WAN AZIZAH’S ABSENCE FROM THE PAKATAN HARAPAN MEETING YESTERDAY

Wan Azizah has been absent from most Pakatan Harapan meetings, even the one held in her office in Parliament yesterday. If she attends those meetings she has to commit herself to the decisions they make. Yesterday she did not attend the meeting as well and the spin-doctors made a big deal about her health and her hospitalisation. And because of that her absence attracted even more attention than it normally should have.

PAKATAN’S GAME OF THRONES

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Yesterday, Pakatan Harapan held its first meeting with PPBM a.k.a. Pribumi as an official member in the office of the Opposition Leader in Parliament. The only thing is the Opposition Leader herself, Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, was not present. Instead she was admitted into hospital because of ‘intermittent high grade fever, nausea and recurrent vomiting’.

That, by any standards, would not be abnormal. People do get sick and people do get admitted into hospital. What would be abnormal would be for the doctor to issue a ‘TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN’ letter and for that letter to be viralled to all and sundry. It appears like someone has gone to a lot of effort to impress upon us that Wan Azizah is really not well and needed to be hospitalised and hence that was the reason why she could not attend the Pakatan Harapan meeting in her office in Parliament yesterday.

These people are trying to ‘explain’ Wan Azizah’s absence from the Pakatan Harapan meeting and are trying to convince us that her absence was ‘normal’ and not because she was boycotting the meeting. Wan Azizah herself said nothing, though. Even Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has had to be hospitalised a number of times over just the last six months alone but the IJN doctors do not issue a ‘TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN’ letter and then viral it on the internet.

The spin-doctors went out of their way to ‘explain’ Wan Azizah’s absence from the meeting yesterday and attracted unnecessary attention to a matter that under normal circumstances would have been a non-event

The way they did it in Wan Azizah’s case yesterday seems like they went to great pains to make sure that the whole world knows she was admitted into hospital the day the Pakatan Harapan meeting was held in her office — and hence the suggestion that this was why she was absent from that meeting.

If they had not made a big deal about Wan Azizah being admitted into hospital, and if they had not gone out of their way to get the doctor to issue a letter, and if they had not viralled that letter, no one would have raised an eyebrow. Even if some people found out the most they would say is ‘so what?’ People get sick and get admitted into hospital and hence miss meetings all the time. What’s the big deal? Now, however, those behind this very amateurish spin have unwittingly turned into a big deal.

Now people want to know why they are going to great efforts to make sure we all know that Wan Azizah missed the meeting because she was unwell and got admitted into hospital. Why is that so important for us to know? Is it because she intentionally missed the meeting and used the ‘not well and entered hospital’ as the excuse? If not why draw our attention to what can be considered a non-event?

Today Wan Azizah seems to have fully recovered and is in high spirits

Yesterday’s meeting was not an earth-shattering meeting. It was just to discuss Pakatan Harapan’s application to register the coalition with PPBM a.k.a. Pribumi as the fourth coalition member. So why did Wan Azizah not attend that meeting? And why go to so much effort to try to explain her absence?

First of all, Muhyiddin Yassin wants a Malay party to lead Pakatan Harapan. And PKR is not a Malay party. Pribumi is. PKR is a multi-racial party just like DAP — although the late MGG Pillai used to say PKR is a Malay-dominated multiracial party while DAP is a Chinese-dominated multiracial party.

Anyway, the long and short of it is, if Pakatan Harapan is to be led by a Malay party then that would be Pribumi. And that would also mean in the Pakatan Harapan application to register the coalition, Pribumi’s nominee would have to be listed as the Chairman. And this would most likely be Mahathir since he is also the Chairman of Pribumi.

Kit Siang told Mat Sabu to chair yesterday’s meeting so that DAP can stay in the background and not be seen as in charge

But Pribumi has just one seat in parliament (which it is going to lose in the next general election anyway) while DAP has 38. So is this not a case of the tail wagging the dog? Even PKR has 27 seats, far more than Pribumi. DAP has been around since 1965 and was formed two months after Singapore broke away from Malaysia — and is supposed to replace PAP in Malaysia — while the ink is not even dry yet on Pribumi’s registration certificate.

In short, Pakatan Harapan is merely an Ali Baba arrangement with DAP calling the shots and Pribumi giving an appearance it is in charge.

More importantly, PKR came into being on 4th April 1999 (4499) specifically as an anti-Mahathir party. The purpose for the formation of PKR was to not only kick out Mahathir but to make sure that he pays for all his crimes and spends the rest of his days on earth in prison. And now Mahathir wants Wan Azizah to attend a meeting to endorse Mahathir as the ‘Ali Baba’ leader of the opposition and his party as the so-called leader of Pakatan Harapan?

Now the picture is beginning to emerge as to why Wan Azizah would rather go into hospital than attend yesterday’s meeting.

And Wan Azizah knows that Mahathir will not back Anwar Ibrahim’s release from prison and, furthermore, Mahathir has not retracted what he said about Anwar: which is Anwar is an immoral person not fit to lead the opposition or become Prime Minister. And this is precisely what Karpal Singh also said in 2008 when he said that Anwar has done so much damage to Malaysia and should taubat (repent) and that he is not fit to lead the opposition and Pakatan should look for a new leader and so on.

Wan Azizah’s absence from most Pakatan Harapan meetings is very conspicuous

Even more important is the fact that Mahathir wants Selangor Menteri Besar Azmin Ali to oust Wan Azizah and take over as PKR’s President. How can Wan Azizah sit at the same table with a man who wants both her and her husband killed off? If given a choice Wan Azizah would rather work with PAS than with DAP. Azmin, too, is not prepared to divorce PAS because he knows he would never have become the Selangor Menteri Besar if not because of PAS.

If the PAS President, Abdul Hadi Awang, had agreed to support DAP and PKR in challenging the authority of HRH the Sultan of Selangor and if PAS had been prepared to trigger a constitutional crisis in Selangor by insisting that Khalid Ibrahim be replaced with Wan Azizah, then there would have been a 50:50 chance that today Wan Azizah and not Azmin would be the Selangor Menteri Besar.

And that is why Azmin does not dare divorce PAS and also why Wan Azizah has not totally closed the door on PAS yet. The two people talking so much about PAS is Mahathir and Lim Kit Siang. Wan Azizah, in fact, said nice things about PAS although she talks in the past tense about the time of Ustaz Fadzil Muhammad Noor. In short, Wan Azizah is implying she has no problem with the party itself.

Wan Azizah holds Islam dear to her heart and does not agree with DAP’s anti-Sharia stance like PAN and Pribumi do

One thing about Wan Azizah is she is a pious Muslim. She wears that white glove on her right hand because as a Muslim she does not want to shake another man’s hand with her ‘naked’ hand. Between PAS and an anti-Sharia party like DAP, without a doubt she would choose PAS. And with Mahathir trying to call the shots and deciding what Pakatan Harapan does, Wan Azizah would rather not have anything to do with the opposition coalition.

But she cannot say that. If she says she prefers PAS to DAP or Pribumi she would be committing suicide. Both Mahathir and Kit Siang would back Azmin and in the next PKR party election he would make a bid for the presidency and would most likely win. And that would be the end for her, her husband and her daughter. So she is stuck between a rock and a hard place until she can figure out how to escape from the clutches of Mahathir, Kit Siang and Azmin. In the meantime she just absents herself from all meetings so that she does not have to commit herself to what she does not agree with.