Party over in Sabah, Sarawak if Azmin wins

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 16:10

By Joe Fernandez

COMMENT PKR leaders like vice-president Azmin Ali – Umno unreformed, unrepentant, his critics swear – have always been uncomfortable with the change and reform agenda ostensibly flogged by de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim. It appears that one can take people like the duo out of Umno but they can’t take the Umno out of them. PKR has duplicated Umno’s Department of Dirty Tricks (DDT). It’s becoming more and more apparent everyday as the nomination process for party elections completes itself. Names have been copied from the electoral rolls and entered in the party register as members without their knowledge.

In other cases, personal details have been obtained from pay slips as in the case of the Sabah Medical Centre in Kota Kinabalu. Phantom members are those who live in one division and are registered as members in another division several hundred kilometres away.

Sabah Umno moneybags have entered the fray and are financing candidates in the PKR polls in the state. Money is being thrown around like confetti.

How a party like PKR can conduct direct elections along the lines of the Election Commission is beyond anyone. Even with the EC, there are so many complaints. How will the PKR election machinery prove itself?

Moving along, it’s not surprising that Azmin should stage-manage a press conference yesterday afternoon in Petaling Jaya after luring people there under false pretences. He wanted to conjure up the impression in public that the party leadership is solidly behind him in the quest for the deputy presidency. It wouldn’t even be surprising if Azmin had briefed Anwar and used his name before pulling this stunt in public.

The press conference comes in the wake of talk in the political grapevine in Sabah and Sarawak that Zaid Ibrahim, also in the running for the deputy presidency, will be suspended from PKR – “by hook or by crook”– if he wins or is set to win. Interestingly, Anwar’s wife and daughter, Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and Nurul Izzah, are both reportedly behind Zaid. The reason is simple. These two women cannot understand Anwar’s “silence”, if that’s the correct word, when it comes to matters that involve Azmin’s errant behaviour. So, there’s no love lost between mother and daughter, on the one hand, and Azmin, on the other.

Endless problems

Suspension is also the fate that befell 12 Sabah PKR leaders – the 12 Disciples – on Aug 25 a la Azmin despite the existence of a peace plan dated Dec 13 which promised no witch-hunt. Their eventual fate is still being decided after Anwar disputed his deal with Sabah strongman Jeffrey Gapari Kitingan.

It’s in the nature of the man (Azmin) to do such things – suspensions and bogus press conferences – as apparent from his brief two-month stint as Sabah PKR head. Although he began with much goodwill in the state and a good press, he soon ran into endless problems with the Natives when he shut out the local leadership. He dealt with them, imperial Malay style, through one unpopular division leader who has had Anwar’s ear from their Umno days and believes that he has been divinely ordained to be the Sabah chief minister.

There was widespread dismay when Azmin bulldozed through decisions without debate in Sabah PKR and had them entered in the minutes as the Gospel truth. This is something that no Sabahan worth his salt, even in the ruling Barisan Nasional, would stomach for even a moment. There are no secrets in Sabah.

Dismay soon turned into outrage when he stressed his version of PKR’s ketuanan rakyat (supremacy of the people) which sounded something suspiciously like Umno’s ketuanan Melayu (Malay supremacy).

In Sabah, there were no Malays listed in the official figures available for 1960. Several years later there is a Malay category composed of illegal immigrants mostly from the Philippines and Indonesia who have entered the electoral rolls. Even illegal immigrants from the Indian subcontinent are listed as Malays in Sabah. It’s all there in Dr Chong Eng Leong’s book, “Lest We Forget”, the local Bible on illegal immigrants in Sabah.

Local Muslims are listed in their MyKad as Dusun, Bajau, Suluk, Barunai (Brunei Malay), Bisaya, Orang Sungei, Irranun, Cocos-Keeling etc etc. The Bisaya and Orang Sungei along with the Dusun are under the KadazanDusunMurut umbrella term.

It became an all-out media war in Sabah when PKR leaders in the local chapter, led by Jeffrey, decided to run Azmin out of the state. In addition, they wanted his comrade in arms, Mustapha Kamil of Perak, out of Sarawak as the state chief.

Local warlords

Azmin will not be able to redeem himself in the eyes of the public and the party members, especially in Sabah and Sarawak, after pulling the stunt yesterday afternoon. He wants to make it appear that he’s only going for the deputy presidency after receiving overwhelming support from the party’s MPs and Senators.

Instead, he has brought disrepute to the party and damaged its image in the public eye, the same charges levelled against the Sabah 12 whom he has dubbed the “Dirty Dozen”. Both Sabah and Sarawak PKR chapters met in Miri last night in an emergency session, in the wake of the Azmin press conference, to work out a common platform for the party elections. The Sabah side was led by Jeffrey, Daniel John Jambun and Awang Ahmad Sah. The Sarawakians were led by Baru Bian and Nicholas Bawin.

If he’s really interested in the deputy presidency, Azmin should be man enough to announce it. He should take on Zaid one-to-one and let the members decide once and for all. It’s pointless encouraging others to enter the fray as well just to split Zaid’s votes.

In the event that Azmin wins the deputy presidency, it’s highly unlikely that Sabah and Sarawak will accept him. More than one half of the country will turn their back on him. The die will have been cast in that case. Anwar and Azmin can have PKR to themselves and party on. Azmin cannot win the deputy presidency in a clean fight with Zaid. Things will get even dirtier than they are now.

The local warlords in Sabah and Sarawak will then have to decide, after having backed Zaid, how they are going to re-position their politics in the face of the emerging new scenario in PKR. The majority of them will no doubt set up another vehicle, directly or indirectly, to cover Sabah and Sarawak. They will make common cause with those in Peninsular Malaysia who favour a third force in Parliament to steer between the two Malay-led warring political blocks, that is, Pakatan Rakyat and BN.

In any case, the politics of PKR and Pakatan are not for Sabah and Sarawak. That would be like going from the frying pan (BN) into the fire. If this is not immediately clear today, it will become clear tomorrow. There’s no difference between PKR and Umno as far as people in Sabah and Sarawak are concerned. The saving grace in Pakatan is the DAP and PAS.