Maybe not Sept 16, but Putrajaya is definitely in Anwar's sights

By Leslie Lau

AUG 26 - Now that Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has expectedly been returned to Parliament by voters in his hometown, the big question is will he become the next prime minister? The odds are still against him doing it by Sept 16.

For one, he has less than three weeks to persuade enough MPs to defect from the Barisan Nasional. He also needs to quell the problem of mounting disputes between the secular DAP and the Islamist Pas in his coalition. There is also the sodomy charge he will have to fight in court.

But his victory in Permatang Pauh today does give him renewed momentum in his quest to lead the fledgling Pakatan Rakyat coalition to eventually take over the Federal Government. He will use his new position as Parliamentary Opposition Leader to up the ante against the weak administration of Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi.

Anwar will also argue that his victory in Permatang Pauh, a predominantly Malay seat, shows there is significant support for his multiracial approach. After all, the former DPM has openly declared he will put an end to the NEP-style pro-Malay affirmative action policies of the BN government by replacing Umno's "ketuanan Melayu," with his "ketuanan rakyat-. And still he won today's elections handsomely in a Malay seat.

Even the onslaught of attacks against his personal character, from the sodomy charge hanging over him to allegations that he will sell out the country to the Jews and that he approved gambling licences while still in government, did not prevent today's landslide.

Call Anwar the Teflon man if you will, since an independent survey found a majority of the Malay electorate in Permatang Pauh believed the sodomy charge against him is politically motivated.

What the BN leadership should learn from their defeat today is that it is not just about Anwar. Five months after losing five states and a two-thirds majority in Parliament, the BN suffers from a major perception problem. A significant number of Malaysians just do not believe in the BN anymore. The BN is now associated with arrogance, a sense of entitlement, corruption, oppression. The list goes on.

Anwar and the PR, fragile as the alliance may currently be, represents change to significant numbers of Malaysians. And with a flagging economy and high inflation, the sentiment now is against the BN government.

The BN coalition, for so long the best brand in Malaysian politics, is also facing insurrection from within. While the turmoil faced by Umno seems to have receded for now, the other BN parties are becoming increasingly unhappy with their dominant partner's more pro-Malay stance. There has been growing support from within the MCA, Gerakan and other parties to withdraw from the BN coalition.

What is certain is that Malaysia faces more political uncertainty ahead. So will Anwar eventually become prime minister? Maybe not on Sept 16, but a man who can win a by-election and become the leader of the strongest Federal Opposition this country has seen in 51 years just four years after being released from jail cannot be written off.


- The Malaysian Insider

Permatang Pauh: Winners and losers

AUG 26 - Every election produces winners and losers. Here is The Malaysian Insider's take on who emerged from Permatang Pauh with credit and who should hit the soul-searching button.

WINNERS

- Anwar Ibrahim

The Barisan Nasional threw the kitchen sink and everything in it at him but by next sitting he will take his place in Parliament. This all but completes his rehabilitation from a political has-been 10 years ago to possibly the next prime minister of Malaysia. He now faces the near impossible task of persuading at least 30 BN MPs to cross over to Pakatan Rakyat and forcing the collapse of the Barisan Nasional by Sept 16. But for today at least he can savour the taste of victory. And yes, the debate on who should be the prime minister-in-waiting is over.

- Pakatan Rakyat

For the past two months, there have been serious questions over the future of this alliance. Some Pas leaders seemed keen on joining forces with Umno, concerned that Malay rights and the position of Islam were being diluted in Pakatan Rakyat. DAP and Pas also disagreed publicly on who should be the prime-minister-in-waiting and squabbled over the spoils of Election 2008. Guess what? All the differences were forgotten as members of PKR, DAP and Pas descended on Permatang Pauh. They outwitted and outfought the formidable BN machinery.

- Datuk Nik Aziz Nik Mat

When others wavered, the Pas spiritual leader stood firmly beside Anwar, campaigning tirelessly and defending the Opposition icon against the sodomy charge. By far, he was the single most powerful antidote against Saiful Bukhari Azlan swearing on the Quran that he had been sodomised by Anwar. He has emerged with reputation and image among PKR supporters burnished.

