Lesson from the Selangor MB Saga: Suggesting a possible workable mechanism for the Pakatan coalition

By admin-s Last updated Sep 4, 2014

If Pakatan still insists on the current consensus model of the presidential council in running all matters, then when the situation of no consensus arises on state matters, the Pakatan top leaderships should forfeit their right to decide and leave the decision to their state representatives.

Kuo Yong Kooi

During the Selangor MB crisis, political analysts and constitutional experts sometimes refer to the constitutional monarchy model of Britain and Australia as their guidelines.

For the case of Australia, the selection of the premiers (chief ministers) are done by their state party’s representatives. There is a clear division of power here where the federal Labor Party leaderships, for example, do not arrange or plot for the removal of the state’s Labor premier.

If this model is to be followed, then Wong Chin Huat has rightly suggested that the Selangor Pakatan assemblypersons’ caucus should be used to decide on the MB’s fate at the initial stages of the crisis without going through a no confidence motion in the state assembly. Unfortunately the top leaderships of Pakatan did not take that suggestion on board.

The mess as we have witnessed spiralled out of control when PAS took their time and deferred their decision twice on the MB’s fate for about two weeks.

It was extremely unprofessional of PAS to take such a long time because the running of state matters requires due diligence daily.

One then would extrapolate the possible future scenarios of unwarranted chaos if Pakatan were to win more states and still use their ‘consensus’ model of decision-making.

If there are any good models that Pakatan can look into changing and remedying their current non-binding consensus structure, the Australian state and federal parliamentary division of power model might be a good one.

One might ask why then Umno managed the change of menteri besar in Terengganu and chief minister in Sarawak effectively and swiftly by the top leadership? This formula works well if there is one big boss in the coalition.

Pakatan, however, defined themselves as a coalition of equals and consensus usually takes a long time and is hard to come by when there are rifts.

One would assume that Pakatan’s next big move if they insist to stay together is to pen down these basic rules to lift their game. The rule that if there are any future leadership spills in the Pakatan-held states, the assemblypersons’ caucus should be used as an effective mechanism to settle the score. Any party that refuses to participate in the binding assemblypersons’ caucus is automatically not a member of the coalition.

The Kedah Pakatan MB leadership spat is a good example of the lack of wisdom and interference from the top party leadership that resulted in a loss of the state back to BN in GE13. Some PAS state representatives wanted a change of leadership due to the sitting MB Azizan Abdul Razak’s ill health and under performance. Unfortunately the central leadership under the guidance of president Hadi Awang took sides and denied the leadership spill.

One would think that Pakatan had learnt from that mistake, if the leadership spill is genuine and if it comes from their state representatives who have seen the under performance of their MB, then it should be encouraged to take its course. If the majority of the Pakatan state representatives agree to that change, why not allow the change to happen for the coalition’s and the state’s interest?

Division of power idea

The division of power idea might encourage their respective state coalition partners to effectively perform their duties without someone from above looking over their shoulders or constantly telling them what to do .

This formula might be palatable for the East Malaysian states if carried out. At least there is some resemblances of autonomy for the state representatives. The division/separation of power model might be able to satisfy all parties in the Pakatan coalition on the hudud impasse.

At least the state of Kelantan is free to explore the implementation of hudud law without the central leadership’s interference. This move might be able to satisfy the ulama faction in PAS that do not want to cooperate with Umno. It will isolate the remaining faction that wants to work with Umno.

If the federal parliament denies the implementation of hudud in Kelantan, then it is not entirely Pakatan component parties’ fault. Although hudud might hurt the chances of Pakatan winning in other states, the explanation of their newly-adopted formula on division of power structure might be acceptable to the electorate. There is a possibility that the electorate might buy Pakatan’s argument if PAS manages to purge the pro-Umno unity government members from their party.

The federal or top leaderships should free themselves from this excessive control and focus on the federal and inter-party unity issues that might find a winning formula for Putrajaya instead.

