“Selagi ada ‘tiga jahanam’ dalam PAS, selagi itu kerjasama dengan parti Islam itu tidak boleh diteruskan.” Bukan aku kata,UMNO yang kata...
Perkara itu ditegaskan perwakilan UMNO Kelantan, Zawawi Othman dengan menjelaskan mereka yang dimaksudkan ialah Presiden PAS, Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang; Naib Presiden, Datuk Mohd Amar Nik Abdullah dan Pengarah Pilihan Raya Pas Pusat, Datuk Seri Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor. Jelasnya lagi, pemimpin berkenaan digelar sedemikian kerana dianggap ‘bermulut jahat’...
Jawapannya lobai dgn DAP tak dapatkan dipisahkan...
Anthony Loke takes over as DAP Secretary General with Liew ChinTong as his deputy.
Lim Guan Eng is the new national chairman with Gobind Singh as deputy chairman...
Rafizi Ramli & Nurul Izzah: Terus Terang Edisi "Terpaling"
Rafizi: Anwar's 'loyalists' not
helping to create winnable narrative...
Fresh from announcing his comeback into active politics, Rafizi Ramli has taken aim at PKR president Anwar Ibrahim’s “loyalists”, whom he claimed to have failed to help create a winnable narrative for the party and Pakatan Harapan since the 14th general election.
Reflecting on PKR's performance in the recent Johor state election, Rafizi said the party has failed to convince the people of its original narrative, shaped by factors including consistency and commitment to offer solutions for their everyday problems.
“From the results of the Sarawak, Sabah, Malacca, and Johor elections, we can see that no matter how hard those on the ground are working, if the central narrative is weak, we will be left behind,” said the former Pandan MP.
“I pity Anwar because he has many supporters but they are not helping to create this narrative.
“Sometimes these loyalists are the ones dragging him down,” said Rafizi during a no-holds-barred two-hour discussion with Permatang Pauh MP Nurul Izzah Anwar last night. He was responding to questions posed by Johor PKR chief Syed Ibrahim Syed Noh as the discussion’s moderator.
Rafizi, a former PKR vice-president, had ended his political hiatus by announcing plans to contest the deputy president’s post, which was left vacant since the departure of International Trade and Industry Minister Azmin Ali to join Bersatu during the Sheraton Move which ended Harapan’s 22-month stint in Putrajaya.
Since then, both Rafizi and Nurul Izzah noted that Anwar has unfairly been made responsible for losses based on collective decisions, as well as failures of those close to him.
“We need this narrative to be reshaped. Set a new benchmark for politicians. “It is no longer enough to just raise issues in Parliament or on Twitter,” said Rafizi.
Nurul Izzah has yet to formally announce her comeback plans, having resigned from her post as an elected vice-president since 2018.
Throughout the discussion, it was however implied that she would be teaming up with Rafizi in the party’s upcoming elections next month.
Shortly after Rafizi’s announcement, former PKR Perak chief Farhash Wafa Salvador had accused him of implicitly attacking Anwar.
Farhash, who is Anwar’s former political secretary and had announced plans to contest the deputy president’s post, also challenged Rafizi to instead take on the top spot.
‘No problem with president’
Rafizi, however, reiterated he has no problems with Anwar’s presidency and his comeback was based on belief in PKR’s narrative of being a multi-racial party that enlightens the people.
“The best place for me to enter this time is as deputy president because I don't think I have a problem with the president. “I don’t feel that at his age of 75, he should be running like those in their 40s. The problem is with people around him who are supposed to be running but yet they are not,” said Rafizi.
“I feel that those around Anwar should have been more hardworking, more efficient, and brought about bigger impacts. “Not wait to see what Anwar would do and hang around to carry his bags. Not ask Anwar to do everything but yet they ‘sell his name’ to rise within the party. That is very dangerous,” he said.
Rafizi added that he has consistently spoken out against such practices within PKR, believing they only represent a small group claiming to be Anwar’s loyalists.
