Post Bersih 3.0 - The paradox of Najib's boon to Pakatan

The fallout from Bersih 3.0 produced many issues. The most obvious has been what I wrote on Tuesday 01 May 2012 in the first section of my post Destroying Bersih's success, where I saluted the fantastic success of Bersih and the organizational qualities and leadership of Ambiga Sreenevasan and her Bersih colleagues as:

… a brilliant beckoning and beautifully conceived and executed Bersih 3.0 with such powerful and undeniable presence of public support to show the King and Malaysians that the demand for 'clean & fair' elections was supported DIRECTLY by 300,000 Malaysians in KL alone and many more overseas plus a multitude who weren't able to attend …

And in an earlier post, prior to Bersih 3.0’s Day, I posted in  Bersih wins war before battle is fought just precisely what the title said, that:

Thanks to headlines such as (Malaysiakini's) Police get court order, Dataran off-limits for 4 days, Bersih 3.0 'now a security issue', says KL mayor and DBKL moves in to enforce Dataran lockdown, every Malaysian will now be more attentive to the actions and messages of Bersih, regardless of whether the protest rally occupies Dataran Merdeka. Bersih has already achieved its aim, winning the war even before the battle has started.

The second issue evoked the opposite to my feelings of acclamation and admiration above for Ambiga and her Bersih colleagues. I was horrified at the unfettered brutality of Malaysia’s uniformed thugs, the Brown Blue Shirts. I said:

There is no denying that the Malaysian police went feral and metamorphosed into samsengs of the most brutal kind, not unlike the Argentinean police of that nation's Dirty War (1976 - 1983). It's terrible that a public funded force, instituted to 'serve & protect' the public, instead turned against the very people it vowed to 'serve & protect'. The ferocity with which they hunted down innocents to bash them up as some kind of misinformed 'pay back' mental madness shows how wrong the governance of this nation has become. Supposedly professionals became suppressive predators. How do we remedy such a dysfunctional evil force since the UMNO-led government has refused to?

The combination of above - an awakened political awareness by a significant percentage of our rakyat that the election process is not halal, in fact unbelievably haram, because it’s controlled by a political party, and the extent to which that political party would go to ensuring the election process continues to remain haram for the corrupt benefit of its elite membership, even unto harming the Malaysian Rakyat - will, nay, have already damaged Najib severely and the election prospects of BN politicians in the coming general election.

But these are Najib’s concerns and problems to resolve. Pakatan has by default become the benefactor of Najib’s fear of the rakyat’s expressed concerns about the haram election process and their white-hot anger at the government’s (thus ruling party’s) violent reaction to the rakyat’s demands for a ‘clean and fair’ election.

One doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that the above arguments are shared by many, if not all in Pakatan, but therein in this fortuitous boon to Pakatan’s prospects in the next general election, with Putrajaya at stake, is a paradox, best represented by two troubling questions arise. These questions cannot be argued away as ‘something to be resolved’ when Pakatan wins majority rule.

If one desires great authority one has equally great responsibility to stand up and be counted or, in this case, show one’s hands to the voters in a transparent and accountable fashion. Otherwise, one would be no different to the BN and its practice of sinister scheming subterfuge.

To persist in that attitude of obdurately refusing to deal with the two important questions, then I dare say Pakatan will NOT be deserving of the people’s trust for them to officially occupy Putrajaya because it would then show Pakatan lacks the openness, will or courage to deal with difficult issues, and thus the capacity to be the alternative government.

As I mentioned above, the questions to ask now are not about the success of Bersih 3.0 (that’s already indisputable), nor that of the horrendous police brutality (regardless of any misinformed ‘pay-back’ mental madness), nor about Najib, Hishamuddin and UMNO’s culpability (they will pay for it in GE-13), but about the correct person to take over.

Therein lies the paradox of Pakatan, now presented or gifted by Najib’s mistakes with a boon of improved winning prospects, but will such a boon be wasted or worse, as in the case of Brahma's boon of invincibility to Ravana in the Ramayana epic making Ravana a threat to mankind, similarly confers political invincibility which becomes a threat to Malaysians?

The stirring political call (and indeed mantra) of Pakatan has been ABU (Anyone But UMNO). Thus, focusing on just the most important post in government, I presume we would want as PM someone who will be different to the Machiavellian selfish practice of UMNO’s Najib, a man or woman who will be trustworthy and unselfish in that he or she will place the interests of the rakyat above that of his or hers.

In other words, we are calling for and then will be maintaining and sustaining ABU all the way right up to the No 1 post of a new Pakatan government!

I believe there are more than a few Pakatan politicians who have those qualities, but sorry lah, I opine that Anwar Ibrahim is not one of them.

My opinion is based not just on his most ultra UMNO conduct when he was in that organization for more than 16 years in various ministerial capacities as an UMNO leader, ...

