Umno's Changing Fore-tunes

NAJIB’S UMNO RUNNING AROUND INTO A CIRCLE OF THE DEAD



The will to fight having snapped at the very top following the losses at Bukit Gantang and Bukit Selambau on April 7, Umno, which has long been overwhelmed by contractors and businessmen, can only hope to retain her dwarfed stature in the Barisan Nasional (BN) via off-party means.

The party is apparently in grave need of NGOs, the para-military Wataniah outfit and state agencies like the Biro Tatanegara (BTN) to fight the battles for the state-enriched Malay elite that’s mostly dissociated from the people.

NGO queen, Marina Mahathir, catching the call by the Umno Youth vice-president, Razali Ibrahim, for members of his wing to join NGOs, asked in her blog whether these chaps are expected to simply declare they are from Umno Youth and then expect to be elected presidents of the voluntary outfits.

The tomcat-call isn’t at all new. Over and over again it was voiced by office-bearers during the recent party divisional meetings. It can’t be such a piece of cake.

But rich contractors and businessmen now stud the starry sky of Umno, many, if not most, winning their way through the ranks via vote-purchase.

These are dissociated from the people. They do not fight politically. They do not know how.

Some said aloud they cannot fight because they are contractors who have now to depend on the largesse of the ruling Opposition in five (or four states) and in one Federal Territory.

It’s this loud song of business distress that’s breaking the morale to bits in Umno, now flung high as confetti after the new president, Najib Tun Razak, slumped to the ground before the unbroken losing streak running from 8 March, 2008 to 7 April, 2009.

He is himself a representative of the traditional and the entrenched elites.

Now unable to face another knock-out in Penanti on May 31, the man is certainly not an Umno and BN leader who can be expected to regain lost grounds. Worse, people are beginning to shun him and soon he may not be anymore listened to.

Purchase and sleight-of-hand is looking like the only ways to regain the loss grounds and loss states, like what happened in Perak which finally converted into a gain of merely five percent of Malay votes on April 7 in Bukit Gantang.

That gain was offset by 10 percent of Chinese votes going the other way, resulting in a bigger-than-ever loss the BN had sustained in that constituency.

The thinking is simple: Because a direct and comprehensive ideological dispute is impossible for Umno to launch against the Pakatan, it will mean we have to be sitting through a political paradigm shift that will make democratic elections a grand market-place with outright purchases, infiltrations and sabotage of NGOs to counter Civil Society.

How will that ever work?

Umno is not anymore the party that was born in 1946 and which was sustained by voluntarism through the murderous Communist Insurgency, the main thrust of which ended in 1960.

But after the fight for freedom and democracy has now become a furious greed and the party is merely a playground for the rich and connected, the questions members ask are about which Malays the party represents and what are the leaders fighting for other than for their own business and financial interests?

The party is fractioned into factions of the New Malay, the indigene Mafiosi, many members without a smear of nationalism in their natures.

The previous party president and Prime Minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (now Tun), could have even made Malaysia to become like a vassal of Singapore, himself sometimes described as a “Singapore serf”, a thing unthinkable in Umno until his tenure.

Singapore was made the anchor of Iskandar Malaysia in Johor and was apparently represented in Khazanah Malaysia and in Level Four of the PM’s Department.

Are these psychological warps the results of Umno’s successes?

Are these changes necessary in a party that leads in a successful industrial and trading plural nation of 28 million souls, mixed in a swap of ideological divisions for a Greater China, Greater India, and the bunched Anglophile Compradors which have now taken to Neo-Cons valuelessness by video-visages?

And are Malay contractors and businessmen the answer to the cultural shifts that ought to have been a leap towards modernization and integration in an industrial and digital setting?

Truth is, there’s hardly a Malay critical mass worthy of spawning the much vaunted Bumiputra Commercial and Industrial Community (BCIC) after more than 50 years since Independence or more than 30 years of the New Economic Policy.

The New Malays, dripping excessive Brute deodorants in their cosmetically sweetened spaces of BMWs and Mercedes, are definitely no match for the demonstration-hardened Marhaens, the Muslims of Pas and volunteer activists of the Pakatan demanding change to secure liberty, transparency and accountability.

The government had been run by a dictator in the second half of Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s leadership, the man taking power over religion and the judiciary as well.

He slurped power and decided on his own everything the Malays had held dear or distressful, including teaching of Mathematics and Science in English even in rural schools.

