IMF reform and isolationism in the US Congress

February 3, 2014

29 January 2014

Author: Jeffrey Frankel, Harvard Universityhttp://www.eastasiaforum.org/2014/01/29/imf-reform-and-isolationism-in-the-us-congress/

A long-awaited reform of the International Monetary Fund has now been carelessly blocked by the US Congress. This decision is just the latest in a series of self-inflicted blows since the turn of the century that have needlessly undermined the claim of the United States to global leadership.

The IMF reform would have been an important step in updating the allocations of quotas among member countries. From the negative congressional reaction, one might infer that the US was being asked either to contribute more money or to give up some voting power. (Quotas allocations in the IMF determine both monetary contributions of the member states and their voting power.) But one would then be wrong. The agreement among the IMF members had been to allocate greater shares to China, India, Brazil and other emerging market countries, coming primarily at the expense of European countries. The United States was neither to pay a higher budget share nor to lose its voting weight, which has always given it a unique veto power in the institution.

The change in IMF quotas is a partial and overdue adjustment in response to the rising economic weight of the newcomers and the outdated dominance of Europe. Voting share in the IMF is supposed to be in proportion to economic weight, not equal per capita or per country. This acknowledgement of reality, the principle of matching the representation to the taxation, is sometimes known as the Golden Rule: ‘He who has the gold, rules’. The principle is probably one of the reasons why the IMF has usually been a more effective organisation than others such as the UN General Assembly.

It’s not that President Obama hasn’t tried to exercise global leadership, as just about any US president would. He pushed for this agreement to reform the IMF at the G20 summit in Seoul in November 2010 (the first meeting of the group of leaders to have been hosted by a non-G7 country). He prevailed despite understandable European reluctance to cede ground.

Some American congressmen may not be aware of the extent to which the IMF reform agreement represented the successful efforts of the US executive to determine the course of the international negotiations. But then the rejection by the US Congress of an international agreement that the President had painstakingly persuaded the rest of the world to accept is not a new pattern. It goes back a century, to the inability of President Woodrow Wilson to persuade a myopically isolationist US Congress to approve the League of Nations (1919). Examples over the last century also include the International Trade Organization (1948), SALT II (1979), and the Kyoto Protocol (1997), among others.

A past history of trying to re-open international negotiations that the executive has already concluded is also the reason why Congress has to give President Obama trade promotion authority (that is, the usual commitment to fast-track congressional votes on trade agreements), or else Washington’s trading partners will not negotiate seriously. This would impede ongoing talks in the Pacific, with Europe, and globally (in the venues, respectively, of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, and the World Trade Organization).

Commentators have been warning since the 1980s that the US may lose global hegemony for economic reasons, as an effect of budget deficits, a declining share of global GDP, and the switch from net international creditor to net debtor. One version is the historical hypothesis of imperial overstretch.

But the main problem seems to be a lack of will rather than a lack of wallet. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to describe the problem with US domestic politics as wild swings of the pendulum between excessive isolationism and excessive foreign intervention in reaction to short-term events, untempered by any longer term historical perspective.

After the United States lost 18 rangers in Somalia in October 1993 (Black Hawk Down), Congress became highly resistant to just about any foreign intervention, no matter how big the ‘bang for the buck’. Then, after 11 September 2001, it was prepared to follow President George W. Bush into just about any military intervention, no matter how dubious the benefit or how high the cost. The total cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has recently been estimated at US$4 trillion by Linda Bilmes. (It’s not just that the wars lasted for 10 years; the biggest costs of such wars come subsequently, particularly for medical care that veterans need for the rest of their lives.) These days, the pendulum has apparently swung back to the isolationist direction once again.

One had hoped that myopic congressmen had been made aware that among the costs of the foolish US government shutdown three months ago was damage to the country’s global credibility and leadership. Most visibly, to deal with the shutdown, the White House in October had to cancel its participation at the leaders’ summit of APEC in Bali and thereby stymie progress on the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership. It was widely reported that the Asian countries drew from Obama’s absence the conclusion that they should play ball with China instead.

The increasing power of China and other major emerging market countries is a reality. It is precisely what makes it important that the United States support a greater role for these countries in international institutions such as the IMF, the G20, and APEC.