... where he dismayed many especially when he was Education Minister and was responsible for the seed which grew into the poisonous weed called Ops Lallang, ...

... nor about his role as DPM and deputy president of UMNO in subverting democratic process in Sabah 1994 through his infamous frogological expertise, ...

... but about his more recent so-called reformasi behaviour when he demonstrated the most deformasi conduct in crowing with pompous triumph about an UMNO ADUN defector in Perak (until that defector showed his amazing revolving-door expertise) …

… and his unbelievable (premature) boast of being able to effect a massive defection of 30 BN MPs over to Pakatan, for him to become PM in the notorious 916 gambit.

But assuming we ignored his most ultra UMNO behavior when he was in UMNO, notably with nary a single word of reformasi and all its attendant bullsh*t ever emanating from his UMNO mouth (until he was expelled from UMNO), dare we say he has changed or, that most terribly misused, abused and traduced word, ‘reformed’?

I think not, but I would say he has been most qualified in proving the wisdom of the ancients in coining that proverb ‘a leopard never changes its spots’.

And now in Bersih 3.0, he has again demonstrated his self-centred selfishness when Bersih 3.0 was already a brilliant piercing and overwhelming success without any dramatics required.

Alas, the ‘dramatics’ occurred!

Those who sprang immediately to his defence argued the police was the real villain (no doubt about that, and as I wrote several times, I agree) and the law prohibiting the people’s entry to Dataran Merdeka was bad (I agree too), or that there was already a pre-planned Najib conspiracy to discredit Bersih through instigated violence by its agents provocateurs (okay, I am prepared to  buy that) and/ or …..… anything else?

Okay, okay, okay! But the above don’t hide, not one bloody iota of the following which I will pose as questions:

(1) Did he (and Azmin Ali) hijack Bersih by making speeches, instead of just quietly supporting Ambiga’s Bersih 3.0 as did the DAP leaders?

(2) Did he betray Ambiga by his (or Azmin Ali’s) signal for his supporters to breach the police cordon?

Now recall what I said earlier, about the fortuitous boon [of Najib and UMNO’s gross mistake in handling Berish] to Pakatan’s prospects in the next general election, with Putrajaya at stake, two troubling questions arise. These questions cannot be argued away as ‘something to be resolved’ when Pakatan wins majority rule.

The first question has been about the correct person to take over [as PM], someone who will be different to the Machiavellian selfish practice of Najib and the general UMNO ministers, a man or woman who will be trustworthy and unselfish in that he or she will place the interests of the rakyat above that of his or hers.

If Anwar Ibrahim has hijacked Ambiga’s Bersih or inserted his own agenda for his followers to breach the police cordon (regardless of whether he did those himself or through Azmin Ali), then those selfish exploitations of Bersih and virtual betrayal of Ambiga, and taken in conjunction with his deformasi conduct in Perak and 916, would compel us to ask pointedly:

Is he the correct person to take over as PM, as someone who will be different to the Machiavellian selfish practice of Najib, a man who will be trustworthy and unselfish in that he will place the interests of the rakyat above that of his?

Will we be still upholding ABU or having double standards by saying ABU only applies to current UMNO politicians?

 ... which will then bring us to the question: Is ABU about a political party per se (UMNO) or about the ‘nature of the beast’, that of self-serving dictatorial exploitation of political rule, and non-democratic conduct?

... which will then lead us to another question: Is it okay to practise self-serving dictatorial exploitation of political rule, and non-democratic so long as one is not a member of the political party called UMNO?

Yes, is Anwar Ibrahim trustworthy enough to be PM? Is he likely to be someone who’ll place the interests of the rakyat above that of his?

You know my opinion, and I have put my reasons clearly in black and white for having this opinion in this post.

The second question I wish to ask, and which I opine is one of the prerequisite qualifications to the right to sit in Putrajaya, a right only the voters can confer, is the question of the shadow cabinet offered by Pakatan.

If Pakatan is unable or refuses to tell the voters who among their politicians will form the shadow cabinet, as evidence of the core leadership of an alternative government, then how can Pakatan be able offer themselves to voters as an alternative government?

If Pakatan can’t do this by now, how in the world will they be able to form a cabinet in the euphoric heat immediately after a loose coalition of three (or more) political parties wins the federal election?

I know PAS and DAP are ready to discuss, decide and share the cabinet positions (hopefully a smaller one since Pakatan comprises or will comprise lesser number of component parties than BN), but what about the so-called Great Leader and PKR?

The paradox of the boon gifted by Najib lies in its potential to disintegrate Pakatan in the event of a Pakatan victory in GE013, but more frighteningly, the perpetuation and even escalation of all that which ABU has hoped to achieve (namely, the elimination of the corrupt and undemocratic).