Overall, Rafizi said being perceived as having an obsession with power over tackling real issues faced by the people could risk PKR and Harapan losing more seats in the next general election as the third choice after BN and Perikatan Nasional.
PKR had continued its series of electoral defeats by winning only one out of 20 seats it contested for in the recently concluded Johor polls. - Alyaa Alhadjri,mk
What’s wrong with Pakatan Harapan?...
What’s wrong with Pakatan Harapan? This is one question that can beg dozens of answers, some complementary while others contradictory. Here is mine, for your consideration alongside those that put heavy emphasis on personalities and communalism. As this is not answering “what’s right with Harapan”, I will not list its achievements. Don’t misconstrue that Harapan has achieved nothing or complain that this does not do it justice.
In hindsight, nearly four years after GE14, Harapan’s fundamental failure is its inability to understand, steer, and adapt to political transformation.This failure contributed to its fall in the Sheraton Move but more damagingly, disables it from making a comeback after Sheraton.
Handicaps as a product of history
Many are disappointed with Harapan’s performance in its brief 22 months in power but such disappointment, while legitimate, must be examined against this question: how likely can any first non-Umno government do better? Could Harapan appoint a better cabinet with more experienced and competent ministers? Difficult. A parliamentary system requires most ministers to be appointed from among MPs and party hierarchy matters.
Unless our Parliament had many parliamentary committees for opposition MPs (and for that matter, backbenchers) and the opposition had a shadow cabinet for its senior MPs to develop policy expertise, how do you expect most first-time ministers to perform excellently? (The same applies to some incompetent first-term ministers under ex-premier Muhyiddin Yassin and current premier Ismail Sabri Yaakob.)
Could Harapan avoid over-promising in its manifesto? Difficult. Without actual experience in the federal government and shadow ministers to think through policy solutions, how could the opposition produce a manifesto that is both exciting and realistic? (This defence however cannot be used by Harapan in GE15.)
Could Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Anwar Ibrahim, and Azmin Ali not engage in a power struggle? Yes but only if they were angels or saints.
Could Harapan not pick Mahathir as its prime minister candidate to avoid the subsequent fallout? Yes, but then it might not have won enough Malay votes to oust Umno. Just look at how Harapan lost in Malacca and Johor to grasp this point.
Could Harapan handle ethno-religious relations better, with more tact, humility, and caution? Yes. Would that be enough to stop Umno and PAS from playing up Malay anxiety? No.
Asking the above questions is important because we need to separate what might be inevitable for any first non-Umno government from what Harapan could have done better. Harapan is a product of history with its handicaps and limitations. To demand perfection is to say BN-Umno’s excesses should be tolerated no matter what. But this is not a blank cheque to excuse Harapan’s mistakes both in and out of power.
Mistake 1: Nasty opposition could be broken up and eliminated
In GE14, Harapan-Warisan won only 48 percent of votes, as the remaining 51 percent largely split between BN (33 percent) and PAS (17 percent). The victory was made possible by two factors, the Umno-PAS split of Malay votes and the record-high Chinese turnout. As both might not repeat in GE15, many Harapan politicians feared that they would be only a “one-term government”.
What were the their options to this danger?
The first was to break up and eliminate the nasty opposition. Since BN had built up excessive incumbent advantages – in constituency allocation, parliamentary business, selective prosecution/impunity – against the opposition, use them on the new opposition to weaken their base and induce their collapse.
The second would be the exact opposite – levelling the playing field through parliamentary reform, equal constituency allocation, decentralisation, electoral system reform, and reform of the Attorney-General’s Chambers and MACC.
These reforms – some were later implemented under the MOU - would allow the opposition to survive and compete healthily on bread-and-butter issues and integrity, without necessarily playing up ethno-religious issues.
By reducing incumbent advantages, the second option was at least insurance. If Harapan loses Putrajaya in GE15, it may still retain many states and Umno cannot rebuild a corrupt one-party state. Of course, the second option was not pursued, perhaps never seriously contemplated. Many Harapan leaders and supporters simply saw BN-Umno and PAS as corrupt and racist. For many self-acclaimed realists, politics must be winner-takes-all. Incentivising the opposition to behave benignly is simply naïve and stupid.
