Stick to your original task, Anwar

Any fool can understand the implications of these GE results and I do not take Najib for a fool.

COMMENT

Barely weeks after the election and already this Barisan Nasional government has started to dismantle Pakatan Rakyat electoral structure and their avowed compatriots piece by piece – harrasing, intimidating, questioning and even jailing Pakatan Rakyat activists.

They are not in the least perturbed by the saber-rattling antics of Anwar Ibrahim and a Pakatan Rakyat that simply does not have the capacity or the means to follow through on its implied threat of punishing Barisan Nasional.

Today it is Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, Adam Adli, Haris Ibrahim, Tamrin Ghaffar, Tian Chua and Dr Chen Man Hin. Tomorrow maybe Anwar Ibrahim!

It is not a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when’ Anwar be will arrested and charges laid upon him under the Sedition Act – if not for his call to topple the government through massive street protests, then perhaps for his alleged involvement in Lahad Datu.

I do not doubt that Anwar could muster thousands of Malaysians to join him in his Blackout 505 rallies but it would be impossible for him to dismiss the relentless pursuit by the Special Branch and the powers-that-be.

Let us not forget what a BN government has done in the past, the various ‘solutions’ that Umno will surely revisit to solve any threats to ‘national security’.

What risks are Pakatan Rakyat and their supporters willing to take to show their ire against BN’s ‘provocative acts’? The wisdom of going into a confrontational stance with BN carries with it more risks to Pakatan than to BN.

For me Pakatan’s threats are hollow and more often than not, borders on the comical, given that they have yet to put their own house in order!

I am troubled that PAS, one of Pakatan Rakyat’s coalition partners, would take in Muhammad Muhd Taib, Rahman Maidin and Tamrin Ghaffar into their confidence.

I am troubled that the Bersih whom I have expected to be non-partisan (not partisan; free from party affiliation, bias, or designation) have increasingly shown itself to be in Pakatan Rakyat’s camp.

I am troubled that the thousands upon thousands of phantom voters conjured up by BN to vote for BN, have, to date, not yet been exposed in the numbers that Pakatan Rakyat have been mentioning – in the tens of thousands.

And most worrying of all is that since the end of the 13th general election, Pakatan Rakyat has yet to get their act together as an opposition that has grown stronger.

Move forward

An opposition that should by now have started the process of harnessing the growing discord against this BN government into something more positive than holding these Blackout 505 rallies nationwide.

An opposition that could ill afford to have its political luminaries intimidated, harassed and carted off to be incarcerated when they are all needed to do the work within Pakatan Rakyat of consolidating their gains, understanding the losses and organizing a responsible and effective opposition to do battle with BN in Parliament and beyond.

A case in point: Pakatan must start working immediately in the 133 constituencies they failed to win – a tedious exercise indeed – but surely that would be the more responsible thing is do.

Go forward and do not dwell on the past. For Pakatan Rakyat, the past must be lessons learnt in making themselves ready for what is to come.

Our past is a myriad of negativity that shouts of corruption, arrogance, racism, nepotism, cronyism, money politics, self interests – all that reposed in a BN government that still rules Malaysia today.

The future promises much because now our people have a voice that must already been heard by Najib Tun Razak and his BN colleagues.

BN have been told by the majority of Malaysians that they should not go on doing government the way they have been doing for the past 55 years.

The process of change that started in the 12th general election marches on unabated and Pakatan Rakyat has continued to make inroads by increasing its representation in Parliament.

Any fool can understand the implications of these results and I do not take Najib for a fool. Nor are Umno’s political elites of the same genre.

Greed and self interest may be their primary failings but fools they are not! Let us now hope that Anwar is up to the challenge before him – that of being leader of the opposition against a minority BN government.

He must continue with the task he started: to make good governance the cornerstone of Malaysian politics.

For sure he could have done this better if Pakatan Rakyat had won government but surely the strong opposition he now leads is equal to the task of keeping those politicians in government honest.

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