Tian Chua: Rafizi's camp are merely newcomers to reformasi

While Rafizi Ramli’s camp has frequently bombarded its rival Azmin Ali and his team in the battle for the PKR deputy presidency, it is only now that the Azmin camp has returned fire.

PKR vice-president Tian Chua slammed Rafizi's camp, which emerged after the 2008 political tsunami, saying that Rafizi and his team have only half of the political experience of Azmin, who has been participating in the reformasi movement 10 years earlier.

Seen as pro-Azmin,Tian Chua is seeking to defend his post of vice-president in the party.

Speaking to Malaysiakini last night, Tian Chua said Azmin and his team have been cultivating party matters since PKR was born in 1998.

“We have been working with the grassroots. The party was formed by our generation. Most of the so-called non-Rafizi camp members are described as Azmin camp members, who are who are experienced with party work...

“We are confident about mingling with the grassroots. We have been building the party, brick by brick, mortar by mortar. Our efforts are more than that of the party president or Anwar Ibrahim. Over the long term, they did not participate much in party-building.

“Even (party vice-president) Nurul Izzah Anwar was only 17 or 18 years old when the party was formed. During this time, Azmin and Zuraida Kamaruddin, among others, started to build the entire party. I believe the grassroots will agree with our struggle,” Tian Chua (photo) said.

Compared with the seniority of Azmin's camp members, he said Rafizi's team are a lot junior.

“Most of Rafizi's endorsees emerged after the 2008 general election. Joining us during after half of the journey we went though, they called themselves as Reformasi 2.0, Reformasi 20 tahun. But they don't have the history of a 20-year struggle.

“Rafizi said he relied on 300,000 new party members. In other words, they are either political novices or have an Umno background. They are more fragile and just want to see who speaks the most, which may be Rafizi's strategy.”

Despite facing the aggressive approach of Rafizi's camp to the party leadership election, Tian Chua is confident that Azmin will be able to gather the support of the new members of the party.

Why the lesser-scale campaign

Asked why Azmin's camp campaigned on a lesser scale than Rafizi, the former Batu MP explained that most of the Azmin's senior leaders are federal ministers.

This means, he said, the ministers have to take care of government business and not just focus on party matters.

“We are a ruling party. Apart from the internal party elections, the people are expecting us to implement some things. Our responsibility is to implement the reformasi agenda, regardless of whether we have government positions or not.

“Azmin’s faction, which has been in the crosshairs of Rafizi, needs to handle government matters. We can't abandon all administrative work to defend our party positions and disappoint the people.”

Such matters have made Azmin's camp to take milder approach compared to the campaigns forged by the Rafizi camp, Tian Chua added.

“You will see the different temperatures between them. How could the people wait for us to settle the party elections before tackling their urgent matters?”

Three leaders in the Azmin camp were appointed as federal ministers. They are Azmin himself (economic affairs minister), Zuraida (housing and local government minister) and Dr A Xavier Jayakumar (photo, water, land and natural resources minister).

In contrast, Rafizi's camp has only one federal minister - Saifuddin Nasution Ismail (domestic trade and consumer affairs minister)

Apart from Anwar, who was elected unopposed as president of PKR, Azmin and Rafizi are battling for the No 2 post and their team members are contesting posts in the central committee as well as in the youth and women’s wings.

Of the 12 candidates for the posts of vice-president, Azmin’s team members are Tian Chua, Xavier, Zuraida and deputy minister Shamsul Iskandar Md Akin while Rafizi has Permatang Pauh MP Nurul Izzah Anwar, Sungai Petani MP Johari Abdul, Selayang MP William Leong and Sungai Siput MP S Kesavan in his team battling for the posts.

Rafizi has been actively campaigning in Sabah, Perlis, Kedah, Penang, Negeri Sembilan, Malacca and Johor. One of his lieutenants, Kapar MP Abdullah Sani Abdul Hamid, even accused Azmin of plotting to prevent Anwar from becoming the next prime minister.

In contrast, Azmin has been keeping a low profile campaign and has not aggressively attacked Rafizi. -Mkini