It was once rumored he had suggested the confusing anti-Hadith personage, Kassim Ahmad, to become Mufti of Penang. Many think of Kassim as an outright charlatan, either as a Socialist or as a Muslim.

The result is a gaping question that hasn’t been answered to date – Wither Malaysia? There is also the problematic and arousing puzzlement about where the Malays are being led to, like paddy-buffalos.

Najib has answered none of these questions. Has he the answers or will he eventually lead the Malays and the nation into one or another form of vassalage?

In the given circumstances it is the Opposition that’s looking more and more the likely winner in the next general elections. It is merely in need of a thorough cleansing to remove the dregs and the culturally bewildered.

The Pakatan represents the larger segment of the people and Najib’s Umno isn’t looking likely that it shall at all become relevant to the lesser endowed among Malays and Malaysians alike. These form the greater body of producers in Malaysia.

Adios amigo! Ces’t la vie! ---a. ghani ismail, 28 April, 2009

RAINBOW IN THE SON

RAINBOW IN THE SON - NAJIB’S FIRST WEEK IN POWER



Wretched days gloomed the recall of power to the family of Malaysia’s glorious leader, Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, whose son, Mohamed Najib, 55, was sworn-in as the country’s new premier on April 3 only to be socked by a double defeat on April 7 when the Barisan Nasional (BN) he now leads lost to Pakatan Rakyat in Bukit Gantang and Bukit Selambau in a fight for grabs.

The spontaneous reaction when the results were announced was ‘It’s over!’ (Habis!).

The third contest in the by-elections did not bother anyone. Batang Ai was a BN seat in Sarawak the ruling coalition retained.

Bukit Gantang (Parliamentary) and Bukit Selambau (State) were fought against Najib’s clever takeover of the Perak government the Pakatan is contesting. Also staked in the fight for the finish was Najib’s One Malaysia concept.

People are now asking what does the One Malaysia actually mean, a critical question that’s sending his ascent to the highest office in the county into a popular frown that can cost him a quick loss of confidence.

Najib walked into his first day of office on April 6. A day later he was shrunk by the acid froth that surfaced from the larger-than-before losses in the two constituencies the BN should have walked away with, hands down.

As he shrunk in size his arch-rival, Anwar Ibrahim, rose into an out-of-proportion giant.

Anwar is now poised to grow into a mighty Godzilla win or lose against the peculiar charge of sodomy he was alleged to have enjoyed in a ride of his aide, Saiful, 21, a day after he returned from umrah (supererogatory pilgrimage) in Mecca.

It suggested he was addicted to forcible homosexual thrust many refuse to believe is possible for a man of 61 with a bad back to boot.

Clearly the dual defeat on April 3 injured Najib worse than before.

In his trail to the top he lugged an out-sized luggage which became heavier after his chosen running-mate, Ali Rastum, was disqualified from contesting for party number two by the Umno Disciplinary Board. Ali was found guilty of political corruption and the country is abuzz until now.

Wagging tongues had since verged on the vitriolic. When he chose Gerakan president, Koh Tsu Khoon and his Wanita Chief, Tan Lian Hoe, into his Cabinet, the Malays became sullen.

The duo was mainly responsible for the punishment meted out on former Umno divisional chief in Penang, Ahmad Ismail, for saying in a communal banter the Chinese were squatters in Malaysia.

When Ahmad was forced out of all his political and NGO positions and then, in fact, was charge for sedition (later withdrawn), the whole 14 divisions of Penang Umno protested against the severe punishment and against the Gerakan duo.

Later former Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir, was to refer to the event in a speech wherein he said it would soon be seditious for the Malays to call Malaya Tanah Melayu (Malay Motherland).

It’s ironic, and perhaps negligent, for Najib to make Koh Tsu Khoon in charge of Unity, which ought to entrust the One Malaysia concept to him. And with him in the Cabinet is Tan Lian Hoe a lot of the Malays in Umno had wanted out.

It must also be remembered members of the Movement Against Teaching Mathematics and Science in English who had held a large demonstration in Kuala Lumpur weeks before had campaigned against the BN in Bukit Gantang.

The upshot is obviously bad for Najib. While some are saying let’s wait for the first 100 days of the new premier before judging him, a lot of Malays are saying he is not championing or even representing their cause.

