The SAPP pointman clears the political minefield for the Pakatan Rakyat army to advance
NST (10/7/08): It is now diaphanously settled that when the Sabah Progressive Party – for all the inflation of its Lilliputian political ambitions – threatened to file a House motion of no-confidence against the Prime Minister on June 23, it surreptitiously acted as a “pointman”, a platoon scouting for the greater army sympathetic to the Sabahans’ anti-Federal grievances, assessing and testing the battleline ahead for landmines, ambushes and potential dangers lurking in the unseen shadows of the national political discord.
The months of Pakatan Rakyat’s teasing and cloying superseding the epiphanous March 8 Polling Day, that they will push the motion for a vote of no-confidence against Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi, has finally ascended, the all-important document submitted by the PR generalissimo to Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia at his Parliament House office at 3.30pm today.
It can be inferred that the SAPP had acted on behalf of Pakatan Rakyat, sauntering about the House and in Sabah with their trash talk that they have the means to file the motion themselves when in reality, they detonated political landmines scattered along the path while searching for the means and ways for PR to slide the motion of such disruptive nature into a genuine political debate instead of creeping about in the gutters of rumour, speculation and promise.
Of course, the Barisan Nasional, with its tremulous majority and a Speaker not known to be generous in allowing motions of such magnitude, will ensure that the motion will be defeated come Monday as soon as Opposition Leader Datin Seri Dr Wan Azizah Ismail finishes her last utterance of her filing, on whatever grounds the Speaker wishes to adduce. The Pakatan Rakyat MPs will no doubt stand chagrined and mewl indignantly towards the Speaker for disallowing a debate on the motion which could lead to a demand for a careful count of hands.
It matters not if the motion filed under Standing Order 18 (1) and (2) can be converted into a main event of a heavyweight contest. Now that the Pakatan Rakyat has taken over battle strategy and operations, the minor tactic of deploying the SAPP is now concluded, the two-MP party nothing more than an irrelevant little fly on the wall. The real issue now is whether PR has succeeded in cajoling the shifty Sabahans into throwing their lot for the Opposition to trigger either a collapse in the BN Government or force the PM to call for a snap general election. Even that is a still a long shot.
MPs had barely survived the “skirt-chasing” incident where a female member of the Press became the news, censured for wearing a skirt deemed risqué, when word spread in the late morning that Dr Wan Azizah will file the motion. Once confirmed, Dr Wan Azizah, resplendent in a green outfit and flanked by the all-male senior chieftains of PKR, DAP and Pas, marched to the Speaker’s office and filed the motion, which reads: “That this honorable House assume a no confidence towards the leadership of the Prime Minister of Malaysia and his Cabinet in carrying out the nation’s administration due to the erosion of the people’s confidence towards the Government’s integrity.”
This time and unlike the SAPP’s insipid overture two weeks ago, this is not a David trying to sneak in a fortuitous slingshot towards Goliath’s head. This time, Goliath will meet his match and the mouth-watering prospects next week of a titanic altercation in the House is real while nationwide awe at such a heady development already reverberating.
In the Press conference minutes later, Dr Wan Azizah repeated the Opposition mantra on why they were hell-bent on filing the emergency motion even though the earlier prospect of such motion was, at best, teasing and cloying. But the way the PR chief characterised the motion was quirky: there is a motion of no confidence against the PM and his Cabinet but the PR is “not” seeking a voting in the process.
“We are not seeking a no-confidence vote,” her refrain went. “We are not hoping for a change in Government but to have our voices heard.” And why now and not, say, weeks before? “Because the situation in the country had worsened. This motion is simply to seek a change within the existing situation,'' she avouched, with half an eyeball acknowledging the immaculate timing of a groundswell of resentment that favoured PR.
At best, the reason for the no-voting process was simply the PR being disingenuous, knowing that a vote plays into the hands of the BN, with their natural 140-82 majority. Right after the March 8 polls, the Opposition scooped an unprecedented haul of 80 parliamentary seats and dented the BN’s two-thirds Parliamentary majority, if not its pride and ego.
