DAP needs to watch out for some treacherous PKR members

Malaysiakini - More brickbats for Guan Eng

Zahrain Hashim is the PKR chief in Penang who was so hard-up for Huan (and his rumoured thousands of Gerakan Party cohorts) to join PKR Penang, following Huan’s rumoured threat to leave Gerakan Party, that he (Zahrain) in his ‘siapa-tidak-kira semua pun mahu’ eagerness fell for the feint, parry, thrust and shadow boxing of Gerakan internal politics.

At least PKR’s Sim exercised a good sense of quality control and rejected any would-be defectors from Gerakan.

The problem with some members of PKR (as we have witnessed in Perak, Penang, Kedah and to a lesser extent, Selangor) has been their lack of quality control in accepting members. Some joined PKR because they were kicked out from or left UMNO because of differences with the factions within.

But in leaving UMNO they brought along their old mentality – where political power means position, pseudo-prestige and pungli.

You may ask what is pseudo-prestige?

It’s those State (or even Federal) awards and titles, namely Datukships.

Now, not every State/Federal award falls under the dodgy category – some people awarded such honours have genuinely earned them.

But a pseudo-prestigious one …?

Remember how Kayveas and his PPP members were humiliated (real chia-lart, teruk sangat, humongously) by the Malacca CM, their so-called guest of honour for the opening the PPP general assembly in Malacca, when he told PPP to get the f* out of BN. And the apparent (perhaps not true) cause of that unmitigated insult was Kayveas demanding a Malacca Datukship for the Malacca PPP head wakakaka!

'Twas truly a pseudo-prestige because Malacca’s Datukships have been the most numerous awarded, here, there, everyway wakakaka.

Even Jean Badawi received one the moment she married AAB. Yet the poor aneh couldn’t get one from Ali – this calls for another round of wakakaka.

When Lim GE said no to state awards of datukship he became even less popular with those PKR members.

We know that some Penang PKR members believe they are entitled to positions and prestige – so, on top of Lim’s no to Datukships, they were further pissed off when Lim GE decided to do away with appointing pollies to head local councils, a position badly abused in the past to the detriment of the rakyat's benefits. He and the Penang exco decided on professional administrators to head (note: not ‘helm’ wakakaka) the councils.

When one PKR bloke thought he could show his anger by boycotting an event that he was required to be present at, Lim sacked him. We’re of course referring to PKR’s Johari Kassim.

Note the difference in the leadership quality between Lim and Anwar, where one puts his foot on down on indiscipline while the other allows the Kulim Wonder to get away with shameful thuggish behaviour, treacherous criticism of his own PKR colleague Eli Wong (a victim of puerile pariah politics), demonstration of his medieval misogynist mentality against SIS, etc etc etc.

That is something for Anwar Ibrahim to answer to, and for his party’s deputy president, Dr Syed Husin to explain why there’s no disciplinary action taken against the Kulim Wonder as had been promised.

Anyway, Zahrain decides that it’s payback time for Lim GE.

Seizing on a tragedy, that of Kampung Buah Pala, he twisted the misguided Hindraf knife further into Lim’s side, accusing Lim for attempting to resolve the crisis through media statements, rather than working out a proactive action plan ...

... of course ignoring at the same time that the Hindraf brothers had been the ones using the media to shout down and threaten Lim … as if they were avenging immortals wakakaka.

And the irony about 'negotiating through the media' is that in the runup to the March 2008 general election, PKR set a notorious track record of pre-empting talks with the DAP by releasing their views on PKR-DAP seat sharing allocations to the press rather than discussing those views or desired positions with the DAP in confidence. That party did the same underhanded and undermining tactics in 2004.

It's obvious that Penang PKR wants to sabotage Lim GE, because earlier we saw PKR state youth chief Yusmadi Yusoff leaping in to join the pack of braying anti-Lim attackers over the Kg Buah Pala saga.

With allies like that, who needs enemies?