Khalid turns out to be force on the hustings

Selangor Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim has turned out to be a surprisingly potent force for PKR in the Batang Ai by-election.

Sent twice to stump for Jawah Gerang, the first time during nominations and the second just two days before the vote on April 7, Khalid was an indefatigable and resourceful campaigner.

He visited several longhouses where his speeches were rife with points culled from his long spell as a government-linked company (GLC) administrator and his year-old experience as Selangor chief minister.

Khalid’s presence on nominations day on March 29 at the sports complex in Lubok Antu drew an acknowledgment, albeit sly, from Chief Minister Taib Mahmud who remarked to the accompanying BN cohort: “I like what he is doing (obviously referring to Khalid’s measures in Selangor state such as partly free water) but I don’t like his party.”

Taib’s sally helped to break the ice as most of his retinue, composed of federal and state ministers and deputies, were stuffed shirts, disdainful of mixing it up with a Pakatan Rakyat cabal comprising West Malaysian and Sarawak PKR leaders, PAS luminaries such as Husam Musa, and state DAP leaders.

Khalid has leveraged on Taib’s partial compliment by telling his longhouse audiences what he found in the 1980s when he traveled from Kapit to Belaga as Permodal Nasional Berhad’s CEO plumping for Sarawak’s bumiputeras to invest in Amanah Saham Nasional for its anticipated high yields.

He parlayed his findings on those journeys into grist for his campaign theme that the Iban are an adventurous people, unafraid of braving the unknown to earn their keep.

“When I visited the longhouses, I found that there were no young men around because they were away, working elsewhere in Malaysia or even abroad, to earn money to send back home,” he said.

“I found on my trips to places as distant as Malawi and Burkina Faso, and even to Port Moresby in New Guinea, that there were young Iban working as lumberjacks under Rimbunan Hijau (a Sarawak logging company),” said Khalid.

“A people willing to go that far from home and family to earn a living must be ready to make a change to their political fortunes here in their own state where land is abundant, resources are plentiful, but where the leadership is rich while the majority of the people are poor.

“A people willing to join the army and the navy, to be brave in the face of physical danger, cannot be afraid to make a change to a political situation that oppresses them.

“This is a something that must not be allowed to endure for long. Let Batang Ai be the first step in a series that will end with the state election due in two years’ time,” he said, to thumping cheers, especially at longhouses known for anti-BN sentiment.

Sarawak is PKR’s frontline state

On the hustings, where Khalid had to hold forth three to four times a day in longhouses of anything from 70 to 200 people, it was not easy to vary the content of speeches.

Political oratory for effectiveness has to follow a pat formula of succinct and effectively conveyed points, in language at once pungent and with witty riposte.

The readily acknowledged master of the art is PKR leader Anwar Ibrahim, who is tireless in propounding from a set piece which varies little in content but sports exquisite timing for its applause drawing points.

Khalid cannot match Anwar in eloquence of delivery but he is a match for content. His style is to weave short and interesting stories in a narrative style that reserves its punch for the point distilled from the story.

His two-edition presence in Batang Ai was aimed at exploiting his status as CEO of Selangor state, the equivalent of Taib Mahmud, who in the Iban demonology is the nemesis that cannot be extirpated.

“When Anwar invited me to join PKR in 2004, it had one MP and I was asked to become its bendahari agung (treasurer),” he chuckled, as he told his audience that for a man who had managed billions in PNB, it was distinctly underwhelming to handle PKR’s puny finances.

“Today we have 31 MPs and money is coming in from our growing band of supporters and people interested in reformasi’s success.

“There is no reason that what has happened and continues to happen in the Peninsula cannot happen here where the Iban, known for adventure and bravery, are being kept in poverty and want.

“Vote for Jawah and vote for the change to begin to happen in Sarawak, which Anwar only this morning in an SMS to me, has described Sarawak as PKR’s frontline state,” said Khalid to applause that grew warmer as the audience took to his narrative style.