Finally it is the Sultan who decides

By MT Webmaster Last updated Sep 29, 2014

HRH the Sultan wants the person who becomes the MB to know that he is the Sultan’s MB and not Anwar’s MB. Hence the person who shall become the MB is not the man or woman who Anwar wants. It shall be the person who Anwar does not want.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

One Chinese reader posted a comment saying that Azmin Ali, the new Selangor Menteri Besar, can now start restoring Selangor. This reader did not explain what he meant by ‘restoring Selangor’.

Restore Selangor to what? Restore it to what it used to be in days before Khalid Ibrahim became the MB in 2008? So does this mean restore Selangor to the days of Khir Toyo or restore Selangor to the days of Muhammad son of Muhammad?

When you are too biased and overwhelmed by hate, anything that does not serve the agenda of the opposition clouds your thinking and your mind becomes irrational. And that is why people like these post comments such as ‘Azmin can now start restoring Selangor’.

These people also like to talk about how bad things were when Selangor was under Barisan Nasional. They make statements such as the most corrupted Menteri Besar in Selangor’s history was Muhammad Mohd Taib. Others argue that the most corrupted MB ever was, in fact, Khir Toyo.

How does one grade corruption? How do we know which of the two was the most corrupted MB? Is there a grading system that can measure who the most corrupted MB was? What criteria do we use to determine who is number one most corrupted and who is number two most corrupted?

Okay, never mind whether Mat Taib was the number one or number two most corrupted MB. Is not Mat Taib now in the opposition? Even if he is the second and not the first most corrupted MB in Selangor history, why did the opposition take him? When he was in Umno he was the devil. Now that he is in the opposition he is an angel.

This is the value system that the opposition uses. It simply boils down to if you support the opposition you are a good person and if you do not then you are a bad person. Everything else does not matter even if you raped your own daughter and murdered your wife.

Nowadays, I do not even bother to approve more than half the comments because many are so ridiculous, illogical and nonsensical. These people simply comment without thinking. Clearly their mouths move faster than their brains.

Some readers are now coming out with conspiracy theories. They say that Anwar Ibrahim actually wanted Azmin as the MB all along and that Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail was just a red herring. Anwar did not really want his wife as MB. From the very beginning he wanted Azmin so Dr Wan Azizah was just the decoy to throw people of the scent.

Is that so? Then why did the anti-Azmin faction in PKR meet Khalid at the eleventh hour even as he was packing his things and saying his goodbyes to try to get him to not resign?

Yes, did you know that? Did you know that the anti-Azmin faction still tried a last ditch attempt to block Azmin from becoming the MB? And they wanted Khalid to abort his resignation so that Azmin can be denied the job.

So, was it really Anwar’s plan from the very beginning that Azmin was the one who was supposed to become the MB and not Dr Wan Azizah?

In that case, why the need for the most complicated ‘Kajang Move’? Azmin was already an ADUN (State Assemblyman) since 2013. In fact, he was an ADUN since 2008. Azmin could have been made the MB last year when the Kajang Move was first mooted. Why the need for Lee Chin Cheh to resign his Kajang state seat and make way for a by-election?

In the first place, Anwar was supposed to contest the Kajang by-election. Was that not the intention? Was this a red herring as well? Did Anwar intend for Dr Wan Azizah to contest that seat from the very beginning? So was this yet another wayang, just like Azmin was supposed to be the MB from the very beginning?

The truth is these people do not want to admit that the Kajang Move was an epic disaster. The plan in the beginning was that Anwar would contest the Kajang by-election and then would become the new Selangor MB. When this plan failed they changed it to Dr Wan Azizah would contest the Kajang by-election and become the MB instead.

Then that, too, failed. So now they say that the plan all along was for Azmin to become the MB and everything else were just red herrings to confuse everyone and to camouflage what they really intended — that is for Azmin to become the MB.

It is too painful for these people to admit that Anwar is not that great a political strategist after all. He is not the genius that most people give him credit for. He bungled his ’16 September’ in 2008. And he bungled his ‘Kajang Move’ as well.

And the real winner is His Royal Highness the Sultan of Selangor. The man who becomes the Selangor Menteri Besar does so on HRH’s terms. The Sultan decides the rules of the game and you need to play the game according to his rules.

And that is why Azmin Ali is now the new MB of Selangor.

Raja Petra Kamarudin RPK