LOSERS

- Umno

The charade is over. This is a party without spirit. This is a party without a leader. Ministers, deputy ministers and other senior party officials all campaigned in Permatang Pauh but it was more out of duty than anything else. There was no fire in their bellies. Some could not care less how Datuk Arif Shah Omar Shah performed in the polls. They showed up in the constituency to canvass for support in the upcoming divisional elections in October. One former menteri besar, eyeing a top position in the party, holed up in a hotel and dished out cash to streams of divisional officials. This is a party made of politicians who are consumed with their own interest and completely detached from reality. This could be the beginning of the end of this once powerful party.

- The Barisan Nasional machinery

There was a time when the Opposition used to shudder at the prospect of facing the formidable machinery, the women who used to campaign tirelessly from dusk to dawn, the men who braved the elements to tear down Opposition posters and ferry voters to the polling station. Not anymore. Dispirited, they just did the bare minimum in Permatang Pauh. In fact, it was the Pakatan Rakyat machinery which caught the eye. Their workers displayed the spirit of volunteerism which was once patented by the BN. How the mighty have fallen.

- Abdullah Ahmad Badawi

He was not in charge of the BN by-election team but the president of Umno and the chairman of the BN will not be able to absolve himself of blame for this dismal showing. The unvarnished fact is that he has not been able to inspire his party or the ruling coalition since March 8. If his party workers are listless, it is because they do not see him as a general capable of galvanising the troops in the face of an enemy's onslaught. If his coalition partners are feeble, it is because they do not see him as a leader capable of reviving the BN. In all likelihood, there will be calls for him to speed up the transfer of power.

- Najib Razak

Without a doubt, the deputy prime minister is hurting. The uninterrupted stream of attacks on his character, his wife and allegations that he was involved with the murdered Mongolian model Altantuya Shariibuu have damaged him in the eyes of the public. His words once used to carry weight but now they ring hollow. His decision to swear in a mosque that he was not involved with Altantuya did not find popular support. Still, he remains best placed to take over from Abdullah. But he will need much repair to his image before he can claim to have the support of Malaysians.

- Saiful Bukhari Azlan

He claimed it was a coincidence but his decision to swear on the Quran on the eve of nomination day that he was sodomised by Anwar does not look very clever now. A snap poll of 544 Malay voters by the Merdeka Centre painted him as a pawn in a political game. He should stay out of the limelight till the trial begins.

- The Malaysian Insider

Renewed opportunism in Umno

AUG 27 — It's is hardly surprising that Umno leadership pretenders, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir, have renewed calls for Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's resignation as premier after Barisan Nasional's comprehensive defeat in the Permatang Pauh by-election.

The pressure for Abdullah to step down started right after BN's disastrous performance in the general election but quietened soon after the prime minister and his deputy Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak announced a transition plan which would see the latter taking over both the administration and party sometime in the middle of 2010.

Although not unanimously accepted by Umno rank and file, it was enough to buy Abdullah some time to build his legacy and give Najib a chance to resuscitate a tattered public image courtesy of his top advisor's involvement in the gruesome Altantuya murder.

The transition plan scuppered plans by Abdullah's detractors in the party to oust him during Umno's general assembly in December. Most notably, Abdullah chief critic from within his own cabinet, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, was forced to back down from contesting one of the two top posts in Umno to defending his third-tier vice presidency.

Many felt Muhyiddin was forced to retreat because with Abdullah and Najib circling the wagon with the transition plan, there was little support among party leaders and warlords for him to move up the party hierarchy.

Similarly, Tengku Razaleigh's campaign to once again become the president of Umno was losing its momentum. Privately his advisers admitted to fighting a losing battle and the transition plan was as good as a nail in his political coffin.

