COMMENT | Is there something rotten in the state of Perak?

COMMENT | The campaigning for GE15 has already begun in the parliamentary seats of Bagan Datuk and Tambun in Perak, though the hustings don’t begin in earnest until nominations on Nov 5.

Strangely, however, given the stakes involved there has been an absence of broadsides between the dramatis personae: Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, the Umno president and incumbent MP for Bagan Datuk, and Anwar Ibrahim, Pakatan Harapan’s prime ministerial-designate and aspirant MP for Tambun.

This would be about as remarkable as Joe Biden muting his fire against Donald Trump in the run-up to the mid-term elections in the United States.

Not only noticeable was the absence of crossfire between the head honchos of Umno-BN and Harapan, the contesting coalitions together with Perikatan Nasional, in GE15, there is also a reluctance to take up hostilities on the part of supporting casts.

When Zuhdi Marzuki, a PAS strategist, called the other day for a special collaboration between Perikatan Nasional and BN to defeat Anwar in Tambun, in order to end, once and for all, the “endless” political broils that Zuhdi claimed the Harapan leader had caused the Malaysian body politic, Umno’s Ahmad Maslan promptly shot down the proposition.

Maslan said at GE15, Umno was going it alone, sans electoral pacts with PAS or anyone else.

Further evidence of an armistice between the lead protagonists of Umno-BN and Harapan could also be seen in the silence that greeted DAP elder statesman Lim Kit Siang’s suggestion that Anwar allow the candidature of Tawfik Tun Dr Ismail for the Bagan Datuk seat to be fought under Harapan colours.

Tawfik, initiator of Gerak Independents, the movement to keep MPs true to their calling of fighting for the rakyat’s interest, and not just for their career or party interest, has styled his campaign to unseat Zahid as “Rakyat vs Rasuah” – an allusion to the slew of corruption charges the Umno supremo faces in the courts.

Kit Siang’s proposition has been ignored by Anwar whose PKR is fielding a Harapan candidate in Bagan Datuk, a figure who is as nondescript as the Umno division leader in Tambun who is being touted as the party’s contestant.

The division leader is a Zahid loyalist who can be counted on to do exactly as his mentor commands.

This is more grist for the theory that Anwar is as permissive about Zahid in Bagan Datuk as the latter is of Anwar in Tambun.

Unlikely place

Tambun, with a 67% Malay voter presence, is an unlikely place for Anwar to contest a parliamentary seat.

Harapan’s PM-designate ought to be going for a mixed-race seat than is offered by Tambun, which has a 20% Chinese and an 11% Indian voter presence.

Though Ahmad Azumu, Tambun’s Bersatu incumbent, is regarded as a lightweight, Umno’s Husni Hanadzlah’s three-term hold on the constituency which Azumu ended in the wave that swept Harapan to state and federal power in GE14, must have been a factor in Anwar’s calculations of where it is safe for him to stand.

Suffice, it is a risky choice by Anwar and fortifies speculation he is on to a subterranean gambit in which the calculations of his long-time protégé, Zahid, weighed in the balance.

Seeking to exploit that risk, Azumu has resurrected a 2016 interview with a foreign media outlet, in which Anwar had purportedly told his interviewer that Israel’s security needs must be respected.

Anwar’s response to Azumu’s luring him out on a matter in which the former has long been thought to be vulnerable because of alleged links to Jewish lobbies, was the stock reaction of the average Islamist politician – “There’s no more ardent Palestinian supporter than I.”

Allies and collaborators

The machinations of Anwar are necessarily opaque. He has not been an easy politician to read for reason of his vaulting ambition to become prime minister.

There’s nothing wrong with that.

But it must be noted that, to his side, a myriad of allies and collaborators have come and gone - all sacrificed, presumably, on the altar of his calculations.

The latest is incumbent Sungai Buloh MP Sivarasa Rasiah, a dyed-in-the-wool Anwar loyalist, who until 5pm on the day of the announcement of PKR candidates, was told he was on the list.

By 9pm of the announcements at a rally in Ampang, he was gone, an ex-MIC member preferred in his stead.

Anwar forgets the heartache caused him by another MIC refugee in PKR, Gobalakrishnan Nagappan, sometime MP for Padang Serai (2008-2013), on whom Anwar expended a lot of persuasion, to no appreciable effect.

Gobala quit PKR after losing out for a vice presidential slot in party elections in 2010.

No doubt, Anwar had spent a lot of time on his relationship with Zahid whom he mentored while the latter was in university and in Umno, when Anwar was its youth leader and its deputy president.

We may soon know what discernible effect this mentoring has had.

TERENCE NETTO is a journalist with half a century's experience.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

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