On logo issue, PKR opts to shoot itself in the foot

On logo issue, PKR opts to shoot itself in the foot



From Terence Netto


PKR are opting to contest under their own logo going into the Johor polls.

Their coalition partners, DAP and Amanah, are sticking by the Pakatan Harapan logo.

This is wise and contrasts with the PKR decision which is myopic.

The PKR choice prioritises sentiment above long-term strategy and flies in the face of the call for opposition unity by their supremo Anwar Ibrahim.

PKR announced which logo they will use days after Anwar himself had called on all opposition parties to unite under the “Big Tent” concept to face the Johor polls.

The call for unity was sensible, given the crowded field of opposition parties and the necessity to keep a confident Umno-BN from a decisive victory.

PKR’s parochialism on logo use after its supremo had called for the inclusiveness of the “Big Tent” is self-contradictory.

It underscored the point about Anwar having become, as his critics contend, horribly passe.

The PKR leader has become obsolete, ironically a word he once used to describe his nemesis, Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Nik Nazmi, PKR’s chief organising secretary who is MP for Setiawangsa, went to great lengths to justify his party’s choice of logo.

His reasoning showed that PKR’s younger set are unable to do anything other than run in Anwar’s slipstream.

At 40 years of age, it is people like Nik Nazmi who will have to inherit and determine PKR’s future.

But like Akmal Nasir, PKR youth chief and MP for Johor Bahru, the party’s youngsters are unable to get off the treadmill of conformity and hint at an alternative tack to the one set by its older set.

Wiser long-term strategy demands that PKR stick by the Harapan logo and the inclusiveness of the “BigTent” proposition which is aimed at uniting the opposition in the face of what now seems discernible – a return of the Malay vote to Umno.

This return will not last long if Umno-BN do not come up with policies and practices to refurbish its image should the judiciary continue to find top members of its leadership
cohort corrupt and jail them.

There is every likelihood of the judiciary continuing the work of indictment and punishment and it is not certain that a resurgent Umno will find it in itself to retool and refurbish its
corruption-tarnished image.

Then the pendulum will swing back to the opposition but the latter must, in the interim, stay cohesive and coherent.

The latter course requires steadfast attachment to the reformasi agenda of deep political and economic change to Malaysian society, striven for through the vehicle of a united,
if motley, opposition.

True, it is difficult to unite the opposition, given the spate of new and disparate parties that have popped up in recent times. But, essentially, the Malaysian political landscape devolves
around two blocs – the party of conservatism, which is Umno-BN, and the party of progressiveness, which ought to be Pakatan Harapan.

The rest are transient presences who will strut for a while before becoming also-rans.

PKR, if it wants to stay as primus inter pares (first among equals) among the opposition, must resist the parochialism of its stance on the logo issue and stick by the Harapan logo for the Johor polls and the national one that will soon follow.