Pakatan must win argument to win the vote
Terence NettoPublished: Nov 8, 2014 4:47 AM | Updated: Nov 8, 2014 11:43 AM
COMMENT With a little more than three years left to the next general election, Pakatan Rakyat should adopt some advice from Margaret Thatcher: win the argument and then win the vote.
Thus far the opposition coalition has tried to define itself bywhat it is against – corruption, cronyism and nepotism.
COMMENT With a little more than three years left to the next general election, Pakatan Rakyat should adopt some advice from Margaret Thatcher: win the argument and then win the vote.
Thus far the opposition coalition has tried to define itself bywhat it is against – corruption, cronyism and nepotism.
These are the vices that plague Umno-BN. Even Daim Zainuddin is prepared to concede the point.
The Pakatan governments of Penang and Selangor are seen as relatively free of these ills.
That was why they were re-endorsed empathetically at the last general election.
Suspicion - of recent vintage - that the Selangor Pakatan government led by Khalid Ibrahim (left) was not exactly free of corrupt tints was what led to the PKR demand - which triggered an eight-month public confidence damaging crisis - that he be replaced.
He was, but not before some among the top leadership of Pakatan sported amnesia about the third prong of the coalition’s triad of abominations: nepotism.
Doing nicely is a no-no
In nominating PKR’s Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail to replace Khalid, they waded into a highly avoidable controversy.
Fortunately, in one of those fortuitous twists in which a fortunate outcome results from a series of missteps, PKR’s Azmin Ali emerged as menteri besar.
After a little over a month in the saddle, few are the critics who can plausibly contend that Azmin is not doing nicely.
But ‘nicely’ won’t don’t it for Azmin and, by extension, Pakatan.
He has to do remarkably well as MB to restore belief that good governance by Pakatan in Penang and Selangor merits voters’ confidence in the opposition coalition’s fitness for ruling the country.
This fitness is determined not only by remarkable good governance in Penang and Selangor, but also by Pakatan’s winning whatever argument that is hurled against the coalition by its detractors.
Just now one brickbat – a pretty potent one – was fired by Daim Zainuddin.
It is difficult to dismiss his broadside as due to inherent bias because Daim admits that his calling out Pakatan on issues of corruption and cronyism is also ascribable to Umno-BN.
In remarks he made the other day, Daim (right) upbraided Pakatan leaders for “disguising or hiding their own cozy relationships with businessmen, developers and tycoons.”
The inseperable and inevitable trap
He said that Umno-BN is free of this cant for good reason: they recognized that the nexus between business and politics is like that between Siamese twins – “inseparable and inevitable.”
Politicians need funding from business to subsist and business needs political favor to flourish.
How then are aspirants after incorrupt governance to unravel the twain?
Daim has cited a host of ventures by the Pakatan governments, not only in Penang and Selangor but also in Kelantan, as being tainted by corruption and cronyism.
Daim is not Izuree Ibrahim, the PAS municipal councillor who at the PAS muktamar in Johor in mid-September caused a furore when he accused Penang state government of being pro-developer.
Guan Eng took instant umbrage and decreed Izuree’s suspension from a number of committees in the municipal council though not his membership of the overall council.
No doubt the Penang CM will rebut the aspersions cast by Daim.
But will he do it in a way that will, doffing the cap to Thatcher, win the argument?
Keeping prudential distance wisdom
One suspects Guan Eng and his counterparts in Selangor and Kelantan won’t be able to because politics is about perception.
And perception is about narrative – the widely held, sometimes unfair, shorthand that marks a politician or party. Once it forms, a narrative is hard to shift
What Diam says about the intertwined nature of politics and business is not just narrative; it is truth.
Perhaps the only way ruling politicians can avoid the perception of being in collusion with business it to keep a prudential distance from them.
When criticism arose some years back over private financing by a businessman of a trip to perform the haj by former Menteri Besar of Kelantan Nik Aziz Nik Mat, justly renowned for his integrity, the latter wisely decided against going, to stifle murmurs about the propriety of the financing for it.
He opted for avoidance of something that could have raised issues of propriety.
It would have been better if he had chosen prevention rather than avoidance. That would have entailed refusing private financing of the trip from the outset.
It’s not always possible to avoid the perception of impropriety, but it helps to nip it when it threatens to take hold.
Suffice Pakatan must do more to win the argument that the coalition is free of corruption, cronyism and nepotism.
It’s imperative it wins this argument if it is to win the vote at GE14.
TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for more than four decades. A sobering discovery has been that those who protest the loudest tend to replicate the faults they revile in others.
Related stories:
PAS deviating off course, says Sarawak DAP
S'gor Umno says Dr M disparaging the party
Pakatan must win argument to win the vote
‘Pakatan, not BN forsook us first on Kidex’
Thus far the opposition coalition has tried to define itself bywhat it is against – corruption, cronyism and nepotism.
These are the vices that plague Umno-BN. Even Daim Zainuddin is prepared to concede the point.
The Pakatan governments of Penang and Selangor are seen as relatively free of these ills.
That was why they were re-endorsed empathetically at the last general election.
Suspicion - of recent vintage - that the Selangor Pakatan government led by Khalid Ibrahim (left) was not exactly free of corrupt tints was what led to the PKR demand - which triggered an eight-month public confidence damaging crisis - that he be replaced.He was, but not before some among the top leadership of Pakatan sported amnesia about the third prong of the coalition’s triad of abominations: nepotism.
Doing nicely is a no-no
In nominating PKR’s Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail to replace Khalid, they waded into a highly avoidable controversy.
Fortunately, in one of those fortuitous twists in which a fortunate outcome results from a series of missteps, PKR’s Azmin Ali emerged as menteri besar.
After a little over a month in the saddle, few are the critics who can plausibly contend that Azmin is not doing nicely.
But ‘nicely’ won’t don’t it for Azmin and, by extension, Pakatan.
He has to do remarkably well as MB to restore belief that good governance by Pakatan in Penang and Selangor merits voters’ confidence in the opposition coalition’s fitness for ruling the country.
This fitness is determined not only by remarkable good governance in Penang and Selangor, but also by Pakatan’s winning whatever argument that is hurled against the coalition by its detractors.
Just now one brickbat – a pretty potent one – was fired by Daim Zainuddin.
It is difficult to dismiss his broadside as due to inherent bias because Daim admits that his calling out Pakatan on issues of corruption and cronyism is also ascribable to Umno-BN.In remarks he made the other day, Daim (right) upbraided Pakatan leaders for “disguising or hiding their own cozy relationships with businessmen, developers and tycoons.”
The inseperable and inevitable trap
He said that Umno-BN is free of this cant for good reason: they recognized that the nexus between business and politics is like that between Siamese twins – “inseparable and inevitable.”
Politicians need funding from business to subsist and business needs political favor to flourish.
How then are aspirants after incorrupt governance to unravel the twain?
Daim has cited a host of ventures by the Pakatan governments, not only in Penang and Selangor but also in Kelantan, as being tainted by corruption and cronyism.
Daim is not Izuree Ibrahim, the PAS municipal councillor who at the PAS muktamar in Johor in mid-September caused a furore when he accused Penang state government of being pro-developer.
Guan Eng took instant umbrage and decreed Izuree’s suspension from a number of committees in the municipal council though not his membership of the overall council.
No doubt the Penang CM will rebut the aspersions cast by Daim.
But will he do it in a way that will, doffing the cap to Thatcher, win the argument?
Keeping prudential distance wisdom
One suspects Guan Eng and his counterparts in Selangor and Kelantan won’t be able to because politics is about perception.
And perception is about narrative – the widely held, sometimes unfair, shorthand that marks a politician or party. Once it forms, a narrative is hard to shift
What Diam says about the intertwined nature of politics and business is not just narrative; it is truth.
Perhaps the only way ruling politicians can avoid the perception of being in collusion with business it to keep a prudential distance from them.
When criticism arose some years back over private financing by a businessman of a trip to perform the haj by former Menteri Besar of Kelantan Nik Aziz Nik Mat, justly renowned for his integrity, the latter wisely decided against going, to stifle murmurs about the propriety of the financing for it.
He opted for avoidance of something that could have raised issues of propriety.
It would have been better if he had chosen prevention rather than avoidance. That would have entailed refusing private financing of the trip from the outset.
It’s not always possible to avoid the perception of impropriety, but it helps to nip it when it threatens to take hold.
Suffice Pakatan must do more to win the argument that the coalition is free of corruption, cronyism and nepotism.
It’s imperative it wins this argument if it is to win the vote at GE14.
TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for more than four decades. A sobering discovery has been that those who protest the loudest tend to replicate the faults they revile in others.
Related stories:
PAS deviating off course, says Sarawak DAP
S'gor Umno says Dr M disparaging the party
Pakatan must win argument to win the vote
‘Pakatan, not BN forsook us first on Kidex’
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