The Selangor MB’s new clothes

Hazlan Zakaria, The Ant Daily

Despite exhortations of being able to solve Selangor’s woes he claimed was caused by the inadequacy or intentional sabotage of his predecessor, newly crowned MB Azmin Ali may find himself in the same spot if he fails to do things differently and keep his promises.

If what happened to former Selangor Menteri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim has a fairy tale equivalent, it was perhaps the one about the Emperor’s New Clothes.

While the mechanism that moved the real life story of Khalid versus that of the emperor in the tale is different, what essentially took place is similar.

In the emperor’s tale his predicament was caused by a pair of tailor-cum-conmen who used his ego to delude him, and as the saying goes, a fool and his gold are soon parted, so it seems was the case too for a foolish emperor and his gold.

While in Khalid’s story, he was put to pasture by the actions of politicians, though by some standards people would say that politicians and conmen share the same skin and knit the same skein.

In the end, Khalid who was once clothed in expensive and luxurious praise, figuratively speaking, was later revealed as supposedly walking around naked, after his own party disrobed him and pointed out alleged pock marks on skin they once termed as alabaster.

And whatever blemishes that Khalid may or may not have in places where the sun doesn’t often shine on aside, Azmin himself is in danger of finding his own expensive and luxurious attire of praise ripped off and pock marks of his own exposed.

This is as he is repeating like a broken record the same excuses that Khalid supposedly used when it comes to the trinity of major problems that many want to see solved in the state.

The trinity of issues being the Malay language bibles seized by authorities, disclosure of the water deal with Putrajaya and the controversial Kidex highway project.

Since taking over, Azmin and Pakatan were all blustered out about fixing problems that were allegedly the baggage of Khalid.

But the thing is, Azmin is saying the same things as Khalid and doing nothing concrete as yet.

First off, when it comes to the water deal with Putrajaya, Azmin is only echoing what Khalid said many times, deals involving the federal government are classified as are all government documents as per provisions of the official Secrets Act.

And while Khalid had used his power as MB to declassify state documents, he and now Azmin cannot announce the details, though they probably have access to the documents per se.

So is repeating Khalid’s line different enough that it will solve the matter? I really hope that Azmin has other tricks up his sleeve. But then again of course he has, else he would not have made it this far.

The question now is whether those tricks would help him avoid a fate like Khalid.

Similarly, I wonder what he will do about the seized bibles.

Will he also repeat Khalid’s line and hang everything on the Attorney-General? I hope he does not, but I have a sneaking feeling that this will be his modus operandi just like blaming the federal government on the water deal.

As for Kidex his words are also the same as his predecessor, just as Khalid wanted to look the matter over, Azmin is studying Kidex.

As of now, the new MB too has not announced any real call to action or concrete measures, only more political chowder for the evening news.

So unless Azmin has better tailors, I do expect him to end up walking in faux emperor’s clothing like Khalid did. I do hope his garments won’t decay and dissolve into nakedness like Khalid’s did, for just as there were hidden hands then, it is bound to be the same now too.

For despite Azmin’s insistence that his administration is free from Anwar’s or any influence, he would do well to remember that Khalid’s removal by the party has set the precedence that PKR can and do have strings to pull or rug to pull out from under the MBship the party claim’s it owns.