Anwar’s flawed leadership the cause of PR’s collapse

Umar Mukhtar

It was a pragmatic Anwar Ibrahin’s demand when finalising the electoral pact prior to PRU12, that no single party, DAP or PAS or PKR, is able to form any state government even if they win all the seats allocated to them to contest. Kelantan was an exception, it was already a PAS state at that time.

There you have it, Penang, Perak and Selangor had to be shared. Either between two, and preferably among three of these parties. In the end, they lost Perak, after two PKR ADUNs and a DAP ADUN let them down.

Using the same formula in PRU13, they formed the state governments in Penang, Selangor and singularly PAS in Kelantan. DAP won all of the seats it contested in Penang, and probably could have won more and would have won the state on its own if allowed to. So they sportingly shared Penang with PKR which won some seats. DAP took the lead with Lim Guan Eng reappointed the Chief Minister. PAS won one and fairly was not even offered an Exco seat.

In Kelantan, PKR was offered a few ehsan seats to contest that enabled PAS to be seen to be giving some crumbs to PKR. Similarly, in Penang, PKR was given some inconsequential power-sharing crap to savour.

It was in Selangor that the election results were a pleasant surprise for PR. PAS made more than just inroads by winning 15 seats to PKR’s 14 and DAP’s 15. Now they are almost of equal strength. PKR was given the lead again, simply based on the ADUNs racial majority. This reason will be vehemently denied by Pakatan Rakyat, but whom are they kidding. This is Malaysia, where racial politics rule, effectively you fall back to traditional solutions. PAS graciously let the Menteri Besar post go to PKR.

The rewards were shared equally to everybody’s satisfaction. Until thie present fallout between DAP and PAS shook up the PKR-led Selangor state government. Now they are scrambling with little boys’ excuses and rationales and old ladies’ not-so-profound truisms contributing to the noise that are not solutions but just noise.

Actually, in the hundreds of hours of discussions preceeding the pact proposal, this possibility was actually addressed. If only Anwar had taken things seriously like a planner should, there were three fallback solutions discussed for such situations. Maybe the files are also in prison or kept by the President and not to be shared with her Deputy who also happens to be leader of the belegeared Selangor state government, and her personal pain in the butt. This is delicious!

What was it that was discussed? That’s for you to find out. Ask Anwar, since you enjoy unfettered access. But I can tip you that it involved a written agreement between the parties, it involved mechanisms for suspension and swaps and most importantly, it involved orderly separation of party ideals with pragmatism of the battlefields. It involved penalties too.

Picked selectively from numerous examples of Western European coalition agreements. Not re-inventing the wheel. Nothing of this “formal/informal” bullshit, or polygamous marriages and silly divorces of some schoolboys’ fantasies. They were solid, pragmatic tools to address the vagaries and fickleness of leaderships.

These never saw the light of day, in order to get written consent of the parties because Anwar, the coward, wanted to paint a picture of good faith and goodwill of all involved. As if hatred of Barisan Nasional was enough to see things through. Just because he hated face-to-face pouring of guts and bile, he totally neglected this critical issue.

But it doesn’t mean that what was internally discussed cannot be used as a guide in times of desperation. It’s in the blue box file, guys. Maybe she will pull the rabbit out of the hat after the Menteri Besar is thoroughly exhausted. That is what Anwar is good at! Wife follows suit.

They were not discussed informally in the party or among party leaders. Anwar considered these ‘technicalities’, as he called them, were not worth bothering politicians with. Or maybe he didn’t understand a word of whatever being said, especially when they did not contain hiperboles which he really loved. How wrong he is now.

PKR better fork out a solution soon.  It is the one with the most to lose, typical of a neither-here-nor-there entity. Suppose, just suppose, the zombies of UMNO Selangor wake up and deal. Say, PAS proposes ex-MB Khalid Ibrahim as a new MB and UMNO joins in, contributing what they do best; a few frogs to equalise the expected deficit of the bloc caused by Islamist frogs seeking non-kosher ponds.

PKR would lose a state government, a share of Kelantan, and only have the crumbs in Penang to show for. DAP would still have a state government. PAS, the biggest gainer with two state governments and a powerful partner to boot. Not a Unity Government that DAP is so, so terrified of. But surely, a fitting precursor! At least for a PRU14 electoral pact.

Azmin Ali better think fast. His options include choosing PAS over DAP. There’s no love lost between Azmin and DAP. DAP didn’t bat an eyelid when they chose Wan Azizah over Azmin as their nominee for MB, while PAS stayed with Azmin all the way to success even though they had favored Khalid before he resigned.

Obviously, there’s more likelihood of Azmin favoring PAS over DAP than the converse. But the party leadership loves DAP more than PAS. Looks like Azmin has to cast away the DAP-loving Japanese fan to her wits. Also, without PKR, PasMa will never survive with DAP.

If PKR is still toying with the little boy’s semantics and play ‘Cik Kak, Cik Kak’ with Japanese fans, its demise is inevitable, sooner rather than later. Up to Azmin to save the party. Be your resourceful self. Never depend on orders from prison like the Mafia. It’s so sixties.