PRIBUMI: SHOT DOWN BEFORE TAKING OFF

Cliques are quite normal in political parties, said Khairuddin, Mahathir’s Gurkha. But normally you have to wait some time for cliques to form. And they normally form when they smell power. But Pribumi is still taxiing and has not even taken off yet. Is it not too early to kill one another at such an early stage?

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

As soon as it was rumoured that Ezam Mohd Nor was leaving Umno to join PPBM a.k.a. Pribumi, I knew that fireworks were about to go off. Yesterday’s statement by Khairuddin Abu Hassan that PPBM will fail due to puak-puak (cliques) confirmed the problem. The opposition in general and PPBM in particular are divided into so many cliques.

In PKR we have the Azmin Ali clique and the Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail-Nurul Izzah clique. The problem is we do not know which clique Anwar Ibrahim supports or whether he is doing what he always does — meaning he supports both cliques in his normal divide-and-rule strategy (which he did with Azmin and Ezam, causing Ezam to leave PKR to join Umno).

PAS settled its clique problem with the anti-Abdul Hadi Awang clique leaving the party to set up its own party, PAN a.k.a. Amanah. But there are still some anti-Hadi people in PAS whose sympathies lie with the PAN clique. Their legs are in PAS but their hearts are in PAN.

DAP has cliques as well and there are many different cliques in DAP. Part of the December 2012 party election fiasco was due to these cliques trying to oust one another. They tried to remove the anti-Lim Guan Eng clique by rigging the party election, hoping to get rid of all those opposed to Guan Eng by ‘voting’ them out. However, they made a mess of the whole thing and blamed Microsoft Excel for the blunder.

The DAP party election fiasco is still not settled yet and that may be an obstacle to DAP contesting the next general election under its own party banner if they get de-registered just before the election. In the 2013 general election, PAS offered DAP to contest under their (PAS) party banner so this time around PAN may have to be DAP’s platform instead.

As what Khairuddin said, cliques will always exist in political parties. However, if PPBM attacks him for leaving the party, he is going to balas dendam by revealing certain secrets involving the party. So, according to Khairuddin, PPBM has dirty secrets still hidden but which he is going to reveal if they attack him.

Now that is certainly most interesting. Is Khairuddin saying PPBM has dirty and exciting secrets that he knows about and which we do not know about yet? You mean there is more than the Nika Gee and Muhyiddin Yassin affair and the divorce that followed? Is this secret regarding Nika’s and Muhyiddin’s rumoured secret marriage? Let us hope Khairuddin does not keep us in suspense too long.

Khairuddin is upset that PPBM has accepted Ezam into the party. And I can quite understand why. After all, it was Ezam who said that he has enam kotak (six boxes) of evidence concerning Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s corruption. It was Ezam who said that once the opposition gets into power they are going to jail Mahathir for 500 years. And it was Ezam, too, who played a role in Sodomy 2 that saw Anwar being sent to jail for five years (and is still in jail).

With Ezam in PPBM, PKR may want to have nothing to do with the party. So where does that leave PPBM? As a ‘third force’ neither in Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Harapan? Even if given seats to contest Mukhriz Mahathir and Muhyiddin Yassin are going to find it very hard to win the next general election. With no seats and based on three- or four-corner contests, PPBM might as well save their time and money and stay out of the election. That is better than losing their deposits like what happened to PKR back in 2004.

When Khairuddin first made his police report against 1MDB in December 2014, not many people would dare bet that Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak would survive Mahathir’s onslaught. (I took the bet and won it because I bet Najib would not only survive 2015 but would survive 2016 as well). They felt that Mahathir was too powerful and once the old man goes for you then consider yourself dead.

Maybe this was because Mahathir was barking and growling while Najib just smiled and stayed quiet. So they interpreted this as Mahathir was winning. But have I not told you so many times that the quiet dog is more bisa than the barking dog? So who is correct in the end, me or you?

Six days after Selangor Menteri Besar Azmin Ali met Mahathir in London (in February 2015) to discuss the plot to oust Najib, I was asked to declare my stand and decide whether I was with the ANC (Anti-Najib Campaign) or whether I was against them. I met Mahathir at his London home to discuss the plot but after two hours I did not feel I could join their ANC.

Three days later someone called me to ask me about my decision and I told that Chinese Datuk I am not joining them. What I did not tell the Datuk is that I shall be working against them. That they would find out later once I started shooting at them. That was 22 months ago and today everyone knows which side I am on. And I make no excuses and offer no apologies for taking the side I am currently taking.

Everyone was asked to take sides. No one was going to be allowed to remain neutral. It is ‘either you are with me or you are against me’. So I have no choice but to take sides or else I will still be considered an enemy anyway if I choose to be neutral.

Khairuddin’s new clique: Former Finance Minister II Husni Hanadzlah

Khairuddin should stop complaining about cliques within parties and about his ex-colleagues attacking him. Did Khairuddin not join a clique within Umno (the anti-Najib clique) as well and did he not attack Najib as well? He did this very same thing and now he grumbles when they do it against him.

Khairuddin was an active soldier in the ANC, the anti-Najib clique in Umno. He went all over the world as Mahathir’s envoy to slander Malaysia and to enlist the help of foreign governments in the plot to oust Najib. Today, after failing to oust Najib (kononnya to ‘save Malaysia’), he now wants to destroy Umno, Barisan Nasional and Malay political dominance so that Mukhriz can become the new Prime Minister.

Yes, and this is the same hypocrite a.k.a. munafiq who goes all out to break Umno into cliques and then complains about cliques being formed in his new party that has not even taken off yet and is still warming its engines to taxi on the runaway.

I mean divorces in marriages do happen. But never do couples get divorced even before the wedding ceremony. In that sense PPBM has just made it into the Malaysian Book of Records. They broke up before they could stand up. And these are the people who want to take over the country?

Well, let us see whether Ezam’s six boxes are going too surface or not after waiting 18 years to see them. Khairuddin said Ezam left Umno to rejoin PKR because of Nurul Izzah. I do not know what that means but Khairuddin said it was Azmin who blocked Ezam from rejoining PKR. It seems Azmin is worried that Ezam might join the Wan Azizah-Nurul Izzah clique and block him (Azmin) from taking over as the new PKR President.

Since Ezam had left Umno but now cannot rejoin PKR, he has no choice but to join PPBM instead. And PPBM is too small for both Khairuddin and Ezam (the Chinese say you cannot have two tigers on the same mountain). Khairuddin knows that with Ezam in PPBM his days are numbered. So he might as well leave before he is forced to leave.

Don’t you think Malaysian politics is very interesting? And have you not noticed that Anwar has been very quiet? Yes, politics is all about cliques. And the man who has a PhD in cliques is Anwar. Even Anwar’s lawyers in Sodomy 1 and Sodomy 2 were divided into cliques. And that was why he lost his court cases both times. Anwar may be an expert at divide-and rule but sometimes if you do it too often you end up hurting yourself.