PKR is in danger of being forgotten

Does anyone know what Anwar's party is up to these days?

COMMENT

PKR was once the lynchpin of the Pakatan Rakyat coalition. Urban and contemporary, but with an appreciation for the values of the Malay heartland, the party was the perfect middleman between the conservative PAS and the liberal DAP. With Anwar Ibrahim at its helm, PKR appeared to fit snugly as the head of the spear that the opposition aimed at Barisan Nasional. And then Anwar was put behind bars, and it all fell apart.

Today, PAS and DAP are involved in a nasty feud, and PKR has all but disappeared from the national consciousness, and indeed even from the minds of its allies. Even PasMa, a splinter group that has qualms over PAS’ hyper-conservative new direction, is not seeking PKR’s approval to set up a political organisation. Instead, the DAP has been given the right to propose an alliance with the new political party that will be formed by PasMa members and G18, the group of so-called progressive leaders of PAS who were forced out at the Islamist party’s most recent muktamar.

In the space of just a few months, PKR has degraded from being one of three formidable opposition parties to almost a mere afterthought. Is Malaysia’s Renaissance party becoming irrelevant? It certainly seems so, as the lack of a strong leader has rendered it essentially voiceless in the internal power struggle of the Pakatan alliance.

One could argue that the true cause of PKR’s downfall was not the imprisonment of Anwar, but the months of silence that followed. No clear leader for the party has emerged.

Wan Azizah is the wrong choice as a leader to push PKR forward. I made this point not too long ago, and I stand by it. Her heart is no longer in it, and she deserves the opportunity to step away gracefully.

Anwar’s imprisonment was hard to take, but with it came a golden opportunity for PKR to install fresh, dynamic blood in a leadership position. In fact, PKR possesses the single most dynamic and exciting opposition politician today in Nurul Izzah, and none of the rakyat would have found fault with Nurul taking on her father’s mantle. To choose her would have been inspiring, poetic even.

But PKR went with what it thought was the safe choice, and we are all the poorer for it.

PKR is truly in danger of being passed by in these heady days of turbulent politics. The lack of a strong leader and a cohesive leadership unit to guide the party members may be its Achilles’ Heel in this situation, and remedies for such are not so easily obtained. PKR must realise the dangerous direction it is headed in, and fight to regain relevance before some other party jumps into the void.

- See more at: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opinion/2015/06/26/pkr-is-in-danger-of-being-forgotten/#sthash.lZmfGmDE.dpuf