By Emmanuel Samarathisa
PAKATAN Harapan yesterday named Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim as opposition leader and social media users were mostly positive on the announcement.
Of course, this is just an anecdotal observation based on what I saw through my social media feed, which is highly biased since I have more pro-Pakatan Harapan (PH) folks that I follow or follow me.
I’m going to be a killjoy here and say that announcement was just noise. It doesn’t mean that PH is embarking on something grand, it doesn’t mean that PH is ready to divorce itself from Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed and Bersatu and, more importantly, it doesn’t mean that PH is actually going to be an effective shadow government.
Notice of the announcement that day came on the back of two interesting developments. First, Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal sent a letter to Parliament Speaker Tan Sri Mohamad Ariff Md Yusof seeking to table a motion of confidence for Mahathir, who is also Langkawi MP.
Second, Mahathir sent a letter to the Speaker to table a vote of no-confidence against Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin as well as requesting that Mohamad Ariff serve out his full term as Speaker. Mohamad Ariff has rejected the first but accepted the latter, so this motion will make the May 18 order paper.
This itself sends a weird message because it was Mahathir, not Anwar, who pushed for a motion of no confidence. This means that the perception is that Mahathir, not Anwar, has a higher chance of commanding majority confidence from the House. So, that means Anwar cannot muster the crucial number of 112 to claim he has a simple majority.
Let’s face it, Shafie would not throw his support to Anwar as compared to Mahathir. Warisan has about eight MPs in Parliament. And we are equally clueless about Anwar’s support in Sarawak.
And, say what you want about Merdeka Centre getting its GE14 prediction wrong (the pollster predicted a Barisan Nasional win), but it found that Anwar’s support among the Malays dwindled to only 13% as of November last year.
So, the game plan is to still rely on Mahathir to do the dirty work of unseating Muhyiddin, given the letters sent to Parliament. Anwar could have sent a letter to moot a no-confidence vote against Muhyiddin too, you know? Just saying.
This then leaves us to ponder what kind of opposition leader Anwar will become. On paper, the opposition leader serves as a shadow to the prime minister. That is why the opposition leader faces the PM on the opposite side of the chamber. He or she has to also organise the opposition bloc and be surrounded with experienced members to shadow other ministers.
That is what’s on paper, this is common knowledge, and PH is very well aware of this. But we are not sure right now what is going on right here? How can the man that shadows the prime minister be the man that doesn’t even command the majority of the opposition bloc and doesn’t wield significant influence on the other side of the House?
And, we are back to short-term thinking. I don’t think it’s difficult to decide the members who would shadow the other ministers and provide a detailed list of a shadow cabinet on the same day PH announced Anwar as opposition leader. But things don’t work according to paper, not even the stock market. So that’s that.
More importantly, Anwar’s impatience and lack of political finesse remain. A day before PH’s announcement, he appeared on a webinar organised by the Oxford & Cambridge Society Malaysia, and he was asked a question by a member of the audience: “Some have been calling for a Pakatan reform, putting a halt to the DSAI (Anwar Ibrahim) & Tun M reign, pushing the likes of Nik Nazmi, Ong Kian Ming etc to the forefront. Would you be willing to step aside?” (around 45:10).
And, Anwar being Anwar, he never provided a straightforward answer. While acknowledging the generational shift and also the band of new leaders in his party, Anwar never answered the question of whether he was willing to step aside. Instead, he went on about poor governance, corruption, cronyism and abuse of power.
If these examples are still insufficient as to why Anwar is not the game changer we need, then ask yourself, what has Anwar said about policies in Malaysia recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic? This is the opportune time to provide an alternative. But have we actually heard what exactly Anwar has in mind on, say, the economy?
If he has his eyes and ears on the ground, he should very well know that small and medium enterprises are suffering, many have complained that the special relief fund is not reaching them.
Malaysians are getting retrenched left, right and centre. According to the latest numbers by the Department of Statistics Malaysia, the unemployment rate in March rose to 3.9%, the highest since June 2010 (3.6%). And this is probably not a real reflection since it doesn’t consider those who are on unpaid leave as unemployed.
We have scandals being exposed in the press, more recently an RM30 mil contract by the Ministry of Health for Covid-19 laboratory equipment is being investigated by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).
What are the solutions here? Has Anwar said anything substantial? If the answer is no, then he is not the country’s “saviour”, neither will he transform PH into a serious contender for Muhyiddin and Perikatan Nasional (PN). — May 8, 2020
