Pakatan Rakyat has unveiled yet another cunning aspect of their brilliant plan to take Putrajaya in GE13. Their secret: Umno has-beens, never-will-bes, and retreads, all decrying the party in which they could never really advance.
It has been a star-studded showcase at Pakatan ceramah lately, capped off by a pre-Bersih rally that was completely and totally non-political, and at which every speaker accidentally launched into an anti-Umno harangue.
Thus it was that Tamrin Abdul Ghafar, son of former deputy prime minister Abdul Ghafar Baba, who is in no danger of being in any Cabinet any time soon and who believably claims to be an Umno member even as he keeps appearing at ceramah after ceramah with Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, got up to decry Umno corruption.
Tamrin’s complete failure to advance anywhere in Umno absolutely had nothing to do with his lament that Umno has allegedly corrupted the political process. Certainly, his own family’s history in Umno had nothing to do with his dating of that corruption to more recent times.
Another surprise guest was former Information Minister and Kulim-Bandar Baharu MP Tan Sri Abdul Kadir Sheikh Fadzir, who left Umno after accusing the party of systematically buying votes in elections across the country. (But never his!) Abdul Kadir, who was absolutely not upset over being sidelined from Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s reforming Government, told the crowd that he had secretly sympathised with Bersih 1.0 and 2.0.
Of course he did. And certainly the ceiling he hit in Umno and electoral politics had nothing to do with his appearance.
Other non-partisan representatives who provided partisan meat to the crowd included other members of Bersih’s steering committee, who were absolutely not aligning with Pakatan Rakyat in the process. They gave little sign of recognising the enormous reforms the Government has made, again not at all a sign of their partisanship, but rather a reflection of their disconnection from Malaysian society that gives Najib high marks for his reform agenda.
On the other hand, it is a sign of Pakatan’s maturity that PAS Deputy President Mat Sabu was at the rally, and made not a single speech suggesting that Malaysian police and soldiers are cowards and lackeys of imperial powers. Truly this was a momentous event. Or it is merely the preface to another praise-the-communists and damn-the-police ceramah. With our Opposition pact, there is no easy way to tell.
So this, finally, is what Pakatan Rakyat has become: the party of retreads. Bersih steering committee members in the aftermath of massive electoral reforms. A has-been former Minister. A never-will-be son of a former Deputy Prime Minister. Ariff Sabri, also known as the blogger Sakmongkol AK47, and Aspan Alias, the former Umno men who joined DAP in January, and not at all because DAP has an open call for some Malay, any Malay, to stand for a seat in GE13. Dato’ Chua Jui Meng, who absolutely did not cross over to PKR because his leadership bids in MCA failed again and again.
And so on.
But, this may be too harsh. Perhaps Pakatan believes that by importing these castaways, it can actually develop governing mechanisms — manifestos, policy platforms, shadow cabinets, and the like.
Certainly, they cannot do any worse.