A tale of two (types of) loyalties

It has been some years since I heard this story from a PKR member who in turn claimed to have heard it from the horse’s mouth. Who's the horse? Soon you will find out wakakaka.

In May 2003, during Nurul Izah’s wedding, there was a celebration (jamuan makan?) at her parents’ place. Needless to say, the number of invited guests and visitors would have been overwhelming for the the wedding of a daughter of such a charismatic politician such as a former DPM [then jailed for, as the court found him guilty of, sodomy].

To many of his supporters he was virtually a demi-god, a King (of their hearts) so to speak, thus it was a joyous 'royal' occasion for his princess, the so-called Princess Reformasi, to be wedded.

The guests consisted of some invited UMNO bigwigs (though I suppose I can safety assume Dr M wasn't one of them, wakakaka), Anwar supporters, family friends, well wishers and naturally PKR members. As the hosts anticipated hundreds if not thousands of guests, they wisely had marquees/canvas tops pitched up outside the mansion, in the garden etc.

The government (then still under the premiership of Dr M who served until end of October that year) permitted Anwar Ibrahim, who was imprisoned, to be released specifically for him to attend/host his daughter’s wedding.

My informant told me that when RPK saw the sitting of the guests and visitors, he snorted in great disgust. Now, I didn’t come by this piece of information only recently so don’t conveniently blame RPK for another round of his recent anti Anwar bashing. As mentioned, I was told this story about 6 to 7 years ago. Besides, it wasn't RPK who told me about it.

According to my matey, RPK cynically and sadly commented on whom Anwar Ibrahim had seated inside the mansion as ‘guests of honour’, and compared that to those who were left to their own arrangements outside his house.

My informant (reminder: an anwarista but probably no longer) told me that was an damning indication and indictment of Anwar's sense of loyalty to his supporters, and explained why RPK was disgusted.

I am suddenly reminded of this story when I read blogger steadyaku47’s Change Najib with Anwar? No can do lah! today.

In the post he wrote (relevant extract only):

If you ask me how Anwar Ibrahim will fare as Prime Minister I suggest you look no further then the party election of PKR and see for yourself what PKR has become with him as their defacto leader. Do you want the same thing to happen to the government of our country if Anwar is Prime Minister?

How many of PKR’s elected representative has left? How many of PKR’s officials have left their party post in disgust and resign from the party?

As you are aware, and I had blogged on this issue many times wakakaka, many pro-Pakatan people viewed the PKR polling process with contempt, more so when the party claimed to champion reformasi. The independent Pakatan-friendly bloggers, including Haris Ibrahim and RPK, resoundingly condemned the various reported incidents which allegedly would have done our remarkable EC proud.

Internally, party members like Jonson Chong, Chegubard, Gobalakrishnan, Zaid Ibrahim, Mustaffa Kamil, Jenapala, and many others expressed a range of reactions, from concerns to outright condemnations, about the alleged lack of kosher-ness of the polling process. Except for Mustaffa Kamil (who was promoted into a high ranking party position) and Chegubard (who rejected a similar offer, obviously for good reasons), all had left PKR.

During the brouhaha that followed, anwaristas in automated mode condemned Gobala and Zaid most venomously, describing them as frogs etc, in senseless vicious attacks typical of their creed. To them, Anwar or Wan Azizah or Azmin Ali couldn't ever be wrong, thus those frogs must be. Such was, has been and still is their mindless Myrmidon mentality.

Leaving Zaid Ibrahim aside, the fact that Gobala, once an utterly ardent anwarista and Anwar’s chief bodek-er, was so pissed off by the party polling process, should in itself be clear signal of the irredeemable extent of the alleged party polling dodgy-ness.

Gobala was nothing less than a totally committed party faithful, thus his condemnation of the polling process (and in turn Anwar Ibrahim) should have been viewed as equivalent to a super-staunch Catholic like my blogging matey, Lucia Lai, condemning the Pope, and should thus raised alarms. Instead, he was dismissed as a BN plant.

Not only was party faithful Gobala treated badly when he questioned the Holy Trinity of PKR, but so were earlier PKR people close to Anwar like Nallakarupan and more, including Johari Jasin, Abdul Rahman (PKR membership No 3 and now in PAS). Of course the anwarista fanatics would condemn those people as frogs or UMNO plants. But when the numbers of these 'dissenters' pile up, maybe frogs may not be the correct description – I’m thinking of ‘ostriches’, not to label Gobala, Nalla, Jonson Chong, Zaid, etc but for those anwaristas ... or, perhaps 'bats' - you know, 'blind as bats' wakakaka.

But more important than blogger steadyaku47’s sneer at Anwar Ibrahim’s suitability to replace Najib as PM, should be the question of Anwar's loyalty to his supporters (other than Azmin Ali of course wakakaka).

Related:
(1) Deconstructing the Perfect Man
(2) Nurul Izzah & Chegubard backstabbed by PKR insiders which also contains links to many earlier posts on topic wakakaka