Wan Azizah is holding the Penang Chief Minister to ransom
The Third Force
Not many are aware that the recent decision by the DAP to scrub plans for a snap election in Penang was the result of a disagreement between the party’s secretary-general, Lim Guan Eng, and PKR vice president, Nurul Izzah.
Last Sunday, Guan Eng told a press conference that the issue concerned a proposal from PKR that that the DAP found unacceptable.
“A proposal was made for DAP to give up one or two of our existing state seats to PKR to make the proposal more acceptable to the PKR leadership, however we stated that this was not feasible,” he said.
He lied.
On the 20th of July 2016, a PKR delegation that was led by Nurul called in to Guan Eng’s office at Komtar. They then proceeded to convene a meeting, in which Nurul proposed that the DAP assign one or two of its seats to PKR in the event a snap poll was called for. In return, she assured him that her party would support his snap election proposal and help DAP in its campaign.
There were, of course, some other details that ‘slipped Guan Eng’s mind’. In other words, what Guan Eng told the Sunday press conference was a truth of omission, which essentially, is a whole lie. He failed to bring to everyone’s attention the bigger elephant that was in the room. That elephant, incidentally, is the reason why he so desperately needed PKR to support his snap poll proposal.
But first, let us delve into the question of seat allocations, since it was that which sparked a disagreement between Guan Eng and Nurul. As you all may already know, the current Penang state assembly has 40 members – 29 from Pakatan Harapan and 10 from UMNO. The remaining rep in the assembly is from PAS.
Now, out of Pakatan’s 29 seats, 19 belong to the DAP and the remaining, to PKR. Let us work with the hypothesis that the DAP dissolves the state assembly and ‘hands over’ two of its seats to PKR for contest. That means, the DAP would be left with 17 seats to defend.
Now, if you were to ask me, the odds of PKR winning two ‘additional seats’ in Penang are next to impossible. Lest we forget, PAS has already declared that it will contest every seat the state has to offer in the event a poll is triggered. What this means, is that every seat PKR contests would ultimately result in three cornered fights, to say the least.
Rest assured, both the DAP and PKR can cast aside hopes of wresting any seat from UMNO – neither would stand a chance. By this reasoning, let us focus only on seats that Pakatan harapan currently holds in Penang.
Given the level of decay in PKR politics, the split in its leadership and the fact that all of its contests would be three cornered fights, it wouldn’t be too farfetched to say that PKR would concede defeat to UMNO in eight constituencies, including the two it ‘stole’ from the DAP. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were to lose even more seats.
Under the circumstances, the new state assembly would have a composition looking like this:
DAP : 17 seats
PKR : 4 seats
PAS : 1 seat
UMNO : 18 seats
Do you see the problem? Pakatan Harapan’s margin against UMNO would nosedive from the current 19 seat advantage it has to a measly three seats surplus. The thought of that happening sent a chill down Guan Eng’s spine, because those are the exact number of seats UMNO would need to form a Barisan Nasional government.
Remember the 2009 Perak crisis? Despite having a three seat advantage to Barisan Nasional, the Pakatan Rakyat run state government collapsed a little over a year after it formed owing to deflections by PKR and DAP assemblypersons. In 2013, the coalition did not even come close to regaining control of the state.
Guan Eng’s biggest fear is a repeat of the 2009 Perak crisis, only this time, in Penang. Currently, the majority of DAP assemblymen in Penang are fuming that he refused to make way for Chow Kon Yeow to become Chief Minister (refer http://www.malaysia-today.net/guan-eng-tells-another-lie-the-mother-of-them-all/). They’re ready to trigger a coup at any moment – rumour is, plans are being contrived as we speak.
With a three seat margin, Guan Eng worried that the DAP Central Executive Committee (CEC) would turn the results against him and force him to resign as Chief Minister. Worse, he knew that PKR assemblymen could never be trusted for two cents and could easily be ‘bought over’ by Barisan Nasional.
However, that was not the only dilemma staring him in the face on the 20th of July. On that day, Nurul threw a surprise proposal to his face that must have given him a near heart attack. She wanted both Penang and Selangor to hold elections concurrently.
