Will Pua be next to sit out GE15?
Following Bangi MP Ong Kian Ming’s announcement that he will not be contesting the upcoming 15th general election (GE15), speculation has been rife that fellow DAP member Damansara MP Tony Pua may follow suit and also sit this one out.
According to Sin Chew Daily, DAP sources said a “leader formerly with the elite faction” may make a similar decision as Ong to quit politics temporarily.
The source said after the DAP's central committee election in March, the leader had issued a statement to express such a stance.
When asked whether the leader is Pua (above), the source told the Chinese-language newspaper that “this is only your speculation”.
Another source said to Sin Chew Daily that Pua had expressed his intention not to contest in GE15 even before DAP’s party polls.
Earlier today, Ong announced his decision not to offer himself as a candidate for the next national election and to take a break from politics.
Ong Kian MingMalaysiakini had sought Pua's opinion on Ong's decision, however, the Damansara MP refused to comment.
Malaysiakini has also contacted DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke for comment.
Duo in favour of Muhyiddin’s Harapan-govt deal
Pua and Ong were among the leaders who pushed for Harapan to work with Muhyiddin Yassin when the former prime minister offered a confidence and supply agreement with the opposition towards the end of his reign.
The deal offered then was after Muhyiddin lost the support of 15 Umno MPs led by Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and Najib Abdul Razak.
However, the deal was rejected by Harapan's top leadership. This forced Muhyiddin to resign and allowed Umno vice-president Ismail Sabri Yaakob to take over as premier on Aug 22 last year.
The opposition's attempt to work with Muhyiddin also backfired among its supporters.
Pua and Ong both lost in the recent party election which saw the Seremban MP Loke replace Lim Guan Eng as DAP secretary-general.
Loke has thanked Ong for his contributions and respects his wish not to contest in the next general election.
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Some MKINI readers' comments:
Scarecrow: Tony Pua’s main weakness is that he specialises only in attacking Bossku and exposing 1MDB. Once these issues became stale like they are today he has no other things to talk about which are relevant to the people. DAP losed big in Johor because he attacked a Chinese school for having Bossku paying a visit. The issue had nothing at all to do with people’s struggling in their daily lives. He even called them losing their moral fibre. If Tony doesn’t find other important things to talk about he cannot make a comeback like Bossku.
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IndigoJaguar7545: What many people still wonder until today:
Why did they support Muhyiddin? He brought charges against LGE. He freed Musa Aman. He shut down Parliament. He broke 10,000 promises previously made, even if his betrayals incredibly weakened him.
I think it was Pua & OKM’s deep obsession with Najib that failed them. To them, PH had only one goal: betray anyone, just as long as they jail Najib. Their debilitating obsession failed them, they exposed how crazy they had become in their thirst for a short-term target, and they lost everything.
Trusting Muhyiddin was a completely wrong strategic decision. YDPA can pardon Najib at any time. At any time. For any trial. Musa Aman was freed. Muhyiddin just wanted a shortcut to power.
The only way to truly defeat Najib is through popular support against him and systemic law reform (e.g., independent MACC, independent PP, whistleblower protection) that pummels him with criminal trials until the day he dies.
They missed the forest for the trees and that sort of strategic error is how you lose elections. Whatever people say until they’re blue in the face: democracy is a popularity contest first and foremost. If you cannot convince others to join you, then just become an academic lah. Write books. Spend time with your family. You’re useless in politics.
I respect Pua more than OKM, but it is not lost on me that rumors suggested both MPs had actually spent MONTHS working behind the scenes with Bersatu MPs throughout 2020 and 2021 to broker such a corrupt deal.
They never bothered to include PH in government. They just wanted a “promise” from Muhyiddin that he’d continue prosecuting Najib . Thus, they betrayed their party as well.
By fixating in Najib, they forgot that you must attack a problem at one level higher than the level that caused the problem.
In a very sad way, these men became obsessed with short-term power and a very flawed type of popularity. Jailing Najib will not win you GE15 and it would have been touted by PN more vigorously than DAP.
There are some very good points raised by comments by Malaysiakini readers - i.e. that Ong Kian Ming and Tony Pua are obsessed with making sure that Najib is jailed, whilst ignoring other, more pressing concerns of most voters, such as matters of their economic survival, especially after the devastating impact which the COVID-19 restrictions have had upon their businesses, jobs and livelihoods, as well as the current impact of rising prices due to the conflict in Ukraine, high crude oil prices, the high US dollar and so forth.
ReplyDeleteAs ancient Greek dialectical-materialist philosopher Heraclitus said over 2,500 years ago - "A man never steps into the same river twice, for neither is it the same river nor is he the same man".
As the commentors wrote, issues such as 1MDB, corruption, cronyism, nepotism, kleptocracy, Teoh Beng Hock, Scorpene submarine, Altantuya, backdoor government, frontdoor government, inside out government, upside down government and so forth are stale in most voters' minds, especially when they are struggling to recover and rebuild their livelihoods economically right now.
Only the comfortably well off, English-educated, urban, middle-class, wannabe-management, yuppie, NGO, Bangsar-bubble types have the financial luxury to indulge themselves in endless rounds of unproductive coffee-shop, pub, bar and social media chatter like broken vinyl records of yesteryear.
These chattering classes forget Heraclitus' other famous statement - "The only constant is change", and that the people's mandate of 2022 or 2023 could well be very different from that on the 9th of May 2018.