PKR’s ‘reformasi’ no longer a byword for change

After almost two decades of stirring up Malaysians, the party’s experiencing a malfunction of sorts, leaving it vulnerable and facing a political cul-de-sac

Jeswan Kaur, Berita Daily

It was a watershed moment when Parti Keadilan Rakyat, the political outfit  whose symbol represented a ‘black eye’, one supposedly suffered by its leader Anwar Ibrahim at the hands of a top cop, came to be.

Then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad unceremoniously booted out Anwar, his deputy in 1998, attacking the latter’s sexuality to justify the sacking.

With “reformasi” as its linchpin, a vanguardist PKR took the nation by storm, forcing Malaysians to sit up and pay heed to the promises and potential that the party reflected.

Almost two decades later, PKR is experiencing a malfunction of sorts, leaving it vulnerable and facing a political cul-de-sac.

While the ruling Barisan Nasional government under prime minister Najib Razak sabotaged infrastructure issues to impress Malaysians, going so far as to claim that the newly-operational MRT is a “gift” from Najib to the people, PKR seems lost in a maze, unsure of how to restore its post-reformasi glory.

So in came former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad, a politician who is not averse to cutting people down to size, dangling the proverbial carrot to PKR, assuring it that through an ‘inversion of power’,  victory come the 14th general election (GE) is not a far-fetched idea after all.

For a supposedly “idealistic” party, it was mindboggling that PKR under the leadership of Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and the opposition coalition Pakatan Harapan which it leads found themselves smitten by Dr Mahathir’s rhetorics of a possible win in the impending GE.

That marked the beginning of an end for PKR and Pakatan when the latter chose to declare Dr Mahathir as its leader i.e. “top dog” while Dr Wan Azizah as president and Anwar as de facto leader.

Anwar, who is currently serving a five-year prison sentence, has meanwhile, agreed to collaborate with Mahathir who also heads his own political flick, Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM) which has since become a Pakatan ally.

That this latest scenario in PKR’s world of bemusing politics has ruffled many a feathers would be an understatement. To defenders of human rights, Dr Mahathir is certainly not the man to redeem Malaysia’s besmirched honour.

Dr Mahathir inimical for nation and people

Some three weeks ago, Parti Sosialis Malaysia chairperson Nasir Hashim expressed his displeasure over Dr Mahathir, once again, assuming leadership of the country but this time under the opposition banner.

Nasir was among the many activists who faced persecution during Dr Mahathir-regime after the former was detained under the now defunct Internal Security Act (ISA) in 1987.

“If you ask me, it better not be Mahathir again. He has a history and it’s not easy for people to change, even at his age.

“These days, every time he opens his mouth, it’s like he is slapping himself in the face. Because all those things he said about other people, he did it before too,” Nasir then lamented to Berita Daily.

The PSM chief also criticised the opposition bloc for mucking up and obsessing with their choice of prime ministerial candidate instead of prioritising service to rakyat.

“It’s not for me to suggest who the PM candidate should be but what’s truly important is for them to focus on people issues. Why are they still busy figuring out who should be PM from their side?

“Serve your people first. When they accept you then they will choose you. When you win, then you can decide who should be PM,” Nasir, the former Kota Damansara assemblyperson said.

Nasir is not alone in censuring Dr Mahathir as the next possible prime minister.

Like Nasir, Suara Rakyat Malaysia or Suaram advisor Kua Kia Soong too, remembers well the atrocities perpetuated by Dr Mahathir during his 22-long years of iron fist reigning over Malaysia.

Not mincing his words, Kua said this latest bemusing scene by PKR was the biggest betrayal of the reformasi movement and with Pakatan forging alliance with the “unrepentant former autocrat”.

“Well, now that Mahathir has been made the chairperson of the coalition, Harapan will have to answer for all his scandals.

“Harapan must be prepared for more than the RM30 billion forex (foreign exchange) losses incurred during Mahathir’s term,” Kua, former DAP Petaling Jaya Utara MP, decried in a statement.

A tragedy or misfortune?

Kua’s anger and frustration with PKR’s lost interest in ‘reformasi’ is not without its merits.

“He is not sorry for the white terror of Operasi Lalang, for the political conspiracy against Anwar and saying on record that the latter is morally unfit to be PM because he is a womaniser and sodomiser, for squandering more than RM100 billion in the financial scandals during his term in office through crony capitalism and bailing out failed businessmen including his son…

“The litany of woes inflicted under Mahathir’s rule has been well-documented and every community has its story: the 10,000 indigenous peoples who were forcibly displaced from their ancestral homes in Bakun in order to make way for yet another of Mahathir’s grandiose dam projects at a time when the project had been suspended during the financial crisis in 1998.

“The Indian plantation workers whose communities were destroyed through Mahathir’s neo-liberal capitalist policies and who were forced to become urban settlers.

“The needless communal controversies created around mother tongue education during the 80s, including the Unified Examination Certificate in 1975, the National Culture Policy, the unqualified school administrators sent to Chinese schools in 1987, and others,” Kua was quoted by Malaysiakini as saying.

Kua said Dr Mahathir was the first prime minister to claim Malaysia is an Islamic state.

“He is also the top dog in the new ‘Pribumi’ party which is only open to ‘Pribumis’ no less.

“You have to be a ‘Zombie Democrat’ to accept such a party into the coalition that is supposed to embody the reformasi movement.

“Do Harapan leaders still remember what their reformasi programme stands for?” Kua asked.

Both Nasir and Kua refuse to become inure to Dr Mahathir’s draconian past,  convinced that the latter remains unrepentant and is intransigent; Dr Mahathir’s interferrence vis-a-vis PPBM inimical, hence their refusal to sanction any notion of the latter returning to lord over the country.

Call it a tragedy or misfortune, PKR and Pakatan are now in favour of “the end justifying the means”. And as for the once revered ‘reformasi’, it now passe and no longer the byword for change, the duo now instead clinging to their newfound mantra, ‘kleptocracy’, to oust Najib.