From there, the idea of wresting the Federal Government from the BN and forming a brand new Federal powerhouse was a question of scrabbling the numbers of their own 82 against that 140, delicately deducting a disconcerting figure of 30-odd seats that Sabah BN was peddling as political poker ante if their Faustian demands for better Peninsular representation and big budget funding was as good as a Nigerian bank collateral caper.
Then the PM decided to call the Sabahans' bet and allocated huge development funds and other pledges, thus diffusing the PR’s strategy. Then came the debilitating fuel price hike bouncing against the slew of statutory declarations pounding on the BN leadership but alleviated by a sodomy charge against Anwar Ibrahim. However, the moral momentum seemed to pivot to the PR, which tapped a growing unrest in the populace, especially the working class with diminishing purchasing power and a big chunk of beef against the Government.
When Wan Azizah characterised the motion as another step in the Pakatan Rakyat effort to highlight the people’s problems and the motion was how the PR worked within what was allowed by the Parliament's standing orders, she revealed a PR gameplan for the ultimate powerplay. "The people are now faced with several major crises such as high fuel prices, increasing cost of food and basic necessities, eroding public confidence in the police, attorney general and the judiciary, and the increase in crime and corruption," she revealed.
Then came her nominal slash and burn of alleged BN improprieties – polls won through manipulation, backing out of its election manifesto of not increasing fuel prices and brushing aside the five PR states as “stepchildren”, threats against BN MPs who criticised "irresponsible" behaviour of the coalition's leadership. That the PR is using the motion within the realm of democracy, as admitted by Dr Wan Azizah, is another indulgent move in the bigger scheme of things, the people’s suffering a convenient prop in the PR’s “movie-making” endeavour.
If you were a betting person, you could distinguish the filing of the motion today as another ante upped in a long-running political poker game, the table money mountainous. Nevertheless, the crucial stakes on the table are very deceiving: Pakatan Rakyat may be holding the best hand but they may not necessarily win everything. The house of BN still looks to possess the toughest “poker face” and the ballsiest nerve to counter with a bigger bet that could either regain its losses…or break the bank.
The months of Pakatan Rakyat’s teasing and cloying superseding the epiphanous March 8 Polling Day, that they will push the motion for a vote of no-confidence against Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi, has finally ascended, the all-important document submitted by the PR generalissimo to Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia at his Parliament House office at 3.30pm today.
It can be inferred that the SAPP had acted on behalf of Pakatan Rakyat, sauntering about the House and in Sabah with their trash talk that they have the means to file the motion themselves when in reality, they detonated political landmines scattered along the path while searching for the means and ways for PR to slide the motion of such disruptive nature into a genuine political debate instead of creeping about in the gutters of rumour, speculation and promise.
Of course, the Barisan Nasional, with its tremulous majority and a Speaker not known to be generous in allowing motions of such magnitude, will ensure that the motion will be defeated come Monday as soon as Opposition Leader Datin Seri Dr Wan Azizah Ismail finishes her last utterance of her filing, on whatever grounds the Speaker wishes to adduce. The Pakatan Rakyat MPs will no doubt stand chagrined and mewl indignantly towards the Speaker for disallowing a debate on the motion which could lead to a demand for a careful count of hands.
It matters not if the motion filed under Standing Order 18 (1) and (2) can be converted into a main event of a heavyweight contest. Now that the Pakatan Rakyat has taken over battle strategy and operations, the minor tactic of deploying the SAPP is now concluded, the two-MP party nothing more than an irrelevant little fly on the wall. The real issue now is whether PR has succeeded in cajoling the shifty Sabahans into throwing their lot for the Opposition to trigger either a collapse in the BN Government or force the PM to call for a snap general election. Even that is a still a long shot.