Najib is, they say, only a more efficient version of Pak Lah, the party president they sacked and may now be punished for having done that.

Meanwhile, the MIC has shown its dissatisfaction for being given the junior Human Resource Cabinet post and not either the Works or the Transport Ministry where good fruits are bunched.

It’s certain Najib is in deep waters. What’s happened to the PPP is a question worth examining after it was said 6,000 of the party members in Kedah had joined the PKR before the April 7 by-elections.

It’s looking like Najib may sink before he is actually launched. But what would it take for the Pakatan Rakyat to become an acceptable alternative to the BN? ---a. ghani ismail, 13 April, 2009

PAK LAH'S UNEASY ENDING

CRUSHING END TO PAK LAH’S RULE IN UMNO


Crushed into a crunch, leaving in a pall of gloom, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (Pak Lah) on the last day of Umno’s 59th general assembly, took a final stab at his successor, Najib Tun Razak, on the Saturday that seemed to have planned to rain but didn’t, possibly to see to it his predecessor, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, would attend the event and come out dry and comfy.

The New Sunday Times 29th March front-paged the story, asking aloud, “April 2 handover?”, meaning will the transfer of power actually happen on April 2.

It’s about the last words of Pak Lah in the 2008 General Assembly he had stalled and was finally held the previous five days, electing a new set of office-bearers in the Supreme Council that ought to have been done in 2007.

In that final speech at the assembly he announced he would be seeking an audience with the Yang di-Pertuan Agong (King) on Thursday, “to convey his intention of relinquishing his post as prime minister.”

He said, “Insya Allah (God willing), this will be accepted,” the New Sunday Times reported on page 3.

It’s a stretch of words that was a clear offence, leaving some interpreting the clause to mean the Yang di-Pertuan Agong did not want Najib Tun Razak to become Prime Minister.

Already unhappy about having to live in Umno with his remarkable son-in-law as the new Youth Chief, many could barely digest the offensive of the former party president and outgoing premier. It was uncalled for.

In the foyer a little later, a political writer told me the Agong does not want Najib, a quick semantic enhancement of the spit that could have had its root in the appeal to the King former de facto law minister, Zaid Ibrahim, had said he would make.

I replied it wasn’t true. It’s merely Pak Lah finding it difficult to relinquish his posts, I said.

Pak Lah was insisting he would go down in history worse than badly. His son-in-law had won in the election for Youth chief after he was announced guilty of political corruption by the party’s disciplinary board.

Even after he was booed in the assembly his father-in-law used the occasion to declare Khairy Jamaluddin deserved to win because ‘he had worked very hard.’

Family had always come first to Pak Lah. Now family had come before party and nation, a sizzling sufferance the party members will not hold without baulking, causing many to question whether the BN can make it in the Bukit Gantang by-election on April 7 with that man on board. The BN will.

When asked how Khairy shall find his spots in Umno after the repeated booing and heckling, Pak Lah said Anwar Ibrahim too had had a degree of difficulty when he became Umno Youth chief in 1982.

The comparison cannot hold. Anwar was not only a charismatic leader from his student days but an internationally acclaimed youth leader as well.

Before joining Umno in 1981 Anwar was ABIM president for nearly a decade and president of the Asia-Pacific chapter of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY). How does Khairy at all compare?

In any case, Anwar is now leading the Opposition pact. Will Khairy be going his way?

The Supreme Council election had otherwise been satisfactory to the larger good of the party, bringing in Muhyiddin Yassin as number two with Zahid Hamidi, Hishamuddin Hussein and Shafie Afdal as vice-presidents.

The new team is widely read as giving Najib a strong support in his agenda for change, a call the party must make, or crumble to death in the process by the sheer weight of its luggage. The party has become corrupt.

The move necessitates a clean party leadership and cabinet, something Pak Lah was top-billed for five years ago, him turning upside-down so swiftly it defeats an easy example to be gotten from human history.

He seemed to have believed his job was first and last to dismantle all that Mahathir had done, himself willingly becoming Singapore-inclined to the degree he dumped the national quest to regain the use of the Selat Tebrau (Johor Straits).

People were aghast when Malaysia lost to Singapore Batu Putih (Pedra Blanca). Thousands had wept openly, the tears suggesting Pak Lah’s end times will not be an easy one. ---a. ghani ismail, 29 March 2009

THE UMNO DILEMMA

NAJIB IN A DO OR DIE CLINKER DRY POLITICAL WARP

Or

Can He Avoid A Purge In Umno?


