While PKR members are relieved that party adviser Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has warned errant members to toe the line, critics say it is too little and too late.

FINALLY, after months of internal squabbling, discord and defections in the PKR, its adviser Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has given the order to the rank and file – shape up or ship out.

Party members are relieved their leader has finally cracked the whip and is trying to restore some semblance of unity in the factious party.

Anwar, at the PKR convention in Penang on Sunday, the first in a series, drew the line for the party, saying he was for valid criticism but would not compromise with leaders who stood against party policies.

“All party members must support the transformation agenda, work for the Pakatan Rakyat or be sacked from the party,” he said.

“Give loyalty to PKR or leave.”

While some said the new theme was better late than never, others felt the tough new line was probably too little and too late in the day.

The PKR, they say, is too much a wayward party for anyone to impose discipline, especially when some of its leaders have consistently shown a penchant for warlord-ism, bordering on the outright disobedient.

Such unruly behaviour has damaged the PKR’s standing among the public and given rise to the perception that the party is disunited, given to constant infighting and drifting, without a firm hand at the oars.

Anwar, the critics say, is preoccupied with his own problems, including the second sodomy charge and in addition, spends more time abroad than in the country to oversee PKR and Pakatan issues.

Increasingly, his absence is felt not just in the PKR but also in the Pakatan, where he is the leading limelight and in Parliament, where as the Opposition Leader, he is expected to lead the charge to check the Barisan Nasional.

Instead, we have often seen the old warhorse, DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang, working his butt off on the opposition bench with newcomers like Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua and others playing an active role assisting him.

In Anwar’s absence, the PKR has been rocked by one squabble after another, and second echelon leaders like Subang MP R. Sivarasa and Batu MP Tian Chua have been left holding the fort, fighting the fires and blaming the media.

From Sabah and Sarawak to Perak, Selangor, Perak and the Federal Territory, PKR leaders have been squabbling publicly, some have resigned and while others have defected to Barisan claiming to be Barisan-friendly independents.

In the key state of Sabah, the deep division in the PKR appears terminal, with Dr Jeffrey Kitingan on a collision course with the party’s leadership in Kuala Lumpur.

He wants autonomy and a free hand to run the state as he thinks fit and sees any direction from the PKR headquarters as interference in Sabah affairs by the “orang Malaya” – a dirty word for Sabahans.

The hope the PKR had placed on Gabriel Adit, the Ngemeh assemblyman, to deliver Sarawak has all but dissipated after he openly defied the party by announcing his intention to leave and form his own party.

PKR hopes are now pinned on human rights lawyer Baru Bian, who PKR sources said, is already weighed down with numerous land rights battles and other environmental issues to concentrate on reviving the PKR’s flagging fortunes.

While the PKR and consequently, Pakatan, squanders the precious mandate given them in 2008 with their inability to unite for a common cause, the Government under Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak is making strides winning hearts and minds under the 1Malaysia umbrella.

Even the chattering crowd that derided the concept is beginning to admit that 1Malaysia is not mere talk but is driven by public funds and expansion, and is starting to win over rural people and the urban poor.

Najib has appropriated all of the Pakatan themes of justice, equality and hope, and while the “agenda for change” rhetoric is still coming out of Anwar and Pakatan, it is Najib and the Barisan-led government that is delivering.

In the new emerging landscape, Anwar has a tough job ahead – keep his party disciplined, lead the Pakatan to victory in the next general election and at the same time, overcome all his personal problems.

He can, for starters, match his new tough words with tough action on several PKR leaders who are, for one reason or another, major embarrassments to the party and Pakatan.

Checking the runaway train that is Kulim Bandar Baru MP Zulkifli Nordin, who is on a personal mission to promote Islam, would go far to assure the public that Pakatan is united, speaks with one voice and practises inclusive, multi-ethnic policies.

Despite constant demands by non-governmental organisations and civil society to restrain the MP, Zulkifli continues to defy PKR/Pakatan policies without restrain, not even a rap on his knuckles.

The public, as seen in the blogs and on the Internet, welcome Anwar’s promise to crack the whip, engage his own PKR and repair the damage done to the Pakatan’s image.

But they want action, not more rhetoric, from the charismatic Anwar.

The painful truth, in the words of Tunku Abdul Aziz, the former Transparency International founder and chairman, is that the voters owe Pakatan nothing but Pakatan owes them everything.

A mere footnote at the bottom of a page of Malaysia’s political history or a tome on political change that recreated and revitalised a sick and openly corrupt society into a vibrant and prosperous democracy for all?

Pakatan Rakyat must decide quickly where it wants to be. On present showing, it has not a ghost of a chance to ever breach and occupy the still impregnable Putrajaya citadel, in spite of the credible 8 March 2008 electoral onslaught. It does not have to look far to find out why it is in such a sorry state. Lim Kit Siang’s warning of a “one term miracle” could well become self-fulfilling and Putra Jaya would be just a gleam in the eye if his words are not taken to heart.

Pakatan Rakyat leaders must come to terms with the reality that is Barisan Nasional. We may despise its politics of immorality, of corruption and injustice, but even the most rabid alternative political practitioners must readily concede that it is still a formidable organisation with an armoury of unsavoury tricks they have to contend with.

Remember Perak, and the bad after taste that lingers on and on. Pakatan must wake up from its euphoric pie in the sky self-induced dream that the one off massive voter handouts would be there for the asking at the next general elections. There will be no repeat performance until and unless it gets its act together. The electorate owes PR nothing. The truth is that Pakatan Rakyat owes their supporters everything.

PR leaders must lead by putting the larger interests of the nation above individual parochial party issues with their tendency to be unnecessarily divisive, emotive and controversial. Are these issues really so fundamental that they are incapable being discussed rationally without adding to the fragility of a coalition that is apparently about to be torn asunder?

