A political duel of epic proportions
Tunku Abdul Aziz, NST
TAN Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim, the beleaguered menteri besar of Selangor teetering on the edge of a political precipice, is fighting an all-out battle for justice that has been denied to him.
The recent Kajang affair must rank as a disgraceful episode, the lowest point, in our political history. The barefaced manipulation of the electoral process with utter disregard for ethical public behaviour has surprised even those used to the murky world of opposition politics.
Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s duplicity is the last straw as far as Khalid is concerned: he is all the more determined, therefore, to thwart Anwar’s plans to install his wife, Datin Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, as menteri besar of Selangor.
Kajang has also provided yet another clue to Anwar’s greed and insatiable appetite for raw power, however acquired. I do not hold this against him because Anwar is simply doing what comes naturally to him. He is an intriguing fellow. Where would we all be without his intrigues and plots to add spice to an otherwise bland and dull political fare in our fair country?
I am told on good authority that Khalid is quite relaxed about the outcome of constitutional impasse forced upon him. He is digging his heels because he has been hurt by the way he has been demonised; his character trampled upon and his reputation and dignity dragged through mud and filth awash with lies and innuendoes.
All in all, it is an ugly display of wanton disregard for basic human values. In short, it is unfettered greed writ large in all its sordid nakedness.
Khalid has had his fill of the tyranny of dynastic politics and he will use every legitimate trick in his bag to frustrate Anwar’s plot that only an unconscionable mind could have conceived. We are just seeing the beginning of a duel that has all the makings of an epic of Mahabharata proportions.
Anwar is in his element and Khalid, in his present mood, will pull all the stops if he has to. The man regarded by many as slow to act and even slower to anger has shown us all that what is apparent is not always real. He is a fighter and Anwar is beginning to realise that he has probably bitten more than he can chew.
Those trying to outmanoeuvre Khalid have probably forgotten that he was a key member of the team that shocked and surprised the city of London when Malaysia mounted that brilliant “dawn raid” that put Guthrie in Malaysian hands for the first time since 1821. Khalid is not the lumbering simpleton that he pretends to be. He is smart and he knows the score.
Dr Wan Azizah, PKR president and pretender to Selangor’s highest elected office, has trotted out her supporters, numbering 30 in an effort to blunt Khalid’s claim that he, in fact, still commands the confidence of the state assembly. The proper place to verify the claim is via a motion of no confidence.
Dr Wan Azizah should have recourse to this avenue and let the state assembly decide who is to lead the Selangor government.
Dr Wan Azizah, having been refused an audience with the sultan of Selangor, is making another bid, this time round rightly so, without husband Anwar’s influence, which apparently cut no ice with the palace. She should be well-advised to distance herself from her husband when carrying out her work as an assemblyman if she wants her aspiration for high elected office to be taken seriously.
The six former members of the executive council are threatening to take Khalid to court for “sacking them”. Of course, it was nothing of the kind. Khalid merely carried out a reshuffle of his executive council. Nothing extraordinary and all perfectly kosher. He dropped them because they had made clear their intention not to work with him.
He would have been mad to want to bed down with enemies under his blanket. They are quite right to say that their appointments are made by the sultan but they chose to ignore that the royal consent is given upon the advice of the menteri besar which, for the sake of good order, the palace is duty bound to accept.
They have not been sacked by Khalid, merely dropped to make way for people who, in his opinion, are likely to work effectively with him for the benefit of the state. It is his prerogative. Cabinet reshuffles go on all the time all over the world.
I have just received my copy of the Spectator Magazine and I notice a reference to David Cameron’s latest round of “musical chairs” which has resulted in “good ministers evaporate in reshuffles because their face or gender doesn’t fit when the prime minister wants to change the look of his government?”
Unlike PKR and DAP, there were no threats of court action by the former British cabinet ministers against their prime minister for exercising his freedom to form his cabinet as he sees fit.
It says a great deal about the integrity and maturity of our six politicians who obviously see elected office as a gravy train and not as a public duty. It is a political culture that must change as part of our national transformation programme. Surely, even in politics, there must be a place for ethical conduct.