REALITY IN UMNO crashed like a head-on collision of bullet trains on Wednesday, 25 March 2008. The outgoing premier’s son-in-law, the notorious Khairy Jamaluddin, was announced the winner in the contest for the coveted Umno Youth chief against all odds.

It was just about 24 hours after Najib Tun Razak delivered his Umno-reform speech to the party’s wings, promising a clean-up and an acceptable team for his cabinet when he does become PM on April 2.

Khairy, who was declared by the party’s disciplinary committee guilty of political corruption was somehow not disqualified from contesting in the party’s elections.

Others were, including a contestant for the party’s deputy president.

Initial reactions were of deep dismay. The turn of events which was not altogether unexpected, was widely described as “disastrous,” the impact stupefying after Umno and the BN’s colossal losses on 8 March, 2008, and the bad streak in by-elections that followed.

The victory was indigestible, the stomach pain it caused trailing into certain conclusion that Umno has become corrupt at the core and will lose at the 13th general elections unless the toxic waste is quickly removed.

Diehard members in the party wishing to keep spirits from collapsing suggested Khairy may be made to prove his innocence in court.

But the contest for power hasn’t ended and should Muhammad Muhammad Taib win position number two today, many opined little would be left in the new leadership line-up to stage a credible moral conflict for Najib to regain any trust and stage a purge.

It isn’t Umno alone that’s facing a moral crisis. Malay elected representatives in the Party Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) have promptly proven themselves morally lacking as well, two unable to resist the dubious succulence of cheap China Dolls and another duo in Penang allegedly caught with their hands deep in the cookie-jar.

Those in Pas aside, the Malays, especially in Umno, have had to pay rather of a high price for rushing for big cash through the swift transition from the agrarian to the commercial and industrial society without the briefest ideological effect under Dr. Mahathir.

As a result, a large chunk of the urban and new-urban Malays were becoming overwhelmingly materialistic, currently described by the intelligentsia as “self- interested” for simplicity.

In other words, in his enchantment with pragmatism, Dr. Mahathir failed to administer the correct medicine for the people he pooled into his string of corporate housings and industrial parks to provide for his brand of the new society.

Najib’s father, the architect of the New Economic Policy (NEP) was different. Tun Razak was a Labor Party member in England.

As premier, basing his model of development on the ideals and strategy of Labor, he purposed a clear ideological direction and set of priorities which he secured in the NEP, plus his Red and Green Books.

The transition involved millions of Malays in the rural-urban drift.

In the social and cultural shifts, to function in a modern and plural society the Malays would have required something clearer and more concrete than the archaic content of the Malay-Islamic corpus that had become more of rites-of-passage rather than anything we may construe as a living ideology.

This is now the Malay Dilemma – to purpose an intelligible, coherent and comprehensive ideological display of the processes of change, modernization, development and integration, albeit dressed in Islamic garb, or to continue refuting the need of an ideology and trust in the charisma of the leader who addresses the future as a pragmatic accident of fortunes, and of fate – his own.

Hence, Najib must first resolve this dilemma with a certain sense of purpose and a strong will.

People ask endlessly, can he do it? Or can’t he?

The answer is simple – he must. Or it is indeed the end of Umno. It is do or die. --- a. ghani ismail, 26 March 2008

MALAY UNITY RECALLED ON SUNDAY

With the worst over and Najib Tun Razak finally and actually taking over as Umno president and premier after the 59th Umno general assembly beginning Tuesday 24 March, tension was decently absent during the Sunday Malay Unity gathering at the TNB Multipurpose Hall in Kuala Lumpur where former Prime Minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, delivered a lengthy keynote address to usher in the new regime.

Speakers and attendees, admitting their feelings of anxiety, were quite relaxed, some suffering themselves in private about the lack of a think-tank to settle for a common and coordinated strategy.

It was about surveying the grounds lost during Pak Lah’s five years of flip-flop and the moral decay in Umno crowned by Ali Rastum’s disqualified bid for party number two because of “money politics.”

It was a peep of the new divide among the Malays who are now given to three political parties with the intrusion of the multiracial Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) led by Anwar Ibrahim.

The underside up, the once docile Malay agricultural community, having been predominantly transcribed into a commercial and industrial society governed by state-enriched political, administrative and professional elite in as many years as Mahathir was PM, has split by dint of educational and workplace diversities as the strongman was retiring.