The rise of China could go well or badly for international relations. It depends in part on whether the status quo powers make room for the newcomer. This historical pattern famously goes back to Thucydides’ description of the rising power of ancient Athens and the resulting war with Sparta (History of the Peloponnesian War). Examples of the consequences of failing to accommodate the new arrival include the role of Germany’s rise in the origins of World War I 100 years ago.

The new Chinese President, Xi Jinping, has used the phrase ‘New Type of Great Power Relationship’. It sounds anodyne but may carry greater significance. The phrase apparently demonstrates awareness of the historical ‘Thucydides trap’. It signals China’s openness to working with other countries to avoid the tragedies of 460 BCE and 1914 CE. It is only sensible to take him up on his offer and smooth international relations into the future.

The potential for US leadership has survived remarkably well the loss of national status as an international creditor. This has partly been a matter of luck. In Asia, historical and territorial frictions among Japan, Korea and China, have kept US participation far more welcome in the Pacific than it would otherwise be. Meanwhile, in Europe, fiscal follies have been even more egregious than America’s.

Asians are aware that the IMF has stretched the rules to lend into the euro crisis on a greater scale than it did during the Asian crisis of 1997–98. They understandably feel entitled to a greater say in the running of the Fund. But the emerging market countries have been so disunited, for example, that no two of them could come together in 2011 to support a common candidate for IMF Managing Director, notwithstanding that the three previous incumbents were European men who flamed out before completing their terms in office. (The result was a European woman, Christine Lagarde. She has done a good job rather than kowtowing to Europe; but that is beside the point.)

The latent demand around the globe for enlightened US leadership, which first appeared at the end of World War I, is still there. It can survive budgetary constraints (and apparently can survive misguided military interventions). But it cannot survive an abdication of interest on the part of the US Congress.

Jeffrey Frankel is the Harpel Professor of Capital Formation and Growth at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and is the Director of Program in International Finance and Macroeconomics at the National Bureau of Economic Research, USA.

This article is an extended version of the article ‘Absent America’ that was first published on Project Syndicate. The author would like to thank Joe Nye and Ted Truman for comments.

Kajang Move is to Strengthen PKR and Pakatan Rakyat in Selangor

February 3, 2014

by Hafiz Yatim@http://www.malaysiakini.com

The decision by PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim to contest in the Kajang by-election is not to divert attention from his sodomy case appeal this month, but to bring Selangor to greater heights, a senior academician has said.

Universiti Malaya Centre for Democracy and Elections (Umcedel) Director Professor Mohammad Redzuan Othman opined that Anwar is already immune to court cases as he has faced a slew of them since 1998.

“Since 1998, Anwar has been in and out of courts and I do not think his move to contest in Kajang is to divert the attention away from then prosecution’s appeal to his sodomy II acquittal as he is already used to being in and outside of courtrooms and has even served jail term.

“The fact is, the people are also aware of other high-profile cases like the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal and other matters that sees the failure of the prosecution (to garner convictions) and government’s handling of them (by not appealing) compared to Anwar’s case,” he told Malaysiakini.

Redzuan said the bigger picture of Anwar’s move to contest in a Selangor state seat is to consolidate Pakatan’s position and to ensure the opposition retains the state in the next general election.

The prosecution’s appeal will be heard on Feb 12 and 13 at the Court of Appeal. Whether Anwar is convicted or acquitted again, legal proceedings will probably go on. Certain quarters like former MCA president Dr Chua Soi Lek, have said Anwar’s decision to contest in the Kajang by-election is to divert attention from the sodomy appeal.

The matter was also raised again yesterday in UMNO owned daily Mingguan Malaysia in quoting PERKASA Vice-President Zulkifli Nordin, who was once with PKR.

‘Lacking political acumen’

Redzuan sees Anwar’s immediate objective after winning Kajang is to replace Selangor Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim. This, would also help resolve the feud between Khalid and PKR Deputy President Azmin Ali (right), he said.

The Social Science faculty Dean who is an advent political observer, added Khalid lacks the political acumen to counter the threat posed by BN. He also pointed out the seizure of the Al-Kitab bibles, failure to address rising house prices, and the uneven roads and potholes in the state, are problems Khalid have yet to solve despite entering his second term.

Redzuan said there have not been much improvement in race relations following the seizure of the bibles. The economy is also not in good shape following a drop in the prices of rubber and palm oil, and the hike in prices following the withdrawal of subsidies.