What’s the outcome of Option 1? Harapan increased its parliamentary seats from 121 to 139 (despite losing the Tanjung Piai seat in a by-election), just nine seats short of a two-thirds parliamentary majority. Harapan gained a total of 15 MPs from BN, 13 of them Umno defectors who ended up in Bersatu. In addition, BN also lost Sarawak BN (now GPS) and PBS which went independent with 19 and one seat respectively.
However, without the constraint of East Malaysians, Umno’s natural response was to team up with PAS in Muafakat Nasional, which constantly accused Harapan as the enemy and traitor of Malays.This, and the bourgeoning relationship between Bersatu with Umno defectors that exacerbated the Mahathir-Anwar conflict, ended Harapan.
As executive dominance, centralisation, and patronage politics remained intact, Harapan subsequently lost six state governments through defection.
Mistake 2: ‘Counter-coups’ by defection could be possible
The fear of facing GE15 without incumbent advantages led Harapan to obsessively chase after any chance of regaining power by a ‘counter-coup’ with government MP defections. While Anwar’s “strong, formidable, and convincing” majority has become a defining joke of his desperation, the obsession was shared throughout all Harapan-plus parties.
In fact, many blamed Anwar, not for pursuing ‘counter-coups’, but for failing to deliver. Realistically, how could the “counter-coups” be successful and sustainable? Why would Umno parliamentarians topple a non-Umno PM from Bersatu to install a non-Umno PM from Harapan, as they would bound to be punished by Umno grassroots in GE15?
In Warisan president Mohd Shafie Apdal’s case, why would GPS install a prime minister from Sabah and miss their own chance? And if a Harapan 2.0 government counts on the support of Umno’s court cluster, would it not be punished by its own base, who are more reformist and independent-minded?
What kind of “realists” would fantasise that Umno would hand over Malacca instead of going to the polls? Haunted by the fear of losing GE15 and possessed by an addiction to incumbent advantages, Harapan wasted every day post-Sheraton.
It refused to focus on governance and form a shadow cabinet to ‘mark’ (as in football) ministers. Most tellingly, they could not table a shadow budget in 2020 after losing power, which it successfully did for seven years before winning power in 2018. In a crisis is danger and opportunity, but a directionless Harapan failed to turn the government’s crises into its own opportunities.
When the Muhyiddin government failed on the pandemic, no one saw a successful alternative in Harapan. When Ismail Sabri’s federal government failed on the floods, no one said Harapan’s Selangor state government was a success.
Mistake 3: Voters can still be mobilised by anger
Harapan’s failure to offer superior and workable alternatives is caused by its addiction to both incumbent advantages and anger mobilisation. The “Anything but Umno” (ABU) anger – the term coined around 2008 but the sentiment existed the latest since 1990 – was simply resurrected as a rejection of “backdoor governments” after Sheraton.
The latest resurfaced label is “big tent”, the strategy that brought Harapan and Mahathir together for GE14. What Harapan failed to realise is that for many voters, anger has simply been disabled by fatigue. They may remain angry and distrustful of BN and Perikatan Nasional (PN), but they have joined the largest party in town – Parti Aku Tak Undi (Patu). Increasingly, voters will not respond to anger mobilisation for three reasons.
First, it makes them feel stupid when leaders realign rapidly. In Malacca, Harapan simply had no qualms taking Umno frogs after claiming victim to party-hopping.
Second, after Harapan’s 22 months, voters get realistic on what a new government can offer.
Third, more than venting their anger on parties and politicians, voters want solutions when crises hit them.
Don’t recycle the pre-2018 playbook
Malaysia’s elections are now in transition into a multi-bloc competition, which may be stable or chaotic. Umno wants to restore the pre-2018 past.
To stop BN, Harapan must recognise the new realities and resist the temptation of recycling the pre-2018 playbook. - Wong Chin Huat,mk
Dear Rafizi, please build a new party...