He had successful turned Malaysia into an industrial nation but the Malays had not derived new production tools worthy of note other than in manufacturing the Japanese techno-graphed Proton cars, hybridized with the Lotus from Norwich in England into a national pride.

After it had gone stale by Pak Lah’s politics of vengeance against Mahathir (he had even ordered the Augusta holdings of Proton sold for one Euro, worth RM4.50 at that time), the Malays in Umno and in some NGOs now want to regain the lost grounds and the lost time. .

Dr. Mahathir, ruing the divided house, called for a straight shot back to Malay political dominance. He mentioned Pak Lah’s Singapore Sling in apt rupture.

“Some Malays are even afraid to refer to Malaysia as Tanah Melayu (Malay motherland), preferring to steer clear of ‘racism’ since anything that has to do with a commitment to the unity and development of the Malays and Bumiputra would be strenuously condemned as being ‘racist.’

It’s a recall of the role of Umno, a role that has been lost in the moral slump of a party now seen to have been squashed into a cesspool and appearing no more than a grant of wholesale corruption.

After Malacca Chief Minister, Ali Rastum, was debarred from the Umno Supreme Council election, Pak Lah’s son-in-law, Khairy Jamaluddin, has been found guilty of vote-buying by the Umno Disciplinary Committee, but he was allowed to contest.

He wanted to become the Umno Youth chief now and Prime Minister before he turns 40 in seven years. Mahathir mentioned him and immediately took a drink to clear his throat.

Most leaders at the gathering were clear about rallying behind the new leader, Najib Tun Razak, and standing up against Anwar Ibrahim, who will have to hold on to his seat to face the impending slaughter.

But while among the speakers political outlooks were different, everyone was certain about one thing – that there should be no compromise on the special rights and privileges of the Malays and Bumiputras.

“We need to be clear about one thing first,” said Datuk Panglima Salleh Said Keruak. The special rights and privileges enshrined in the Constitution cannot be shared.”

Representing the Bajau in Sabah, he said, ”power can be shared but not in a 50-50 equation. We in Sabah are not willing to depart from what was agreed in the founding of Malaysia in 1963 and we look to the Malays in West Malaysia to uphold and to defend the agreement.”

After that was wrapped the worries extended to the decision to end the New Economic Policy and showed through in the technological gap that expanded during the five years of Pak Lah as premier.

Off-stage a few talked about the technological lapse.

A couple of years ago Sony presented in Malaysian malls its robots dancing in wireless choreography involving more than 200 movements.

That happened while we were perversely regressing into a digital gap with the Japanese that could span 60 years once again.

Pak Lah chose to plant fruits for export to Japan in a free-trade exchange with Japanese automobiles, an exchange that could have been inspired by Aladdin’s new lamps for old.

Umno should be made conscious about that fact. It was that kind of criminal waste that had caused much of the widespread disillusionment and anxiety when in a time like this the nation should have opted to employ high-tech in agriculture too.

It was primarily because of that technological and moral regression that Umno lost her role as the Malay leader and must now quickly regain the profile or the Malays will not rally behind the party as they had done many times in the past.

The party is corrupt at the core, its rich elite sunk prematurely into debilitating hubris bringing an unprecedented dissociation the party leaders cannot fail to redress without losing altogether the faith and the trust of the Malays.

The malady is captured in a brief and succinct description by Prof. Dr. Shamsul Amri of Etnika, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Said he, Umno has become socially and politically distanced from the Malays.

The party is no longer representing any ideals of the youths too.

With six million new voters expected to be registered for the next general elections in a total of 16.9 million, the Umno leaders ought to slot that remark into the members’ brains to instantly motivate re-orientation. .

Umno and the BN are facing three by-elections on April 7, which could be less than one week into Najib’s leadership.

Even if losing in Bukit Selambau and Batang Ai may be overlooked, in Bukit Gantang a BN defeat can mean a very long haul to redeem Najib.

The former Perak Menteri Besar, Nizar Jamaluddin, will be Pas candidate. Umno/BN ought to win.

