Of the 2016 budget and the no-confidence bullshxt
The Third Force
And the third word for the day is perfidy.
Dato’ Seri Najib Razak was perhaps the most quoted man in the week that ended 17th of October 2015. But even more impressive was the fact that much of it came out of Rafizi Ramli’s mouth. His ill-inspired animus towards the Prime Minister trended along the lines of “Yes, I want him out, but no, not just yet.” Of course, if you told Rafizi I said this, he’ll tell you that I have the genius of a five year old retard.
But do I?
The parlous state of contemporary politics in Malaysia has boiled down to nothing but a game of perception. With a sluggish economy and deepening political woes, leaders from across the fence are trenching on backstairs cunning to seize opportunities in a multi-cornered and multi-faceted strife. They’re all over the place, trampling over one another in conspiracies you never knew existed. It’s just crazy.
And it gets crazier.
Unbeknown to many, Rafizi stands in league with PKR president Datin Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and three other lawmakers (hereinafter referred to as the group of five) who are dead against unseating Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Najib Razak before 2018. They fear that the opposition coalition would not survive a general election in the event that it is called for prematurely by the Prime Minister.
The fear is also of a neo-partisan confederacy between UMNO and PAS under the circumstances. Such a pact would contract their views and repress their ambitions in a way that would spell an end to their careers. They believe that such a confederacy would lead to a more comprehensive deal that would unite the Malays and demolish the Anwar Ibrahim edifice once and for all.
But I’ll scratch the surface on that a little later.
The game of perception
The group of five has been painting a picture that depicts something of a nature contrary to the aforementioned.
They’ve been talking up a storm since August, broadcasting terms by which a transition government would function in the event that a vote of no confidence against the Prime Minister is passed. The third word has it that Tian Chua was truthfully dishonest with the number of lawmakers he claimed were ready to vote Najib out from office this month. Its psychological warfare at its best (or worst, depending on your slant), and team Rafizi, Azizah, Chua, Sivarasa Rasiah and Nurul Izzah Anwar have you believing that they wanted Najib out yesterday.
But they never really did.
They don’t have the numbers in support to begin with. Recent reports and down to earth estimates suggest a rather lukewarm response from even within PKR to the no-confidence proposition. And to fully comprehend why that is, we would have to consider two possible scenarios.
Scenario 1:
The first scenario has to do with a party crisis that has been simmering for quite a while. A source that prefers to remain anonymous seems to feel that much of it has to do with a cold war erupting between cabals aligned to the PKR president and those seen sympathetic towards her deputy, Azmin Ali.
So tense is the atmosphere, there is legitimate fear that forces allied to the president would claw further into the administration of the party in the less than likely event that a transition government is truly formed. It is for this reason above all others that groups allied to Azmin would likely refrain from throwing their weight behind any motion that would result in the institutionalization of a transition government.
As a point of interest, a transition government may be occasioned in the event that a vote of no confidence is passed and the Yang di-Pertuan Agong acts in his absolute discretion by virtue of provisions under Article 40(2)(b) of the Federal Constitution.
In terms of the said provisions, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong is at liberty to withhold consent to a request by the Prime Minister to dissolve Parliament, in which case, both the PM and his Cabinet must resign. Be that as it may, both Rafizi and Azmin are well aware that prospects of there being a direct vote of no-confidence against the Prime Minister are wafer thin.
Scenario 2:
The second scenario is hinged on the electoral hypothesis. This is assuming, of course, that a vote of no confidence can be passed against Najib, following which the Prime Minister could and probably would call for the dissolution of Parliament.
Under the circumstances, PKR would take a tumble and concede many of its Parliamentary seats in three cornered fights with PAS and UMNO. The party will barely survive the onslaught and may win only in traditional strongholds. All in all, the Malays would deliver the party a crushing blow by knocking it some 15 seats short of its 2013 parliamentary tally.
