COMMENT This final article of the long series on Selangor Menteri Besar Abdul Khalid Ibrahim will centre on a few remaining issues: Bank Islam, a controversial land deal, and whether Khalid is saving too much and spending too little.

Towards the end, we will also briefly discuss the PKR elections, as well as the consequences of removing Khalid.

Many accusations have been made implying that a lawsuit involving Bank Islam has compromised Khalid, and that the BN used this issue as leverage against him - all of which are patently untrue.

The Bank Islam saga began well before Khalid became menteri besar. Some time after giving Bank Islam considerable assistance in a matter the bank was involved in, Khalid took a sizeable loan from the bank. As collateral, he pledged a large number of shares to the bank.

At some point, the price of these shares plummeted. Bank Islam took the controversial action of selling the shares at this much lower price, and then demanded that Khalid pay the shortfall for the loan.

In response, Khalid sued the bank for selling the shares while they were at a very low price, instead of waiting for the price of those shares to come back up (which happened eventually).

The case is ongoing in court, and since the loan was originally part of an Islamic finance product called Bai Bithamin Ajil, the banking industry (including Bank Negara) has been following the case closely. The manner in which the matter is decided in the courts may have considerable repercussions for the Islamic banking sector as a whole in Malaysia.

Nowhere in these legal proceedings does BN come into play. Bank Islam is a private entity, on which the government has no sway, making the matter one between two private entities.

There were attempts to somehow imply that a prominent Umno lawyer was acting as a broker in this case, but to the best of my understanding, Khalid has never had any dealings with this man whatsoever. It would not be the first time facts were completely fabricated out of thin air for political purposes in Malaysia.

Controversial land deal

I was told about a land deal that was closely related to the current moves to oust Khalid as menteri besar. I was rather surprised to find anti-Khalid cybertroopers mentioning this case on the social media, because of the manner in which it potentially implicates a lot of the top leaders in the anti-Khalid movement.

At this point, it may be unwise to name names. I will attempt to paint an accurate picture, and present the possible explanations that readers can choose from.

Entity T bought a piece of land, C in what was basically a joint-venture with the state government, just before GE13.

I understand that the contract signed between T and the state government was not watertight, and that even individuals in the state government have admitted that the state government must take responsibility for not making the agreement as correct as it should have been.

Due to the shortcomings in the contract, T was able to sell the land to another corporate entity, E, at a premium - thus making themselves a happy profit in a very short period of time.

When Khalid became aware of this, he was most displeased at the manner in which this latest transaction went against the spirit of the joint venture. He felt that if there was short term profiteering instead of long term profits from developing the land together, then the state government was at least owed a portion of the profits.

T of course disagreed. The state government thereafter put a hold on any developments on land C by entity E, until they are able to reclaim the income they feel is owed to the state government.

I understand that T, on the other hand, has gone to leaders of party K, saying: Hey, didn’t the ‘agreement’ that we came to before the general election mean that this deal was supposed to go through the way we wanted it to, without any problems?

So to be fair, there are at least three possible interpretations: first, that Khalid is in cahoots with T, and somehow received kickbacks for cutting the deal (making it the first time Khalid would have been tainted by such corruption); second, that Khalid’s incompetence allowed T to take the state government for a ride; third, that leaders of party K cut the deal with T without Khalid’s real or full knowledge, and are now feeling the pressure to keep up their end of a bargain - something they cannot do while Khalid remains menteri besar.

Spending on welfare increased every year

People like to accuse Khalid of not spending enough. However, many forget that every year, while Selangor’s reserves have increased consistently, so has Selangor’s spending on welfare.

Some complain that infrastructure has not improved dramatically. Firstly, a big chunk of infrastructure development comes under the federal government, and secondly, I highly doubt that infrastructure in Selangor on the whole has worsened in any significant way.

Much of Selangor’s welfare spending may never come to the attention of an English speaking, urban middle class. The widespread Merakyatkan Ekonomi Selangor welfare programmes by the state government are targeted at lower income earners, and provide investment funds for children, education allowances, entrepreneurial seed funds and much more.

