My article in The Star today. Why Selangors Khalid must go and UMNO must avoid him. BY WAN SAIFUL WAN JAN, The Star, 5 August 2014. IT is really sad that the Raya festivities were clouded by the Selangor Mentri Besar crisis. Even on the Raya day itself I was receiving calls from reporters asking for comments. I personally like Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim’s style of running the state. I do not know him personally but I have been told many times that he does not allow partisan politics to get in the way of state administration. Apparently, he also runs the state like a business, in which executive decisions are made after weighing the pros and cons of various options, with minimal consideration on the impact of his decisions on the parties in Pakatan Rakyat. In a country where partisanship seems to cloud almost everything, this style of management sounds refreshing. But PKR has decided that it is time for Khalid to go, to be replaced with Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail. We all know that she is not just a newly-minted ADUN for Kajang but is also president of PKR and wife of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim. I see PKR’s decision as sufficient reason to make Khalid step down. I do not need any more justifications because the MB post is a party appointment. In our Westminster system, the party nominates as MB a person whom it believes commands the greatest confidence from the state legislative assembly members. When the party loses confidence in you, then it is time for you to step down gracefully. It is most unfortunate that Khalid is now behaving like a two-year-old child whose mother threatens to take away a toy that does not belong to him anyway. He refuses to give it up, acting as if the post is his to keep. And some of his aides are behaving in an unacceptable manner, too. They are openly attacking the very people who put Khalid there. There is a good Malay proverb for this challenging attitude – hidung tak mancung pipi tersorong sorong. Khalid and his team seem to have forgotten that he was put in that position by virtue of him being a member of PKR. It is really sad to see him hanging on to the post based on the alleged support of other parties. His reaction to this whole saga is, simply put, childish. But we must not forget that this whole mess started with PKR, and, to equal extent, Pakatan Rakyat as a whole. They were the ones who went all-out to praise Khalid’s administration in the last general election. And they nominated him to the post again immediately after GE13. Worst, when they initiated the “Kajang Move”, they shied away from saying that they want to change the MB. Now, the public is questioning why they want to remove someone whom they themselves have said is a brilliant administrator. And the public wants to know why the politicians lied when denying that the Kajang Move is about changing the MB. These are valid questions that PKR brought onto itself. It doesn’t help either that PKR is nominating the wife of their unelected party leader to be the replacement MB. You do not need a degree in rocket science to know that if Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak were to nominate Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor for any post, PKR and its allies would be the first to scream corruption. The double standard is too blatant and the hypocrisy is too obvious. But the wrong choice for MB does not negate the need for Khalid to resign. Khalid still needs to resign regardless of Dr Wan Azizah’s nomination. And if PKR goes ahead with Dr Wan Azizah, we should punish the party for this hypocrisy at the next election. The situation is further complicated by the statement of PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang in support of Khalid. It can be argued that Hadi was merely reiterating the previous decision of his party. But his timing and the way he phrased his statement raised so many questions and criticisms against PAS. Hadi’s statement even caused people to question whether or not PAS is committed to the Pakatan Rakyat coalition. To me his timing and insensitivity towards the sentiment on the ground only shows how he is not fit to be the PAS president anymore. Let me be clear. Hadi is a great scholar. His Islamic credentials are recognised globally and I would follow his religious advice any time. But being a respected scholar is not the same as being a good politician. To lead a dynamic party like PAS today requires someone who can combine both. Hadi does not have that strength and his mistake in this particular case has caused not just division in Pakatan Rakyat but also a major rift within PAS. If PAS is serious about remaining as a mainstream party, it needs to find a good politician to build on the strong platform that Hadi has built up to date. But if it allows Hadi to remain, his ineptitude will further weaken the party in the years to come. While all that is taking place, Khalid must step down gracefully. Barisan Nasional parties should not place their support on someone like Khalid who has clearly shown that he has no respect for party discipline. BN, and especially Umno, needs to ask themselves, do they really want to set a precedent where someone appointed by the party can simply ignore the instructions from headquarters when dealing with such an important post? > Wan Saiful Wan Jan is chief executive of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs. The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 23:44:55 +0000
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