PKR party insiders also say that Khalid’s failure to address the water issue in the state is another reason why the party is massing against him.

“I think Anwar sees that Selangor should be a model state for Pakatan and the other states in the country as they view the development in the Klang valley with much interest.If Anwar is successful in solving the issues here, it would reflect well on him,” he said.

 “If he manages to make improvements in all these aspects, it would also improve the opposition’s chances in the next polls and pave its way to Putrajaya.Khalid (left) is seen not pro-active in resolving some of these problems as he is not a politician but a corporate leader. Anwar is seen as an international figure who has the top-down approach to reach out the people,” he said.

Redzuan also sees Khalid as being loyal to Anwar, to the point of relinquishing the Selangor MB’s post, as he had announced the opposition leader’s candidacy in a show of solidarity.

However, he said BN may have a tough time if it decides not to contest in this by-election, as it would be deemed weak.

“If it puts up an UMNO candidate, it will receive a backlash as a MCA candidate is traditionally named. But if they put up a candidate from MCA, it may not get the full Chinese support. So BN is seen as truly placed in a corner in this contest,” said Redzuan.

Tribute to Sam Berns

February 3, 2014

Tribute to Sam Berns, RIP

COMMENT: I pay tribute to Sam Berns for his courage and  mental attitude. I am deeply moved by Sam’s plight but I admire this young 17 year old. I thought I should share this story with you. It is important that we all accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative and anything in between. Yes, Sam, we will keep looking forward and hope we have your spirit and verve.–Din Merican

Sam Berns is an inspiration to us all

by Margalit Fox@http://www.nytimes (01-13-14)

Robert Kraft, owner of The New England Patriots, pays a tribute to Sam Burns:

“I loved Sam Berns and am richer for having known him. He was a special young man whose inspirational story and positive outlook on life touched my heart. I am so lucky to have had the opportunity to spend time with him and to get to know his incredible family. Together, they positively impacted the lives of people around the world in their quest to find a cure for Progeria. The HBO documentary, ‘Life According to Sam’ shared his incredible story with a national audience. It was so beautifully done. It made you laugh. It also made you cry. Today, it’s the latter for all who knew Sam or learned of his story through that documentary.”

Sam Berns, a Massachusetts high school junior whose life with the illness progeria was the subject of a documentary film recently shortlisted for an Academy Award, died on Friday in Boston. He was 17.

His death, from complications of the disease, was announced by the Progeria Research Foundation, which Sam’s parents, both physicians, established in 1999.

Sam with his parents, Drs Leslie Gordon and Scott Berns

Extremely rare — it affects one in four million to one in eight million births — progeria is a genetic disorder resulting in rapid premature aging. Only a few hundred people have the disease, whose hallmarks include hair loss, stunted growth, joint deterioration and cardiac problems.

Though the gene that causes progeria was isolated in 2003 by a research team that included Sam’s mother, there is still no cure. Patients live, on average, to the age of 13, typically dying of heart attacks or strokes.

The feature-length documentary “Life According to Sam,” directed by Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine, was released last year. They won an Oscar for their 2012 short documentary “Inocente,” about a homeless teenager.

“Life According to Sam” has been shown at film festivals, including Sundance, and it was broadcast on HBO in October. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said it is among 15 documentaries considered for Oscar nominations.

Through the film, through a profile in The New York Times Magazine in 2005 and through a talk he gave last year at a TEDx conference (a community-based incarnation of the TED talks) that gained wide currency on the Internet, Sam became progeria’s best-known public face.

“Life According to Sam” opens when its subject, who lived in Foxborough, is 13 and follows him for three years. He agreed to participate on one condition, which he sets forth firmly in the film: “I didn’t put myself in front of you to have you feel bad for me,” he says. “You don’t need to feel bad for me. Because I want you to get to know me. This is my life.”

Diminutive and bespectacled, Sam was a riot of enthusiasms: for math and science, comic books, scouting (he was an Eagle Scout), playing the drums and Boston-area sports teams.

In his TEDx talk, he spoke of his heart’s desire: to play the snare drum with the Foxborough High School marching band. The trouble was that the drum and its harness weighed 40 pounds. Sam weighed 50 pounds. His parents engaged an engineer to develop an apparatus weighing just six pounds. Sam marched.

