New politics gone downhill

New politics or old politics? Not many people can tell the difference after all that political drama in Selangor. 

Joceline Tan

SELANGOR Mentri Besar Azmin Ali is apparently on the lookout for a press secretary from among the media corps to join his team.

But the word going around is that there are not many takers because the media people are not quite sure how long the new Mentri Besar will last.

The dramatic fight for the hot seat is still fresh on everyone’s mind especially for journalists who had a ringside view to the spectacle. Many in Selangor are waiting to see how things will settle down after all those months of infighting.

“People are tired of the politicking. It’s been too much and it’s not good for business,” said a businessman who owns a chain of upmarket restaurants in the Klang Valley.

Same boat

There is a great deal of scepticism about Selangor politics which has come to resemble “Boleh Land”, a term that Pakatan Rakyat leaders used in reference to the excesses of their Barisan Nasional opponents. But the Pakatan leaders are now also in “Boleh Land” where, as they say, anything is possible.

“New politics, old politics, it is still politics. Politicians will be politicians wherever we are. They start out good and end up pragmatic and greedy. That’s when the trouble starts. Everyone is disappointed,” said heritage consultant Dr Neil Khor.

There are several conclusions to be gathered from the Selangor crisis.

The first is that urban Malaysia is still with Pakatan but rural Malaysia is very much Umno’s turf especially after the Pengkalan Kubor by-election outcome where Umno won by a bigger majority despite a lower voter turnout.

Surveys have continued to show that although Pakatan’s standing in Selangor has plunged, voters still preferred them over Barisan.

“Barisan is still not the better option or the alternative for people in Selangor despite all that has happened. The urban folk have not written off Pakatan,” said Khaw Veon Szu, a Penang-based lawyer who used to head the Gerakan think-tank Sedar.

For a while it seemed like Pakatan was about to split up especially during the PAS muktamar when one speaker after another voiced criticism about the coalition, from the Kajang Move to the Penang government.

The PAS rank and file are still angry with the two assemblymen who ignored party directive on the Mentri Besar issue. They were also hurt that the party ended up with only three executive councillors in the state government compared to four previously. Some even said that what they had was thanks to the Almighty and should not have been taken away.

The crisis has passed and it is clear that PAS is staying put. There is basically too much at stake for a parting of ways. The marriage, troubled as it may be, will survive.

“The Kajang Move also opened up a Pandora’s Box,” said Khaw.

The mythical Pandora’s Box saw eight demons released into the world. Only one was recaptured while the remaining seven became known as the seven deadly sins of wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy and gluttony, all of which are not uncommon in the world of politics.

In the case of Selangor, all that the three parties had kept under wraps came flying out in a war of words following the Kajang Move.

For instance, Malaysians learnt for the first time that PAS had approached Gua Musang MP Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah to ask him to be Prime Minister in the event that Pakatan won the 13th general election.

Kajang Move architect Rafizi Ramli exposed it to show that PAS was not a team player and had not supported Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim for the top post. The revela­tion, if true, also put Tengku Razaleigh in a bad light because it meant that he was dining at the Umno table while dancing with the enemy.

True or false, one can only conclude that the fight over the Prime Minister post would have been even more terrible than that over the Mentri Besar job had Pakatan won.

Differing views

“The three parties are poles apart on many key issues. The glue holding them was the dream of Putrajaya. When the Kajang Move was launched, PAS read it as an admission by Anwar that he was settling for second best because he had given up on Putrajaya,” said Khaw.

The dream is still there, Pakatan is still hopeful and that will keep them together.

“The break-up point will come if they do not perform well in the next general election,” said Khaw.

The scales have also fallen from the eyes of many people in the wake of the Kajang Move – a sitting assemblyman was forced to resign so that their top leader could contest the seat and become the next Mentri Besar.

It went against the new politics that the people had been promised.

And these were the very same people who have made a moral song and dance about the Palace refusing to accept Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail as Mentri Besar.

The huge mandate they won in Selangor had been squandered. That was probably the point when the penny dropped – the new politics is not very different from the old politics.

Kluang assemblyman and Johor DAP chairman Liew Chin Tong is known for his boy scout approach to politics – always eager to paint a silver lining to every dark cloud.

But his recent Merdeka message had a rather solemn tone. He said Malaysian politics had entered a phase of stagnation, voters were disappointed with both coalitions and had opted out from the political discourse.

He reminded Pakatan that it needs to re-invigorate in order to be a party of choice and not just a default option against Barisan. Reality had sunk in and it sucks.

DAP’s Erdogan friends in PAS are on the decline and the young Turks in the ulama group are now setting the agenda. The young ulama group are well educated mostly in the Middle East, they speak well, they are organised and into social media and they want to bring back Islamic integrity to the party.

DAP is waking up to this reality, and it is not their cup of tea.

In the meantime, the open hostilities between DAP and PAS are sending out confusing signals about the future of Pakatan.

A PAS municipal councillor from Penang was suspended from his position after he criticised the development policies of the Penang government during the debates at the PAS muktamar in Johor. Some have likened the incident to killing a fly with a sledgehammer.

Temerloh MP and PAS central committee member Nasrudin Hassan is also being sued for suggesting that the Penang government is pro-developer. In an article, he had questioned why there was opposition to the Kidex highway in Selangor but silence on the proposed undersea tunnel in Penang.

Recently, in Selangor, the two PAS assemblymen who let down their party were hailed as heroes at a DAP dinner.

All these are provocative moves and counter-moves and onlookers are puzzled because friends do not do this to each other.

Meanwhile, the DAP organ Roketkini went to town about a Muslim girl singing praises of DAP as a party with values that Muslims fight for.

DAP has made news for recruiting a number of young and pretty Malay women as members. But this one stood out because she was modestly covered up, complete with a face veil or niqab that only showed beautiful almond-shaped eyes. She had also written a novel titled Pelacur Kelas Pertama (First Class Prostitute).

Is DAP trying to thumb its nose at PAS and Umno with such recruits or is it just confused about the kind of Malays they need in their party? The whole thing was quite bizarre and seemed like a chapter from a TV reality show where the ability to shock and entertain is more important than real values.

In hindsight, the new politics has been less about the politicians who came to power after 2008 than the people who voted in the change and brought about a two-party system.

The new politics, said Khaw, will not be defined by the politicians but by the voters, especially the younger cohort. They will be the ones to push the boundaries, make demands and bring the change.

“It’s a long road ahead but they will set the standard for the future,” said Khaw.