The fight for Malay survival and political dominance is on in earnest and it must begin right now. Hidup Melayu! ----a. ghani ismail, 24 March, 2009

PAKATAN - INTO THE FLOURISH OF A FAILED CAUSE

INSIDE THE MELODY OF A FRANTIC MOTLEY


Shultz is dead. But inside the Pakatan Rakyat’s capricious political lap-up, his catching comic-strip, Peanut, is kept alive and going strong in Malaysia.

The Pakatan is nearly a juvenile cult that’s severely struck by self-flogging the likes of which has never been seen or heard on this side of sanity.

It’s gone mad. The behavior from the sudden loss of power in Perak, hopelessly infected by the undressing of a Selangor State Executive Councilor has given the political pact to convening the Perak State Assembly under a tree and then celebrating the event of March 3 with a plaque planted beneath the tree it named “Democracy Tree”.

Hilarity of such a height cannot be serious about damage control.

The pact, having sustained serial self-inflictions, ought to have had the sense not to behave as a comic opera if it is at all serious about becoming an alternative to the Barisan Nasional (BN), the corruption and snoot-arrogance of the rich considered and duly detested.

When the plaque under the “Democracy Tree” was vandalized and then removed, the comic opera in Perak reacted as expected, to vow to replace that plaque with a better one – in four languages, making itself a political trite worth no more than a used tissue.

Right on time like a bell that tolls, Gobind Singh Deo in Parliament shouted across the floor to call Deputy Prime Minister, Najib Tun Razak, a “murderer”, crowning his lusty version of the Altantuya trial with a spiteful abuse of parliamentary privilege to seal his own fate and that of the Pakatan in one blabbering blob.

Whether or not Gobind Deo will recover from his suspension of one year beginning 16 March is of no historical value. It will be a historical fact that Pakatan is sunk.

Change has come to Malaysia after five-years of stupefying somnolence of a leader Dr Mahathir had seen fit to prescribe as his successor.

Now that Najib Tun Razak will become Premier at long last, it is his concept of One Malaysia that will attract popular support and reduce the Opposition once again as it happened in 2004.

Najib knows he must appeal to the people. He is aware the people have become a Third Force that will morally decide between the Ruling Coalition and the Opposition.

The Opposition, even as it attempts to scare Najib with the ghost of Altantuya and wring his neck with allegations of mega-corruption, has failed to show any evidence to underscore the wild fabrications.

What appeared last week as a “new revelation” purportedly written by a French journalist residing in Bangkok merely made public what was in the cautioned statement of Sirul, one of the pair still in trial over the gruesome killing. That statement was not admitted in court.

Even the last minute attempt by the spurned Prime Minister, Pak Lah, to gain some vital sympathies from Malay and Chinese parents, teachers and scholars by protesting against the teaching of Mathematic and Science in English, has failed to inflame popular temper.

What that means is simply that the extraordinary swing the Opposition enjoyed in the previous general elections will not stay after Pak Lah, le estranger, has gone home to roost.

The Opposition had won by a hulk of BN voters who voted against the Coalition to remove Pak Lah, a willed act of moral conscience.

A quick look at the 2008 elections results will show merely 15 percent of returnees are needed for the BN to regain the two-third majority in parliament and all state governments including Kelantan.

But it is unlikely, at this point of time, for the BN to capture Kelantan. There the Pakatan has gained Tengku Razaleigh as an ally, him failing to gain a second nomination to contest for president in Umno against Najib and therefore, is at war.

Now, as the excitement begins to subside and more people return to sobriety after the drunken recall of primitive power in the Opposition pact, the question most people would want to know is not about who will be brought home in the three by-elections to take place on April 7.

Rather, it is about what kind of gel is best to enlarge poorly endowed bosoms for exciting sexuality in the back seat of Toyota Camrys with LCD monitors bought at higher-than-normal market price in a stressed economy.

What?

Yeah! People are generally more politically relaxed. Most have made up their minds. It’s the cult members and supporters that are still a scream---a. ghani ismail, 17 March 2009

PAKATAN NEED MAPWORK OR SLIDE BACK TO BEFORE

Political absurdity in Malaysia had never peaked to such heights as it did from February 6 when in the reach of the Pakatan Rakyat to stop the Sultan of Perak from swearing-in the new Menteri Besar (Chief Minister) some members of the former governing pact demonstrated and slept on the road leading to the palace, after Zambry Abdul Kadir had been driven in.

That began the flourish of frolics which followed the opposition pact’s downfall in the state.

