It is imperative to see how people fall on either side of what can be called the ‘Sept 16 divide’. That date is the date Anwar Ibrahim has been touting as the day the Pakatan Rakyat would "take over" the government.
Predictably, his opponents and cynics have chosen to give that date and Anwar's promise a literal meaning, and are now going to town ridiculing Anwar for "failing" in his bid. Leave it to the ‘First Son-In-Law’ to use the most extreme hyperbole - in a recent TV interview, he went so far as to say that if Anwar did not "deliver" on Sept 16, he would be finished politically.
True, probably all Malaysians - or at least those desperately seeking change, which it appears is the majority of Malaysians - would have liked nothing better than to have turned on their TVs on Tuesday morning and seen Anwar and Wan Azizah enjoying a nasi lemak breakfast in the dining room of the prime ministerial residence in Putrajaya.
Yet, to make Sept 16 a failure that would break Anwar's back is, with all due respect, a shallow reading of the situation. This is not some reality show on TV. This is real life, and people’s lives and futures are at stake.
But first things first. Has Anwar really failed? Well, he was not seen eating nasi lemak in the prime ministerial residence, but it can be argued credibly that he did in fact initiate the ‘takeover’ of the government on Sept 16. In fact, even if Abdullah Ahmad Badawi were to roll over and just give in to Anwar - a laughable prospect - it would still have been impossible for Anwar to wake up as prime minister on Sept 16. The formalities of such a handover alone would ensure that couldn't happen - unless the process was begun days, maybe weeks, earlier.
But based on Pak Lah's reactions so far, the handover is going to be anything but smooth. History has repeatedly shown us that dying corrupt regimes don't just pack their bags, call the cab and wave goodbye. Instead, they usually have to be dragged out kicking and screaming.
By coming out firmly and requesting Pak Lah for a cordial discussion on handing over power, Anwar has in fact delivered on his Sept 16 promise to start the process of taking over the government. Of course if three months from now he is still waiting for that meeting and Abdullah is still cutting the ribbons, it would seriously dent Anwar's credibility.
His critics seem to think that anything short of Anwar publicly distributing photocopied lists of the defectors' names on Sept 16 amounts to a failure. Yet, they fail to take into account the developments of even just the last few days.
The government had no hesitation incarcerating three individuals for absolutely no rhyme or reason. What are the chances they would not do the same to the defectors when their very future in power is under threat?
Anwar is doing the thing that any responsible person, let alone a statesman, would do. He wants this to be gentle and peaceful, he wants to make sure nobody's life and freedom is endangered for supporting him, he wants it to be orderly - and he wants to make sure the regime is not put into a state of panic where they could do irreversible harm to the nation.
But he has also made it plain that the process is irreversible and the choice before Abdullah is to go gently into the night or be squeezed out by an ever-tightening screw. Abdullah's last resort would be to throw the state's brute force at the opposition - but in his heart of hearts, even he knows that the days when that worked are past.
It is a very sensitive time for Malaysia, and kudos to Anwar and the Pakatan Rakyat for recognising that and making sure the process of the power transfer is as orderly as possible. For that to happen, persuasion rather than ultimatums is the key.
And let's not forget the political motive for the Sept 16 deadline. The psychological pressure that has built up on the BN government by the setting of that deadline has been tremendous, so much so that expectations have been built up to a point where it is the ‘when’ that matters to the rakyat, and no longer the ‘whether’.
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