Rafizi’s announcement to come back to politics has received some snide remarks from the likes of Farhash. I follow the Reformasi movement for over two decades since its birth and through several heart aching elections.
I do not recall the name Farhash, but I and millions know who Rafizi Ramli was and is. His big trailer truck will always be etched in the minds of most Malaysians For me, it was Rafizi who turned the tide of GE14 and it was Tun Mahathir who managed to put the PH just over the top.
Unfortunately, Tun M later on proved to be a traitor to the rakyat with Muhyiddin, Azmin, Saifuddin and Zuraida, and the five abandoned our hopes and dreams of a different and just Malaysia.
Anwar was still in prison and had not done much in the management of the election war. It is no surprise that Anwar has lost almost all the elections that came before and after the Sheraton Move. Anwar may have made a just PM but he is not an effective commander in an election war.
As a citizen of this country, I am writing to ask Rafizi to either join an existing political party or build a new one up. PKR is dead, as far as I am concerned. I saw the birth of PKR and it is fitting that I now am seeing it in its last throes of death under the leadership of Anwar.
Anwar was better as an inspiration to all Malaysians but he comes short as a war commander in an election battlefield. Rafizi seems to be better as a strategist and a general fielding his troops.
PKR was set up to free Anwar from injustice of imprisonment, and I thank Allah The Most High that He freed Anwar and thus the PKR mission is over. Now, PKR seems so arrogant that it still fantasizes that it is still a strong party supported by Malaysians in GE14.
If Selangor were to call for a snap election, I would not give much for the chances of PKR. Although it is true that BN won landslide victories, Umno is at its weakest with its Malay vote bank successfully taken over by Bersatu and PAS.
PKR and PH lost because the rakyat have become apathetic to the jostling for power and position in PKR thinking that Anwar will become PM. That is now a fantasy except a miracle from Allah. That miracle could come in the form of Rafizi Ramli.
But what has happened? Sneers and snide remarks greeted Rafizi’s announced comeback. Who is Farhash to accuse Rafizi of running away when we all know what Rafizi has done for PH in GE14? It is the likes of Farhash which are pulling the PH down.
Anwar is also at fault for not championing the vision of a just Malaysia choosing instead to play a careful game of Malay politics. The Malays have a saying, yang dikejar tak dapat, yang dikendung keciciran. The Malay votes he is chasing have left him while the non-Malay voters who overwhelmingly supported him are now spilled out and getting fewer and fewer.
Tun M is a towering Malay figure for he alone has the guts to take on the royalty, the religious institutions and the Malay Umno. Anwar is too gentleman nowadays to fight a battle for justice across race, religion and class. For this reason I ask Rafizi to consider joining either Warisan or Muda. Both these two parties are in desperate need of a seasoned strategist.
Rafizi can come in as a high-ranking supreme council member and could propose that East Malaysia carries the PM-ship for once and maybe Rafizi himself can be deputy PM. Let Anwar be the chief minister of Selangor if he can manage a win as an ADUN. Why go back to PKR which is clearly dying and ‘bodoh sombong’ to ask for help?
Rafizi can also form a new political party with him as the president. I am sure droves of PKR and Amanah members and young people will flock to his party. Rafizi does not have to get his party to contest 222 seats. Just 40 will do.
It does not have to be a big party like DAP, but just a modest one with serious people as candidates and serious research to strategically put up a viable social media campaign and ground troops. I am sure Malaysians will give him full support.
GE15 will either be in six or 12 months’ time. There is enough time for Rafizi to ditch PKR and get into Warisan or Muda. There is also enough time to form a new political party and put in place a ‘guerrilla warfare’ type of election assault.
When you are a large army, you can storm the castle, but when you are a small but elite commando unit, you can target specific weaknesses and penetration points. Both can win a war. Why spend much energy fighting off enemies from within PKR when one can spend energy building up an existing force or a new one? Forget PKR-lah. PKR is lost and tak boleh pakai lagi. - Prof. Dr. Mohd Tajuddin Mohd Rasdi,sinchew.com
cheers.
No comments:
Post a Comment