PasMa to save Azmin

Umar Mukhtar

With the announcement that PasMa will transform itself from a Pakatan Rakyat NGO into a political party, the creation of Pakatan Rakyat Baru is nearer to being a reality. With the exodus of the liberal Anwarinas of PAS into the new party, including elected representatives, it is an opportune time for Azmin to replace PAS with PasMa as his choice of coalition partner. Of course this assumes that Pas will be too thick-skinned so as to remain in PR after more than a handful of PAS Selangor ADUNs are expected to be involved in the migration into PasMa.

So Selangor will remain under Azmin’s government, until PRU14 in 2018. What happens after that remains anybody’s guess. The only sure thing is that almost all of Chinese voters will be voting DAP. Barisan Nasional will be sending MCA to be slaughtered in the Chinese constituencies. The Malay constituencies will be contested between PAS and UMNO. The mixed constituencies with Chinese as a large minority will be passed on to PKR to contest or even by themselves, now that the Malay votes are split.

Whatever the results in terms of who wins the confidence of the majority of the elected ADUNs to rule the state, DAP will be the biggest bloc. They will make sure of that, despite PKR’s protestations. PKR will win at seats only with the consent and generosity of DAP. That makes PKR of PR Baru like the MCA of BN.

Whatever the arrangements agreed to between BN and PAS before or after PRU14, their combined seats won will be a real threat to PR Baru in forming a government. PKR  will be hard-pressed to ask for the right to contest the seats allocated to it by the old PR in 2013 but it is anticipated that DAP would try to contest seats like Kajang even at the expense of PKR. This is because in the final analysis DAP holds the trump card of whether PKR will remain relevant.

The interesting point to see is how far will PKR dance to DAP’s tune. DAP will concede to a PKR Mentri Besar, but will dominate the State Executive Council. They have previous experience in Perak on how to deal with a ceremonial Mentri Besar. Is that part of Azmin’s ambitions? Clinging to the Istana’s goodwill may not be a tenable option by that time

The game-changer would be if any of the three opposition parties will join up with BN, between now and PRU14. Stranger things have happened but DAP’s lifeline is to be an opposition party and similarly PAS is unlikely to be in BN for many ideological reasons in spite of the current situation in the party.

That leaves PKR, which has no long-term future as a party to be reckoned with. It has no party ideology, its members are still made up of brics and bracs that the word rainbow is not even an apt description. It has no distinguished leaders that portray a distinctive political ideology. Worse, its president is not the strongest person in the party, and the strongest person has ambitions beyond the party. Anything can happen.

But for now, Azmin’s seat as Mentri Besar is safe. He can choose to be a good Mentri Besar for the people of Selangor or choose to play politics at the expense of water supply, zoning laws, toll highways and industrial development in the state.

PKR is a Malay-led multi-racial party in a Chinese-led multi-racial coalition. How long will Azmin last? As long as UMNO deadwood are still running loose in Selangor.