Will PAS and Umno spell the end of Pakatan in Selangor?
With the Selangor MB crisis far from over, will PAS join forces with Umno to topple the Pakatan-led Selangor government?
P Ramakrishnan, Free Malaysia Today
The Menteri Besar (MB) crisis in Selangor has been dragging on unnecessarily for some months now and has disappointed and frustrated Malaysians with Pakatan Rakyat (Pakatan).
The MB’s position is a party matter and the coalition partners should have the wisdom to recognise it as such.
Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) should have been allowed to sort out their internal problems without any interference from its coalition partners. Unfortunately, this has not been the case.
PAS’ insistence that Khalid Ibrahim be retained has been the spanner in the works for PKR. If the nominating party had lost confidence in its own candidate, the sensible thing to do was for the party responsible to nominate a replacement. It is their right.
PAS refusing to respect this simple thread of logic has disappointed many Malaysians because the Islamic party’s firm refusal to acknowledge Khalid’s chosen replacement has prolonged an already precarious situation in Selangor.
PAS’ stand is that Khalid has not been convicted of any wrong-doing and therefore should continue as MB of Selangor. Granted, this is a fair stand to take.
However have the severe repercussions and dire consequence resulting from this position been worth the effort?
However it would also mean that PAS will be voting with Umno against its own coalition partners. The party will be seen as cooperating with Umno and acting in collusion with a former sworn enemy.
Apart from that, what would the outcome of such a voting option be?
The DAP and Keadilan will have a combined strength of 28 votes against the combined votes of PAS, Umno and Khalid, which is also 28 votes!
Both sides will be tied. This is when horse-trading and possible bribery will most likely take place.
This situation is reminiscent of the Perak crisis where many frogs leapt shamelessly, thus betraying the voters of Perak by abandoning the party responsible for their victory.
