The Kajang Move to disaster

Kapil Sethi, The Malay Mail Online

A recent survey indicates that support for the PKR government in Selangor has dropped to 30 per cent. It is immediately used as proof that the state needs a new Menteri Besar (MB) if it is to stay in the hands of the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) coalition. After all, this guy is the one who agrees to Barisan Nasional (BN) projects like incinerators and highways while being unable to act against people carting away Bibles by the truckload.

But is it also equally possible that support for PKR has dropped because of the way they have gone about trying to remove their own man from the job which he was doing magnificently till very recently, according to them?

An MBA, an academic, a corporate whizkid who was never a politician till he joined Keadilan. A man strongly opposed to the way the NEP was administered and one who shared PKR’s vision for the future. These were Khalid Ibrahim’s credentials for the top post in the country’s most developed state in 2008.

In the run-up to the 2013 elections, he was credited with running the state like a corporation, demanding accountability from state institutions and removing corruption from the administration that resulted in Selangor’s cash reserves going upto RM3 billion.

He delivered on a campaign promise of free water that many were sceptical of and formed a house committee on transparency and accountability called SELCAT to hold public hearings on issues of import.

He adroitly managed the Talam Corporation controversy over land valuation by appointing an international auditing firm KPMG to go over the transaction that later found that the state made a sound financial decision in the issue. During his first term, no one in his cabinet or any of his coalition’s assemblymen were charged with graft, a fact used repeatedly in campaigning while contrasting this with the previous BN-led state government.

In the 2013 state elections, he duly won re-election while increasing the overall seat count for PR from 36 to 44. Selangor still remains Malaysia’s most developed state, no new corruption cases have come to light and investments into the state are steady. So why has the blue-eyed boy suddenly become the man his own party loves to hate?

Restructuring the state’s water assets, approving incinerators and highways, all at the behest of BN are the most commonly bandied about reasons for this anger. While the exact details can be argued, it is generally agreed that the state’s water resources were being severely mismanaged, and the deal should lead to greater efficiencies, less wastage and greater water security for the state.

In the whole ruckus on the incinerator and the six new highways, one key fact almost never talked about is that the vast majority of the costs would be borne either by the concessionaires or the federal government. To acquire stratospherically expensive infrastructure practically for free is no mean feat, especially in a state that prides itself on its development, whatever one may think of the parties providing the same and their motivations.

While there are elements in each of the projects that require closer scrutiny and oversight, and some may need to be scrapped, but to criticise the MB for putting the state’s priorities first before partisan considerations while being prudent with the state’s money seems a bit much.

In fact the real reason seems to be that he is not behaving like a politician. If an influential pressure group in Kajang or Petaling Jaya complains about proposed infrastructure in their vicinity, he does not immediately buckle under, but talks about how this same infrastructure could provide the state with a competitive advantage in the decades to come.

He removes party colleagues from directorships of state bodies with no regard for the political fallout. If the leader of his party decides he has to go, he does not immediately resign but asks for reasons. In a political environment where form is of far greater value than substance, he is in serious need of competent public relations management.

In any case, if he is indeed a BN stooge and turncoat or at the very least an inept politician who cannot comprehend the Machiavellian machinations of BN, it is PR’s prerogative to remove him. But is Dr Wan Azizah really the right person to do this? Or is the new MB going to be a mere proxy for another camp in PKR? Is the new MB going to make Selangor even more of a model state as claimed, or is all just a cynical ploy in a larger political game?

Whatever PKR and PR may think now, there are a number of voters in Selangor who wanted a change from the politics of BN which is why they voted for them. And if now that support is dropping, they must ask themselves, is it because of their MB or because the politics they are practising in Selangor look more and more like Barisan’s?