The only child of Dr. Scott Berns, a pediatrician, and Dr. Leslie Gordon, then a pediatric intern, Sampson Gordon Berns was born in Providence, R.I., on Oct. 23, 1996. He received a diagnosis of progeria shortly before his second birthday.

Finding little medical literature about progeria, his parents, with Dr. Gordon’s sister Audrey Gordon, started the research foundation. As a result of its work, clinical trials of a drug, lonafarnib, which appears to ameliorate some effects of progeria, began in 2007. Though preliminary results are considered encouraging, the drug does not constitute a cure.

Besides his parents, Sam’s survivors include his grandparents, Alice and Lewis Berns and Barbara and Burt Gordon.At his death, Sam had been planning to apply to college, where he hoped to study genetics or cell biology.

“No matter what I choose to become, I believe that I can change the world,” he said in his TEDx talk last year. “And as I’m striving to change the world, I will be happy.”

A version of this article appears in print on January 14, 2014, on page A25 of the New York edition with the headline: Sam Berns, 17, Public Face Of a Rare Illness, Is Dead. 

Power to Us, the People

February 2, 2014

by Zainah Anwar@http://www.thestar.com.my

Too many among us have kept quiet for too long while our democracy was being trampled. It is time now to stand up and be counted.

IT began with an attack on our culture and popular practices. From wayang kulit, mak yong, and mandi pantai, and then to yoga and poco poco, all deemed unIslamic and even banned in some states.

Then, it was ideas like pluralism, feminism, liberalism, secularism. They were all a threat to Islam. They were supposedly alien ideas, promoted by groups out to impose Western values on poor unsuspecting Malaysians.

Never mind that Malaysia has been a plural society whose diversity has been its strength for hundreds of years. Never mind that Islam was the first religion to give women rights unknown to other religions and cultures in the seventh century.

Never mind that the Government spends billions to educate thousands of Malaysians in the liberal secular West so that we can return home to prosper this country. Heck, never mind that our malls, cinemas, radio and television stations are overrun by Western brands and Western entertainment.

Facts will not get in the way of manufacturing enemies.Now it is groups of people that supposedly pose a threat to the nation. Comango, Bersih, Seksualiti Mer­deka, Hindraf, Shiahs, Ahmadiyahs, Christians, Chinese, liberal Muslims, apostates, LGBTs, tomboys, and demonstrators against price hikes. Who next?

Let’s not forget, too, the long list of Arabic words that pose a threat to Muslims should non-Muslims use them. And, oh yes, Kongsi Raya is a threat too, so is wishing Christians Merry Christmas.

The list just gets longer day by day, month by month. If it is not so alarming, it would have been laughable. That is why I fear that today in this country, we have forces that are systematically identifying and targeting groups and ideas, one by one, demonising them as enemies of the state, of Muslims, the Malays and the Sultans.

This scare tactic has been going on for years now and has escalated even further since the 2013 elections.Who is orchestrating this theatre of the absurd? Who are these people manufacturing threats and fears, and turning everyone with a different opinion, a different belief, a different lifestyle into enemies who should emigrate, be demonised, denounced and detained, and charged for imagined insults and offences against Islam, the King, the Sultans, the Constitution?

And Malaysia wants to be a developed nation by 2020? That’s only six years away. Where is the time and the energy to work hard to reach this status, when political leaders and their apparatchiks seem obsessed with making enemies of their fellow citizens? Who will be left to do the work?

What is the game plan here? I am bewildered as to where this leadership wants the country to go. Surely this is not the way to win support and votes.

There was a time when our political leadership wanted us to “duduk sama rendah, diri sama tinggi”. We aspired to be proud, confident, respected as equals.Now they want us to cower in fear of endless bogeymen. Does the Government realise what happens to the national psyche when citizens are pummelled with a daily dosage of fears and threats and new enemies to hate?

When certain government-controlled national media become instruments of fear-mongering and hate speech? When they represent only one point of view that serves the desperate political interest of one segment of the population to the exclusion of others? When hate speech purveyed by extremist individuals and groups are projected as the national discourse of a whole community because no other point of view is allowed to be heard?

This is a dangerous corrosive game of politics. We have seen how such bellicose hate language over the media and in the public square eventually led to conflict and outbreak of violence. Think Bosnia, think Rwan­da, think Gujarat.

