Even as Malaysia faces crisis after crisis, Anwar Ibrahim has now decided to set his sights even lower, and focus all his energies on toppling Khalid Ibrahim. Good chance he will fail there too.
Anwar’s credibility is crumbling almost as fast as his integrity is disintegrating.
Anwar’s announcement that Wan Azizah will be the next menteri besar immediately brought to mind Sept 16, 2013.
It seems that once again, Anwar is bluffing. Instead of getting the numbers and then creating hype, he is creating hype in a sad attempt to get numbers. Once again, it is shoot first and ask questions later.
Anwar’s hope for Sept 16 was that if he could make everyone believe he had the numbers to take over the federal government by the crossover of parliamentarians, then more and more parliamentarians would join his cause and make the myth he was selling a reality.
When Sept 16 came, all of Malaysia saw Anwar revealed to be the fraud that he was - that he never had the numbers, and that he was doing nothing more than gambling with the nation’s future.
Tearing Pakatan apart
Instantly after Anwar announced PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail as the next menteri besar, PAS Selangor denied it had agreed to this move.
This slams home the point that every anti-Khalid effort since the Kajang Move has achieved nothing except to tear Pakatan Rakyat apart.
At a Pakatan meeting that PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang (right) chose not to attend, Anwar failed to win the Islamist party’s endorsement for Wan Azizah, and was only able to achieve a joint statement saying “we’ll talk about it”.
PAS is very understandably asking why it should support PKR’s candidate (especially given how divided PKR is at this point), when it could very well push to take on the menteri besar’s position.
PAS appears to have had enough of browbeating and bullying by an ‘ally’ it sees as being all talk and no substance - the same party that PAS always has to support on the ground in elections because of PKR’s persistently hopeless or non-existent party machinery.
What would happen if PAS and PKR continue to be at loggerheads? Or if PAS decides to take the extreme measure of uniting with Umno against PKR and DAP on the question of the menteri besar?
Then, throughout Malaysia, Pakatan dies an early death at the tender age of six years.
All about increasing payout to water firm?
Already, as it is, one of the worst parts of this crisis is having to read sense from people we are so accustomed to spewing nonsense on. It is heart wrenching to see that, for once in their lives, it is the likes of Ibrahim Ali, Hassan Ali, Shamsuddin Lias (Umno opposition leader in Selangor), and even Utusan Malaysia taking the right side.
I’m sure some will be against what they say merely out of habit, but if we look at this objectively, it is painfully obvious that Pakatan leaders are bending over backwards to justify the unjustifiable.
(I have already written no less than six articles addressing all the key issues used to criticise Khalid and ‘justify’ his removal.)
A theory that this coup d’etat has a lot to do with PKR favouring certain players in the water restructuring exercise that I alluded to some time ago is now breaking with even greater detail.
Raja Petra Kamaruddin (right) has been wrong about a great many things, but he has been right on some; and I’m betting he is right on this one as well.
Consistent with this view is Rafizi Ramli’s blatant statement that the valuations of the water deal will change. I will bet significant sums of money that in this change, one water concessionaire will get a higher payout.
Puppet rule
Wan Azizah is a great woman, and has always been personally very nice to me. She is an individual with a kind heart who has never given anyone cause to doubt her compassion or tenderness.
In fairness, she cannot be said to have demonstrated the qualities of a strong leader.
I don’t think anybody harbours any illusion about who really runs PKR. Equally, no one harbours any illusion about who will run Selangor if Wan Azizah is elected menteri besar.
Already there are rumblings that should this change take effect, the ‘kontraktor berwibawa’ crony patronage system from Anwar’s days as finance minister will snake its way into Selangor’s administration. The very thought of it is probably already making Khalid balk.
Enjoying the accountability-free position of ‘de facto leader’, whatever that means, Anwar seems to want to extend his undemocratic portfolio to de facto leader of Selangor.
This system and pairing is not only undemocratic, it has proven thoroughly ineffective.
PKR is easily the worst-run party in Malaysia. For one thing, countries the size of India and Indonesia are able to start nationwide elections after, and finish them before, PKR’s own farce of internal party elections.
Anwar’s influence in the party is equally in shambles. Even with the fielding of his candidate for deputy president Saifuddin Nasution (left) to act as a third corner spoiler, Khalid is still toe-to-toe in the elections with the party’s other feudal boss, Azmin Ali - a clear indication that even the party grassroots want change.
Anwar’s other trusted lieutenant, Rafizi Ramli, has meanwhile fallen considerably behind in the vice-president’s race.
In fact, Anwar’s only candidate that won in the PKR race was the one who won uncontested.
The death of principles
Once again, it’s hard to write these things. When I worked for Anwar, and was arrested one weekend, he came with others to stand vigil outside the Dang Wangi police station, calling for my release. I apologise if writing the following makes me ungracious.
At the same time, I cannot forget another anecdote, that Nurul Izzah Anwar often shares when at events with Khalid. She regales audiences about how when Anwar was sent to prison, no high profile Malaysian dared to come and visit him in Sungai Buloh for fear of sharing his taint. No one except Khalid.
However, it now seems that all bets are off.
When any politician reneges on his promise to relinquish power when he promised to, red flags and alarm bells should be blaring.
Anwar’s excuse for not quitting after GE13, like he said he would, was, “we won the popular vote, so I’m not quitting,” immediately demonstrating that he had been bluffing all along.
How sad to see a man once regarded as intelligent, dynamic and principled make up such flimsy excuses and cling so shamelessly to empty trappings of power.
Should Khalid fail to step down after his second term as he announced, then he will deserve similar derision.
I never criticised Anwar publicly until the Kajang Move. Watching him continue to obsess about whatever little power he can fight over has been a continuing disappointment.
Gone, it seems, are the dreams he sold us of a better Malaysia and a political movement based in firm principles. In its place is naked ambition, petty politicking, and greedy scavenging over whatever money that is up for grabs.
A good friend reminded me: as we all long desperately to remove BN, the question we must ask ourselves is whether we are willing to sacrifice our integrity in order to replace BN. Does our desperation to reach these ends truly justify any and all means?
It remains to be seen whether Anwar will wrest Selangor; but with his abandonment of principle in favour of greed, it is certain that he has lost Malaysia forever.
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