For Mukhriz, his political career's high point of replicating his father's act of dissent by writing a letter demanding the prime minister's resignation lost any traction it may have generated with the 2010 plan and his own hopes of becoming the next party youth leader were also diminishing with a strong surge of popularity of former Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Mohd Khir Toyo among grassroots youth members.

So for these Abdullah critics, the result of the Permatang Pauh by-election is another opportunity for them to generate momentum against the prime minister.

They claim that Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's victory is confirmation of the rakyat's rejection and repudiation of Abdullah's leadership. The result is a signal that nothing has been done to salvage the situation since the general election and BN needs a new leader before it becomes too late.

Such calls are at best opportunistic. First of all, this was not an election that was winnable for BN. It took place in Anwar's "back yard" and is a seat that has been in the Anwar family for the last seven terms.

From the get go, many in Umno had already conceded defeat and this was reflected in the reality that at times during the campaign it appeared as though Najib was the only Umno leader working the ground.

While admittedly the prime minister's public approval ratings have been sliding, they are still as strong as Anwar's and Najib's. The by-election was fought under very difficult localised circumstances for BN and to use the results to hasten Abdullah's departure would be opportunistic as well as missing the point of the defeat.

Secondly, the by-election was, if anything, framed as a referendum between Anwar and Najib. Again, although this is unfair because it was held in Anwar's stronghold, many sized up both "prime ministers-in-waiting" during the campaign.

Anwar was as relentless in his attacks on Najib and vice versa. The deputy prime minister believed at one point his own credibility was at stake and swore in a mosque that he never met Altantuya or had anything to do in her murder.

If anything, Najib is as damaged as Abdullah after this by-election campaign which means whenever a leadership does transition takes place, it will do little to save the fate of Umno and BN.

To be fair, Tengku Razaleigh understood this and launched his latest salvo against the top two leaders. Mukhriz, on the other hand, was more disingenuous refusing to criticise Najib for tactical reasons relating to his own future career and limiting his attacks to his father's arch enemy, Abdullah.

Thirdly, Umno and BN must understand that this is not the time to mess about with pressure on the leadership. With Anwar's threat of Sept 16 looming, Umno and BN need to hunker down, close ranks and train their guns outwards.

They are already going to be in for a rough ride with Anwar as the parliamentary opposition leader, they cannot afford to waste their time and energy attacking their own leadership especially after a transition plan between Abdullah and Najib was put in place very recently.

Lastly, the calls for the prime minister to step down again demonstrates Umno's ignorance of the real causes for their plunging popularity. It is not Abdullah per se that the rakyat are rejecting but the system that Umno is seen to propagate.

The refusal to reform, the denial of corruption and the inability to appear magnanimous to non-Malay interests continue to characterise Umno. This is what the rakyat is against and they punished Abdullah for it in the general election because he let them down by not moving firmly enough with his reform agenda.

Umno needs to understand that the by-election result was largely due to Anwar and his personal connection with the voters of Permatang Pauh. While there may be many national factors, these alone do not explain Anwar's resounding win.

He is "family" to the people of Permatang Pauh - a favourite son that they believe will be prime minister. To take the result and turn it against Abdullah smacks of sheer opportunism and denial of the root causes for Umno’s and BN's continued decline into obscurity.

- The Malaysian Insider

Anwar's in, Pak Lah's out

AUG 27 — Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's stunning win at the Permatang Pauh by-election not only cemented his position as the undisputed leader of the opposition in Malaysia, it prompted senior Umno politicians to begin the countdown to Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's last day in office.

The majority view is that he has to go by the end of the year if Umno and BN are to stand any chance of checking the advance of Pakatan Rakyat and holding onto to power at the next general elections.

Tuesday night was a repeat of March 8 with Pakatan Rakyat giddy with an electoral success and BN politicians dizzy with another rejection by the public.

But the joy was sweeter for the opposition because their icon not only won but did so in style, trouncing BN's Arif Shah by a 15,671 majority, 2,000 more votes than what his wife obtained five months ago.

The pain was more severe for BN because unlike March 8, they were not caught blind-sided. They poured in millions of ringgit into the campaign, brought their heavy hitters, threw every conceivable missile at Anwar but still ended up losing badly.