MPs had barely survived the “skirt-chasing” incident where a female member of the Press became the news, censured for wearing a skirt deemed risqué, when word spread in the late morning that Dr Wan Azizah will file the motion. Once confirmed, Dr Wan Azizah, resplendent in a green outfit and flanked by the all-male senior chieftains of PKR, DAP and Pas, marched to the Speaker’s office and filed the motion, which reads: “That this honorable House assume a no confidence towards the leadership of the Prime Minister of Malaysia and his Cabinet in carrying out the nation’s administration due to the erosion of the people’s confidence towards the Government’s integrity.”
This time and unlike the SAPP’s insipid overture two weeks ago, this is not a David trying to sneak in a fortuitous slingshot towards Goliath’s head. This time, Goliath will meet his match and the mouth-watering prospects next week of a titanic altercation in the House is real while nationwide awe at such a heady development already reverberating.
In the Press conference minutes later, Dr Wan Azizah repeated the Opposition mantra on why they were hell-bent on filing the emergency motion even though the earlier prospect of such motion was, at best, teasing and cloying. But the way the PR chief characterised the motion was quirky: there is a motion of no confidence against the PM and his Cabinet but the PR is “not” seeking a voting in the process.
“We are not seeking a no-confidence vote,” her refrain went. “We are not hoping for a change in Government but to have our voices heard.” And why now and not, say, weeks before? “Because the situation in the country had worsened. This motion is simply to seek a change within the existing situation,'' she avouched, with half an eyeball acknowledging the immaculate timing of a groundswell of resentment that favoured PR.
At best, the reason for the no-voting process was simply the PR being disingenuous, knowing that a vote plays into the hands of the BN, with their natural 140-82 majority. Right after the March 8 polls, the Opposition scooped an unprecedented haul of 80 parliamentary seats and dented the BN’s two-thirds Parliamentary majority, if not its pride and ego.
From there, the idea of wresting the Federal Government from the BN and forming a brand new Federal powerhouse was a question of scrabbling the numbers of their own 82 against that 140, delicately deducting a disconcerting figure of 30-odd seats that Sabah BN was peddling as political poker ante if their Faustian demands for better Peninsular representation and big budget funding was as good as a Nigerian bank collateral caper.
Then the PM decided to call the Sabahans' bet and allocated huge development funds and other pledges, thus diffusing the PR’s strategy. Then came the debilitating fuel price hike bouncing against the slew of statutory declarations pounding on the BN leadership but alleviated by a sodomy charge against Anwar Ibrahim. However, the moral momentum seemed to pivot to the PR, which tapped a growing unrest in the populace, especially the working class with diminishing purchasing power and a big chunk of beef against the Government.
When Wan Azizah characterised the motion as another step in the Pakatan Rakyat effort to highlight the people’s problems and the motion was how the PR worked within what was allowed by the Parliament's standing orders, she revealed a PR gameplan for the ultimate powerplay. "The people are now faced with several major crises such as high fuel prices, increasing cost of food and basic necessities, eroding public confidence in the police, attorney general and the judiciary, and the increase in crime and corruption," she revealed.
Then came her nominal slash and burn of alleged BN improprieties – polls won through manipulation, backing out of its election manifesto of not increasing fuel prices and brushing aside the five PR states as “stepchildren”, threats against BN MPs who criticised "irresponsible" behaviour of the coalition's leadership. That the PR is using the motion within the realm of democracy, as admitted by Dr Wan Azizah, is another indulgent move in the bigger scheme of things, the people’s suffering a convenient prop in the PR’s “movie-making” endeavour.
If you were a betting person, you could distinguish the filing of the motion today as another ante upped in a long-running political poker game, the table money mountainous. Nevertheless, the crucial stakes on the table are very deceiving: Pakatan Rakyat may be holding the best hand but they may not necessarily win everything. The house of BN still looks to possess the toughest “poker face” and the ballsiest nerve to counter with a bigger bet that could either regain its losses…or break the bank.
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