The Curse of Marina Lee Abdullah?

I came across this info in RPK's The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 15):

But Anwar was adamant. “Make sure Zubir Embong and Rahman Bakar win,” Anwar instructed. “Do whatever needs to be done.” It was common knowledge that Hadi Awang and Anwar Ibrahim hated each other. Hence to Anwar this was also personal.

RPK

According to RPK who helped his MCKK matey Anwar Ibrahim* in the 1986 general election campaign in Terengganu, Rahman Bakar was selected to contest against Pak Haji Hadi Awang in Marang in 1986, and the UMNO man won, satisfying I suppose, Anwar's personal animosity against the PAS leader.

* Anwar was then the powerful UMNO Minister of Education, a ministerial appointment mandatory for ascending to the PM post.

I wonder whether the animosity between Anwar and Pak Haji had (or should it be grammatically 'has') to do with the known history of Anwar Ibrahim being (once) groomed to be the leader of PAS. Yes, kid you not!

Hadi Awang

Thus Dr M wasn't the only one who had an eye on the ABIM firebrand and his silvery-tongued manmanlai.

Naturally his highly vocal (is there any other way to describe Anwar, wakakaka) ABIM leadership and credentials brought him to the notice of PAS’ (late) president Dato' Ustaz Hajji Fadzil bin Muhammad Noor, a known moderate, who was so impressed by the younger man that the Ustaz wanted him to be his successor as President of PAS.

Just imagine that if Anwar had not joined UMNO,  today the PAS President would be Ustaz Anwar Ibrahim and not Pak Haji Hadi Awang. What a thought!

'cuse me while I have a tot or two of Scotch (naturally Johnny Walker Double Black) wakakaka.

But in that head-hunting episode, it was Dr Mahathir who won against PAS (Ustaz Fadzil Noor) for the affection of Anwar, a man then known for his ABIM anti-establishment (meaning anti-UMNO) crusade.

Dr Mahathir

I wonder whether Anwar had left ABIM for UMNO in a flash ... ZOoooooommm ... to join parachute into the most powerful political organization in Malaysia?

Probably from his change of allegiance to UMNO, many people including and especially his former mates in ABIM (except those who followed him into UMNO wakakaka) knew Anwar loves political power more than the political cause he was espousing as ABIM’s Chief.

Of course he claimed he would reform UMNO from within.

During his 16 years in UMNO he shot across the political landscape of power, lighting it up in meteorite fashion to become the very powerful DPM, and the publicly known heir-anointed to Dr Mahathir to become the Prime Minister of Malaysia, an appointment he wouldn't have (theoretically) achieved, as RPK wrote, if he had become only the PAS president after Ustaz Fadzil Noor.

Anwar Ibrahim

And in those 16 years in UMNO, as DPM and at times acting PM, did he exhibit any inclinations, even a mere subatomic iota, of reforms, or even voice same, as he had promised when he leapt from ABIM into UMNO?

Nay, nary a squeak nor a peep!

And when he was booted out from UMNO, he made that 16-year record of non-achievement as an UMNO minister even worse by blaming everyone else except himself, and only bleating reformasi when he was no longer in a position of power. 

Anwar even dared claim to have been helpless to make changes while in government.

Former Bar president Zainur Zakaria sneered at Anwar’s pathetic excuse - read Zainur Zakaria Zapped AAB & Anwar Ibrahim for more.

Zainur Zakaria

Anyway, from my personal observations it’s more than political power per se that Anwar loves - oh, he loves that, there's no doubt. But apart from power per se and the associated considerable trappings for a DPM, I think he enjoys public adulation, and if not public adulation then at least supporters’ adulation more. 

