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Saturday, August 2, 2014

Khalid Ibrahim the 'popular' outsider


COMMENT Some interesting questions to ask in the Selangor MB fiasco include: Why is Khalid Ibrahim so popular outside PKR/PR and so isolated within PKR/PR? Does his unpopularity within the party contribute to his popularity outside the party?

Is there a public’s deep distrust of political parties which benefits Khalid amongst both some opinion leaders and even ordinary people?

I suspect the answers to the last two questions are affirmative. What we are witnessing may be a legitimacy crisis of political parties amongst the middle ground voters.

Negative image of parties, politicians

As a result of one-party rule for decades, political parties are generally perceived seen as dirty, dangerous or both.

The ruling coalition, BN, becomes synonymous with corruption, cronyism and clientelism while until recently, the opposition stands for detention without trials, extremism, and infighting.

Distance from parties and politicians is seen as a virtue in many circles - civil society, religious organisations and academia. Politics is often portrayed as a realm where the worst of human traits reveal themselves, as if we are much noble persons in competition for money or love.

This impression is partly a legacy of despotism in the past, when human rights enjoyed no protection and political participation might lead to loss of life and break-up or even destruction of families. Despising politics in that sense is a survival mechanism to stay out of troubles.

To put things in perspectives, political parties and politicians are still not held in high regard in most countries. One reason is politics in modern states are complex and the technicalities can be quite off-putting for most people.

More importantly, the complexity of modern states and societies require a lot of compromises to be made in policies and laws.

This makes politics inherently “unprincipled” and breeds cynicism towards and contempt of politics. Citizens especially opinion leaders who are educated and economically independent from the state often make fun of parties and politicians.

The virtue of being 'outsider'

To be more specific, the public who know well they cannot live in anarchy then focus their distrust and disdain for the political system onto to the “insiders” and prefer to rally behind “outsiders”.

“Outsiders” are cool because they are not entrenched in the system. One attraction of these “outsiders” is their potential to disrupt or even break up the existing distributional coalitions in the corridor of power.

One such good example is Barak Obama, who rose quickly in national politics to occupy the White House within four years.

In Japan, a lawyer and former TV personality beat his opponent supported by the ruling party and the largest opposition party in the 2011 Osaka mayoral election.

In Taiwan, an “outsider” surgeon will take on the ruling party KMT candidate in the Taipei mayoral election at the year end.

In India, the strong anti-corruption sentiment even vote in the outsider “Aam Aadmi Party” (Common Man Party) to form a minority government in the Union Territory of Delhi in 2013 which, however, lasted for only 49 days.

Even the newly elected Prime Minister Nerendra Modi claimed himself to be an outsider to national politics though he had been a state chief ministers since 2001.

Many a time, outsiders are from business backgrounds, signalling efficiency and reform in stark contrast to bureaucracy.

The most recent example is Indonesia’s president-elect Joko Wikodo or Jokowi, who moved from furniture export business to politics, successfully govern his home town Solo and then Jakarta.

New York’s ex-mayor Michael Blumberg, too, is a media tycoon who for many years pitted “politicians” against “problem solvers” as two different creatures.

Khalid - less UMNO than PKR?

One would be tempted to compare Khalid Ibrahim with Michael Blumberg.Like Blumberg, Khalid Ibrahim came from a corporate background.

More importantly, in the words of his most articulate defender and former staffer Nathaniel Tan in The Star, Khalid’s (left) image is one who “stands for everything that Malaysian politics isn’t.

Politicians on both sides of the spectrum take a very liberal view as to public funds. Many feel that these are piggy banks, and that the use of public funds to further partisan political interests is fully justified.”

This image is partly PKR’s own doing. The anti-thesis to Khalid in Selangor has been Azmin Ali (right), the most powerful warlord in the party who has been accused of even having “Umno DNA”.

The aggressive Azmin has no friends in both PAS and DAP but tightly controls PKR Selangor and was keen to replace Khalid as Menteri Besar.

