PKR infighting boils over

The disagreement between those who want to engage PAS and those who don’t has left PKR circles stirred and shaken. It also lifted the lid on the split between the Datuk Seri Azmin Ali camp and the Rafizi Ramli faction.

Joceline Tan, The Star

DATUK Seri Azmin Ali returned from an overseas investment trip last weekend to find himself in yet another political crisis.

PKR’s on-off romance with PAS had gone on for too long, his party’s partners in Pakatan Harapan were demanding to know when the “divorce” would take place and things were about to come to a head.

Quite a big group of his supporters were waiting to welcome him at the airport. It was an even bigger group than a few months ago, when he returned from the Middle East amid rumours that his state government was about to fall.

This time, the group came with a large chocolate cake from Secret Recipe to mark his 53rd birthday, which he cut right there in the arrival hall.

He also had to deal with reporters who peppered him with questions on issues that erupted while he was away – PAS was threatening to contest in 42 seats in Selangor while the MACC was investigating the state-linked Unisel and Mentri Besar Incorporated.

He certainly had a lot on his plate because the Pakatan Harapan council was due to meet in a couple of days and the PAS question was top of the agenda.

PKR supreme council member Azmizam Zaman Huri, who was among the entourage at the airport, said: “The MB is very cool, it is not easy to shake him.”

This month will mark three years since Azmin became Selangor Mentri Besar but he is still as hard-to-read as ever. It is not easy to tell what is going on behind that poker face apart from the fact that he means to hold on to Selangor by hook or by crook.

Umno has been beating its war drums to recapture Selangor and the Prime Minister attended the Shah Alam Umno division meeting to signal his intention.

For Azmin, Selangor is not just about the Mentri Besar post, it is also about the survival of PKR because without the state, PKR will be like Gerakan in Penang.

That is why the party has to avoid three-cornered fights and continue to engage PAS in the general election. Party leaders claimed it is an amanat or mandate from no less than Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim. Somehow or other, Malaysia’s most special prisoner is able to run his party from behind bars.

“It was an instruction from Anwar, that we tell the (Pakatan) council to allow our party to independently engage with PAS. Anwar always believes in keeping the door open unlike Mahathir, he is a doctor and if the leg is giving him trouble, he cuts it off,” said vice-president Tian Chua.

The Pakatan council, chaired by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad on Monday night, had decided that the coalition would not cooperate with PAS in the general election and that it was preparing strategies for three-cornered contests.

But it looks like PKR is not going to let the Pakatan ruling get in the way.

Chua said it is not about whether PKR is pro or anti-PAS. It is about avoiding multi-cornered contests.

“We do not have any political cooperation with PAS but making deals happens in every political party, we don’t need to spell it out. If you talk to people in the party, everybody understands the need to avoid three-cornered fights. Even Bersatu, I doubt they can survive in multi-cornered fights with PAS,” said Chua who is also Batu MP.

Well, maybe not everybody. PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli has been a vocal proponent of contesting against PAS for all it is worth. He said that surveys by Invoke, the NGO headed by him, show that three-cornered fights would benefit Pakatan.

He has the backing of some 20 leaders in PKR including Selayang MP and lawyer William Leong who put his foot down and quit the party’s political bureau in protest against engaging with PAS.

“I cannot accept that to win the general election, we have to sacrifice our principles,” said Leong.

Leong also supports Rafizi’s call for a special congress to decide on the issue. Leong implied that PKR is being tested and the party may split up like what happened in PAS if it fails the test.

But Rafizi’s stand has also rubbed many in PKR up the wrong way.

Azmin loyalist Najwan Halimi sees it as another attempt by Rafizi to undermine whatever the PKR deputy president tries to do.

Najwan, who is the Kelana Jaya division secretary, said the perception is that Rafizi is trying to create a parallel leadership in PKR or even a party within a party through Invoke.

Up until a week ago, the long-running rivalry between the Rafizi faction and the Azmin camp was known largely within the Pakatan circles.

But things boiled over when supreme council member Latheefa Koya took to Facebook to rip into Rafizi. It was a no holds barred critique and quite personal.

What she said was not new to party members. They already knew Rafizi has problems working with people and that he is ultra-sensitive to criticism although he is good at criticising others.

The Azmin-Rafizi rivalry began during the party polls in 2014 when Rafizi almost lost to Azmin’s men in the contest for the three vice-president posts.

After the Kajang Move failed to propel Anwar into the Mentri Besar’s office, Rafizi was at the forefront of blocking Azmin from becoming Mentri Besar. Azmin has not forgiven him for that. He was so adamant against Azmin getting the top job that, even as invitations from the palace went out for the swearing-in ceremony, Rafizi was still claiming he had information the job would go to Datuk Iskandar Samad of PAS.

Things have gone downhill since and Rafizi even lodged a report with MACC pertaining to allegations of graft and “requests for women” in the Selangor government. It was targeted at a close aide of Azmin.

Latheefa also alleged that he threatened to use the alternative media if the party acts against him. That probably explains why his party president has tolerated his actions and behaviour.

There were stories of how he never used his then secretary-general office at the party headquarters and nobody could tell where he operated out of.

Since resigning as secretary-general last November, the Pandan MP has thrown himself into Invoke, running it the way he should have run the party. Invoke is quite an impressive set-up and Rafizi is currently on a nationwide tour aimed at helping Pakatan win in marginal seats.

Anwar, in a message read out by his daughter Nurul Izzah at the last party congress, had praised Invoke. Rafizi’s allies claimed that Anwar gave his blessings for Rafizi to focus on Invoke because he did not want to lose the younger man to another party. It was also to get him out of Azmin’s hair.

Rafizi is one of those gifted yet flawed personalities. He is immensely intelligent, articulate and able to explain complex ideas in a simple and persuasive way. Even his replies to Latheefa’s attacks were well argued although Latheefa brushed it off as “long-winded”.

Even though his disastrous Kajang Move damaged his credibility, he remains popular with people outside who are not aware of what is going on in the party. He turned to crowdfunding and raised RM1.5mil within days to pay the damages for a court case that he lost. It spoke of his public clout.

His critics claimed he is frustrated that his political career is over because of his conviction under the Official Secrets Act, otherwise he would not be arguing that “we take suicidal risks” in three-cornered fights.

The Youth wing is also deeply split between allies of Rafizi and Azmin, and there is a power struggle of sorts going on in Kelantan over who should be the Youth leader in the state. All these ripples are not good for the party with elections on the horizon.

The argument over PAS is far from over although it is unclear whether Rafizi will continue to mobilise a special congress now that it is established that the mandate came from Anwar himself.

Rafizi’s maverick style, said political commentator Eddin Khoo, makes him rather hard to predict.

“Differences of opinions are healthy for democracy in a party but it becomes complicated going into a general election,” said Khoo.

According to Khoo, the next election will be decided by the fence-sitters. Surveys have shown that fence-sitters comprise a big group of up to 40% of the voters.

“This makes for an extremely fluid situation. As a result, political parties should be responsive to such dynamics and leave room for alliances, both before and post-election,” he said.

Some said the recent courtesy call that Azmin, Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and vice-president Dr Shahruddin Badaruddin made on Datuk Seri Hadi Awang was more than what the Malays refer to as berziarah or a dutiful visit.

The PKR delegation broached the subject of the general election and the PAS president signalled that the door is not closed.