Real menace behind the chaos
Lim Sue Goan, Sin Chew Daily
Lim Kit Siang admitted that Pakatan Rakyat is facing an unprecedented crisis and that the crisis is not what he alone can resolve.
If PAS refuses to come back to the original intention for the establishment of Pakatan, it is a matter of time the opposition pact will go down in ruins.
The Selangor MB crisis has accelerated the split within Pakatan Rakyat, but the root of the problem is that the three component parties all have their own motives and they no longer cherish the causes of democracy and justice, the principles that will eventually see them triumph into Putrajaya together.
Khalid remains recalcitrant in holding on to his post, but the more important thing is, he has the support of certain people, including PAS, Umno and the Selangor royalty.
Why has PAS insisted to support Khalid to an extent that such a move could offend its allies in Pakatan?
This could have not happened overnight.
The conservatives within the party has long been unhappy with Anwar becoming the prime minister if Pakatan were to take over the federal administration because they have wanted Hadi Awang to assume the post, paving the way for an Islamic state. Moreover, these conservatives do not believe Anwar is morally clean enough to be PM.
PKR strategy director Rafizi Ramli said PAS’ senior leaders met Anwar two or three weeks prior to GE13 to express their wish that they preferred Umno veteran Tengku Razaleigh to become prime minister instead of Anwar.
PAS has defied the decision of Pakatan Rakyat supreme council this time not only because the party is frustrated with Anwar but also because it has made a major decision about the party’s future.
Indeed, PAS has made use of Pakatan as a springboard for it to become a national party, but to the conservatives, what they want is not just this. They want to see politics and religion merged into one.
They believe that Pakatan has reached its utmost in GE13 (with about 80% support from Chinese voters), and to secure a breakthrough, it will need to work harder on winning Malay votes.
PAS won 21 parliamentary seats in last year’s general elections, two fewer than in 2008, while DAP was the biggest winner with 38 seats, rightly triggering the worries of these conservatives.
So they bank on religion in an attempt to win back the hearts of Malay voters. For example, they insist the Kelantan state government should work hand in hand with the federal government in implementing the hudud law in the state.
PAS’s hudud aspirations have been checked by DAP and PKR, and the conservatives possibly feel they should now do something to check these Pakatan allies on the issue of Selangor MB., even to an extent of seeking another avenue to break through the party’s current bottleneck.
PAS Research Centre operations director Dr Mohd Zuhdi Marzuki issued a statement in a WhatsApp message that PAS should consider pulling out of Pakatan Rakyat and joined forces with Umno.
Unable to strike an accord with PAS, the enraged Anwar threatened a snap election for the state.
The MB crisis could develop into a no-confidence vote against Khalid Ibrahim or he joining PAS and the disintegration of the three-party pact. However, chances for dissolution of the state legislative assembly are not high.
Notably, Umno is quietly waiting for an opportunity to strike. In the face of a stalemate, some PKR reps may hop over to BN resulting in the collapse of the state government, not unlike what took place in Perak 2009.
A split could emerge within PAS and PKR. Azmin’s supporters are on the prowl to seize power. Anwar may suffer another setback.
At a time when the conservatives are controlling the fate of PAS, both DAP and PKR must be psychologically prepared to lose PAS, and rebuild their public acceptance from scratch.
The future of Pakatan Rakyat is closely associated with the existence of two-party system in the country. Unfortunately, its future has been hijacked by the selfish desires of its own leaders.