The Selangor MB crisis has clearly indicated to us that there is an irreconcilable rift between the top leaderships of Pakatan, especially between Hadi Awang and Anwar Ibrahim.

The rifts may possibly be contained at the federal or the top leaderships level if they use the separation of power model. It does not necessarily spill over to the state level. As it currently stands, the rift threatens the survival of the whole of the coalition’s national and state levels.

The art of dealing with human energies

This division of power model, if followed through, might open up more opportunities for other smaller parties to join the coalition at the state level where the federal Pakatan leadership had failed.

If for example Nizar Jamaluddin as the head of Perak Pakatan is given space to operate independently, he might be able to resolve the PSM-Pakatan relationship problems. In that case energies are not wasted within the opposition forces in wrangling with each other on matters of seat allocation for an election.

This scenario might also be applicable to the East Malaysian states. Some argued that the smaller parties in the East Malaysian states did not manage to garner strong support in the last election, therefore they should ignore these local forces.

Politics and social engineering is the art of dealing with human energies. One therefore needs to take into consideration of energy and resources of ourselves and others. If you are given an opportunity to save energies and resources by cooperating amongst the opposition forces, why waste the energy by insisting on battle against each other?

Blaming each other is not productive and will only lead to disintegration.

Selangor PAS commissioner Iskandar Abdul Samad, in a speech at a Selangor PAS Youth meeting on Sunday Aug 17, accused Pakatan of ignoring the Islamist party and only making use of it during mass protests and general elections.

PAS’s Husam Musa also blamed Khalid Ibrahim for using his party to cling on to power. This situation happened because there is an internal rift between the progressive and the conservative factions within PAS itself. The situation can never happen if they made a quick decisive move to contain the crisis.

PKR and DAP also blamed PAS for not being in favour of women as leaders/MB.

There is no point placing the blame solely on Khalid or on any component parties for that matter when the crisis went out of control as we have witnessed. It is Pakatan’s structural weaknesses in dealing with non-consensus situation that is to blame for the crisis. We will never learn if we blame others.

Let’s assume MB Khalid resigned immediately after an alternative candidate, Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, was named to replace him, you can safely bet that PAS and PKR will play out their internal dramas/rifts at some other time and on some other issues.

There is obviously a wide ideological difference between the three component parties. There will be many more heated issues in the future which at times will not have consensus.

There will be times when we can wait for consensus to arrive and there will be times when things have to move on as soon as possible to contain the situation from deteriorating. Putting a workable mechanism/structure that can mitigate at times when no consensus can be found is the way forward.

Going about their business as usual and placing blame on others will only repeat the series of dramas of the coalition of ‘The Three Stooges’ that have been played before. Fronting up to the mistakes honestly will possibly change Pakatan to the coalition of ‘The Three Musketeers’.

The rakyat watched the whole drama unfold with heart wrenching horror and disbelieve. Nevertheless, the rakyat is very forgiving. Can Pakatan transform from being a coalition of The Three Stooges to the Three Musketeers is the question for the die-hard supporters,

One representative only for one seat

If Pakatan were to adopt this division of power model there is no way a situation where a person can hold a state and a federal seat at the same time. One good example of this situation was where Teresa Kok held the state seat for Kinrara and the federal constituency of Seputeh after the 2008 political Tsunami.

A state parliamentarian will only stick to state level politics and federal politicians will only stick to federal level politics.

If this idea is to follow through, then the Kajang Move does not come into one’s mind. Anwar Ibrahim is already holding the federal seat of Permatang Pauh, he therefore cannot run for the state seat of Kajang. The division of power does prooves the point of efficiency in serving the electorate. Anwar cannot possible be at two places at one time and serve the electorate effectively.

Another point on the Australian state parliament is that they do have their upper and lower houses to act as checks and balances independent from their federal counterparts, except for Queensland.

Pakatan Rakyat