Sarawak CM Taib can thank Azmin Ali for saving his hide

"A startled PKR came back to ‘offer' four seats, instead of three. Snap responded to this infantile insult by announcing 11 more candidates for 11 more constituencies" - Paul Kadang of SNAP, as reported in Malaysiakini’s Snap: Seat talks with PKR on the brink

Imagine we're back in school. Forget about Interlok for this post. Instead let’s revise a bit of maths.

Divide 71 by 4, and the result is … 52?

OK lah, divide 71 by 3, and the result is … what? 52 again? How can?

How about 71 by 2? Yet 52? Sheeesh!

Division!

That’s the sad story of Pakatan cohesion (or lack of) in Sarawak on the eve of the State elections. Much as I hate to agree with Peh Mor, he’s right in that Pakatan can’t work together, because the maths PKR is employing, regardless of whether it's in the English, Malay, Chinese, Tamil or Iban language, is hard to follow or swallow.

And if Pakatan can’t agree in Sarawak, thanks to PKR, how do you expect them to agree federally?

Poor gentlemanly Lim Guan Eng has put on a brave face to save the coalition, stating that DAP and PKR have agreed to the sharing of some seats. He was trying his decent best to save the coalition that PKR is recklessly jeopardising or will one day destroy.

But decent and honourable as Lim has tried to be, he can’t hide the known greed, arrogance and deceit of some PKR leaders in pre-emptively declaring (via a media release) it will be contesting in 52 seats in Sarawak. It’s the same underhanded undermining and under-the-belt tactic it used against DAP in 2007.

Then Tian Chua was the prime mover, or Big Chief Sittinghitting Bull. He heads the ‘Chinese’ section of PKR and saw that his section and himself would become redundant if DAP swept all the Chinese-majority seats (which incidentally Anwar Ibrahim agreed with Lim Kit Siang that DAP should stand in while PKR campaigned in Malay-majority constituencies).

Today Tian Chua is singing the same old song, and even has the hypocritical cheek to preach to the DAP that 'PKR needs Chinese-majority seats too' in Sarawak to demonstrate it (PKR) is a multiracial party.

Tony Pua dismissed him as nothing more than a lil’ Napoleon (obviously trying to find a role for his Chinese section in PKR) who has the shamelessness to come up with such a hypocritical declaration (kaytee’s terms here) when he fails to see his own party has arrogantlydenied SNAP the Iban-Dayak majority seats.

Not only that, PKR has the unmitigated arrogance or (to borrow/paraphrase a term used by Paul Kadang) ‘infantile insult’-ing propensity, to talk-down to SNAP to contest only 3, then 4 seats and to DAP to contest only (initially) 13. Hey, who the f* does it think it is?

Now, who has been the responsible PKR a$reh*le behind all these unmitigated Pakatan greed and arrogance, leading to its Pakatan allies’ anger in the Sarawak pre-election seat-sharing negotiations, much as Lim GE might have wanted to put the best spin to the whole PKR-created disaster.

Well, on 24 March 2011, Haris Ibrahim in his post Dear Azmin wrote in an open letter to Anwar Ibrahim’s pretty blue-eyed boy, as follows:

FreeMalaysiaToday reports that negotiations between DAP and PKR in relation to overlapping seats in the imminent Sarawak state elections have broken down.

DAP, represented by its Sarawak state chief, Wong Ho Leng, it seems, wanted to contest 18 seats, but PKR, represented by you, insist that DAP only contest 13. DAP, it is reported, were prepared to come down to 16, but to no avail.

You are still adamant that they only contest 13 seats whilst PKR contests 52 seats.

FMT quoted DAP secretary Chong as saying that “Sarawak PKR had made its position very clear that it had no authority to negotiate seats as the real power lay with the PKR central committee, which made decisions”.

Yet, in the Malaysian Insider report of 5th March, you were quoted as saying that your ‘presence in Sarawak was not to dictate terms to the state leadership but to obtain feedback to update PR’s national leadership’. “We always try as much as we can not to intervene in their process, but of course, certainly we will have a role to play if there is an overlap in any seat. Then, we will provide assistance and advice”, you are quoted as saying.

What, truly, is the position?

And if that stated in FMT is closer to the truth, on behalf of the many Malaysians who want to see a regime change in Sarawak, could I please request that you return to your constituency immediately and leave the negotiations to the local leaders of PKR Sarawak?

As I posted on 17 March 2011 in PKR destroying Pakatan in Sarawak:

In this recent outrageous, preemptive, selfish, arrogant and unrealistic claim (through its usual unilateral media release) for 52 seats in Sarawak, leaving only 19 to be shared between DAP, PAS and SNAP, it either believes it is the ‘boss’ of Pakatan and the world revolves around it, or

… … hopes to win 2 seats by doubling its 2006 efforts (25 got 1, maybe 52 will get 2?). Sometimes PKR leaders have forgotten which party (DAP or PKR) has done well in the last State election.

As Paul Kadang commented in MKINI: PKR had never won nor come close to winning a native-majority seat in three federal elections and two state elections in the 12 years of their existence in Sarawak. In fact, a number of their candidates lost their deposits. So much for PKR's desire to contest in 53 [sic] seats.

What is far more annoying than its unrealistic greed and selfishness has been its overbearing arrogant presumption it can dictate terms to the others, DAP, PAS and especially SNAP.

And the anwaristas naturally see no wrong in their leader's pseudo-imperious high-handedness, even chiding SNAP for not being (that UMNO word) 'grateful' and accepting the crumbs cast down by Azmin Ali the Great.

I do not see much future for Pakatan’s likelihood of winning in the next general election with such an insolent overbearing group of PKR leaders like Azmin Ali.

You can take some PKR members out of UMNO but you sure can’t take UMNO out of them.

F* utterly disgusted with PKR!