Karpal the irrelevant

Where do I start? Last month, I put up a post on despicable human traits - rather unintentionally I had placed some of Kaprpal's actions with other unfriendly, unyielding characters of our times - and being the self-professed expert at all legal happenings in Malaysia, and possibly this world - (witness his"jangan main-main dengan saya" remark yesterday) he may yet sue all who dare to criticise his shallow understanding of this country called Malaysia that he lives in.

I wish I'm bothered to find his quotes, outburst, tirade, whatever you'd want to call it yesterday, but in truth, Karpal is so irrelevant that I can't be bothered. In fact I am, but maybe I'll just rely from memory instead of wasting bandwidth to search for news reports.

He said something about Anwar causing problems to Pakatan and therefore should resign, yeah - he has been helpful to Pakatan's formation? For the first time, DAP has captured a state and numerous other parliament and state seats in Malay dominant areas instead of Jelutong and Ipoh Timur and he dare to voice this sort of statement? I wish I could turn clock back 10 years and reverse my decision on the only occasion I had ever voted in and had given my vote to this bugger's political party? His problems with accepting the Malay-muslim polity's desire for an Islamic state is legendary, perhaps heroic to those who think he dared to voice their opposition to something they cant understand, but at the expense of alienating the dominant majority race who do not want somenone who doesn't understnd these sensitivities to partake in this discussion, is helpful to Pakatan Rakyat? Puh-leeze.

I have no doubt that if there is someone else capable of leading PR compared to Anwar- of cobbling together this loose coalition on a more solid platform of a sustained principled fight of integrity and justice then there Anwar should do one and leave. Otherwise, telling Anwar to vacate and then creating a vacuum - for what - so that someone who has an honorary post of DAP Chairman, proving DAP is a multi-racial party of lots of chinese, not many indians and even less malays could try his luck at being the leader, when he cant even speak the malay language properly? OK, perhaps I'm being too much in putting this as a motive since at no point does he say he's interested in the post and goes as far as saying any other good leader should replace Anwar, but he says he's a seasoned politician after being in politics since 1974 and all that, but he's insisting on an action that can only weaken the party can only mean Karpal is a historical, archaic piece of fossil dependent on safe seats for his survival. Oh yeah, just to prove that the DAP Chairman post is honorary, care to remember the name of his predecessor and any of his previous press statements?

All in all - Karpal, just pack up your political bags and close the door as you leave!

Perak fiasco..

There is no case for defiance and acting irrationally. The law is clear, having had the required defections and the support, BN should form the new Perak state govt, no matter how shoddy, how low and how dirty the whole thing is. Let’s be principled here, the week earlier, when Mr Bota jumped, not many blinked an eyelid. DSAI looked triumphant indeed. When the same thing happened, with the roles reversed, the response was very much different. No matter that there was suggestion of a buyout if BN was the beneficiary, and the poor downtrodden souls in Pakatan actually gains support from believers in their “struggle”. Bullshit.

DSAI, LKS, Karpal – stop this bloody nonsense. TG Nik Aziz, TG Hadi Awang, Ir Nizar – stand your ground, take a principled stand, and end this standoff against the Perak Sultan, who I believe acted in the best interests of everyone. Why should there be additional wastage of expenses to have another round of elections just to prove how polarized Perak, or for that matter, the whole country is?

DAP and PKR cant control their ADUNs when temptations of *insert your own hypotheses here* arise. Gutless, guileless and unprincipled. It’s OK if there was an issue they had disagreed with, like the giving away of freehold land like the land belongs wholly to the state and the current generation. What actions we take echo in the future generations too, don’t you know? That was an unresolved issue, and if that was the beacon that attracted people to leave their party, that’s fine by me. At least it teaches the 18 DAP guys that running this multiracial country with a Malay-Muslim majority won’t be that easy. But no. defections come about after some silly press conferences about medical leave and barely believable, I’m being polite here, excuses.

Politics stinks – but PAS comes out of this smelling like roses.

Malaysian politics aged 51 - a gloomy outlook

Wednesday, September 03, 2008; 10:26:57

Akram has thought things through in his recent piece about DSAI planning to jump ship to UMNO. Seeing as it were about my mistaken prognosis taken from the comfort of 300km away from the heat of the battle of Permatang Pauh, where the majority was reducing until KJ’s ‘act of sabotage’ as AAB would have put it had he been informed of it by another party willing to do so, I am more inclined to believe the perspectives put forth by an UMNO footsoldier more familiar with the ground terrain on the ground. I have had previous experiences as well in carrying out campaigns on the grounds even going to the extent of giving speeches to the ‘ceramah kelompok’ and rousing and stoking the flames of rebellion close to 10 years ago – inciting reasons to push TDM aside, although I had hoped that even in those frenzied times, I mustered enough calmness then not to have said things I would have regretted now.

TDM had his flaws, but his strengths in administration and policy-making far outweighed these faults – particularly on not able to stomach talented deputies (over)eager to consolidate their own power bases. Tun Musa learnt and felt penitent and Malaysia as a whole remained as it were, but as for DSAI, this is a street-fighter with finely honed and stage-managed intellectual credentials who will fight tooth-and-nail to protect his rights. Don’t get me wrong that I’m denigrating DSAI here cos I absolutely admire his fighting spirit and his famed charisma and charm over ordinary people. In other societies and communities, these three leaders would probably be celebrated and asked to lead their followership to the promised land, or wherever it is they want us to go, and everyone will knuckle down and move. When you are in a small area and you have three lions, they will knock the living daylights and then some out of each other and the victor will take the stage. Except that in this case, the followership is so disgusted, disillusioned and apathetic to this show, as the joke sms goes, they would pretty like the idea of chucking all of these people out of the chopper in the sky and make everybody happy.

That sums up my feeling now.

What happens next? It’s very uncertain – DSAI is pretty much hell-bent on becoming PM, DAP is riding on his coattails, PAS is being left behind, UMNO doesn’t know the ground is breaking underneath their feet, let alone be able to take action, and therefore pulling BN down with them. What’s left is DSAI’s power play as others don’t seem to be able to manipulate the strings as expertly as he has done and the only person capable of standing up to DSAI is left unwanted and deserted by UMNO. If TDM enters the fray, conditionally on AAB exiting himself before 2010 of course, things will be even more chaotic, but at least UMNO would have an even chance of correcting itself under his firm leadership.

DSNR? He has failed himself and the nation by declining the opportunity to take the risk and show he is with the people’s wishes in pushing aside the incumbent PM. Loyalty is not a factor here. There are ways where this could have been done discreetly had he wanted to.

So in the meantime? Slow growth, low FDI, Malaysia continues to plod along. I think I echo Akram’s call – Pak Lah – it’s time to go. You have had your chance, you have done your best, but for the sake of the nation, we need someone of higher caliber.