Anwar is having a reprieve only because it is not Pak Lah’s character to be totally brutal and ruthless.

The problem is that it is also not his character to fight. It causes too much stress. You can induce or coax him to do so.

Though not 100% certain, greater likelihood is that he would throw in the towel and let the other warlords and power brokers rein.

When that happens, Anwar will be arrested to unglue Pakatan Rakyat that he holds together which is presently threatening the existing order and vested interests.

The only thing that can prevent this is for Anwar/Pakatan to take over earlier via cross overs.

This is possible only if Anwar really has the numbers and not hyping false claims.

If Anwar has made exaggerated claims, then too bad, he will face the music of a tremendous backlash of force from those who have less reservations of force as compared to the present premier.

That too will deal a lethal blow to PR survival.

As it is Anwar’s prevarication is giving those with intentions to defect jitters. They don’t want to jump without a landing pad.

People should understand that 50 years of ruling the country would accumulate a lot of vested interests shared amongst BN politicians, their relatives, cronies and busines associates….

With that much at stake, would they give up power so easily to Anwar & Pakatan Rakyat? It is hard enough to concede power in (say) 13th general election, 4 years down the road. At least there is time to organise their financial affairs, take care of incriminating paper work, complete the contracts in progress and siphon funds off shore. Honouring the people’s will in a ballot is a bitter pill which one may or may not gracefully swallow since rightly or wrongly one has another 4 years to ‘reinvent’ to meet the voters’ expectations.

It is a different ball game when immediately after winning the 8th March election with a 30+ seat majority, a guy like Anwar comes out cajole, poach and persuade by whatever means the 30+ kataks from BN to cross over to kick out the incumbents, destroy the vested interest, not even with comfort of an iron clad promise of amnesty.

If you were an incumbent with vested interest would you allow this to happen ? – ask yourself honestly. Since when has the much touted argument of rakyat’s wishes been the firtst consideration?

Of course you would use every power in your disposal to thwart and frustrate Anwar’s plans – whether Sodomy II criminal charge, failing which ISA, and failing which Emergency Rule.

There are but only 2 factors keeping Anwar safe so far – (1) gentleman character of Pak Lah, not that quick to brutally repress, incarcerate and show the iron fist and (2) the economy, investment and market sentiments/international reaction which if adverse due to blatant repression will directly hit and undermine the crony/patronage projects (the raison de etre of seeking power and public positions).

(2) is where our elites are different from the Myanmar generals. The latter clamp down at will – even monks – because they care a hoot about economy, investment and market sentiments/international reaction.

It is not that they do not care about money. They do – but they are safely taken care of by the narcotic/opium/heroin economy that the generals controls…….which our elites are not in parallel position.

However the point remains : once repression begins – widespread arrests and military and police action – it is difficult for Makkal Sakti “warriors” to fight it with civil disobedience.

Ask yourself how many years Aung San Syu Kyi has been incarcerated and Myanmarese junta preserve power.

If we court it here by Anwar’s actions, be prepared for the consequences.

I don’t like what I say but I am just being realistic.

Ar

A commentary in The MalaysianInsider attributes the premier’s present predicament to his young advisors, better known as Fourth Floor Boys, for wrong political strategies and misplaced priorities. See link here – http://tmi.interunix.my/index.php/component/content/9768?task=view#pc_2399

There is lot of truth that a leader is often as good as his advisers.

This is because no one man – no matter how smart and intelligent – can think of everything, and the collective deliberation of several persons would have explored with more breath and depth of any issue than the brilliance and knowledge of one man, let alone one not that brilliant or knowledgeable!

A savvy leader will choose the right advisers, not one or two but several tiers of such advisers……

And what is the “right” advisers?

The quality of the deliberations by advisers must be good because of the quality of the adviser participants who will speak their minds without fear or favour to tell the leader what he should hear rather than just what he likes to hear.

Even then there should not be just a select few but several tiers of advisers from which a leader can canvass differing opinmions to weigh before deciding.

Advisers should have the experience and maturity and appointed on basis of merits rather than just familial ties and academic qualifications.

Their first priority should be loyalty to the leader and the nation’s good to which the leader’s position is co-extensive. It is disastrous if advisers’ loyalty is to their own business interest and personal aggrandizement.

As an arbitrary figure I would impute as much as 80% of a leader’s achievements or failures to the quality of his advisers.

I would reserve 20% for the leader’s intrinsic merits and wisdom of judgment.

This is because even competent advisers – with expertise in their respective fields – can all be wrong, dwelling too much on trees than the larger forest, the details than the balance of the macro picture. Especially so when a judgment call is required based on values, or rather competing values, when the choice of one value represents a sacrifice of another. How the man chooses is what a sum total of what he is in these circumstances.

Within the ruling party, many are banking on Najib now rather than Pak Lah for leadership to re-unite UMNO because rightly or wrongly it is believed that Najib has more and better and several tiers of advisers.

What has been said applies not just to UMNO or BN’s leaders but equally to even Anwar’s and other PR’s leaders.