COMMENT The news that former deputy minister and Umno MP for Temerloh, Saifuddin Abdullah, will join PKR today is good tidings for the party in contrast to the news of collaboration between PAS and Perkasa the day before yesterday which was bad vibes for the opposition.

The unalloyed good of Saifuddin’s enlistment with PKR is due to several reasons, chief among them that it will prod Barisan Nasional legislators to rethink their support for Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s continued stay at the top of the ruling coalition.

Not that Saifuddin was a politician Umno was proud to have in its ranks; his presence enabled them to tell aspirant members among the young that there is scope for their idealism in the party.

Saifuddin was a supporter of Najib and the latter subtly encouraged the view that he was partial to young leaders like Saifuddin.

The PM tacitly encouraged his fellow Pahang Umno politico in latter’s display of liberal instincts by appointing him to the chair of a pet project, Global Movement for Moderation (GMM), after incumbent Saifuddin was defeated in the parliamentary ward of Temerloh at the last general election (GE13).

Although GMM was more show than substance - simply from the PM’s inability to lead from the front in matters concerning race and religion - it furnished a vehicle for Saifuddin to project his liberal credentials while allowing Najib a channel to convey that he nurtures liberal inclinations and middle-of-the-road views.

However, fortune favours the bold, not the wavering and as Najib began to sink in the quagmire of 1MDB, his protege had to decide on what is best for him.

With Saifuddin’s expected departure to PKR, an already drooping GMM will wither and vanish.

That cannot be said for an incipient insurgency within BN ranks that is needed to propel a no-confidence motion against Najib in Parliament, a move that would be spurred by Saifuddin’s bolting to PKR and Muhyiddin Yassin’s latest exhortation to Umno members that they must rise to stop the plunder of the nation’s assets to prop up enterprises like 1MDB which have been stripped by wrongdoers who have gone scot-free.

Saifuddin’s leaving Umno and Muhyiddin’s vehement exhortation should combine to bring across to those in Umno-BN the costs of of their short-term interest in keeping Najib afloat against the long-term one of maintaining Umno-BN as an electable proposition at GE14.

Right now, Saifuddin's departure from their ranks is indication enough that backing Najib, with 1MDB hanging like an albatross round Umno-BN’s neck, is a risky wager; what more such measures as the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and hikes in highway tolls that are bound to heighten popular discontent with the ruling coalition.

And we have not even begun to reckon with the downsides to our plight under the hidden terms of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), that Parliament will have to debate and approve.

Provoking consternation and confusion

To PKR, Saifuddin’s joining would constitute a halt to a run of seemingly poor developments for the party, stemming from its desire to preserve its links to PAS, which through its unilateralism and erratic ways of its top leaders, has done much to provoke consternation and confusion in opposition ranks.

Opposition supporters are concerned as to why PKR is hesitant to acknowledge that PAS, under the leadership of president Abdul Hadi Awang and spiritual leader Dr Haron Din, is on a course that is neither here nor there in terms of where the Islamist party stands.

The news on Tuesday that it is teaming up with ultra-Malay rights group, Perkasa, to espouse mutual concerns only served to underscore the aimlessness of the leadership of both Hadi and Haron and that this new teaming-up is being swiftly repudiated by sections of the party emphasised the point about the confusion that trails in both leaders’ slipstream.

In sum, Saifuddin’s entry into PKR should slow the drift of the party into irrelevance and enfeeblement.

It will place a premium on rational political discourse, encourage the young to see that the political arena should not be ceded to the know-littles or know-nothings, and as the preserve of the secretarian-minded and the emotive.

In short, Saifuddin’s leaving the marshes of Umno-BN for the high plains of the opposition will strengthen the better purposes and counsels of our motley democracy.

TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for more than four decades. A sobering discovery has been that those who protest the loudest tend to replicate the faults they revile in others.