The consequences of the Permatang Pauh by-election could be far-reaching, with even Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's neatly-packaged two-year transition of power under threat from increasingly disillusioned party members and leaders of coalition partners.

On Tuesday, only two hours after the last box of votes had been counted, senior Umno politicians were in deep discussion over the need for Abdullah to step down, believing that he had lost the ability to check a resurgent opposition.

A check of the voting pattern at 25 polling stations showed that Anwar snared a handy portion of Malays votes and the bulk of non-Malay votes.

Even the Siamese electorate – a traditional bank of BN support – gave their vote to Anwar.

Najib put on a brave face, saying that Anwar's victory proved that democracy was alive in Malaysia. Left unsaid was that the BN defeat showed that not much had changed on the ground since March 8. Despite the raft of promises by Abdullah to reform the system, the public was not moved.

If anything, Permatang Pauh confirmed that Chinese and Indians no longer fear giving their support to the Opposition.

It also confirmed that the umbilical cord between the Malaysian voter and the Barisan Nasional has been severed.

BN politicians have compiled a list of excuses for the heavy defeat, saying that Permatang Pauh has always been Anwar's fortress; that the campaign was pockmarked with allegations and innuendoes and that the electorate was in no mood to support the establishment because of the rising cost of living.

But they all sounded like excuses and could not obscure the fact that BN suffered its heaviest by-election defeat in recent memory.

Never has BN been in a deeper hole. Never has Abdullah Ahmad Badawi faced such a bleak picture.

- The Malaysian Insider

A triumphant return

Wednesday August 27, 2008

COMMENTBy JOCELINE TAN (The Star)

The return of Permatang Pauh’s most famous son to Parliament does not change the equation in the House but his impressive win is a critical stepping stone for his political plans.

MEDIA people making their way up the sloping road to the elections centre at the Tuanku Bainun Teachers Training College at about 7pm to wait for the results of the Permatang Pauh by-election noticed there were very few Barisan Nasional supporters.
That was the first hint the election outcome was not good for the Barisan.

About an hour earlier, news had filtered out that PKR leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim had won in several polling stations where the votes were being tallied and leading in all the other centres. Not long after that, the unofficial account was that Anwar had won in every one of the 25 polling stations.

Initially, he had thought of announcing his own victory at 7.45pm at the PKR operations base at Yayasan Aman in the heart of Permatang Pauh. But there would have been a crazy media crush as well as supporters wanting to be part of the victory, so he decided to proceed to the Tuanku Bainun centre where he arrived in grand style with a cheering motorcade, horns blaring and flags flying.

Permatang Pauh’s political son had come home. He had won convincingly, exceeding the 13,398-vote majority of his wife Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail in March.
The Barisan’s Datuk Arif Shah Omar Shah fought hard but could not match the charisma of Anwar or the dazzling campaign machinery and manpower behind him.

“Where Permatang Pauh people are concerned, you can say whatever you like about him. They don’t care. They just want Anwar Ibrahim. He is very strong in Permatang Pauh,” said Datuk Seri Dr Ibrahim Saad, his old friend and one-time Umno strongman in the area.

The constituency had stood by him during his time in prison, keeping his wife as their MP. In that sense, the victory they gave him is also a sort of redemption for the tribulations he had gone through in the first sodomy controversy.

This is the first by-election since the March polls and he has shown that he has grassroots support and that the tide has yet to turn for the Barisan. And given the way the sodomy allegations dominated the campaign, Anwar can now claim that people, particularly the Malays in Permatang Pauh, do not believe it.

His team took a multi-racial line in their campaign and the fact that it worked in a Malay-majority constituency is food for thought.

The inner circle around Anwar, which meets to strategise every day, had not been sure that Anwar could do better than his wife shortly after the campaign began.

Rural Malay sentiments were a bit different but they decided to tackle the Saiful issue head-on using some of the top ulama in the country and even the imam who witnessed Saiful’s swearing episode to argue their case.

