Uthayakumar for Hulu Selangor?

Malaysiakini - Manoharan urges PKR to field Uthaya.

DAP Manoharan has set the cat among the pigeons.

Putting aside Uthayakumar’s political prospects in the Hulu Selangor by-election, Manoharan’s proposal if taken up would be a coup, well, at least on the surface. It will bring Hindraf or whatever remains of that once-amazing movement on side with Pakatan, and avoid the vote splitting that Uthayakumar has threatened against Pakatan in a number of crucial seats for the next election.

It will also mollify Uthayakumar as he would feel he has been accepted and acknowledged by Pakatan leaders as not only a peer but a ‘mover’, a big time pollie, so to speak. That has been his siren cry all the while but alas, he did it in such a nasty petulant manner that no one, least of all the DAP (who had fought for him when he was under ISA detention), wants to have anything to do with such a self-centred person.

Of course if he wins in Hulu Selangor, wow, he will see it as vindication of his god-like personality.

But will Pakatan take up on Manoharan’s advice?

If it does, many may feel that Pakatan is kowtowing to an Uthayakumar’s threat of a three-corner fight in some crucial seats in the next election. Does one want to go down such a path, succumbing to threats, when it will set a very dangerous precedent?

Many in Pakatan opine that Uthayakumar as a person is so conceited that he can easily become a frog if Pakatan doesn’t let him have his way, each and everytime he demands something!

I personally feel that Uthayakumar has burnt his bridges with Pakatan, especially the DAP. He crossed the Rubicon when he made unwarranted petulant attacks against Lim GE and Dr Ramasamy, and in the most outrageously vilifying manner against the latter - as Penangites would describe him for that most lamentable behaviour, 'pehboe boe kar see' (wasn't taught good manners by his parents).

Despite Uthayakumar’s potential to lose some seats for Pakatan in the next election I don’t believe it is possible or wise to accept this man in as a Pakatan candidate. He isn't a team player, and the space in Pakatan, wide as it is in housing PAS, PKR, PSM and DAP with their ideological difference, is unlikely to, nor ever will accommodate the size of Uthayakumar's head.

But then, politics is the art of making the impossible possible! Regrets come a second.