Although the formidable Umno challenge has been fobbed off, the slim Pas majority in Manek Urai by-election in Kelantan yesterday is nonetheless a shocker.
It is a salutary warning to Pakatan Rakyat parties and leaders who think that Pakatan Rakyat can indulge in the luxury of excesses and internal strife, mistakenly believing that Pakatan Rakyat is riding on such an irresistible political wave that it could not possibly lose in any by-election or in the next general elections.
Pakatan Rakyat parties and leaders must go back to the drawing board to sustain public confidence, support and hope which suffered grievous blows particularly in the last month.
Pakatan Rakyat’s string of by-election victories in Permatang Pauh, Kuala Terengganu, Bukit Gantang, Bukit Selambau and Penanti have fed a false sense of security and worse, the notion of the inevitability of Pakatan Rakyat victories in the next general elections.
If Pakatan Rakyat parties and leaders do not immediately pull themselves up by the bootstraps, public confidence, support and hope will be the major casualties.
The Pakatan Rakyat leadership council meeting this Friday can be a turning point. The slide in public confidence must be acknowledged, checked and arrested.
An immediate mechanism must be established to end the internal haemorrhage from self-inflicted wounds arising from inter and intra party differences irresponsibly aired in public instead of seeking to address and resolve them in Pakatan Rakyat channels, demonstrating a lack of cohesion, coherence, unity, discipline and common sense of purpose which can only redound in the loss of public support and confidence in Pakatan Rakyat.
#1 by sirrganass on Thursday, 16 July 2009 - 4:19 pm
Hello, pls. We don’t talk about “pig” in this column. The title here is “Slim Majority in Manek Urai”, ok?
By the way, are you people rather fighting for PIG instead of other things? Come on – a lot of works to be done!
#2 by Onlooker Politics on Thursday, 16 July 2009 - 5:43 pm
“Hello, pls. We don’t talk about “pig” in this column.” (sirrganass)
YB Kit warned Pakatan Rakyat leaders on the possibility of decadence in the inter-members relationship among all the component parties of Pakatan Rakyat if no action is to be taken as a remedial measure to patch up the cracking holes! To avoid talking about the pig issues will not do help to anyone within Pakatan Rakyat. It is much better for Pakatan Rakyat leaders to talk about these controversial issues and reach a compromise solution now than to quarrel over it when the next general election comes near at hand. It won’t help anyone in Pakatan Rakyat either if we try to hide the issues by adopting the tactic of sweeping the rubbish under the carpet.
Since there is no by-election or no general election in the near future, all component parties of Pakatan Rakyat have to take the initiative to discuss about the pig issues now before the issues get unleashed out of control during the next election campaign period. It is good for Pakatan Rakyat to prepare and get ready a set of standard operating procedure for use as a reference by the Pakatan Rakyat intermediate level leaders in order to provide a standardised answer for responding to the sensitive and disputable issues on pig farming or pig abbtoir operations in Malaysia. Otherwise, it is quite embarrassing for the PR supporters to see a quarrel happening among the members of DAP, PKR and PAS whenever the pig issues are being raised up and exploited by Barisan Component parties in order to shame DAP leaders.