Pakatan leaders who won't 'ubah'

IN Kelantan, where one-third of the voters are young people, the 82-year-old Pas menteri besar declares that he wants to hold office "until his last breath".

In the Pas scheme of things, there seems to be no such thing as succession planning for the MB's post. For the record, Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat has been in office for the past 23 years, one of the longest-serving MBs in the country.

The Chinese partners in the fledgling opposition bloc, meanwhile, talk about Ubah or change, but are still bent on fielding the 72-year-old veteran Lim Kit Siang, who first ran for Parliament in 1969, in the May 5 election.

These two veterans, along with their de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, stand out as the three-party opposition bloc struggles to come up with a "compromised" line-up for the polls.

The loose alliance of PKR, DAP and Pas is at loggerheads over seat allocation, with the fights among them stretching from Perlis to Sarawak.

Anwar's PKR, being the smallest and the weakest link in the alliance, is trying to flex its muscles, only to be ignored by the other two parties.

Anwar is certainly facing an uphill battle to rein in the three parties, leading some to openly declare standing as independents if they are denied seats. The problem within Pakatan is real, according to one insider.

One theory behind the unusually intense jockeying for seats is because they know they are heading for defeat in GE13 and each wants to minimise collateral damage. Each of them wants to look better in defeat.

While the Barisan Nasional machinery has successfully rolled out its election manifesto last week and is now ready to unveil its line-up of candidates, Pakatan seat negotiators are locking horns over which seat to dish out to which party and which candidate should stand.

Anwar's whirlwind trips to Sabah, Sarawak and other states last week were not aimed at making his case to the rakyat and outlining Pakatan's vision, but to put out fires started by overzealous state PKR leaders.

We have seen lately some walkouts by staunch party supporters in his so-called strongholds of Permatang Pauh and Lembah Pantai.

Pas appears to be the most disciplined of the lot, with few supporters openly showing resentment at the party leadership over candidacy. It may, after all, gain at the expense of PKR's chaos and disunity.

But to what extent its bold strategy of fielding its heavyweights such as Datuk Husam Musa in the BN stronghold of Putrajaya or vice-president Salahuddin Ayub in Pulai, Johor, would work remains to be seen.

Pas' deliberate attempt of moving its troops from the "comfort zone" of Kelantan and Terengganu to the more developed west coast states could be aimed at making the party more appealing to the Malay electorate in those states.

It could also be encouraged by its strong showing in the 2004 election in Selangor, Kedah, Perak and Negri Sembilan. This time around, Pas is targeting Umno's bastion of Johor as well.

BN, led by Umno, is not taking things for granted though. It has more or less completed its strong line-up of candidates following a thorough and rigorous selection process that started more than a year ago.

As Prime Minister and BN chairman Datuk Seri Najib Razak noted last week: "There is greater interest among (BN) members to be candidates in this election since the chances of victory are greater this time around, it is a nice problem to have, but it is still a problem."

"Please understand it is not easy and do appreciate the complexity in choosing the candidates. I even think of the candidates in my sleep these days," he told some 2,000 BN leaders and supporters at the party headquarters.

The session was specially arranged by the party to enable party loyalists to understand the selection process and respect the top leadership's decision on candidacy.

For Pakatan leaders, this election is a "do-or-die" battle. But they could pre-empt their defeat by accusing the government of unfair conduct of the election.

In fact, Anwar has gone a step further by telling the Financial Times in an interview published yesterday that he considered Malaysia a "sham democracy" that favours a coterie of Malays.

He also saw "Malay supremacy" as "a major problem" and that Malaysia is no longer safe. He worried about being bugged or murdered and that he felt "freer" abroad.

This is one blatant example of Anwar talking himself up by talking down on Malaysia. Even when the general election is in full swing, he still finds time to fly to Paris for the interview.

- New Straits Times