Each folly by Anwar has its costs

The rakyat will not take it kindly the ridiculous charade of Deepak and Musa to plead their case for their own gains with Anwar's help.

COMMENT

Is Anwar Ibrahim a symbol of the newly emerging political correctness that we aspire to or is he a relic of its past, unable or unwilling to unchain himself from its dubious attractions and distractions?

Is he a courageous leader who has endured much personal and public pain and odious persecution by a vengeful Umno in order to pursue the courage of his convictions or is he merely at the unfortunate end of Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s ire for having the temerity to challenge Mahathir’s position as numero uno in Umno?

Is Anwar an accidental symbol of the people’s mounting frustration with a corrupt and arrogant Barisan Nasional government or was he actually the very spark that ignited that tidal wave of change that resulted in BN’s heavy defeat in the last general election?

I have watched with fascination (and at times with incredulous astonishment) at Anwar’s attempts to ride the dragon of change that is now stalking this Umno-led Barisan Nasional, which has failed to see what our people would do, could do and did do at the 12th general election.

Anwar himself did not think it possible to become what he did become after the 12th general election – the leader of an effective opposition and the leader of a party that won the most seats in Parliament among the fledgling opposition coalition of Pakatan Rakyat.

The results of the 12th general election gave Anwar a legitimate claim to political relevance within Malaysia.

Alas for Anwar and for us, what political capital and reservoir of goodwill from the Malaysian public that he, PKR and Pakatan had gained from the success of the 12th general election had not been used wisely.

From the false euphoria of an impossibly ill-conceived announced takeover of Putrajaya, through a series of increasingly questionable decision-makings that smack too openly of political opportunism and self-interest, Anwar has lurched from one political disaster to another.

Each folly by Anwar had its costs. And slowly but surely PKR and then Pakatan lost traction in its attempt to take what happened at the 12th general election onto to the next level where Pakatan could have formed the government after the 13th general election.

So far we have accommodated his follies, overlooked his personal misdemeanours, ignored his crass stupidity in thinking that we did not know what was happening in Selangor, chuckled at his flights of fancies (taking over Putrajaya) and forgave him his errors – all in the name of Pakatan and mindful of what he has undergone at the hands of a revengeful Mahathir.

Perhaps Anwar mistook our lack of a cracking of the whip when we should, as being a licence for him to carry on with his questionable activities – personal or otherwise.

Perhaps he thinks that the end justifies the means. That we will overlook anything he does if that is what he thinks is needed for Pakatan to win the election and for him to be prime minister.

I think Anwar is sadly mistaken.

Gutter politics

I just want to tell Anwar this.

If you are personally involved in any way with Deepak Jaikishan and Musa Hassan’s recent revelations, then you really have no sense of the contempt and disgust most of us have for politicians, any politicians for that matter, who want to score cheap political points by resorting to gutter politics.

The same revulsion felt by so many of us at the manner Mahathir treated and pursued you (I think the word to describe what Mahathir did was “zalim”) after your fall from grace can so easily now be turned towards you if you insist on going the same way as Mahathir and Umno.

And it can turn with such a ferocity and vengeance as to render any attempt by you to continue as leader of Pakatan simply impossible.

If you detect a sense of finality in these assertions by me, then you are right.

There is rising anger among many of us rakyat at the possibility that we will have to put up with this ridiculous charade of a financially desperate Deepak and a retired “past his use by date” Musa to plead their case for their own gains with your help.

And seemingly being able to do it in the guise of “truth telling” to enable the people to know what is the truth!

All this just does not gel with the people anymore.

Cease and desist, Anwar, and disengage while you still can from the stranglehold that Deepak and Musa will eventually have over you when the tide turns as it did with (private investigator) P Balasubramaniam.

Do it while you still can.

CT Ali is a reformist who believes in Pakatan Rakyat’s ideologies. He is a FMT columnist.