Anwar Ibrahim - 'heartland' fixated!

In my earlier post Perak DUN - a house of cards undone by frogs, I commented on Anwar Ibrahim welcoming the revolving-door frog, Nasarudin Hashim, ADUN for Bota in Perak to PKR.

The Great One claimed the Nasaruddin’s defection “... reflected the sentiments of his voters, namely the Malays in his constituency ... as the beginning of a new wave.”

Nothing about the non-Malays in Bota?

While on the 'beginning of the new wave' from Bota, would Anwar Ibrahim allow that the defection of erstwhile PKR Jamaluddin Mohd Radzi and Osman Jailu also “... reflected the sentiments of their voters, namely the Malays in their constituencies ... as the beginning of a new wave”?

Would the PKR anwaristas agree?

Not only did the Great One coo gleefully (then) about his new asset (so he thought), he just had to ennunciate the Malay nature of the defection, the ‘new wave’ so to speak!

We see that ethno-centric emphasis again in Penanti where Malaysiakini reported in Anwar: Penanti marks beginning of BN's end that the Great Reformer stated:

“Penanti is a 70 percent Malay constituency. For the BN to decline to contest in an area where hitherto they would not bat an eyelid to contest is proof that, right now, uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.”

I was hoping we would move away from the ethno-emphasis of constituencies, especially when Pakatan Rakyat followers have been throwing full hearted support behind PR candidates, regardless of their political background, PAS, PKR or DAP, or their religion, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Sikhism, etc or indeed their ethnic origin, Malay, Chinese, Indian, Eurasian, Thai, etc.

But trust Anwar Ibrahim to raise it again. A leopard never changes its spots (and if you don't like it, then balik Tiongsun lah, and don't try to ring those Hindu temple bells too).

And of course he seems to forget that slightly more than 27% of voters in Penanti or around 4150 warm bodies are non-Malay Malaysians … which might help explain why Fairus had won with a majority of 2219 votes.

The BN knows that the non-Malay preference for Pakatan is frighteningly overwhelming, as was witnessed in Bukit Gantang where they backed a PAS candidate to the hilt.

That’s probably what has persuaded Najib not to commit political seppuku in Penanti.

Anwar Ibrahim is so obsessed with his ‘heartland’ fantasy, his 'new wave of Malay voters', that he has dismissed so casually the support of the ‘nons’.