RUMOURS or hearsay about the existence of alleged collusion between Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and his former “sidekick” Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi who is currently the UMNO president must be clearly and comprehensively denied if they are untrue.
This is because amid the looming 15th General Election (GE15), voters and the country cannot be made puppets and victims of political conspiracies, opined veteran journalist and blogger Datuk A. Kadir Jasin.
“Such rumours have been circulating for quite some time. There have been denials by PKR deputy president, Rafizi Ramli and vice president Nurul Izzah Anwar. But the speculation does not stop either,” lamented the former Bersatu supreme council member in a recent Facebook post.
According to Kadir, the older generation Malaysians would certainly remember the conspiracy involving both personalities.
“Zahid is Anwar’s protégé and sidekick when he was in UMNO. It was Zahid who was the ‘proxy shooter’ who accused (the then prime minister Tun) Dr Mahathir Mohamad with accusations of cronyism in 1998,” recalled the former editor-in-chief of mainstream New Straits Times newspaper.
“At that time, Anwar’s cronies, pundits and shamans were quite convinced that Anwar was stronger than Dr Mahathir if there was an open fight. But their predictions were completely wrong. The remainder of the cronies, pundits and shamans are still with Anwar,” revealed Kadir.
Kadir further shared that when Anwar fell from grace and went to prison, Zahid did not join the Reformasi movement but instead remained in UMNO to safeguard his wealth.
“Zahid who possesses the blood of the Ponorogo tribe from East Java is a ‘survivor’,” claimed Kadir.
“He survived the era of Dr Mahathir, Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak. It was only during Dr Mahathir’s second tenure as PM that he began to feel the backlash from the seeds that he had sown all this time. Now there is a real danger that he may follow the footstep of his boss, Najib, to jail.”
This has, according to Kadir, prompted Zahid to explore a formula to avoid that possibility by lending an open hand to help Anwar become PM in the event BN loses GE15 for the second time running.
“The problem is that not all parties in PH chaired by Anwar and BN led by Zahid agree to a pact between PH and BN unless UMNO can now accept DAP as a bedfellow and PH is no longer steadfast in its anti-corruption stance as before,” opined Kadir.
From another angle, Kadir said any talks about Anwar-Zahid’s secret agreement could eventually backfire on UMNO as the very fact that UMNO conspiring with DAP through Anwar would be rejected by its own members.
“Not to mention, a number of UMNO lieutenants and veterans were recently dropped from the list of candidates because they are suspected of being more loyal to caretaker PM Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob than to the president,” justified Kadir.
“It seems as if Zahid intends to use this GE to fulfil three purposes, namely to save himself from prison, to remove UMNO leaders who are suspected of derhaka (rebellion) and to win the UMNO election when it is held later.”
He added: “So, the election is not for the common people but to save certain people from prison and fulfil the wishes of others to become the PM.” – Nov 2, 2022
Main pic credit: AFP