I wrote some time ago about the difficulty of reconciling the conflicting claims of the many different ideological and doctrinal sacred cows represented by the PR partners, but they must direct their intellectual energies to finding a solution to what the people of multi-racial Malaysia will and will not put up with.

They must open their minds to the larger, and therefore, more relevant social, economic, political, religious and cultural concerns of our people than to insist on playing the same old race and religious cards with their declining appeal to right thinking people. These are barriers to overcome.

If PR is, as it seems, incapable of even getting to the most important item on the new national agenda, then it is offering nothing better to the people of this nation than what BN has been doing for half a century and more. More of the same is an unworthy option for a long suffering people who deserve better. PR leaders must, in all good conscience, ask themselves whether they can lead this complex and difficult nation if they themselves are apparently incapable of agreeing on basic fundamental principles of cooperative engagement to deepen their commitment to values of justice in its widest sense for every Malaysian.

If PK leaders feel that they have neither the will nor the stomach for the sacrifices they are expected to make in order to take the new national non-race based agenda forward on the long march to Putrajaya, they should come out with a straight answer that should leave the people of this country in no doubt where they stand. There is no place for personal agendas in the national scheme of things; certainly not where it is a matter of saving the people from a particularly rotten and unjust system of governance.

Pakatan Rakyat has a great deal to offer by way of a commitment to a clean corruption-intolerant administration and it deserves to be given a chance to govern Malaysia. It cannot be worse than the Umno dominated administration. But then the political game is not about sentimental nonsense. It is determined solely by the dictum “Perform or Perish”, and the PR state governments must prove to the satisfaction of the people in those states, and by extension the nation, that they can be trusted to govern good, and to govern well.

This coalition, even if it were made in heaven, could still come a cropper. PR leaders have themselves to blame in the event.

We need a national unity government like we need a hole in the head. The thought of sleeping with the ethically debased and morally detestable Barisan Nasional government is simply too abhorrent to contemplate. Are we such reckless and irresponsible gluttons for punishment that in spite of having endured the Umno excesses in social, economic and political terms these last three decades, we are now asking for more of the same? That, believe it or not, is what we will get for our trouble. Umno will be more than happy to oblige.

They have nothing to lose and everything to benefit from our mindless gamble with our future. Why are some of us so eager to go to bed with a political party that has not one redeeming feature left to justify our risking our hard-earned reputation? Where are our much trumpeted principles of honesty and integrity? Are we no different, after all, from the Umno that we despise? Don’t we care two hoots about the people up and down the country who campaigned and voted for us and gave us five states to govern because they were disgusted and fed up with the Umno majority government and its antics?

That some members of the top PAS leadership could even think of getting under the blanket with BN, and Umno in particular, is extremely worrying. We must never lose sight of the fact that when voters across the nation threw their very considerable support behind the DAP, PAS, and PKR on that fateful day of March 8, 2008, they wanted change, not just any change, but the sort of transformation that would put paid to the unbridled, wonton political corruption that has left this country in total disarray on every conceivable front.

Yes, this country with all the natural resources at its disposal could quite easily have been catapulted to the top of the high-income countries league table without too much difficulty under a different management. Talking about making Malaysia into a high-income country under BN is self-deluding, and Najib knows it. He must know that corruption and competitiveness make strange bedfellows. Najib, who must know a thing or two about corruption in Umno, must realise without any prompting from me that unless he is prepared to confront corruption decisively, he can kiss goodbye to any dream of a prosperous Malaysia on par with the likes of Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea and Japan in our corner of the globe.

That vast numbers of people wanted an incorruptible government was precisely the reason why they cast their votes against the BN component parties to deny them their accustomed two-thirds majority that they had had taken for granted as if it was their divine right. The magical two-thirds gave them the legitimacy to trample on our rights to good governance. They did not give us the votes so that we may traffic with the likes of Umno. They wanted us to act and behave differently and to give substance to the notion of public duty in the public interest.

To be seen associating with Umno whose moral reputation is in tatters is tantamount to giving comfort and succour to the corrupt in our midst, and betraying the trust and confidence of the rakyat in our integrity. That cannot do our own reputation any good at a time when people are starting to ask what is it that we are doing that is going to make a difference to their lives. We had better have the answers ready, sooner rather than later.

What do we hope to achieve by working with Umno when we have absolutely nothing in common with them that will benefit the nation. Umno has been stuck in the same old corruption groove as long as I can remember, and it wants to remain where it is because corruption is the opium that feeds its soul and dulls its sensibilities. Is this really where we see ourselves fitting in? PAS has to think through all this very carefully because it owes to its supporters, well-wishers as well as its partners in Pakatan Rakyat a clear and unequivocal explanation for this aberration. Or there more to this than meets the eye?

We who have long been in the opposition should know how difficult it is to earn public confidence, and surely we do not need this madness now to terrify those sitting on the fence from coming down on our side. If earning confidence is difficult, think how much more difficult it is to retain it. We must not put our supporters’ goodwill to the test by this highly risky and dangerous venture. The consequences are too terrible to imagine.

Umno will like nothing better than see us sow the seed of our own destruction. That party and its leadership have fritted away their ethical capital and have no moral authority to lead this nation. We have and we must protect our reputation by distancing ourselves from the scams and scandals that dog their every step.

A national unity government is totally irrelevant because there will be no change in the way the affairs of this country are managed unless the BN government is shown the door at the first opportunity.

Let us work towards that objective by coming up with practical and sustainable policies based on social justice and equality of opportunity for all Malaysians that will transform this country into one that will have an honoured place at the top table of the world’s respected nations. My advice to Umno is that there is life beyond corruption.

Published on June 19, 2009 | The Malaysian Insider