The man who must have forgotten he was an elected politician

FMT's Kajang move shamed Pakatan, says ex-MB Khalid reported (relevant extracts):

Former Selangor menteri besar Khalid Ibrahim, deposed after Pakatan Rakyat’s “Kajang move” strategy, says the move caused cracks in the opposition alliance and led to PAS being ripped apart.

In an online posting today, Khalid described the strategy as a “devastating political game” which affected the people in Selangor.

“Important issues like the water restructuring exercise, which has yet to be implemented smoothly, garbage problems and the direction of the administration were ignored,” he said. [...]

It collapsed when Anwar was disqualified as an election candidate on being convicted of sodomy in February and sentenced to five years’ jail.

Anwar’s wife, Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, stood in his place and was nominated to replace Khalid, who refused to budge and was sacked from the party causing a months-long constitutional crisis that was eventually resolved when the Sultan of Selangor appointed PKR deputy president Azmin Ali, assemblyman for Gombak, to take over.

Khalid received the support of PAS assembly members during the crisis. He said today the Kajang Move had shamed him personally because of various allegations circulated about him.

“But what is more shameful is that the immoral political strategy caused cracks in the cooperation between parties in Pakatan Rakyat due to the political rhetoric and hypocrite attitudes,” wrote Khalid.

He said PAS, a party with “strong grassroots and always in full force during elections,” was cast aside and ripped apart and its leaders shamed. During the crisis, PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang, gave Khalid his backing against the allegations of corruption and mismanagement.

Now, most of what Khalid said has been true. I too feel ashamed of the Kajang bull, especially when it was supported by a "lesser DAP leader", a description of one particular DAP person by Dr Kua in his article Opposition's 30-year engagement with PAS undone.

The part I feel Khalid had not provided info in complete context has been the part about Pak Haji Hadi Awang being a jolly good bloke who was "cast aside and his party ripped apart". Khalid omitted mentioning why or what were the root and contributing causes of that sad outcome for the Pak Haji.

The truth has been the PAS party president and his ulama coterie have their own agenda, to wit, implementation of hudud, a religious program which doesn't suit or has been accepted by most of us. In fact I dare say implementation of hudud has been precisely what frightened (still does) the non-Muslim Pakatan supporters and turned them against PAS. I suggest even some Malays feel the same as well.

Khalid's statements would have been more complete if he had at least mentioned this to give the issue of the Pakatan split some balanced context, to wit, on why DAP decided to shun PAS as a viable political partner.

As for Khalid himself, while he might have been a victim of PKR intraparty Machiavellianism (and that's certainly true, wakakaka), he should have admitted he too was equally wrong in refusing to vacate his position as MB on instruction from PKR.

That's because in a democracy, he had only obtained that position because his party and Pakatan allies nominated him. Thus, when they withdrew that nomination, he was under honorable obligation, as a party member in a democracy, to vacate that post on instructions from his party.

To obdurately hang on was unheard of in a democratic process.

In refusing to obey his party & coalition instructions and thus ignoring the majority wishes of PKR and DAP ADUN including 2 from PAS, namely, Hasnul Baharuddin of Morib and Hulu Klang assemblyman Saari Sungib, a total of 30 ADUN in a state assembly of 56, and by drawing instead on PAS support (13 ADUN plus himself = 14, leaving UMNO out of equation, or if you wish, including 12 UMNO ADUN = total of 26), Khalid had (though not officially but) effectively changed party allegiance, and to one which was a minority.

Thus he should reflect on his own error.

And he shouldn't also forget his extremely arrogant and imperious dare to the exco to f.o as reported in Malaysiakini's Resign if you are not happy working with me, Khalid tells exco. Shouldn't he have applied the same principle to himself to resign as he was only a MB nominated and subsequently unwanted by his own party?

The trouble with Khalid was he didn't quite understand the democratic process and had in fact been sternly told off on this by DAP's Gobind Deo Singh a couple of times.

Khalid had behaved as if he was employed (rather than elected) as the CEO of Selangor Inc, answerable only to HRH, and not to the political structure such as those of his own party and that of Pakatan. He must have forgotten he was a politician. And when an elected politician forgot that and behaved as if he was a CEO contracted by the State, then our democracy would be in trouble.

Look, Khalid makes a good CEO of a corporation but it seems he has never quite understood the political process and its traditions and obligations. He should stick to the private sector and leave politics. I wish him well.