Pakatan Rakyat, not to be undone, then willfully shot itself in the head by scuttling the new Perak Menteri Besar and six others using the Speaker’s power to suspend the assemblymen, a move popularly perceived as wild.

Former Menteri Besar, Nizar Jamaluddin, going to court on 13 Feb. to challenge the legitimacy of Zambry’s appointment should have been action enough.

But in the rush to force a state re-election following the decision of the Perak Sultan to advise Nizar to resign, state assembly Speaker, V. Sivakumar, found it opportune to slumdog the whole state government by suspending Zambry and six State Executive Councilors for more than a year from Feb 18.

The Speaker’s privilege is beyond judicial review, meaning he effectively scuttled the state government, altering the face of politics in Malaysia to something hideous.

But for the fact the Pakatan Rakyat is now perceived as being frivolous and devoid of political responsibility, the Barisan Nasional (BN) can do likewise where the Coalition rules.

The Pakatan Rakyat has and is losing a lot of popular support by self-infliction. Malaysia has no stable pact in it and there is no two-party system in the making.

Nizar Lightning Struck?

Nizar had not been struck down by a bolt from the blue. Having merely 31 in an assembly of 59, he should have swiftly moved to dissolve the state assembly after two of his state councilors accepted sexual gratification from a businessman and were believed filmed by the ACA (now Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission).

Nizar failed to act, saying instead the duo were not guilty until proven in court, last words that could not be less than awesomely absurd since by then the two had confessed.

The disease struck another PKR member next, for alleged bigamy, him hurriedly vacating his constituency and his position as Kedah State Executive Councilor two days before Sivakumar lunged for the state’s jugular in a quixotic display of extra-judicial force.

What followed was hilarious.

After one Umno state-assemblyman had leapt to the PKR, the sexy PKR duo changed sides while the Umno hero made a successful back-flip that was worthy of a place in Barnaby’s Circus.

The three bringing with them one from the DAP, the table was neatly turned upside-down, giving the BN side 31 after the three from the Pakatan Rakyat pledged their support to the ruling coalition.

Even as Nizar ran to contest in court the lost of his job, it is the arithmetic of the frantic frolic that shaped public perception.

To all and sundry it was a simple sum. However witty the Pakatan Rakyat could have been to some of its sympathizers, there is little doubt the pact has lost a lot of respect it had gained before and is now popularly seen as a hurriedly grouped motley bunch of untested political meat with little moral functionality or worth.

Like bad cheques, they bounced. Like clowns, they colored themselves vividly and stumbling awkwardly, they boldly tumbled for the laughter from the gallery, not for any sense of dignity as alternatives to the BN blunderers under Pak Lah.

Whatever remained of democratic dignity and sense of honor was forcibly wrenched.

If there had been any charisma in the making of the Pakatan Rakyat, that charisma must be lying limp, spent like a gossamer after the tricks of the three were sumptuously seasoned by a set of peek-a-boo pictures sent through the mail of Elizabeth Wong from the PKR in Selangor.

It is true the BN is now quite disconnected from the people and under Pak Lah is now nearly meaningless.

But Pak Lah is on his way out, making that sorry story of Dr. Mahathir’s hasty choice of a successor finally reaching an end.

It was him that caused the Opposition’s ballot boxes to bulk into the surprising winning numbers on 8 March 2008.

But crouching in the foreground now and requiring critical attention is a self-mauled Pakatan Rakyat that has become incredible.

Will the Pakatan Rakyat weed its political distorts out? If so, how long will it take for the parties in the pact to do that?

The pact must admit its errors or its pretense to being an alternative at this point merits laughter. It has rotted and is distinctly self-disabled before reaching puberty and badly needs re-invention.

Karpal had asked someone to taubat (repent). Could it be possible Pakatan Rakyat actually is in need of exorcism too?

Other than Anwar Ibrahim and the immensely amusing Nik Aziz Nik Mat in Kelantan (he insists it was an “intruder” who took the pictures of Elizabeth Wong), it is likely the Pakatan Rakyat leaders did not want to become the government. They would have been happy as a strong Opposition.

Since it was Pak Lah that caused the popular over-vote and he is soon leaving, the Pakatan Rakyat had better accept to face the inevitable return to sanity, not totally a dead-ringer of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, but still a reckoning.

The agonizing birth and decay of the pact is over for now. It’s a map-work that was missing from the first. ---a. ghani ismail, 25 February 2009