There are questions I want to ask of Anwar Ibrahim.
Datuk Seri, I want to ask him, how will you pull together the Pakatan Harapan coalition and give Umno a credible opposition to fear in the next general election?
Datuk Seri how will you at 67 years old be able to meet the demands and rigors expected of you by that 51% who voted for your coalition should Pakatan Harapan be elected to form government at the next general election?
And Datuk Seri, this time, how will it all end for you, for us, for our nation and for all those 51% who have wanted you to lead them and effect the changes they wanted as to how government and politics is done post Umno?
Anwar can only answer those questions when he walks free of the confines that is Sungai Buloh.
And while waiting for him to be free I want to ask if you will again take a chance with Anwar Ibrahim?
Do you believe that he will be able to finish what he has started to do with Reformasi and then Pakatan Rakyat?
And if you do believe that he can pull it off this time around....I want to ask you why do you think it so?
What has changed with the opposition that now calls itself Pakatan Harapan?
And more critical, how do you think Anwar Ibrahim has changed?
All those questions are pertinent to the future of our nation and will have relevance to the aspirations of that 51% that have already voted for Anwar Ibrahim to be their leader. The answer to those questions will decide who will form government after the 14th general elections! And only Anwar Ibrahim himself can and should answer these questions when he is again a free man.
Can Anwar Ibrahim take Pakatan Harapan to the mountain top again?
Take away passion, take away charisma take away kismet.
Take away Anwar's ability to mesmerized so many with his oratory and charm.
Take away his plea to vote him into office on his promise of change and what he and his coalition partners will do to our nation's future.
Take away everything and leave only what Anwar Ibrahim had done since the advent of Reformasi and then Pakatan Rakyat.....and it can all be said in one line :
The formation of a viable and credible opposition that effectively brought into being a two party system of politics in Malaysia dominated by Umno and the opposition under Anwar Ibrahim.
For now Najib Razak leads government. And from Sungai Buloh there can be no denial that Anwar Ibrahim leads the opposition!
Political authority should go to that leader who is given the popular mandate by the electorates to govern. In the last general election Anwar Ibrahim was given that mandate - so why does he not govern?
For one thing Najib Razak and Barisan Nasional is the incumbent already entrenched in government with very deep pockets, large armies and the political will to use all that is at their disposal to stay in office even without a popular mandate. And this they have done since losing their popular mandate to govern in the last general election with impunity. And they then proceed to consolidate and do what they deem necessary to sweep away all that was before them to ensure their grasps on power is complete.
This they have done well...too well because when you tell all who will listen to you that your government is democratic, that you welcome and encourage dissent and that there is religious freedom and that you are against corruption and money politics and yet in reality you do not subscribe to any of these values.... then you have put a noose around your neck.
And with each move away from democracy you tighten that noose....and the option to tighten that noose now lies with the electorates. With each passing day to the next general election the electorate control over that noose increases correspondingly.
This is an electorate that is no longer ill informed or uninformed. This is an electorate who knows in real time that the wife of the prime minister is shopping in Milan, Bangkok or that the prime minister and family are spending New Year in Dubai - and not only does the electorate knows that but knows also how they are ferried there and what they do there. This is an electorate that knows all that is being done, good and bad, by Umno in the name of government....and for now they know that the bad done by Umno whilst in government has by a long shot, been swept away by a tidal slew of the bad. And this is an electorate that will confront this BN government for its abuse and use of politics for personal gain....and this is an electorate that is prepared to do something about it.
They have already effected change in Penang and Selangor. Perak and Kedah have spluttered and hiccup their ways through change but the jury is still out as to who will finally do government there when push comes to shove in the next general election. Kelantan is Kelantan and never will the twain - Umno and PAS - meet again - not if the people of Kelantan have a say in their political future.
When we take all that has happened to us and to our nation in the last few decades after Mahathir (when the rot in politics started and then really descend into the abyss of corruption and money politics in earnest under Pak Lah and Najib), what is clear is that Anwar Ibrahim has triumphed in spite of the sea of negativity that has been Malaysian politics until today.
Anwar Ibrahim has made that difference and is instrumental in the formation of an effective two party system that has already taken the popular mandate to govern away from Barisan Nasional in the last general election.
The question now is where do we want our nation to go from here.
Towards democracy and meritocracy with Anwar Ibrahim and Pakatan Harapan or stagnate in that odious sense of entitlement that money politics and corruption inflicts upon those who are unprincipled and with political power as are those within the Umno led Barisan Nasional?
If you take away reason and you take away accountability then you will have what we have now - a government and a leader where CASH dictates all that they do in government. By any criteria, in any language and whatever your inclinations, this Umno led Barisan Nasional government is a TPLAC" (tin-pot little African country) whose demise would be most welcomed if not for the fact that it is now also dragging us all into the abyss of corruption it is now already mired in!
It has now been three hundred and over twenty days since Anwar Ibrahim was locked away by this odious BN government.
Yes there are many many Malaysian who wants Najib, Umno and Barisan Nasional to be held to account for what they have done in the name of government but what we want done cannot be done without Anwar Ibrahim. Anwar Ibrahim is the leader we need to hold us all together. DAP, PKR, PAS and all the derivatives of the opposition that has since been manifested as each faction strives to be relevant to the ever changing and fluid forces that all wants change in the manner politics is done in Malaysia....all of them needs Anwar Ibrahim to pull them together. No one else can.
I do not really care for what this BN government and the Judiciary under its instruction can and have done to Anwar brahim. I do not care for how long more Anwar Ibrahim must stay in Sungai Buloh to serve his time for whatever that he has been convicted of. And in truth I really do not care for the politics of Umno and a prime minister corrupt to the nth degree and more.
What I know is that without Anwar Ibrahim the opposition is a shadow of what it once was. What concerns me is that without Anwar Ibrahim this BN government led by Umno is able to impose its suffocating political will with impunity upon a people that has not given it a mandate to govern them. What I care about is that there is no one in opposition that can stand up and say "I will lead the opposition against Umno" and have Najib and Umno quaking in fear at what will befell them should the next general election be lost.
All this I say not because Anwar Ibrahim is infallible. Not because Anwar Ibrahim is without flaws and without any blemish during his time with Umno and with Pakatan Rakayat...he like any of us have erred in ways that we have erred.....and it is because of all this that Anwar Ibrahim is one of us.
He shares our hopes, our aspirations and understands our needs and our wants. Anwar Ibrahim is me, you and others who are bounded together by the hope that we can all make our nation great and caring once again and consign Umno to the ranks of those who deserve to be incarcerated in Sungai Buloh for crime against the nation and against the people of Malaysia....and then and only then can we begin the onerous task of nation building and start to hope again that we will once again have leaders in Seri Perdana whom we can learn to respect and revered.
Why not start with Anwar Ibrahim and Azizah?
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