Their effort paid off as did their campaign, which has been the talk among journalists who had never seen anything like it before.

The early indications also suggested that PKR swept the young Malay vote, especially those in their twenties and thirties. It should set off alarm bells for Umno Youth, which seems to still be disconnected from the young Malay ground. The Chinese and Indian votes have flown from the Barisan coop.

“There is only one sumpah or swearing action that Anwar needs to do and that is being sworn in as the new MP for Permatang,” said Jelutong MP Jeff Ooi.

Anwar’s supporters inside and outside the Pakatan Rakyat are relieved he is back in Parliament.

The last time he was inside the House, he was seated on the front bench, waiting rather impatiently to become the next Prime Minister. This time, he will still be on the front bench but on the opposite side, and he is still waiting to be Prime Minister.

But he will probably find that winning Permatang Pauh is the easy part. Becoming Prime Minister may be as elusive for him as it was before.

It is we who have been buried

Statement on the Result of the Permatang Pauh By-Election

26 August 26, 2008
YBM Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah
Member of Parliament, Gua Musang
31 Jalan Langgak Golf
55000 Kuala Lumpur

Today, five months after we met with the biggest General Election loss in our history, UMNO has suffered a landslide loss at Permatang Pauh. This despite the mobilization of the entire leadership and resources of a party that has held the machinery of government without pause for fifty years. This despite a campaign that embarrassed and divided the nation with its ugliness. It is time to face the music: it is we who have been buried:

- Our leadership is rejected by the rakyat and, moreover, is rejected by our own members. BN’s vote count was less than the number of UMNO members in the constituency.

- Within and among our component parties we ran a poorly coordinated and listless campaign against a motivated Opposition.

- What scraps of credibility the Prime Minister and his Deputy had left after March 8 are gone.

Today’s report card, delivered to a Prime Minister who is accountable also as Liaison Chief of UMNO Penang and Chairman of BN, is impossible to hide: he does not have the minimal credibility needed to run the country day by day, let alone to take it in the new directions we need to go in a complex world. He may not have the credibility needed to keep the country together. This dangerous situation cannot continue, and it will not.

I appeal to the members of UMNO and of BN’s component parties to stand by UMNO in our hour of crisis, and to take a sober historical perspective. The people of Malaysia and along with them, Umno’s ordinary members, have found their democratic voice. They demand leadership that can be trusted to unite our people, to restore confidence in our institutions, and forge a clear national direction. Today is proof that this wave cannot be held back. UMNO must change. We must begin by renewing our Party leadership. I am confident that by December, we shall.

Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah

The Final Nail In UMNO's Coffin

Matthias Chang
Tuesday, 26 August 2008 15:28

- Najib Can Kiss Good-Bye To Premiership - If UMNO Members Fail to Dethrone The Trinity of Power "The Father, The Son, and The Son-in-law", UMNO Has Forfeited Its Right To Lead and Rule

As expected, Anwar won the Permatang Pauh By-Election. The larger margin of victory is significant as in any By-Elections the ruling party has a decisive advantage as it can marshal the entire government machinery and the mass media to bully the opposition. Yet, the Barisan Nasional failed to roll back the support of the rakyat for the opposition.

Every dirty trick was employed to prevent Anwar Ibrahim from winning but to no avail. On the contrary, each exposé of the clumsy and stupid theatrics angered the electorate further.

Anger against the inept and lame-duck Badawi was the principal cause for the defeat of the Barisan Nasional.

That this by-election is the final warning to Badawi and his family to pack their bags and get out is evident from the sentiments of the non-Malay voters who have made known their views soon after Wan Azizah vacated the seat for her husband.

I had in my article dated 3rd August 2008 which was posted to my website, warned UMNO and the Barisan Nasional to give a walk-over to Anwar Ibrahim to avoid the embarrassment of defeat and to focus on the UMNO party elections so as to regroup and rejuvenate the party.