As the political commentator Michael Ignatieff wrote, where language leads, conduct follows. Battle cries drown out democratic persuasion. By slow degrees, belligerence and self-righteousness make cooperation impossible, he asserted.

If our political leaders on both sides of the divide do not take immediate steps to put a stop to this dangerous escalating political game of race and religion under threat, then I fear the worst might happen. Already these agent provocateurs are priming for violence with the Molotov cocktails thrown at a church and banners designed to inflame conservative Muslim sentiments. Today, it is only my faith in the good people of Malaysia that gives me some hope.

The Christian community has decided to turn the other cheek to these provocations to maintain peace. Much as there are desperate politicians determined to lead us to the precipice and jump into the abyss of racial and religious conflict, we the people will not go there. We will not be pawns.

What is urgently needed today is a bipartisan approach to resolve all these issues of conflict, and to separate the real from the imagined.

Let me share this statement, as food for thought, which has been attributed to German theologian and social activist Martin Niemoller who criticised German intellectuals for keeping quiet while the Nazis purged one group of people after another:

“First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out; Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out; Because I was not a Socialist.

“Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out; Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

“Then they came for me; And there was no one left to speak for me.”

So if our political leaders have neither the will nor the courage to do what is needed and what is right for this nation, then we the people must show them. We must show them we want to build bridges, live together, understand and respect each other. This is as much our country as it is theirs.

No, thank you, we don’t wish to emigrate. So we will not keep quiet. Too many among us have kept quiet for too long while our democracy was being trampled. It is time now to stand up and be counted.

We know that it is our heritage of pluralism and diversity that has been our strength. We will not let the politicians and their toadies kill this spirit and replace it with endless fears and threats to divide us for their short-term political gain. That is no future to live for in our beloved country.

While we the people believe there is a place in the sun for every Malaysian, I am amazed that those who are supposed to be our leaders feel there is space only for people who think and behave like them.In the end, who really is a threat to national unity and political stability?

Zainah Anwar is the internationally acclaimed and award-winning co-founder and former executive director of Sisters in Islam (SIS Forum) and the Co-Founder and Director of Musawah, a global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family. She is a former member of the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam). The views expressed are entirely the writer’s own.

Reigniting Professionalism in Malaysian Diplomacy

February 1, 2013

by Datuk Dr. Ananda Kumaraseri @www.nst.com.my (01-31-14)

SHORTFALLS IN STATECRAFT: Government must establish whether training provided for diplomats is comprehensive enough

IN the decades following the achievement of sovereign independence, Malaysia had reasons to stand tall among the international community of nations for the high calibre of her diplomats in conducting the country’s external relations.

One Wisma Putra

The sophistication and excellence by which Malaysian diplomacy unfolded won the respect and admiration of not just our neighbours and Third World countries but of the far bigger and more powerful developed nations as well.

Fortunately, this high watermark in the performance of our pioneering generation of diplomats was consolidated as a result of the early realisation among our leaders of the importance of ensuring professionalism in the formulation and implementation of foreign policy, and in conducting international relations.

They recognised early in the life of the nation of the imperatives of improving the knowledge and work skills of public officers, both those serving at home and in our overseas diplomatic missions, whose task is to promote and develop mutually beneficial political, economic, trade, social, cultural, scientific and technological relations with the global community of nations.

Such proactive thinking aimed at ensuring professionalism in handling international affairs was uncommon among newly independent countries. Small and developing states, in particular, had tended to place little attention on improving professional skills in diplomacy and international relations. Some simply sidestepped this important state responsibility that followed on the heels of becoming a sovereign independent nation.

Against this international backdrop, Malaysia stood out as an exception to the somewhat laissez faire attitude. Despite various handicaps encountered, the government responded positively to demands and challenges of professional training in this significant area of statecraft.

It demonstrably met this responsibility and requirement in the bureaucracy, inter alia, by instituting policies and initiating concrete measures, and most important of all, committing the resources to this end.This manifested in the landmark decision of the government to set up a Centre for International Relations and Strategic Studies (CIRSS) in the National Institute of Public Administration (Intan), which was the precursor of the Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations (IDFR).

I was posted to Intan on a secondment and entrusted with the unenviable task of setting up the CIRSS in 1978. There were, as it was to be expected, many teething problems and shortcomings in the processes involved to establish and consolidate the centre, as well as in developing and conducting the professional training programmes.

