The momentum from Pakatan Rakyat’s massive political inroads at the 12th general election reached its defining moment when Zaid Ibrahim submitted an application to the Registrar of Societies on Nov 4, 2009 for DAP, PKR and PAS to be registered as a legal entity under Pakatan Rakyat.PKR being PKR, predictably on the very next day, Nov 5, its MP for Batu, Tian Chua unnecessarily announced “…..the constitution, logo and leadership, will be decided when the registration is approved. Who holds what position will be decided at a much later stage.”
Presumably, this was to grandstand Anwar Ibrahim’s role as leader of Pakatan and preempting Zaid’s designs (if any!) to lead the coalition during the process of its formation.
Tian wanted it to be known that Anwar, and not Zaid, was Pakatan’s head. He, and not Zaid strategised Pakatan’s registration as a legal entity.
And since then, this one upmanship within PKR marred all things PKR and caused the Pakatan juggernaut against Barisan Nasional to stumble and at times stagnate!
Overt conflicts and public spats amongst PKR leaders ultimately descended into the farce of rampant fraud and malpractice that was the PKR party election in November 2010. Neither Anwar, Azmin Ali or any of the PKR leaders were convicted of these fraud and malpractices during the party elections.
When the dust settled, Anwar was leader and Azmin his number two. Zaid subsequently quit PKR, presumably to seek greener pastures – a hard thing to do in a paddock the size of Malaysia. It would seem that what happened in Umno does not stay in Umno. Not when the same Umno players are newborn again politicians in PKR.
Since then PKR has been lurching from one unmitigated disaster to another – it’s most public of humiliation was the defection of five MPs last year to the land of plenty!
PKR however admitted that it had “an acute internal problem”…though I thought “terminal if not treated” would have been a more appropriate prognosis of its condition.
read more at FreeMalaysiaToday.com
