PARTI Keadilan Rakyat’s (PKR) Rafizi Ramli marks his return to active politics in style by announcing that he will be running for the PKR deputy presidency post in the next leadership election.
“The result of the recent Johor state polls has confirmed that PKR and Pakatan Harapan (PH) has become third wheel in the Barisan Nasional (BN)-Perikatan Nasional (PN) race.
“However, the outcome [of the state election] must be accepted by all Malaysians who support PKR and PH’s progressive political idealism,” he said in a post on Facebook.
“With the latest development, multi-racial progressive politics is in jeopardy if PKR and PH continue to be third-wheel for failing to lure fence-sitters.
“Hence, I have decided to return to the political arena and will be contesting for PKR’s deputy presidency in the next party polls,” the former Pandan MP added.
On January 22, PKR secretary-general Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution announced the party would hold its election for office bearers for the 2022-2025 session from April 22 to 29, while the National Congress will be held from June 10 to 12.
Fourth defeat in a row
Rafizi mentioned that PKR’s defeat in the Johor state election marks the party’s fourth consecutive defeat in a row following Sabah, Melaka and Sarawak state elections.
He noted that apart from playing the blame game every time they lost, no one has come up with any alternative strategies to win voters’ hearts.
“The sole approach that had been repeated again and again is the ‘big tent’ formula to unite all Opposition parties in the fight against UMNO/BN.
“Lately, I was also told that the PH Presidential Council has agreed to hold talks with PN regarding possibilities of working together in the upcoming 15th General Election (GE15),” Rafizi said.
However, the PKR leader opined that while there are no signs that the “big tent” approach would yield any positive results, the idea remains the only solution that the Opposition leaders have come up with.
“This is as if the entire PH leadership has run out of ideas on how to regain the rakyat’s confidence in the party,” he lamented.
Touching on his “retirement” from politics in 2019, Rafizi pointed out that he had been against the idea of forming a coalition whimsically with any new parties in order to gain power.
Unfortunately, his opinion represented only a minority of the PKR leadership.
“So, I decided not to be part of any strategies I don’t agree with. Had I stayed, I would have no choice but to abide by the party’s decision despite my objections.
“Hence, I decided to stay away from the party in the name of accountability,” Rafizi explained.
Rafizi went on to note that following his “retirement”, numerous comrades from Pakatan had urged him to return to active politics.
“It took me this long [to return to politics] because I was not confident that I can help in the situation as my opinion didn’t carry much weight among PKR and PH leaders.
“Furthermore, I believe Pakatan’s obsession ins forming political pacts with anyone that come by is alienating the coalition from the people. When too much focus is given to such moves, less effort would be put into alleviating the people’s woes,” he stated.
Rafizi added, “Rather than pointing fingers, the party leadership should be bringing sensible solutions to convince the people that their lives would be better off if they chose PKR and PH.” – March 15, 2022
Main photo credit: The Straits Times