However, the shortfalls encountered by the nascent training outfit do not detract from the contention that the government deserves credit for its positive response to the challenge of professionalism in this sector of statecraft.

In viewing from hindsight the formative years of the CIRSS, one could without exaggeration state that the Malaysian experience serves as a valid and interesting study of the institutional framework and administrative systems that are required for developing, conducting and managing training in international relations and diplomacy.

Several factors are identifiable that made the difference for Malaysia. Among the more significant are the country’s long and rich historical heritage of foreign contacts and of having an extensive network of relations with the outside world, its ever-expanding and entrenched interests in the international arena, the unprecedented and dramatic expansion of its diplomacy and diplomatic machinery virtually upon the country’s birth, and the enlightened and dynamic leadership role of the nation’s founding fathers.

In this regard, the impact of the country’s second Prime Minister, Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, is a fact of cardinal importance that made the difference for Malaysia to ingrain professionalism in the bureaucracy in conducting Malaysia’s international relations and diplomacy.

Thus, in comparison to most other newly independent developing countries, Malaysia enjoyed a head start in terms of ensuring professionalism in conducting its foreign relations and diplomacy. But somewhere along the line, Wisma Putra seems to have lost its way and has not been able to sustain the high professional standards that the country had earlier garnered.

It is an irony of sorts that Malaysia had a head start over most other newly independent nations in meeting the challenges of professionalism in international relations and diplomacy by providing professional training.

This means that we should justifiably expect a sustainable crop of competent diplomats to serve the country for generations to come. Yet, rather oddly, our present generation of diplomats has fallen short of such an expectation envisioned at the time of setting up the CIRSS.

The irony begs the question: where have we gone wrong in terms of ensuring professionalism among our present generation of diplomats? This brings us to two pertinent issues pertaining to professional training. The first is for the government to establish whether the training provided for our diplomats is comprehensive enough. An equally important issue is to establish whether the professional training is effective, especially in terms of the soft skills needed for our officers to perform as a pakar (expert) diplomat.

Kee Thuan Chye on the Kajang Move

February 1, 2014

Could Kajang turn out to be Anwar Ibrahim’s Waterloo? It could, if even Pakatan Rakyat supporters forsake him – and the party – at the upcoming by-election for the Selangor state seat.

As it is, many of them feel it was wrong for Lee Chin Cheh, the state assemblyman who was voted in during the last general election (GE13), to vacate his seat for no good reason except to make way for Anwar.

Worse, the move is perceived to have arisen from the feud between Selangor Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim and PKR Deputy President Azmin Ali. The eventual outcome could be Anwar replacing Khalid as MB and keeping the two foes from further tearing at each other. But Selangorians who think Khalid is doing a good job as MB don’t like that.

Furthermore, many people, especially Pakatan supporters, are incensed that Anwar and his party, PKR, are willing to compromise principles, turn the democratic process into “a political circus”, simply to resolve internal bickering. They feel that the politicians are taking the Kajang constituents for granted in order to serve their own selfish needs.

They also feel that Anwar and PKR have lowered their standards and are doing the sort of politicking more in keeping with UMNO and Barisan Nasional (BN). If that’s the case, they wonder, is there any difference between Pakatan and BN? What hope is there for positive change?

Well, internal feuds are common to any political party. Heck, it happens a lot within UMNO. Right now, it appears there’s friction between UMNO President Najib Razak and former President Mahathir Mohamad – although the latter has said he’s not out to topple Najib – but nobody makes a song and dance about it. Even though the potential outcome of that feud could bring dire consequences for the country.

Nonetheless, one cannot unequivocally say that what Anwar and PKR are doing is right. Yes, PKR’s Strategy Director  Rafizi Ramli, in whom we can see good things for the future, has explained that what he dubs the “Kajang Move” is aimed at strengthening Pakatan’s hold on Selangor, which, he thinks, is likely to come under vicious attack by BN should the ultras of UMNO manage to depose Najib. So Pakatan needs “as many of our top leaders around Selangor as possible to defend the state”. Ergo, Anwar.

But does it require Anwar to be a state assemblyman to fortify the defence? Probably not. And if one looks more closely at Rafizi’s explanation, which also focuses on making Selangor “a model state”, instituting reforms that will make it “doubly better than what it is today” so that it can be Pakatan’s showcase, one can see he is saying that Khalid is not the man to pull that off.