It is possible that these programmes, more than anything else, are responsible for Khalid’s government increasing its number of state assembly seats in GE 13 by eight times more than any other incumbent state government, by making inroads in exactly the kind of constituencies that Pakatan has failed so miserably to penetrate in other states.

Using PKR elections to oust Khalid

Some rather interesting trends emerged in the PKR Kuala Selangor division elections.

At first count, in the division’s vote tally for the PKR deputy president’s post , Khalid garnered 517 votes against Azmin Ali’s 440.

Unbelievably, during the vote counting, the counting centre apparently experienced a blackout. After this blackout, it was found that in the division chief’s race , Khalid had garnered 515 votes against Azmin loyalist S Manickavasagam’s 701.

Note here that the number of voters in the PKR Kuala Selangor division who are eligible to vote for the deputy president are the same as the number of voters who are eligible to vote for the division chief.

That Khalid received almost the same number of votes for deputy president as he did for division chief should thus come as no surprise. The question is, how did Manickavasagam obtain 261 more votes in the division chief’s race?

When the vote counters were queried about this blatantly illogical discrepancy, the reply given was apparently basically that there were about 261 spoilt votes in the deputy president’s race.

This would mean that 261 people were able to vote correctly for Azmin’s man in the division chief’s race, but somehow failed to vote correctly for Azmin himself in the deputy president’s race.

Meanwhile, in Sarawak, word is that dead people are apparently voting in the PKR elections. It’s as if PKR has taken everything it has accused the Election Commission of as the new norm in any kind of elections.

The whole thing is mind boggling enough to remind me of Mark Twain’s quote: “Truth is stranger than Fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.”

Tearing Pakatan apart

I have written repeatedly that the moves to remove Khalid could well signal the end of Pakatan Rakyat as we know it.

First, the disagreement over whether to replace Khalid, and/or who to replace him with, could cause rifts much more significant than say, rifts over hudud. Every shade of factionalism between and within Pakatan parties will be laid bare for the world to see.

Second, a vote of no confidence in the state assembly is likely to end in a dissolution of the same and statewide elections. Voters throughout Malaysia will see how Pakatan infighting and politicking results in such a colossal waste of resources, time and energy, and will come to see Pakatan as a movement that places politics above the needs of the rakyat.

Third, voters will be given a clear signal of what to expect should Pakatan ever come to federal power. Pakatan can apparently agree on a chief executive, but only for so long.

After that, everybody will start imagining the consequences of the current power struggle in Selangor playing out at the federal level. You can bet that is the same story the mainstream media will play for years, and for once, they would be right.

Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail is a lady of considerable personal integrity, but I fear should she be installed as menteri besar , Selangor will be run to the ground in the same way PKR has been run to the ground - because, at the end of the day, Anwar Ibrahim will again be the one who is really calling all the shots.

I don’t think we even need to get started on Azmin.

Choosing the right road

I wrote my resignation letter to the party the day they announced the Kajang Move. I remember thinking to myself: what happens when a man of some considerable integrity finally emerges on the broken landscape of Malaysian politics? His ‘allies’ fall over themselves to stab him in the back.

I do not know what will happen to Khalid. I am guessing he believes that the right thing to do is not to resign, no matter what. I concur with his view, and am hoping the resolve he has shown at every turn of his tenure will prevail.

Whatever happens, this entire saga has, for me, shown that when push came to shove, so many in Pakatan completely failed to walk their talk. If they persist in their folly, then even more of the rot will be laid bare for all to see.

Although all of us are most often but a lone voice in the wind, I will not spend my voice to replace one group of rotten people with another group of equally rotten people.

If that means we have to build again from scratch, I, for one, cannot help but feel that it is better to start down a long road in the right direction than to persist on the shorter looking one that leads only to perdition.

Part 1: Why do think what we think about Khalid?

          

Part 2: MB Khalid's principles - real work vs fireworks

           

Part 3: Kidex and the Kg Sungai Terentang experience

           

Part 4: Khalid refuses to win Bible battle, only to lose war

           

Part 5: Did Khalid sell out on Selangor’s water?

           

NATHANIEL TAN joins Malaysia in offering sincere condolences to all those who lost someone in the MH17 tragedy.