of civil society is to detach itself from the political parties and not be part of any political party. Civil society needs to be non-partisan or else civil society will end up as just another political movement.
That was the first message I tried to drive across but which Anwar appeared to not understand or could not accept. He felt that civil society should play the role of the fourth coalition member of Pakatan Rakyat.
There were so many issues that I put onto the table in our breakfast meeting in 2010.
1. The abuse of power in the Selangor and Kedah State Governments.
2. The unresolved Hudud issue.
3. The religious intolerance and the dominating and selfish Muslim attitude of imposing their values on others.
4. The policy of ‘consensus’ by ‘agreeing to disagree’, which in truth means a policy of non-consensus.
5. The slow implementation of local council or local government elections and the appointments of low quality councillors to the local councils and treating these positions as a reward system for party supporters.
6. The inaction on the water supply problem in Selangor, which threatens to explode into a crisis in due time if not addressed.
7. The high rate of corruption in state agencies, GLCs, local councils, etc., in states under Pakatan Rakyat control that appears to have increased rather than reduced since 2008.
8. The intra-party and inter-party fighting that threatens to tear DAP, PKR and PAS — plus Pakatan Rakyat itself — apart because of the lust for power by the party leaders.
9. The lip service and insincerity regarding civil liberties (that include but is not restricted to freedom of choice regarding religion, sexual lifestyle, etc.), which Pakatan Rakyat is not prepared to defend because it wants to be ‘politically correct’ and wishes to avoid controversy but at the expense of civil liberties.
10. The absence of an annual report to the voters to show what election promises made in 2008 have been delivered and the timeframe for the delivery of the balance.
These were just ten but not the only issues that I laid out for Anwar’s consideration and feedback. Anwar, however, would not commit himself other than say that Khalid Ibrahim, the Selangor Menteri Besar, is stubborn, would not listen, and has a huge ego, while the late Kedah Menteri Besar is beyond anyone’s control and is a maverick.
Kedah has since been lost to Barisan Nasional and the Menteri Besar has since died while Khalid was reappointed the Menteri Besar of Selangor a second term in 2013 in spite of the unflattering remarks Anwar made against him in 2010.
