DEFY THE SULTAN AT YOUR OWN PERIL

So the Selangor MB Crisis is more complicated that many of us think. This is not about Khalid and the Sultan knows this. This is about Anwar and HRH the Sultan knows that Anwar does not really have the support as he pretends to have. And if HRH agrees with Anwar and appoints Dr Wan Azizah as the successor to Khalid, there is going to be chaos in PKR and Pakatan Rakyat, as if it is not already in chaos.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Pakatan Rakyat is playing a game of misinformation and disinformation and this cannot augur well for palace-opposition relations, which is currently at an all-time low.

And, of course, Pakatan Rakyat will not admit that the strained relationship with the palace is their fault and will instead blame His Royal Highness the Sultan of Selangor for it.

The truth is, Anwar Ibrahim knows he can never pull the wool over the eyes of the Sultan so, as usual, he is triggering a crisis with the palace so that he has a cop-out or escape route to explain his failure.

This has always been Anwar’s strategy. When he knows he is going to fail he will fabricate a crisis so that he will not be seen to have failed and can shift the blame to external factors or outside forces.

Anwar knew from the very beginning that PAS would not be able to accept his wife, Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, as the Selangor Menteri Besar. This is because PAS knows she does not really have the support of the PKR warlords.

In fact, some of Anwar’s closest confidantes are opposed to the idea and have told Anwar so. And, as far as PAS or the PKR warlords are concerned, this has nothing to do with the fact that Dr Wan Azizah is a woman. It is because she is not a capable leader.

During the days when Anwar was in prison, it was the deputy president who ran the party. Dr Wan Azizah was merely a symbol, and more because she is Anwar’s wife than for any other reason.

Even the creation of the first opposition coalition, Barisan Alternatif, in November 1999 almost did not happen and the decision in the few days before the November 1999 general election was that DAP, PKR, PAS and PRM would all go solo and engage Barisan Nasional in three-, four- or five-corner fights.

At the eleventh hour, Anwar had to pull out the negotiation team and send in someone else to take over the negotiations. At 3.00am I received a phone call from this new negotiator to come immediately for an emergency meeting to discuss what would happen if PKR (then called PKN) were to face the general election solo and not in a coalition.

We were all of the opinion that PKR might as well skip the election because the seven-month old party was going to get wiped out. We then discussed what concessions to ask for and what to offer so that Barisan Alternatif would become a reality and we could face the November 1999 general election as a coalition to engage Barisan Nasional on a one-to-one basis.

That was just one of the many critical events that PKR faced, which Dr Wan Azizah was not able to handle. And PAS knows this because there was many a time when PAS had given up and almost called it quits out of frustration. In the end, someone else had to step in to save the marriage, which would have ended much earlier had they left it to Dr Wan Azizah.

The issue of Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim is yet another example. While Anwar’s inner circle is terribly unhappy with Khalid, they are blaming Dr Wan Azizah for this whole thing and they have told Anwar so.

Anwar’s inner circle feels that if Dr Wan Azizah had been a better leader, what they consider as the Selangor fiasco could have been avoided. In short, there is no such thing as bad soldiers and instead bad generals result in a bad army.

In other words, if Khalid is a problem, then he is a problem because of Dr Wan Azizah. And if Khalid’s a problem because of her, how would things improve if Khalid was replaced with Dr Wan Azizah?

That is what PAS plus the PKR warlords or Anwar’s inner circle are more concerned about — and not because Dr Wan Azizah happens to be a woman. But the issue being raised against PAS is that they oppose Dr Wan Azizah on grounds of gender.

This is to put PAS on the defensive. Accuse them of gender discrimination and they will back off and not oppose Dr Wan Azizah.

The second lie being perpetuated is regarding HRH the Sultan asking for two names. HRH did not ask for two names. He asked for more than two names. And this means at least three but it can be more than three if Pakatan Rakyat wants.

Until today the media is still talking about two names. How does ‘lebih dari dua nama’ translate to two names?

The next lie is regarding Pakatan Rakyat submitting just one name in 2008 and 2013. This basically means that HRH the Sultan is lying when he said that, according to convention and past practices, the palace has always asked for more than one name because in 2008 and 2013 only one name was submitted.

Pakatan Rakyat did submit two names in 2008. In 2013 they not only submitted two names but they did so in two separate letters. The party submitted one name, Khalid Ibrahim, while the Azmin Ali faction submitted another name via a separate letter — Azmin’s name, of course.

Hence in 2013 it was four letters with two names as opposed to three letters with two names in 2008.

Officially, 30 Pakatan Rakyat state representatives (15 from DAP, 13 from PKR and two from PAS) have signed Statutory Declarations supporting Dr Wan Azizah for Menteri Besar.

I say ‘officially’ because privately a number of those 30 say they do not really support Dr Wan Azizah but have no choice but to publicly do so because they have been forced to.

Now, what happens if later three, four or more of those 30 do a U-turn? And there are clear signals that this is going to happen. Do they now go back to the Sultan, say six months later in early 2015, and inform HRH that they want Dr Wan Azizah removed and replaced with, say, Azmin Ali?

HRH the Sultan knows that Dr Wan Azizah is not the favourite, as PKR is trying to make it appear. This is what Anwar wants and not really what the party wants. DAP supports Anwar in this matter because they are worried that if they do not agree to Dr Wan Azizah as the new MB then a PAS candidate might become the MB instead.

And this is the last thing that DAP wants, a PAS Menteri Besar.

So the Selangor MB Crisis is more complicated that many of us think. This is not about Khalid and the Sultan knows this. This is about Anwar and HRH the Sultan knows that Anwar does not really have the support as he pretends to have. And if HRH agrees with Anwar and appoints Dr Wan Azizah as the successor to Khalid, there is going to be chaos in PKR and Pakatan Rakyat, as if it is not already in chaos.