Azmin is well aware of the contingency, as is Rafizi. Neither one faction believes that the party will pull through a contest of such proportion without there being heavy casualties on both sides. Thus, pushing for a vote of no-confidence was never the solution, but a diversion. Of course, Rafizi prefers that you do not know this.
But what the above does not explain is this; if indeed it is not likely for a vote of no-confidence to be pushed through, then why the need to invoke fear of a transition plan Rafizi himself knows is as outlandish as it sounds? Is the target, as always, something of an entirely different nature, something he is not telling us about?
The bullshit never ends…
Rafizi is to the truth what Steven Hawking is to doing the tango. On the 16th of October 2015, the PKR Secretary General may just as well have told Malaysians exactly why Steven Hawkings could never do the tango.
“There is no such thing as a tango.”
Trust me. That would have been very Rafizi. I feel it in my bones.
And it was on the 16th of October 2015 that the former future godfather of Kajang decided that it was ‘time to level with Malaysians’. According to the impression given by him, driving a motion of no-confidence through legislature was akin to getting Steven Hawkings to do the tango.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s going to happen. It’s very difficult to call a vote of no-confidence,” said the Pandan MP.
Yeap. He’s telling you now, in an about turn, that it’s like getting Steven Hawkings to do the tango. It would, of course, be impossible, because there is ‘no such thing as a tango’.
The caution was thrown by Rafizi amid soaring emotions he himself had helped inflame over a span of months against the Prime Minister and government. The Pandan MP watered down calls for Najib’s resignation by speaking in terms that only meant one thing; the group of five have been lying to you for a very, very long time.
Months of turbo charged propaganda by the group along with DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang suggested that Najib could easily be booted out by a vote of no-confidence, which evidently would prompt the resignation of government. But clearly, the group didn’t have their boots in the House.
The Pandan MP went on to say that the public just didn’t “understand the (parliamentary) Standing Orders,” presumably in the manner he seems to understand them. But let’s be clear on one thing; it isn’t nuclear technology.
Malaysian legislature is based largely upon the Westminster system, modelled after the democratic Parliamentary system that developed in the United Kingdom. As with most legislatures inclined towards the system, defeat on a budgetary vote would compel either the resignation of the Cabinet or the dissolution of Parliament.
This is so, considering that the government would be denied a supply of treasury or exchequer funds. The loss of supply, as this is termed, is held equivalent to a loss of confidence in government and hence, a vote of no confidence.
Rafizi was well aware of this and yet, tipped the scales to the side of irony. It would have made more sense for the group of five to impress upon lawmakers the need to vote the budget down. But apparently, that was never an option. Doing so would have exposed a party with fissures deep enough to feed the gridlock among party lawmakers.
Be that as it may, they never really did have the numbers to begin with. Not that it mattered, because booting the Prime Minister out was never part of the game plan. This had to do with a certain climate of fear that was gripping the party leadership, threatening to rip it apart at the seams.
It is said that groups allied to Azmin were (and as yet are) fearful that a transition government would spell certain political death for Azmin in the event that executive powers were granted to Wan Azizah or Nurul Izzah. It is further said that these groups are eager to have Azmin supplant Wan Azizah as party president in the nearest time possible, even if it means throwing a spanner at her face..
On the other hand, there is legitimate fear in the Rafizi camp that a confederacy between PAS and UMNO would bleed courage into Selangor PKR, from where Azmin may draw some support to topple Wan Azizah. Sources close to Wan Azizah seem to think that Dato’ Seri Haji Abdul Hadi Awang would throw his weight behind Najib in very decisive ways should the latter’s leadership be under serious threat.
These are among the reasons why Rafizi persisted with the no-confidence bullshit. He knew that the more he floated the terms of transition, the less likely it would have met the support of pro-Azmin lawmakers.
It’s a queer fix, but Rafizi may really have ‘saved’ Najib from the hooves of destiny. And that is how it is with politics. Lost in the steaming caldron of such deceptive politicking is the biggest casualty of them all; the truth.