“While Khalid’s administration has set a gold standard in integrity and prudence in managing public funds, we also have to admit there are other areas that we can improve on,” Rafizi adds.

“We need a radical approach to resolving traffic woes, and the pace of affordable public housing has to pick up. There is a need for more rigorous forward planning of water resources and some hard decisions have to be made soon. We have to vigorously protect the rights of the minorities who are the targets of UMNO’s political game.”

The damn thing is, he’s right. Khalid has not made Selangor into something like what Penang is now – a happening place. He lacks oomph and charisma. He has also not been effective in his relations with the Sultan, in firmly establishing that royalty should not interfere in politics. He was inept in his handling of the Bible seizure by Jabatan Agama Islam Selangor (Jais). On that score, Selangor does appear to need a more forceful MB to make things happen. The right things.

If Anwar were to step into that position, can he do that?The problem is, many people still don’t trust him. Including Pakatan supporters. Some think the “Kajang Move” is about Anwar seeking power for himself. And the power inherent in the abundant reserves in the state’s coffers.

It doesn’t help his cause that he brings much of his past political baggage to the Kajang contest – and his old UMNO credentials. It also doesn’t help that Selangor PAS and its Youth wing have spoken out against the move, calling it “a betrayal of public trust”. If Anwar’s plan is to replace Khalid as MB, Selangor PAS wants to propose its own candidate for that position. This is a risk for PKR because it has the lowest number of representatives in the state assembly compared to partners PAS and the DAP.

As for Selangor PAS’s Youth wing, it has threatened to boycott the by-election campaign. Sometimes, this can be translated into sabotage. And although PAS Deputy President Mohamad Sabu has declared his party’s support for Anwar’s candidacy, this may not be as effective as what Selangor PAS members can do on the ground.

We have seen this happen in the GE13 contest for the state seat of Kota Damansara. Although PAS headquarters called on its candidate for that seat to withdraw to prevent splitting votes with the candidate of supposed ally PSM (Parti Sosialis Malaysia), the call went unheeded. As it turned out, the vote-splitting caused both to lose and BN to win.

More problematic for Anwar would be if UMNO manages to persuade the MCA to let it stand in Kajang. The electorate is made up of a majority of Malay voters (48 per cent), with the Chinese forming 41 per cent and the Indians, 10 per cent. If non-Malay voters angered by the move decide to forsake Pakatan and BN launches what can be expected to be another nauseating round of pork barrelling to win Malay favour and temper the current anti-BN sentiment caused by the increase in daily costs, Anwar will have a big fight to face.

It would add to his problem if PSM, which is considering contesting, decides to do so. It could split the votes between them and hand BN victory. The better option is for PSM to stay out and not confuse the issue. It should let PKR resolve its own problem. And learn from the Kota Damansara lesson.

At GE13, Lee won with a majority of 6,824, which is quite substantial. If Anwar gets less than that or, worse, scrapes through by a slender margin, how will he look? Worse, what if Anwar actually loses? It could be the end of the war for PKR’s generalissimo. How would that impact on GE14 and Pakatan’s hopes of capturing Putrajaya?

Ultimately, this prospect is what Kajang voters must consider. Especially those who are still hoping for change. Would teaching PKR a lesson for making the “Kajang Move” be of any use if the long-term effects could be counter-productive?

As one pro-change Netizen puts it on Facebook: “I think if we criticise Pakatan for something it’s done, that is fine. We shouldn’t stop doing that. But if such criticising turns into a campaign to vote against Pakatan, it’s virtually calling the public to vote for BN. Until we have a third force that is strong enough to take over the government, then we have to face the truth that if we want BN to fall, we have no alternative but Pakatan. It’s just mathematics. I hate such a situation, but that’s all we’ve got. After BN has fallen, we can vote against Pakatan whenever we dislike them and have a better party rule the country. But it hasn’t happened yet.”

Another netizen puts it more succinctly: “No one or no party is perfect. We just vote for the lesser evil.” At the polling booth, Kajang voters must decide which is the lesser evil – Anwar or BN? – Yahoo! News, February 1, 2014.

* Kee Thuan Chye is the author of The Elections Bullshit.