Eager hands raided the ossuary for me to be laid
As stepping stones for the progress of a demigod
On Ardha-Matanga, 4 tasks & seven white trunks
Saluting Brahma, walking to Amarawati by a lake

(extracts from my poem Murdering Altantuyaa Shaariibuu Again)

Altantuyaa Shaariibuu

Yes, according to the gospel by kaytee wakakaka, Anwar has a weakness for admiration, adulation and adoration from people, but I believe, more than would be considered normal. To his ears, thunderous applause (wakakaka) must be sheer delightful music.

He made it ... oh well ... almost.

They say, what goes up must come down again (unless of course, in going up 'whatever' has achieved escape velocity - well, let's see what happened and will happen).

It's possible that a Western educated person, especially in the classics, would make a comparison between Anwar Ibrahim and Achilles on many aspects, and though I agree, would argue only up to a certain point.

Both shot up like blazing stars, both were stop in their tracks at near the pinnacle of their glories, though in this, Achilles knew his fate, for he had personally chosen, when asked by the gods, to blaze up in glory but die young instead of becoming an average king to die at a ripe old age.

I believe Anwar also shares another commonality with Achilles - he has an Achilles heel and I posted on this in July 2008 in a piece titled The Achilles heel of Anwar Ibrahim. The part I want to extract for your perusal pertains to his Achilles heel:

During the Trojan War, he [Achilles]was basically (almost) invincible until he was fatally wounded in the same (un-bathed) heel by an arrow shot by Paris, son of King Priam of Troy.

Thus an Achilles’ heel is a fatal weakness (metaphorically not physical only) in spite of overall strength, actually or potentially, leading to downfall.

Anwar Ibrahim has an Achilles heel, and on this I don’t want to hear any of those salacious comments pertaining to recent events.

In my opinion, Anwar’s Achilles heel has been and still is his impatience.

Coupled with his excessive political ambitions, his Achilles heel had been and will be his downfall.

Achilles shot in heel

I then continued with the grapevine story of Anwar's humiliation of Gaafar Baba, the widely known split with Dr Mahathir, his highly publicized attempted 916 coup d'état to replace AAB's post-March 2008 government, and RPK's disenchantment with Anwar after campaigning for Mr Manmanlai.

One section of the post The Achilles heel of Anwar Ibrahim is as follows (posted in July 2008 within a period which I call 'The not so Manmanlai Interregnum', wakakaka):

Anwar's Achilles heel is showing through again, refusing to wait for the next general election – of course there are other factors as well which I will blog on tomorrow. Hence the PKR's almost daily broadcast about pending party defections … perhaps to pressure other UMNO stalwarts if not AAB, ........

Expect him to continue and even escalate his campaign of political destabilization, as he becomes more frantic with the approaching September 16 in just 2 months time.

And Malaysiakini has just published 'Opposition had planned demo today' where it reported Home Affairs Minister Syed Hamid claiming that, this month alone, his ministry has received information that numerous demonstrations were to be staged by the opposition (he probably meant PKR) with the sole purpose of toppling the government.

Aiyoyo, Anwar, where's your man man lai? Just like your reformasi?

Anwar & supporters

Anyway, in August 2008 (still within 'The not so Manmanlai Interregnum', wakakaka) I posted another opinion-piece on Anwar titled The torment and impatience of Anwar Ibrahim, extract as follows:

I note that Anwar Ibrahim has grown gaunt rather than slim – perhaps he’s more careful about his diet as he is in his 60’s, or perhaps the campaign (since pre-March 2008) has taken a terrible toll on him.

Anwar Ibrahim has driven himself incessantly, frenetically and obsessively towards what he hope will be his political crowning glory, the premiership of Malaysia.

Leaving aside his conceit, love of power and disdain for those he sees as his intellectual inferiors in the current UMNO hierarchy, his unrelenting push to become the PM of Malaysia, by hook or by crook, has been due to one tormenting factor …

… which has been the loss of his place in Malaysian political leadership history as the 5th PM of our nation, just on the eve of his expected ascendancy as Dr Mahathir’s anointed heir.