However, the idiots and bigots in UMNO chose to ignore my warnings and now they have paid the price for their arrogance and misplaced confidence. They refused to accept the outcome of the March General Elections and the blunt message from the electorate that Badawi and his political dynasty must no longer be allowed to plunder and mismanage the country. Enough is enough!

The Deputy Prime Minister by his cowardice and false humility has allowed the sordid state of affairs to continue thereby giving a false sense of security to Badawi that his “leadership” is still needed albeit until 2010.

Since March 2008, there has been growing anger and frustration against the Badawi dynasty and it is therefore a no-brainer for any UMNO leader to conclude that unless this political cancer is removed and removed quickly, there is no hope for recovery from the General Elections debacle. The people demanded immediate action, but none was taken. UMNO was content to maintain the status quo. There was just too much loot to be taken and shared by the power elites for them to consider the wider welfare of the country and the people.

The leader most responsible for the dereliction of duty in safeguarding UMNO and the Barisan Nasional must be Najib, the Deputy Prime Minister and Deputy President of UMNO.

The people were still willing to give him a chance to make amends and the benefit of doubt as to his credibility and integrity by virtue of him being the son of the second prime minister of Malaysia. But he chose to squander the goodwill and political capital given to him by the rakyat. He opted to be the subservient lackey of the Badawi dynasty and for this he was rewarded by Badawi to be his successor.

The people were aghast that Najib chose to be associated with the tainted and failed Badawi regime rather than breaking free from its clutches and to start anew with a rejuvenated UMNO. The straw that broke the camel’s back was Najib’s aping Saiful’s theatrics that he can prove his integrity by swearing in the name of Allah in a mosque! Whatever may be the truth of Saiful’s allegations against Anwar Ibrahim, the entire episode thus far has been a comedy of errors to put it mildly.

The tape recording of Saiful swearing in a mosque disgusted all but UMNO diehards whose infantile minds are such that even the use of religion is fair game in the quest for power!

And for a seasoned politician like Najib to follow a path laden with mines and booby traps, it can only be a case of desperation and stupidity. It is also an insult to the intelligence of the electorate that they would be so gullible as to accept without more that a person can be deemed innocent by the mere swearing in the name of God in a mosque. Why at this juncture? Why not when the Altantuya case first surfaced? Regardless of his innocence or guilt, this one act of stupidity has done Najib more harm than all his previous inept handling of the situation. I have said so many times before, Najib is his own worst enemy! The same applies to the Badawi family.

Najib’s inept handling of the allegations against him has in fact strengthened the perception that his credibility and integrity is no longer warranted and therefore not fit to lead the country.

In the last general elections, the people swung to the opposition because of their hatred and anger for Badawi and his corrupt family and not because they supported the Opposition’s political agenda.

But the victory by the Opposition in Permatang Pauh has indicated that the anger and hatred for Badawi has now morphed into sympathy for the Opposition and the willingness to afford them a chance to prove that they can govern better than the Barisan Nasional.

It will be only a matter of time for this change of perception from being a minority view to that of the mainstream. It can be said without fear of contradiction that Permatang Pauh is a microcosm of the national sentiment.

Let this victory of the Opposition be the final warning to UMNO and the Barisan Nasional.

If you, the leaders of UMNO and the Barisan Nasional fail in your duty to remove Badawi and his family from power and as a result the country plunges into the hell-hole of political chaos, financial ruin and social upheaval, the people will hunt you down and put you on trial to answer for all your crimes. Have no illusions that it will be ugly, for you deserve no better than to be tried as common criminals.

Let me say it here and now, loud and clear:

Tengku Razaleigh, Tan Sri Muhyiddin and Dato Rais Yatim and members of the UMNO Supreme Council, heed the call of Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad to save UMNO.

Unite and save UMNO and the Barisan Nasional. Take on Badawi and Najib and rescue the country from the jaws of failure or be dumped into the Badawi cesspool of corruption, abuse of power and decadence by the rakyat of Malaysia.

This is the choice each one of you has to make.

There will be no second chance. It is now or never!