But this is not about personal likes and dislikes. This is about the good of the opposition and to make sure that Malaysia has a strong opposition to keep the ruling party in check, whichever of the two is going to be that ruling party. Anwar has failed. His wife Dr Wan Azizah has failed. So we now have to see whether Azmin can do what the husband and wife team has thus far failed to do.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
The Permatang Pauh by-election is not really a by-election. It is a popularity contest. Well, it is officially a by-election but it is not just a by-election. It is a battleground to decide many other issues rather than to choose the wakil rakyat to represent the voters of Permatang Pauh in Parliament.
In 1999, the Permatang Pauh contest was to decide who is more popular, Anwar Ibrahim or Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. Anwar was in jail at that time, of course, so his wife, Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, represented him in that election.
And Anwar, or rather Dr Wan Azizah, won the Permatang Pauh parliament seat with 23,820 or 61.77% of the votes, giving her a majority of 9,077 votes on a voter turnout of 78.95%. So this more or less established that Anwar was more popular than Dr Mahathir.
In fact, Anwar’s newly formed party, Keadilan, did not just win Permatang Pauh but it won nine other seats as well — four more parliament and five state seats — although his party was just seven months old, a most impressive performance indeed.
Then Dr Mahathir stepped down in 2003 and in the 2004 general election it became a contest to decide whether Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was more popular than Anwar.
Pak Lah won that popularity contest when Keadilan practically got wiped out. It lost all but one of the ten seats it won just five years before that and Dr Wan Azizah managed to just scrape through with only 50.47% of the votes and a majority of only 590 votes on a voter turnout of 80.93%.
In September 2004 Anwar was released from jail but he was barred from contesting the election for five years from 2003, the date he completed his sentence for corruption. So Dr Wan Azizah had to, again, represent Anwar in the 2008 general election.
Dr Wan Azizah won that election with an improved 30,338 or 64.1% of the votes against the same voter turnout, giving her a majority of 13,338 votes. Five months later she resigned to make way for Anwar and in the by-election in August 2008 Anwar won with 31,195 or 66.6% of the votes, a majority of 15,671 votes, against a voter turnout of 81% or 47,410 voters.
Anwar won that seat again in 2013 with 37,090 votes, a majority of 11,721 votes against a voter turnout of 63,332 or 88.3%.
So now we are seeing yet another by-election and, yet again, Dr Wan Azizah is representing Anwar in Permatang Pauh. This time around probably 57,000 voters are going to turn out to vote. Dr Wan Azizah has to garner between 34,000 to 37,000 of the votes to give her a majority of 11,000 to 17,000. Anything less than a majority of 10,000 votes would be considered a poor show. A majority of 5,000 votes can be considered a defeat.
PAS has about 12,000 members in Permatang Pauh. If they boycott the by-election or do not vote for Dr Wan Azizah then that would bring her majority down drastically. It may not be a total boycott but even a 30% ‘protest’ would have an affect on the results.
Permatang Pauh has been a contest to test Anwar’s popularity versus Dr Mahathir (in 1999), versus Pak Lah (in 2004 and 2008) and then versus Najib (in 2013). Now we are going to see a popularity contest between Anwar and Najib again.
But this time it is different. This time it is a united Pakatan Rakyat and the anti-Najib faction in Umno and Barisan Nasional, led by Dr Mahathir, to decide whether Najib should stay or should go.
Hence it is to the interest of those who want to oust Najib to make sure that Dr Wan Azizah wins the by-election with a majority of at least 15,000 votes. If the majority drops below 10,000 or hovers at just around 5,000 votes then the theory that Najib is no longer popular would be demolished.
No one expects Dr Wan Azizah to lose. It is all about what her majority is going to be — 15,000, 10,000 or 5,000. While the anti-Najib faction in Umno and Barisan Nasional will go all out to make sure that Dr Wan Azizah not only wins but wins with a majority of not less than 10,000, and ideally 15,000, there is the PAS faction and the Malay group in PKR to contend with.
The Permatang Pauh by-election may be a popularity contest between the pro-Najib and anti-Najib faction, but it is also a contest to decide what the people have to say about Hudud, GST, 1MDB and many other controversial issues. It is also a contest to see how the split in Umno, the split in PKR, the split in PAS, the PAS-PKR-DAP split regarding the Kajang Move, the Selangor MB Crisis, Hudud, etc., are going to be played out.
There is a group in PAS, PKR and DAP that wants to oust the PAS President, Abdul Hadi Awang. Permatang Pauh will decide whether Hadi still has the support of his party because Hudud is one of the issues in that by-election.
There is a group in PAS, PKR and DAP that does not support Dr Wan Azizah and feel that Azmin Ali should take over the reins of the party. Permatang Pauh will decide whether Dr Wan Azizah still has the support of her party or whether she should step down in favour of Azmin.