His ascendancy would have fulfilled even the legend of UMNO’s Da Vinci code(s), for surely in R-A-H-M-A-N, the letter ‘A’ would have come after ‘M’.Yet, as they say, ‘There’s many a slip ‘twixt cup and lip’, and Anwar found that to his invincible distress.

I believe it has been this narrow miss at the highest political office, just by a hair’s breath, that has made the man super-geram, a frustrated anger beyond normal boundaries, even sending him into unbridled rage.

It has been an experience that has tormented him since.

Da Vinci code

Today, I offer for your perusal a Free Malaysia Today article by CT Ali titled Each folly by Anwar has its costs. 

Incidentally, CT Ali is a reformist who believes in Pakatan Rakyat’s ideologies. He is a FMT columnist, so please don't automatically condemn him as an UMNO mole, in the same Myrmidon-ish way as some anwaristas have condemned me as a MCA paid writer (though I wish MCA would bloody pay me, wakakaka).

Some relevant perusing for us would be as follows: 

Alas for Anwar and for us, what political capital and reservoir of goodwill from the Malaysian public that he, PKR and Pakatan had gained from the success of the 12th general election had not been used wisely. 

From the false euphoria of an impossibly ill-conceived announced takeover of Putrajaya, through a series of increasingly questionable decision-makings that smack too openly of political opportunism and self-interest, Anwar has lurched from one political disaster to another.

Each folly by Anwar had its costs. And slowly but surely PKR and then Pakatan lost traction in its attempt to take what happened at the 12th general election onto to the next level where Pakatan could have formed the government after the 13th general election.

So far we have accommodated his follies, overlooked his personal misdemeanours, ignored his crass stupidity in thinking that we did not know what was happening in Selangor, chuckled at his flights of fancies (taking over Putrajaya) and forgave him his errors – all in the name of Pakatan and mindful of what he has undergone at the hands of a revengeful Mahathir.

Perhaps Anwar mistook our lack of a cracking of the whip when we should, as being a licence for him to carry on with his questionable activities – personal or otherwise.

Perhaps he thinks that the end justifies the means. That we will overlook anything he does if that is what he thinks is needed for Pakatan to win the election and for him to be prime minister.

I think Anwar is sadly mistaken.

Gutter politics

I just want to tell Anwar this.

If you are personally involved in any way with Deepak Jaikishan and Musa Hassan’s recent revelations, then you really have no sense of the contempt and disgust most of us have for politicians, any politicians for that matter, who want to score cheap political points by resorting to gutter politics.

The same revulsion felt by so many of us at the manner Mahathir treated and pursued you (I think the word to describe what Mahathir did was “zalim”) after your fall from grace can so easily now be turned towards you if you insist on going the same way as Mahathir and Umno. 

And it can turn with such a ferocity and vengeance as to render any attempt by you to continue as leader of Pakatan simply impossible.

If you detect a sense of finality in these assertions by me, then you are right.

There is rising anger among many of us rakyat at the possibility that we will have to put up with this ridiculous charade of a financially desperate Deepak and a retired “past his use by date” Musa to plead their case for their own gains with your help.

And seemingly being able to do it in the guise of “truth telling” to enable the people to know what is the truth!

All this just does not gel with the people anymore.

Cease and desist, Anwar, and disengage while you still can from the stranglehold that Deepak and Musa will eventually have over you when the tide turns as it did with (private investigator) P Balasubramaniam.

Do it while you still can.

Musa Hassan

Incidentally, in RPK's The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 15) he mentioned Anwar chewing him for being in KL instead of Terengganu helping in UMNO's campaign in 1990, an act which angered RPK's wife, Marina because Anwar scolded her husband in public in front of many people.

RPK told us Marina said: “That bastard is never going to become the Prime Minister. You just watch. Record that in your diary. He is going to fall. Record that in your diary.”

Has that been a potent curse, one as deadly as the arrow of Paris, son of King Priam of Troy?

RPK & Marina