Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Anwar's Bluff

Sept 16 has come and the official day time is about to end, where sunset leads to breaking of fast for muslims. What we have is another press conference from Anwar Ibrahim, claiming for the umpteenth time that he has adequate number of BN member of parliaments ready to cross over to Pakatan Rakyat. Anwar would have had probably the most number of press conferences by a single person in the world, perhaps even more than Obama and McCain put together this year.

Anwar has been claiming for almost 5 months now that he had enough numbers, previously saying that he had about 30 but need few more to ensure that his government is strong. This he has been saying for almost 3 months, until he was dragged to court for sodomy charges. There was a lull period on the takeover plans when everyone got distracted with the sodomy charges and the Permatang Pauh by-elections.

He started blabbering again on the takeover plan as soon as he became the MP and Oppositions Leader. His counterparts in PAS and DAP appears to be not convinced. He, in a sign of desperation, send of team of 'negotiators' to Taiwan to meet BN MPs. Why is there a need for this when for 5 months he claimed that he had the numbers in his hands.

The team include Tian Chua, the MP for my area. Mr Tian Chua, please do something more productive. Please go to your constituency, there's a lot to be done. That's why we voted for you, not to go to Permatang Pauh, Courts and Taiwan unnecessarily.

Even at yesterday's rally at kelana Jaya (15th Sept), only Anwar spoke about the numbers, the DAP leaders spoke more on the ISA arrests and the need for change. PAS leaders were conspicuously absent.

Now Anwar is suddenly worried about 'political stability' of the country and demanded to meet PM Badawi to talk about smooth transition/takeover of government. He mentioned that a letter demanding for the said meeting has been sent to PM's office on 15th September afternoon. In the same evening Badawi, when interviewed said that Anwar can dream on.

Don't Anwar realised that he's the main reason for all the uncertainty in the country that may have drove away many investors, lost of confidence in the stock market and not to mention waste of time. Being in the finance sector, I can vouch for the nervousness felt by the financial institutions due to the political uncertainty.

Anwar, if he really had the numbers, he just needs to introduce them in the press conference, then declare that he ready to take over. He can give Badawi a certain time frame for discuss transition and handover the powers, failing which he can seek audience with the King and handover a letter of support from all the Pakatan Rakyat MPs (including those who crossed over), inform the King officially that he has the majority in the parliament.

It's a simple thing to do, this has been done many times in other countries. Wonder what took Anwar more than 5 months. He has repeated 16th September deadline for almost 10 times and the said day has passed. As usual he sounded arrogant in the press conference and did not show any remorse, he should at least apologised for bluffing his way till today. Not many people can bluff his way through confidently and consistently.

As mentioned in one of the articles in Agendadaily.com, Anwar should at least get the local version of the Oscar's Best Actor by default with Tian Chua as Best Supporting Actor. And his journey for the last 5 months should be voted the 'Best Miniseries' or 'Megaserial'.

3 comments:

CWI MALAYSIA said...

On the one hand, the ruling government of BN, under Abdullah Badawi with its weakest position ever, has been going all out with every opportunity, using the state’s apparatus, to undermine the chances of the PR and its leader Anwar Ibrahim from getting into power. On the other hand, Anwar Ibrahim, with the opposition parties’ strongest parliamentary position ever, has been advocating that the PR would eventually take over the government by mid-September when some of the MPs from the BN jump over into the opposition camp. At present the BN and PR have 140 and 82 MPs respectively and Anwar and Pakatan would only need another 30 MPs to get a simple majority.


Nonetheless, who the ultimate winner will be and how long this political drama will go on very much depend on the economic performance of the country and that is very much determined by circumstances in the global economy.


In reality the ‘powers’ which direct this political drama are none other than the national and the multinational capitalists. The former, mainly comprised of the Malay capitalists and the political elite who have been groomed by crony capitalism, support protectionist economic measures such as the New Economy Policy (NEP), a four-decade-old affirmative-action programme favouring the predominant Malay community. The latter is pushing for a level playing field in winning opportunities to get a share in the Malaysian economic cake. This is only possible if the special advantages accorded through the government’s policies to the Malay capitalists, as well as the Government-linked companies (GLCs), are dismantled. In order to avoid this, the Malay capitalists and political elites are going all out to safeguard their interests by supporting UMNO/BN. Meanwhile, the multinationals and ultra free-market apologists, especially in the Middle East, the US and Europe, are supporting Anwar Ibrahim’s ‘New Economic Agenda’, which promises economic liberalisation and competition in the natural resource-rich economy of Malaysia.
Find out more at : http://asocialistmalaysia.blogspot.com/2008/08/malaysia-growing-political-uncertainty_27.html

VIKNESHWARAN ADAKKALAM said...

:))

Anonymous said...

I chose to vote and support the lesser of 2 evils.. they should have just waited for another 4 years and work up from there... it's STILL NOT too late to work hard to build up to next general election for a new ruling coalition... but is it too late now that most BN components have 'rebranded' themselves?

U know what i think will happen by 2020? We will have all parties (ruling and opposition) sticking to one that is race based.. mark my word! The races can't work together as of yet because of trust! They will all be divided.

.. i hope i am wrong!