Damage Done Even If Pakatan Survives Selangor Crisis

sourced from NST online

There is a general sense of foreboding among the Pakatan grassroots that the ongoing power struggle in Selangor may wreck the loose alliance.

Pas’ insistence on defending the position of Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim as menteri besar against the wishes of PKR and DAP is indeed a threat to the almost eight-year-old alliance.

Pas, which itself was divided over the issue had tried to keep a lid on it with secretary-general Datuk Mustafa Ali issuing a gag order two days ago.

However, a lot of angry words had already been directed at Pas, especially by DAP leaders, with the most glaring being that by Tony Pua, the party’s Selangor chairman.

He had on Thursday predicted that Pas would be wiped out in the state if the party’s refusal to play ball on Khalid’s removal culminated with a snap election.

It reflects Pua’s apparent lack of regard for his party’s Islamist ally, a sentiment, which is likely shared among many DAP leaders.

Pas leaders, especially the younger conservatives, are not likely to take such insults lying down.

Many felt that their party had bent overly backwards to accommodate its Pakatan partners, to the extent of compromising its core principle of wanting Malaysia to be its version of an Islamic state.

Pas had even sacked and sidelined senior leaders such as former Selangor commissioner Datuk Dr Hasan Ali and former deputy president Nasharudin Mat Isa, who were perceived to be against the cooperation with PKR and DAP.

As it is, Pas is the Pakatan component party with the least number of seats in Parliament, with 21 as compared with PKR’s 30 and DAP’s 38.

Many in Pas wanted their leaders to change the perception that their party is merely DAP’s poodle and subservient to the whims and fancies of PKR de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

It should be borne in mind that many Pas leaders have been unhappy from the start when Anwar initiated the Kajang Move, which led to the present impasse in Selangor.

Nonetheless, the spectre of another opposition coalition break-up is something which Pakatan leaders from all sides are at the moment trying to avoid.

The weakening of Barisan Alternative (BA) following DAP’s withdrawal in 2001 should not be far from their mind.

The outcome was a fragmented opposition being badly beaten by BN in the 2004 general election with the ruling coalition winning over 90 per cent of the parliamentary seats.

BA was disbanded after that.

Despite their open support for Khalid, Pas president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang and the party’s spiritual leader Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat had insisted that cooperation within Pakatan should continue.

The rumour mills may be going on an overdrive over the past weeks about the possibility of Pas joining forces with Umno in Selangor and ultimately at the national level, but such a scenario is for now still too far-fetched to be considered seriously.

Many Pas leaders, including Nik Aziz in particular, have always been abhorrent of such a cooperation and there has been nothing currently to indicate that they had changed their mind about it.

Nonetheless, how Hadi and Nik Aziz are going to get Pas to stand its ground on the Selangor crisis without causing the meltdown of Pakatan will be interesting to observe.

Even if they manage to do so, the hurt caused by the barbs already thrown by their Pakatan partners regarding this issue would be hard to heal.

It would be even worse if they have actually relented and let PKR and DAP have their way. The repercussions could be severe at the party’s grassroots level.

In all likelihood, the issue is almost certain to drag on even if PKR president Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail should in the end be appointed as the new Selangor menteri besar.

At the end of it all, even if Pakatan survives the Selangor crisis, there would already have been so much bad blood between Pas and its allies that their ties would have turned truly toxic.