comment That Anwar Ibrahim is the principal adhesive in what had seemed a fissiparous Pakatan Rakyat was demonstrated by his success at forestalling a split not only in the opposition coalition but also in PAS, stemming from the attempts of a faction within that party to forge links to its adversary, Umno.

From the time of PAS' muktamar earlier this month, the threat of an intraparty split over the question of unity talks with Umno had simultaneously portended a schism in the opposition front, with PAS ranged against coalition partners DAP and PKR, over the entire issue.

anwar ibrahim laughing 031104 After a meeting with PAS' spiritual head Nik Aziz Nik Mat in Kota Baru on Sunday, followed by a flurry of Monday morning meetings with PAS president Hadi Awang and secretary general Mustafa Ali, Anwar (right) was able to brief DAP's Lim Kit Siang and secretary general Lim Guan Eng at noon on aspects of the modus viviendi he had worked out.

Swift resolution

The upshot: A joint statement in the early afternoon signed by the PR council of leaders, composed of Anwar, Hadi and Kit Siang, that roundly eschewed negotiations with Umno over a unity government but still keeping the door open for talks on any matter of national interest.

Late the same day, Nik Aziz, PAS' stormy petrel on the matter of the unity talks with Umno, retracted all maledictions he had earlier heaped on the party's deputy president, Nasharuddin Mat Isa, who was the main proponent of unity talks with Umno.

hadi awang 010807 The embrace-and-make-up encounter-cum-renunciation came at a meeting of the PAS central committee at its headquarters, a postlude predicted by Hadi Awang (left) in the afternoon when he said that all would be resolved between the party's two principal antagonists over the divisive issue of unity talks with Umno.

Thus, as abruptly as a thunderhead boiled up within PAS and, by extension, within PR, it dissipated, largely due to Anwar's shuttle diplomacy.

Public scalding

karpal singh Coming just four months after a very public scalding he received from DAP supremo Karpal Singh (right) for allegedly fomenting the crossover culture which the Bukit Gelugor MP claimed had paved the way for political stalemate in Perak, Anwar has rebounded, demonstrating his skill at holding the PR coalition together just when it appeared headed for the rocks.

On that occasion, the DAP stalwart had called on PR to look for a new leader to replace someone he assailed as having promoted a promiscuous political culture that had led to two PKR and a DAP legislator in Perak repudiating the parties on whose tickets they had stood in the general elections of March 2008.

It was criticism that stung, albeit coming from one who cares little for the inevitable zigzags and compromises that come with the effort to build a coalition of disparate partners.

The maxim that politics is the art of the possible was given an overtone of meaning by the demonstration of successful shuttle diplomacy by Anwar. If the PR coalition holds, the feat itself would revise the notion that history is determined by inexorable forces, not individuals.