DAP AND THE WEST COAST PLAN: PART 5

Raggie Jessy

Perhaps the greatest among west side stories ever told, the Watergate affair began as a conspiracy that seemed confined to a hotel break-in. But it ended up trailing to the highest rungs of the American government and brought about the forced resignation of then American President, Richard Nixon.

Today, Raja Petra Kamarudin (RPK) has his hands full with Justogate, a feature presentation drawn off the annals of American history. With Mahathir enacting the role of Nixon, the Justogate conspiracy adds yet another chapter to Malaysia’s idiosyncratic history, which in and of itself is a conspiracy of conspiracies.

But none was as deplorably dissipated and wretched as Langkah Kajang, the mother of all conspiracies. It began with a pursuit to topple the Selangor Menteri Besar, but ended up as a confederacy to depose of both Khalid and Hadi. Over time, Kit Siang and Anwar sprawled their legs all over legislature and the Palace and turned Langkah Kajang into Langkah Kangkang.

While each had his own think, they met halfway on Hadi and Khalid. Anwar saw fit to retire Hadi from active politics, while Kit Siang sought to shred PAS at the seams. They were rash and offered nothing more than cursory justice to anyone who stood between them and Selangor, the crowned jewel of the west coast.

Sodomy II in a nutshell

Anwar found himself in the full glare of publicity for all the wrong reasons following fresh sodomy allegations that were brought against him sometime mid 2008. Both Anwar and his wife charged the government of Malaysia with conspiracy to emasculate the former as a measure of vendetta.

Anwar began to controvert allegations hurled against him in the court of public opinion and accused the government of sticking its oar into the investigations. He insinuated doubt over Investigating Officer Jude Pereira’s credibility and implied that the government was in cahoots with PDRM to put a fix on the case.

Anwar was subsequently acquitted of sodomy charges over the lack of corroborative evidence pertinent to advance the case beyond prima facie intuition. But his journey to the sweet land of vindication hit another snag when the government of Malaysia entered an appeal against his acquittal on the 20th of January 2012.  While contemplating his fate, Anwar went on to launch Langkah Kajang on the 28th of January 2014.

A 7th of March 2014 verdict that was read out at the Court of Appeal overturned Anwar’s acquittal and put the damper on his mission to become Selangor Menteri Besar. But not even the tears Wan Azizah shed outside the courtroom afforded to assuage Selangorians, who saw red over what was then  described as ‘a gross subversion of democracy’. They saw Lee Chin Cheh’s resignation in Kajang to be a misappropriation of state funds and their trust in PKR and the opposition coalition.

In coming to terms with his fate, Anwar began playing down his chances at the House of Justice and got his henchmen to resign to Wan Azizah’s candidacy for the post of Selangor Menteri Besar.

But it may interest you to know that Wan Azizah’s candidacy was in the deck even before Langkah Kajang went to print. Several consultants who were anything but Anwar apologists painted a grim outlook of his shot at vindication when he met them. This set Anwar off on a mission to get Hadi and the pro-ulama’ faction into strife with PAS moderates. It bothered Anwar when his disqualification from contest in Kajang was translated into a pass for Iskandar, Yunus or Nawawi to become Menteri Besar.

Be that as it may, the consultants wrote Anwar off as a political has-been. They opined that the government was capacitated to send him off to Timbuktu in a gift basket if they wanted to, but were playing it by the law and that there was no conspiracy at play. It was implied that any attempt to decry the sodomy charges would have to be on terms of a government led political prosecution.

But Anwar had already been speaking ill of government since the days of Adam. The only manner of distinction to his slander came about in Kajang, when he fingered both Najib and Zahid as masterminds. He more or less charged Khalid and PAS of egging and abetting UMNO to sell Pakatan Rakyat down the river.

Now, nothing could have been further from the truth than the notion of a Khalid led conspiracy to destroy Selangor Pakatan Rakyat. As a matter of fact, UMNO Selangor had no reason whatsoever to intrude on the status quo. Rather, they had every reason to champion a ‘Khalid led Pakatan government’ right up to the 14th general elections. But I will come to that a little later on in this ever expanding series that doesn’t seem to want to end.

Anyway, Anwar went on to file an appeal against his conviction, but failed to put the damper on his misfit. He stood in the dock as Justice Arifin Zakat brought the gavel down on a five year jail sentence, which effectively put a spanner in his political career. And just when it appeared that his predicament wouldn’t get any worse, it did.

In what appeared to be a twist of irony, Investigating Officer Jude Pereira took the wraps off an attempt to subvert the presiding judge in the government’s appeal against Anwar’s acquittal. Fresh allegations that surfaced on the 20th of February 2015 told of a possible conspiracy that involved Anwar, MyWatch Chairman Sri Sanjeevan Ramakrishnan and former Inspector General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan. Jude went on to describe how Sanjeevan had promised him that he would “be taken care of should PKR win.”

The drumhead

By the time Langkah Kajang was launched, Anwar had already resorted to hitching Saifuddin’s star in PKR and importuned him to contest the party’s Deputy Presidency against Khalid and Azmin. But Saifuddin turned out to be more the underdog than he was the favourite, which prompted Anwar to cast him another role.

Saifuddin was tasked with blowing Khalid’s seemingly impregnable fortress to bits and putting the damper on the latter’s bid to contest the party’s deputy presidency. Saifuddin didn’t waste much time and went about business with a two pronged approach; to destroy Khalid in the court of public opinion, and to erect barricades that would prevent Khalid adherents from coming out to vote for him. But we’ll dabble on party elections in part 7.

Sometime in August 2014, Saifuddin met a bunch of PAS leaders and attempted to diffuse tensions that had been simmering over Wan Azizah’s proposed candidature for the post of Selangor Menteri Besar. It irked Dato’ Haji Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat and Hadi that Anwar was bent on nominating his wife and no other for the post of Menteri Besar.

When meetings with Nik Aziz and several other PAS leaders failed to summit with consensus, both Saifuddin and Rafizi adduced a dossier they had been working on in confederacy and behind closed doors.

The report was dense with insinuation and innuendo. Nothing substantive was ever offered against Khalid, much less proven. The treatise on Khalid was written in cursory terms that reflected the haste with which Anwar sought to depose of the former.

Through the document, team Anwar dispensed summary justice to Khalid over terms of a debt settlement with Bank Islam and the purchase of four water concessionaires by the Selangor Government. Anwar insinuated doubt over Khalid’s integrity and undertook in a crusade to unmask Khalid for who he ‘truly was’. But we’ll deliberate on the dossier in greater depth come part 6.

All said and done, do you see how complicated things get when a confederacy of loons comes together on the pretext of agreeing to disagree?

To be continued…