The rift between Anwar and Rafizi may cost Pakatan dearly

Pakatan Harapan can’t afford this

As the campaign jumps into momentum after nominations, the rift between PKR president Anwar Ibrahim and Vice president Rafizi Ramli becoming very evident, almost to the point it will become an election issue itself.

This is coming onto top of what could be described as a number of poor decisions that appear to be outside of the logic of winning.

First, PKR dropped eight incumbent MPs from there line up. These included Natrah Ismail in Sekijang, June Leow in Hulu Selangor, Maria Chin Abdullah in Petaling Jaya, Sivarasa Rasiah in Sungai Buloh, Chan Ming Kai, in Alor Setar and Johari Abdul in Sungei Petani.

Although, Tan and Lee had intended to retire, Leow, Chan, Sivarasa, and Johari performed poorly in the PKR party elections, earlier this year. Some local branch members were no happy with the parachuting of candidates, while the dropping of Sivarasa in Sungai Buloh, when Khairy Jamaluddin was standing for UMNO in the seat, appears to lack wisdom.

To some, this appears as if PKR almost want to give the seat to UMNO, which can be ill afforded.

The DAP also dropped 5 incumbents in Perak. However, the Dropping of Charles Santiago in Klang enraged much of the community. This was met with criticism by some evergreens within the DAP that the dropping of Santiago was tainted with nepotism and cronyism.

The backlash within Klang may be grossly underestimated by the DAP leadership.

The excuses DAP secretary general Anthony Loke gave that candidates who have served three terms should stand aside for new blood, appeared hypocritical, given those making the rules, were also breaking them.

Wan Azizah’s comments criticizing those dropped for complaining just highlighted the hypocrisy of the Pakatan leadership. Many within the party wanted to see her retire.

Finally, Anwar’s refusal to allow Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj stand for his old seat of Sungei Siput, led to Parti Sosialis Malaysia leaving Pakatan Harapan.

Much goodwill was lost within the grassroots of Pakatan over candidate selection. Whether this will be forgotten once the campaign is running proper is yet to be known.

However, the biggest damage done from the candidacy selection process was the emergence of public criticism from Rafizi over the decisions made by Anwar, especially in relation to the selection of R Ramanan, who is PKR’s deputy information chief. for Sungai Buloh,

The rift between Anwar and Rafizi is clear and if this continues publicly, much damage will occur to Pakatan’s election campaign. It appears Pakatan has two leaders trying to stir the ship in two different directions.

Anwar has been accused of cronyism by many within the party grassroots, and there is a feeling of little confidence over many decisions he is making. Similarly, many within the party grassroots are disappointed Rafizi is making public comments about disagreements with Anwar.  

Differences of opinion should be reserved in the backroom, well away from both public and party membership view.

There is also great disappointment coming from Amanah quarters. Many within Amanah believe that their party may have been the best one to contest in a number of rural Malay seats. However, this has been overlooked, and may not be putting Pakatan’s best foot forward within the Malay heartlands.

If the results of both the Melaka and Johor state elections were clearly studied and learnt from, Pakatan should have engaged the Malay heartlands in a completely different manner. However, now nomination day has past, Pakatan must live with this big mistake and be prepared to lose seats.

Its still early days and Rafizi is on record as saying he will chase the hip pocket nerve during the campaign, which is what the electorate really cares about.

No one is really too sure whether or not the electorate has forgotten Pakatan’s poor performance while in government for twenty months. However, the fielding of Maszlee Malik to defend his Johor Simpang Renggam seat, runs the risk of reminding them. Voters on the ground only associate the Khat and black shoes issues with his name. Maszlee also reminds voters that PKR have katak or frogs too.

The lucky consolation is that the nomination process for Barisan Nasional was worse, with a number of defectors running against the official Barisan candidates. It’s not difficult to see that friction between Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and Ismail Sabri Yaakob may blow up openly during the campaign.

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