PKR’s Inspirational Wan Azizah is back
The Malaysian Insider
April 28, 2009
Wan Azizah back in the limelight as Parti KeADILan Rakyat asserts itself
PKR president Datuk Seri Wan Azizah Wan Ismail is back as the face of the party in a reshuffle to assert itself as a dominant voice in the Pakatan Rakyat, where it leads with 31 MPs.
PKR de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim yesterday tasked his wife, who quit as MP in favour of him last year, to be the party spokesperson on issues emerging in the media. The move is also seen as putting her as his successor if he is convicted of a fresh sodomy charge.
PKR insiders alluded the latest reshuffle is to strengthen the party leadership and bleed in new faces for the next echelon of leaders as the Permatang Pauh MP faces the charge brought by former aide Saiful Bukhari Azlan. “With the current political climate there is no telling what will happen next.” said PKR Kapar MP S Manikavasagam. He said Wan Azizah has led PKR for over a decade and has emerged as a leader in her own right who draws crowds just like her husband.
Machang MP Saifuddin Nasution said Wan Azizah had never stopped carrying out her functions as PKR president but was out of the media spotlight when Anwar returned to parliament as the opposition leader. Other party insiders said the latest move came as PKR has not played its role as the dominant opposition party despite having the most number of MPs in the Pakatan Rakyat.
“Unlike DAP or PAS there is virtually no statements on Government policy from PKR and the move by Anwar to get Wan Azizah to step up to the plate is both timely and necessary,” one told The Malaysian Insider. Since coming together as an electoral pact, senior PKR leaders have fallen behind their Pakatan counterparts such as DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang and his son, party secretary-general Lim Guan Eng, who issue statements on policies every other day.
Party insiders who spoke on condition of anonymity pointed out that Wan Azizah has been out of the public spotlight ever since she made way for Anwar to win the Permatang Pauh by-election. She has been comfortable with handing over the running of PKR to Anwar, they said. However PKR is now amending its constitution to enable grassroots supporters to have more say in the party and Wan Azizah in the forefront of implementing and explaining these changes.
Among changes are the appointments of more vice-presidents to represent various pressure groups while allowing members to elect leaders at the central level.
Perhaps it is time for Anwar Ibrahim to step back and let leaders without the personal baggage he carries take over the baton. After all he was once the second most powerful man in UMNO, the party he is sworn to defeat at the polls, and a member of the establishment. There’s no escaping from that.
It is a long relay instead of a 100 meter dash to the finish line – and PKR has to pace itself or run out of gas in the home stretch.
That would show to those who criticize PKR as all about Anwar Ibrahim, and that without him the party would not be able to hold itself together and over time would fall away in pieces and their members return to the parties they come from and to once again embrace failed ideologies of the past.
The face of the party must not remain that of Anwar Ibrahim or any member of his family but of leaders who stand equally committed to the party’s core values like freedom, equality and justice for all.
Mr Bean - April 28, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Pre-emptive move I see…
I see where this is going.
Anwar knew he’s going to jail come July.
Words on the grapevine, a video evidence is so damning exist that there is no way Anwar could dodge, and the case will be a short one to conclude.
So its time Wan Azizah to fill in. Another by-election? Sigh.!!
As usual, another PKR’s misdemeanors
No wonder Anwar is so quiet lately, not doing much lambasting towards Najib.
RPK, whom was at one time willing to die in prison is nowhere to be seen.
We are all waiting for his evidence and reliably informed informer to be present in court to implicate Rosmah, and vindicate Sirul & Azilah from the death gallows?
mickey - April 28, 2009 at 10:55 pm
Welcome back to the limelight, Kak Wan. You’re always a resassuring presence!
Antares - April 28, 2009 at 11:11 pm
So it is not a case of all is well that ends well. Oh well …
Mr Bean - April 29, 2009 at 12:27 am
Mickey, I am surprised by your comments. I wonder what you would do if you were a victim of a political conspiracy.
We have hard evidence which will be presented to the courts at the appropriate time. But what can be done if we are dealing with a Kangaroo Court in our land. Remember Augustine Paul’s “Irrelevant, Irrelevant, Irrelevent” remarks when evidence was presented to him.
Still listening to rumours? Videos can be doctored as it was done before. The Lingam tape had to be authenticated and we set up a Royal Commission for this purpose. Now PAS-Pakatan Rakyat has petitioned the Council of Rulers to set a Royal Commission to investigate Najib and his scandals.
We in PKR and Pakatan Rakyat are not in the habit of lambasting anyone. We only provide evidence of wrongdoing, abuse of power and corruption. This country is in a situation where “justice” favours the party in power, that is UMNO-BN, and those connected to it. That, in my book, is not justice.
dinobeano - April 29, 2009 at 12:19 pm
dinobeano,
we have yet to see any of those boxed evidence of wrong doing and abuse of power.
Plus PR eternal allegations of political conspiracy for every wrong doings are still without proof. Even in a clear cut case of Eli Wong. Even the case of death threat (turkish embassy saga ) are without proof!
“not in the habit of lambasting anyone”? maybe you should attend all the PR ceramahs, and read all the pro PR blogs and media.
