The leader of Opposition game

Praba Ganesan, Malay Mail Online

The Permatang Pauh by-election won’t end the late winter in Pakatan Rakyat.

But the overstaying season chills can go easy on the thermostat if the Opposition coalition chose to alter the dynamics for a change and outflank Barisan Nasional. It has to be said, even if wearily, Pakatan has to come to terms that if it does not like the answer, it might need to change the question.

Because the people — in, out and around Permatang Pauh — are starting to feel things frosting.

Many are already deflated by the perpetual and increasingly insignificant showdowns in open political contests while the real shadow plays rage surreptitiously within the corridors of power — rendering the people to know too much about the obvious and rehashed (“Barisan cannot run a project without deficits and deficiencies, while Pakatan are rich on democracy they won’t  cede to their own members and inarticulate about their ideological difference”), and at the same time being oblivious about the details of who actually loathes who in their own party (“There’s this blogger you see, he’s been using the pen against prime ministers even before he was one, and sees no reason now to change stripes”) — just have to suck it in.

Without respite more cruelly, because this second course to the meal started with the incarceration of Anwar Ibrahim, has a third part — naming the next leader of Opposition.

“Leader of Opposition” since 2008 has taken centre-stage, from being the bit-player who gets more speaking time than the rest in the paltry Opposition benches to being the presumed alternate to replace Barisan Nasional’s prime minister because Pakatan has serious numbers in Parliament.

Which is why it was necessary — from Pakatan’s viewpoint — to get Anwar his seat back in August 2008 after they broke BN’s two-third parliamentary monopoly five months prior in March.

A role he held on to diligently till the turn of events brings us to these developments across the Penang island.

Ten years after

The choice of reverting to the very person who stepped aside for Anwar’s return turns the election to more than a referendum on one seat out of 222 in Dewan Rakyat.

In fact, Permatang Pauh is a litmus test of whether Wan Azizah Wan Ismail becomes the natural replacement to her husband, or if there has to be another round of speeches in different ceramah kelompok (small group sessions) nationwide post-polling day because of a low majority win.

The latter is the nightmare scenario, with degrees of torment beyond the imagination of Dante. A three-time MP and former leader of the Opposition losing in a by-election after the whole party canvasses in the assumed-stranglehold.

It would be unfathomable that at a time the prime minister is besieged from various sides, the new tax system grates all households, a sliding ringgit “taunts us to ask how low can it go?” and mounting fatigue about economic management — Pakatan fails to hold on to a safe seat.

And in any situation that Pakatan fares only “about OK” in the Penang seat, then the question marks will be raised about the suitability of promoting the candidate to the position of a potential prime minister.

So the fear is not only over a defeat but if it were to end up as an ugly win.

The road to the 14th General Election will largely determine the outcome, as every step has to be about psychological blows to the other side, building a sense of inevitability about the result in whichever direction. The rakyat need to sense the change even before it happens.

A Permatang Pauh debacle would be catastrophic to efforts to raise expectations about the Opposition’s chances at the general election.

Let’s sidestep it, Go East!

I wanted this to be adopted before the candidates for the by-election were announced, but it can still be employed.

Pakatan can either stay in a collision course — compounded by strained inter-party relations — or reframe the situation and outthink Barisan.

There is an opportunity to shift a stubborn stalemate to a new possibility.

Rather than go 15 rounds and remain stuck in the same place, because DAP and PAS’ top leaders are tainted by each other’s vitriol to appeal enough to neutrals and PKR’s mixed-appeal made displeasing as top leaders veto each other out, Pakatan can sidestep the issue by considering candidates outside the inner circle.

The easy way is to remove Lim Guan Eng, Lim Kit Siang, Abdul Hadi Awang, Wan Azizah, Azmin Ali, Nurul Izzah Anwar and Rafizi Ramli out of the equation, avoid a public spat highlighted by the BN media, and choose one of the other 80-plus Pakatan MPs.

And if so, then why not use the manoeuvre to pick a Borneo MP?

National power has never really involved Borneo politicians, naming the same Sabahan as Speaker of the Dewan Rakyat means his name is in print more often but not as a man with considerable power.

Naming one of the nine MPs from Sabah and Sarawak would mean that a largely peninsula controlled Opposition — from Borneo residents’ perspective — sees East Malaysia as a source of federal leadership.

It can flip much of the antagonism towards the Pakatan parties for not being from Borneo. But if the notional leader of Pakatan in Dewan Rakyat is from East Malaysia, then the Opposition coalition is issuing a statement of parity among Semenanjung, Sabah and Sarawak leadership in the Malaysian Federation.

Semenanjung politicians of the Pakatan colour would appear to care more than the dark blue corner about East Malaysia.

The BN model of managing Borneo politicians is about giving enough, and keeping them on a leash. Pakatan if in turn ramps up and proffers a model of real inclusion and one step above power-sharing to ceding power to Borneo leaders in key fronts can alter perceptions about colonialisation from across the pond.

Pakatan can say while there are only nine MPs from East Malaysia — Wong Tien Fatt (DAP- Sandakan), Darell Leiking (PKR-Penampang), Wong Sze Phin (DAP-Kota Kinabalu), Chong Chieng Jen (DAP-Bandar Kuching), Julian Tan Kok Ping (DAP-Stampin), Wong Ling Biu (DAP-Sarikei), Alice Lau Kiong Yieng (DAP-Lanang), Oscar Ling Chai Yew (DAP-Sibu) and Michael Teo Yu Keng (PKR- Miri) — BN has failed to lift anyone from Borneo to lofty positions despite having 57 MPs from there.

Explicitly, pointing out that there is a glass ceiling for Sabah and Sarawak inside Barisan, but none in Pakatan.

And all of the benefits without having the downer of various Pakatan leaders expounding the virtue of the office of leader of Opposition because their party man is the chosen one, while the other two parties undermining the extent of control the leader of opposition has and quip instead that the real decision lies in the Pakatan leadership council.

It can stop a lot of the negative vibes pervading its universe. And generate new promise.