In this context, Khalid Ibrahim has been featured as a fighter against corruption and cronyism and the one who can block the advancement of Azmin.

For many, the Kajang Move first appeared as a tactical move to remove Khalid to appease Azmin. Then, it was seen a move for Anwar or whoever his proxies to break into Selangor’s state coffers to squander the RM3 billion reserve Khalid had saved over six years.

Through poor communications and disconnection with the public, PKR slowly pitted itself against Khalid, with the party as a mini Umno full of self-serving politicians and the MB as one good man standing up to the old evil.

When Khalid resisted the pressure for him to quit, the stories of his out-of-court settlement with Bank Islam , of his secret water deals with the Federal Government, of ulterior reasons behind his enthusiastic support for the Kidex project travelled farther.

Perhaps many in the anti-Khalid camp hope that these allegations would make a case to convince more in Pakatan and also the wider public that Khalid must go.

They do not realise all these only make Khalid look like a poor scapegoat who is vilified simply for standing his ground on good governance.

The more moralist attacks are levelled against him, the more public sympathy Khalid would get: This is one good man standing against a corrupt party.

Otherwise, why praise Khalid when he was needed to check Azmin and demonise him when he is being pushed out?

It just looks characteristically so Umno: selective persecution of political enemies.

And for PKR to be accused of resembling or even evolving into the party it was born to overthrow, it is simply tragic.

Institutional response: confidence of peers

Coming back to the thrust of the matter, should Khalid be asked to go? Why can’t Selangor have  him serve two full terms when New York could have Michael Blumberg for four full terms?

Khalid differs from Blumberg fundamentally in institutional context.

New York Mayor is a presidential chief executive with a personal mandate. anyway he liked it and New Yorkers could reward or punish him in the next elections. He stays in power for full term unless impeached.

In contrast,  the Menteri Besar of the Selangor State is a parliamentary chief executive where the mandate is vested in lawmakers who stand under tparty ticket.

Khalid stays in power because he has 44 votes from Pakatan Rakyat in the Legislative Assembly. When they cease to support him, he should make way for another person in the coalition.

They don’t need even a vote of no-confidence in the House to remove him unless the coalition collapses or party discipline breaks down.

Revolt against a head of parliamentary government - only “first among equals” -- can even be initiated by his/her cabinet colleagues, who are not his/her subordinates but his/her peers, potential successors and competitors.

And this may simply be triggered by a drop in popular support.

That’s how Margaret Thatcher lost her job in 1991, the unpopular poll tax and division over Europe prompted a leadership challenge to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher by a former minister Michael Heseltine.

She chose to resign after failing to win an outright majority - a lead of 15 percent to her rival - among Conservative parliamentarians.

Similarly, in 2010, Australia Prime Minister Kevin Rudd resigned straightaway when he was challenged by his deputy Julia Gillard and realised that he couldn’t win the support within Labour parliamentarians.

Gillard had staged the revolt as a controversial mining tax caused the Labour Government’s popularity to plummet.

Did Thatcher or Rudd commit any crime, misconduct or get implicated in any scandal? No, they didn’t. Their only fault was that their leadership was no longer popular with the public and their party colleagues wanted a new leadership to rescue their electoral fortune.

The Anti-Khalid camp should stop the vilification of Khalid without concrete evidence - if they do have evidence, they should reveal it to the public so that he may be charged and tried


Instead, their ADUNS should state clearly why they have lost confidence in Khalid’s leadership.

If Khalid has failed to lead them as a team player, if they have fundamental disagreement with him over policy issues, if they think that Khalid is to blame for Pakatan Rakyat’s 35 percent support in Selangor, , they should make a strong case publicly and Khalid can make his defence.

Then all Pakatan ADUNs should vote on his job. And their decision should be final.

Under the parliamentary system, you stay as a captain only for as long as your teammates recognise you. Cut all the crap.

WONG CHIN HUAT is a member of the multiculturalism research group at the Penang Institute. He earned his PhD from University of Essex with a thesis on electoral system and party system in West Malaysia.

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