At first glance, you’d think, “Why’s that important? Why should it bother Guan Eng?”
Well, it shouldn’t, except that the delegation had a condition attached to the Selangor proposal that was similar to the Penang proposal – I am told, they wanted the DAP to surrender at least one of its seats to PKR in Selangor.
Now, the Selangor legislative assembly consists of 56 seats, 29 of which are split between the DAP, PKR and Parti Amanah Negara (PAN) at a ratio of 14:13:2. UMNO and PAS have 12 and 13 seats respectively to their credit, while the remaining seats belong to independent reps.
Let us assume that the DAP does hand two of its seats to PKR for contest. Just as in Penang, neither party would stand a chance of wresting any seat from UMNO, so we may as well focus on the seats Pakatan Harapan is currently in control of.
Do note though, that every PKR contest would be a three cornered mess, just like in Penang. That said, and using the same line of reasoning I did with Penang, it is more than conceivable that PKR would concede eight seats to UMNO in Selangor.
Unlike Penang, however, the DAP is sure to lose a seat or two if the recently concluded Sungai Besar by-election is any indication. A post mortem that was recently conducted by the MCA revealed an unmistakable shift in the pendulum to its side, signalling that the Chinese were beginning to grow wary of Guan Eng’s antics.
Despite this, and just for the sake of discussion, we’re going to assume that the DAP will retain all its seats if an election is called for tomorrow. We will further assume that PAS would concede seven of its 13 seats to UMNO in three cornered contests. Under the circumstances, the new state assembly in Selangor would look something like this:
DAP : 12 seats
PKR : 7 seats
PAN : 2 seats
PAS : 6 seats
UMNO : 27 seats
See the dilemma? Pakatan Harapan’s margin against UMNO would nosedive yet again, this time, from a 17 seat surplus to a six seat deficit! The coalition would not have the majority required to form government even if it agreed to work with PAS. And we all know that the chances of that happening are as good as the chances for me to become the next Prime Minister of Malaysia.
Remember, I did state that there was a high chance the DAP would lose some of its seats. And believe me, it would. Guan Eng knew that there was no way in hell Pakatan Harapan would ever form the next government in Selangor. Question is, why did Nurul not see what Guan Eng saw?
Do you see why Guan Eng almost suffered a heart attack on the 20th of July 2016?
At this point, some of you might be wondering, “Why the fuss? If PKR is the problem, then why bother with it? Why can’t Guan eng go ahead and dissolve the Penang legislative assembly without PKR’s support? That way, he wouldn’t need to worry about Selangor.”
True.
If Guan Eng were to unilaterally dissolve the Penang state assembly, it is not as if PKR would refuse to contest in protest. Logically, things would be better – the DAP would not need to ‘hand over’ two of its seats for PKR. Better yet, Guan Eng could tell PKR to go fly kites with regards to its Selangor proposal.
So assuming that Guan Eng went ahead with a snap election in Penang without the blessings of PKR president Datin’ Seri Wan Azizah, the new state assembly would look something like this:
DAP : 19 seats
PKR : 4 seats (PKR would lose only 6 of its current 10 seats)
PAS : 1 seat
UMNO : 16 seats
Now wouldn’t that give Pakatan Harapan a safe seven-seat margin against UMNO? And that begs the question – why did Guan Eng find it absolutely necessary to seek Wan Azizah’s blessings for his snap election proposal?
Isn’t it obvious that Wan Azizah is holding Guan Eng at ransom? You should have absolutely no doubt about this, unless, of course, you failed your maths in school or are simply too dumb to put two and two together.
I mean, Wan Azizah and Nurul could not have been so dumb as to have come up with the Selangor bullshit. Obviously, they checkmated Guan Eng, knowing well in advance that he would never agree to the Selangor proposal. So the question is not if Wan Azizah is holding Guan Eng at ransom. The question is why.
Can you already smell the fish? Stick around. I’ll be back with an answer tomorrow.