Its the same kangaroo court that released Anwar, and made other decisions favouring the opposition, in case you forget. So it is not fair to say the justice system simply favours those in power. Just look at various court cases implicating UMNO-BN proxies. Also those where opposition won.
Even the current court case of anwar seems to favour him ( in his effort to delay the hearing). So what are you talking about?
Your argument of doctored video is pre-mature. If such doctoring can be proved by independent expert, then the case is in doubt and can be rested. But then, there are limits to doctoring videos – ask the digital expert.
mickey - April 29, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Mickey,
Obviously you are one of those rare Malaysians who think everything in our country under the UMNO-BN smells roses. That means those of us who in overwhelming numbers voted for Pakatan Rakyat in March 2008 to deny the present government its two thirds majority in Parliament, and allow us to win again and again in subsequent by-elections (4 out of 5) are misguided. You ought to be congratulated for your filial loyalty to the ruling coalition.
It is common knowledge that our system of Rule of Law is dysfunctional and our courts are far from being independent; in fact, the judiciary is subservient to the Prime Minister via the A-G’s Office.
When you say that the courts have made decisions in favour of the opposition, just look at what happened in Perak and to Raja Petra Kamaruddin. And now, we face the real prospect of Anwar Ibrahim returning to Sungei Buloh because Najib and his gang are out to get and fix him. The courts at the behest of the Attorney-General will help Najib finish the job.
We are preparing for the worst outcome. But let me say this and that is, the government is playing with fire as Anwar Ibrahim will not just go away from the minds of people like me and others who champion the cause of freedom, democracy and justice in our country. Anwar is already an icon and indefatigable champion of justice. Nothing can change that.
You have every right to disagree with me since you can see no wrong in UMNO-Barisan Nasional, but there is no way I can be persuaded to think that there is nothing rotten in the state of Malaysia. After 51 years, our country is by all indicators heading towards being a Mugabean state.
On the video, we all know that it can be doctored and our Special Branch is very good at this game. Yes, experts can authenicate it and yet, as in the case of the Lingam Video clip, the government can ignore the findings of the Haider Royal Commission, and has yet to take any action against those who conspired to put Anwar Ibrahim in gaol, including the “most revered” former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir. —Din Merican
dinobeano - April 29, 2009 at 5:06 pm
PKR-PR leaders say they stand for freedom, equality and justice for all. What they did not say is that they only stand for freedom, equality and justice only if they serve their interest. Now that is very different from saying they stand for freedom, equality and justice. Period. What guarantee do the rest of us have that they will not go the way of UMNO-BN once power changes hands?
They say they stand for independence of the judiciary but when verdicts don’t go their way, they were quick to view it as the perversion of the course of justice by corrupt judges. They say it is contempt of court to criticize judges for their decisions. But it is not contempt of court when they do it. They say the Malay Rulers are constitutional monarchs and should be respected as such but yet they seek their intervention in the political process when it benefits them knowing full well it goes against the country’s constitution – which they claim is supreme. It would appear the constitution is supreme only when it serves their purpose.
They send the mentri besar to seek the intervention of the sultan when one of their own resigned from office to avoid embarrassment to her and her family after the public airing of her intimate thoughts to her boyfriend and political aide. By refusing to accept her resignation they interfered with the freedom of speech under the country’s constitution. They subject the monarch to the indignity of having to referee a match between their party and that of the opposition. By so doing they are sowing the seeds of the destruction of the monarchy as we know it.
In another incident they say the sultan had acted mala fide in the appointment of the state’s mentri besar. They seek the court’s help which they earlier claim to be nothing more than kangaroo courts.
I say to PKR leaders “Practice what you preach” or be condemned to the same fate as UMNO-BN. Do not interpret freedom of speech to mean freedom to speak PKR’s views.
Malaysians speak of freedom of speech but yet practice censorship; and self-censorship is no less censorship. We see that being practiced by Malaysian bloggers in all the political blogs. Besides being hypocrisy at its highest, more worrisome it shows a skewed understanding of what freedom means.
Until Malaysians understand what freedom of speech really means they are condemned to destroying it even before it has been given a chance to take roots. The foundation of any democracy is the freedom of speech allowed to its citizens. Without freedom of speech, equality will be equal to nothing and justice will be just to no one.
Mr Bean - April 29, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Besides being an obvious ploy to force Najib to formally and legally rebut allegations made against him for his purported role in the murder of the Mongolian woman, this is another example of how far PR leaders are prepared to go to turn Article 38 of the Federal Constitution 1957 on its head!
Where under Article 38 does it say the Agong can do any of this?? PR leaders must be made to attend a crash course in Malaysian constitutional law. This is an embarrassment to us all. Malaysians cannot be easily duped into accepting anything that goes against the country’s Constitution.
MPs of whatever political affiliations must stop dragging the name of their King into the mud.
http://www.malaysiakini.tv/video/16991.html
Mr Bean - April 29, 2009 at 9:29 pm
oooops ….. it should read Conference of Rulers (COR) and not Agong.
Mr Bean - April 29, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Bean
Malaysians can never understand the true meaning of freedom of speech as practised in the US. They only think or demand the freedom when it suits their situation. After that it’s back to the same Guided freedom.
semper fi - April 30, 2009 at 12:24 pm