On this day last year, Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim announced his bold plan to wrest power from ruling coalition Barisan Nasional by enticing their parliamentarians to cross over to the Pakatan Rakyat ship.

anwar lodge police report 210709 04 According to Anwar (left) then, Sept 16 was picked as it commemorates the formation of Malaysia, where Sabah and Sarawak had officially joined the nation in 1963.

This followed with his taunts, claiming that he had "enough number" of Sabah and Sarawak MPs ready to join his Pakatan coalition.

But, as the nation awaited for the change of government, the fireworks and the sparks were short-lived as somehow the big plan did not materialise.

Some even had called Anwar, who is also the PKR de facto leader, a ‘bluff'.

However, PKR strategy director Tian Chua believed "although it did not happen, it does not mean it had failed".

"Our intention is to make Sept 16 a landmark of 46 years of nationhood. Anwar was the first person in the peninsula to announce about the significance of this date.

NONE "Now there is so much improvement, even BN is following our tune. This is also the first time the government has made a statement to acknowledge this date," said Chua (right) , who is also a Batu MP when contacted.

Despite Anwar's plan not coming to fruition, Chua however said it did galvanise both Pakatan and BN to serve the people better.

"With this competition that we have, both sides are ready to provide better leadership for the people," he added.

‘People would have rejected us'

Meanwhile, PAS vice-president Mahfuz Omar dismissed the suggestions that the people have had enough of Anwar's rhetoric and his failure to form a new government.

The long-term Pokok Sena MP argued that the people would have rejected Pakatan a long time ago, and would have been reflected in the series of by-elections since the general election on March 8 last year.

"Just take a look at the result of the by-elections that were held. We bagged seven wins against BN, which managed only one. This shows that the people really wanted change and stick to us," he said when contacted.

However, there was not much to say from DAP leader Lim Kit Siang, who refused to comment on Anwar's unsuccessful attempt to take over the federal power.

Instead, he suggested that Pakatan is going strong since the announcement was first made by Anwar on Sept 16 last year.

"Sept 16 serves a reminder that we want national unity rather than national division and it shows that we as Malaysians, should not be divided," he said briefly.

Beware the Perak syndrome

parliament 181108 shahrir samad pc on petrol 03 But the matter did not go down well with former minister Shahrir Samad (right), who thinks whatever Anwar had planned previously was merely "personal".

The Johor Bahru MP suggested that those BN leaders who were "enticed" by Anwar either "did not get a job in the cabinet, were in love with Anwar or wanted him to become the prime minister".

"But for me personally, his poor track record proves that he is incapable of being a leader. His old record when he was in the government was not actually brilliant," he said.

Shahrir added that Anwar was not immune from money politics and abuse of power during his time as a minister.

"So he should not talk about integrity and say that he was never corrupt," blasted Shahrir, adding that he was never ‘intimidated' with the Sept 16 plan as he "knew it was not going to happen".

Political analyst from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Professor Dr Mohammad Agus Yusof, says the Sept 16 plan was a "tragedy" for Pakatan where they should learnt a lesson.

"We hope history does not repeat itself... a political party cannot plan to take over the government through the back door. They should instead depend on the elections," he said.

Otherwise, he added, the whole plan would backfire, just like what happened in Perak, where BN took over the Pakatan government through crossovers from their state reps.