Funeral over, now for wedding

The Pakatan Rakyat marriage was good while it lasted but the political union is over and another ‘wedding’ will take place not long after Hari Raya.

Joceline Tan, The Star

AZMIN Ali returned from Mecca on Thursday looking tranquil, untroubled and also much thinner after a month of fasting.

It was his first umrah since becoming Mentri Besar of Selangor. He had also performed his umrah during Ramadan last year. Back then, he had just survived a bruising party election, and the Mentri Besar post had seemed like an elusive dream.

But what a difference a year makes. This September will mark his first anniversary in the hot seat.

Azmin left for Mecca with a huge load off his shoulders – the Selangor government had finally inked the water agreement with the federal authorities. There has been too much politicking over water and Selangorians do not want to live through another horrible water shortage.

Today, his state government will be hosting the Hari Raya open house in Shah Alam. There has been an air of anticipation about it after it was confirmed that the Sultan of Selangor would be present.

The Sultan spends every Ramadan visiting different mosques to join the congregation for buka puasa and to pray.

But he almost never attends the state Hari Raya open houses. Moreover, the Sultan is a very savvy observer of politics and he is very discriminating about events to attend.

No one is more thrilled than Azmin because he knows how important it is for a Mentri Besar to have a warm working relationship with the Palace.

But the same cannot be said of the ties between the three parties that make up his administration.

Speculation is throbbing that there will be a new state coalition not long after Hari Raya. The new coalition, according to the political chatter, will comprise DAP, PKR and the PAS breakaway group Harapan Baru.

But it is still very much a case of building castles in the air because PKR is split about whether PAS should stay or go.

In fact, the three parties are still at odds about whether Pakatan Rakyat is alive or gone.

The coalition is deemed to be dead in Penang but the “funeral” is not quite over. The sole PAS assemblyman in the state, Datuk Salleh Man, is still the Penang Islamic Council chairman and part of the state government. DAP does not dare to touch him yet.

As far as the Kelantan government is concerned, Pakatan is still alive and kicking.

But Pakatan in Selangor is dead to some and alive to others.

Three different scenarios in three different states – that is what politics is like in the new political landscape.

The DAP side insists that the coalition has ceased to exist and that PAS should exit the Selangor government since it was the one that severed ties with DAP.

But PAS is not going anywhere soon. The PAS side says that DAP should be the one to quit in Selangor since it had pronounced the death sentence on Pakatan.

The PKR leadership is split on the question of whether PAS should stay or go. The group aligned to PKR secretary-general Rafizi Ramli wants to replace PAS with Harapan Baru.

The group aligned to Azmin is against any harsh action towards PAS. Azmin is said to prefer the current arrangement, he has no issues with PAS and he wants to take a wait-and-see approach.

Azmin has been silent on Harapan Baru but Rafizi has openly welcomed it and said that he would speak on its platform.

Selayang MP William Leong’s tongue-in-cheek take on what lies ahead is that DAP and Harapan Baru, are “already dating”.

“We are waiting for the ‘wedding day’. It’s time to continue with a new partner. Our priority is the Selangor government but we have made our stand, Pakatan does not exist anymore at the national level.

“The PAS muktamar decided that they want to put the Islamic state and hudud on the front burner, they don’t want to work with DAP, the ball is at their feet,” said Leong.

But PKR vice-president Shamsul Iskandar said that it is premature to assume there will be a new coalition.

“Even without a formal pact, we can still govern Selangor. The government can go on as a loose grouping of parties under the leadership of Azmin,” said Shamsul who is also Bukit Katil MP.

But what all these politicians are less keen to talk about is that PAS, despite its shortcomings, is no push-over. Neither DAP nor PKR have the sort of organisation or grassroots that PAS boasts of. It is an established party, it commands the moral high ground among many Malays, and it has run the marathon of politics.

In contrast, Harapan Baru is formed by what many see as “sore losers”. There is something not quite democratic in spirit about people who quit a party because they could not accept their defeat and then form another party.

Can this type of people run the marathon of politics? Will they walk off again if they do not do well in their new outfit?

The other concern about this group is their obvious lack of grassroots.

However, the Harapan Baru personalities are planning to spearhead the Bersih 4.0 street protest to show that they can mobilise the masses and flood the streets with people.

The next Bersih rally will be less about free and fair elections than illuminating Harapan Baru’s political prospects for the next general election. The street protest will be the group’s calling card.

DAP leaders have been the most enthusiastic about Harapan Baru. DAP sees it as the Malay and Muslim face of the new coalition.

DAP is always on the lookout for Malays who do not talk too much about Islam and who do not harp about race and Malay rights.

For instance, a DAP leader recently highlighted former Deputy Prime Minister Tun Musa Hitam as a potential Prime Minister candidate for the opposition.

DAP blames Umno for everything bad under the sun, yet every one of its preferred candidate for Prime Minister is or used to be with Umno – Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and now Musa.

Apart from the Umno brand, Malaysians are being offered one geriatric candidate after another. Tengku Razaleigh is 78, Anwar is 68 and Musa is 81. However, they have yet to proposition Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who turned 90 last week.

The Raya mood will dominate in the next few weeks before the politicians start playing hardball again.

The urban intelligentsia see the open warfare between DAP and PAS as wayang or for show.

“Put yourself in their shoes. You cannot keep quiet, you got to make a big show of it. If the fallout was really about principles, one of them would have walked out long before this. Instead, you have big-guns from DAP and PAS firing empty bullets. It makes a lot of noise but no one dies,” said a Chinese lawyer.

The beauty of the Selangor government is that all three parties have equal say. No one party can kick out another party and they need each other to survive.

But that has also become a bane with the DAP-PAS fallout.

The optimists are talking about a new wife and another wedding. But the realists say that the divorce is still not final.

How things unfold in Selangor will depend to a large extent on Azmin because the Mentri Besar plays a key role.

He left for his umrah with a load lifted from his shoulders but he has returned to face what could be the biggest challenge of his political career – holding the Selangor government together.