The Azmin faction, in fact, does not want Dr Wan Azizah to contest Permatang Pauh. If she does not contest then Azmin can take over as the new Opposition Leader in Parliament.
But the Dr Wan Azizah faction does not want Azmin as the new Opposition Leader. If he takes over as the Opposition Leader then the next logical step is for him to also take over as the PKR President.
Hence Dr Wan Azizah must contest Permatang Pauh and must win the by-election and then go on to become the Opposition Leader, thus denying Azmin the job. That would be the only way Dr Wan Azizah can keep her job as the PKR President.
Anwar told the Azmin faction that if they do not agree to Dr Wan Azizah then Saifuddin Nasution would be given the seat to contest. This is even more unacceptable to the Azmin faction. Hence Dr Wan Azizah is the lesser of the two evils although an evil nevertheless.
Dr Wan Azizah is seen as a failure. In 1999 she failed to get an agreement for PKN, DAP, PAS and PRM to form an opposition coalition, Barisan Alternatif. It was decided that each party would contest against one another in a three-, four- or five-corner fight.
At the eleventh hour Anwar had to summon Professor Jomo Kwame Sundaram for help and it was through his effort that PKN, DAP, PAS and PRM managed to iron out their differences and contest the November 1999 general election as a united opposition coalition.
Not long after that the coalition broke up when PAS tried to introduce Hudud in Terengganu. Dr Wan Azizah failed, yet again, to keep the coalition going.
PKN then merged with PRM, which was not really a merger but a crossover, and she failed to get her party to back that ‘merger’. She had to force the merger down the throats of the party members on a minority vote and this resulted in an exodus of party loyalists who screamed fraud and hypocrisy.
Most of those who were instrumental in forming the party in 1999 have all since left. Some joined Umno and Barisan Nasional while many just went into retirement out of sheer disgust and disappointment. The PKR that you see today is not the same party that was formed against the backdrop of the Reformasi movement in 1999.
Dr Wan Azizah’s track record as the PKR President and Opposition Leader has been miserable. Pakatan Rakyat is facing very troubled times ahead of it. The only thing in its favour is the mess in Barisan Nasional and the chaos in Umno. Hence if Pakatan Rakyat does win it will do so by default and not because it is strong.
The people are fed up with Pakatan Rakyat. But they are fed up with Barisan Nasional even more. So they support Pakatan Rakyat not because it is an angel but because it is the lesser of the two devils. It is a sad day for Malaysian politics when your horse wins not because it is the fastest but because the leading horse broke its leg. That still does not make you the best horse in the race.
Pakatan Rakyat supports the anti-Najib faction in Umno and Barisan Nasional. They hail Dr Mahathir as the de facto Opposition Leader who is the leading the charge to oust the Prime Minister.
Dr Mahathir says they need to oust Najib to save Umno and Barisan Nasional. If not then Pakatan Rakyat is going to win the next election. And Pakatan Rakyat agrees that Najib should be ousted so that Umno and Barisan Nasional could be saved and so that Pakatan Rakyat does not win the next election.
What type of wankers do we have in Pakatan Rakyat? Are they just plain stupid or what? If ousting Najib is going to save Umno and Barisan Nasional and will prevent Pakatan Rakyat from winning the next general election should we not be fighting to keep Najib in power instead of the other way around?
To save Pakatan Rakyat we need a new Opposition Leader. And Dr Wan Azizah has proven she is not it. We need Azmin Ali as the new Opposition Leader. We need Najib to stay as Prime Minister. So this means it is in our interest to make sure that Dr Wan Azizah loses the Permatang Pauh by-election.
Dr Wan Azizah is already an ADUN in Selangor. Let her concentrate on solving the many unresolved problems in Kajang. What can she do for Permatang Pauh that she failed to do since 1999? There have hardly been any changes or improvements in Permatang Pauh since the last 16 years. It is still the very pathetic place it has always been for decades.
Anyone can serve the voters of Permatang Pauh. There is nothing Dr Wan Azizah can do that someone else can’t. What we need is a strong Opposition Leader who can solve the many problems that Pakatan Rakyat is facing. And with Anwar in jail and Dr Wan Azizah blur most of the time we need someone strong who can do the job.
I have been a critic of Azmin Ali. Everyone knows I opposed the Kajang Move and the move to oust Selangor Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim. I am also a strong supporter of the PAS President Abdul Hadi Awang.
But this is not about personal likes and dislikes. This is about the good of the opposition and to make sure that Malaysia has a strong opposition to keep the ruling party in check, whichever of the two is going to be that ruling party. Anwar has failed. His wife Dr Wan Azizah has failed. So we now have to see whether Azmin can do what the husband and wife team has thus far failed to do.
What was it that Brutus said? It is not that I love Caesar less but I love Rome more. Okay, never mind, let me be that Brutus. And let us make sure that Malaysia does not suffer the fate that Rome did, an empire brought down by arrogance, corruption, strife and religious extremism.
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