COMMENT Veiled attacks on the shenanigans of Zaid Ibrahim and vague assurances of self-strengthening are likely to be the twin motifs of the PKR response to its latest crisis, judging by what was on offer at separate gatherings yesterday of the party faithful.

At the first, which was an assembly of PKR Federal Territory divisional leaders in Kuala Lumpur, a late arriving Anwar Ibrahim told the gathering they should focus on preparations for the approaching general election than on the repercussions of their former leader, Zaid’s, turbulent actions.

selangor pkr briefing anwar ibrahim Later at Shah Alam, at a packed town hall-style gathering of party faithful, the two motifs of veneered barbs at Zaid - except for Dr Syed Husin Ali who was close to choleric in his denunciation - and unspecified assurances of reform to PKR election modules were in stronger evidence.

Tonight in Baling, Kedah, on what is likely to be the start of party supremo Anwar Ibrahim’s standard response to crisis - an electioneering glissade that will take him throughout the country - those motifs are likely to receive further reinforcement.

No doubt, all this will assure party faithful that the disarray stemming from the now aborted contest (through Zaid’s withdrawal) for deputy president is nothing to be unduly perturbed about.

But whether that is sufficient to convince appraising fence-sitters - who have been mulling the evidence of the post-tsunami period that BN is beyond redemption but Pakatan Rakyat, especially its PKR component, haven’t quite gelled to tip over on to the latter’s side in the upcoming general election - is less certain.

Perhaps these people would want to know what plans are there for the re-education of Dr Molly Cheah, the PKR lead election monitor, who was plucked from obscurity and named to her important role rather like one Fairus Khairuddin, who was similarly hoisted from nowhere and made deputy chief minister of Penang in March 2008.

No point now in belabouring the latter disaster; mistakes like that are apt to be made and there was fortunately time for its mitigation and eventual correction.  

Will the fence-sitters be convinced?

But people would like to know what’s in store for the likes of Cheah. She is a general practitioner. Her only qualification for the important post of chief election monitor seems to have been her friendship for Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, PKR president and fellow doctor.

NONE Cheah has no known track record in anything except general practice medicine.

In the event, when complaints about irregularities in the election process began to sweep in from the Zaid Ibrahim camp, Cheah was like a deer caught in the headlights: she simply had no clue about what was happening, not a very reassuring spectacle for a party with pretensions to take over Putrajaya.

Sure, it’s good that a well-heeled general practitioner like her is interested to play a role in the political reformation of the country. But pray, what was it that qualified her for the role of chief election monitor and what plans are there now for her re-education?        

Perhaps fence-sitting voters see in the saga of Cheah an uncanny prefiguring of what a PKR-led Pakatan government could be about: an apparition that wafts in and wafts out.

Hence wouldn’t it better to expend time on the details of Cheah’s re-education and a host of other related and urgent matters than on road shows that would merely be balm for the party faithful but no reassurance to the fence-sitter, especially since you now have a mad-hatter on the loose bent on stirring the pot?

 

TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for close on four decades. He likes the occupation because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them. It is the ideal occupation for a temperament that finds power fascinating and its exercise abhorrent.