In exploiting the Selangor Constitution that plays to his tactical advantage in seizing the power of governance, Selangor Menteri Besar Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim seems to make things up as they go along, creating unprecedented turmoil, cheered and resented by supporters and detractors.
For the next two months, Khalid’s newfangled belligerence will be deployed in the name of the sultan of Selangor, who did consent to his “Lone Ranger” machismo while snubbing desperate pleas by PKR de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and president Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Ismail for an urgent audience.
Even as Khalid jettisoned his exco of three DAP and PKR representatives each while retaining the minimal four Pas assemblymen, Khalid’s political attrition might still be unfinished — his chess-cum-poker game will demand that the next to be cast overboard is anyone remotely linked to PKR and DAP.
Soon to walk the plank is Anwar as state economic adviser, Khalid’s erstwhile boss in PKR, and chairmen, chief executives, directors, general managers, senior officials and local councillors backed or sponsored by DAP and PKR in government-linked companies, city and town councils and district offices.
Not to put a fine point to it and depending on how the thesaurus is applied to define this witch hunt, it has been and will be a massacre, the likes never before seen or experienced and perhaps never will again.
Khalid gets to weaken the resistance at least until the Selangor assembly sits in November when PKR, DAP and perhaps a few Pas rebel state legislature members would be able to file a motion of no-confidence to finally stop the madness.
Khalid’s path is treacherous: he is being deconstructed and vilified by former political colleagues who, after realising that the Constitution checkmated them, hurled moral, spiritual and gentlemanly clauses they hoped might prick Khalid’s conscience and prompt him to resign. No can do.
Dr Wan Azizah’s declaration that contrary to the numbers Khalid crunched, she averred that he doesn’t command the majority of assembly representatives.
Other than the 13 PKR and 15 DAP reps who opposed the MB, two Pas reps have thrown in their lot with the axis, making it a 30-25 majority (the vote of Speaker Hannah Yeoh, the DAP representative for Subang Jaya, is neutral and can’t be included).
This is awkward: Pas had been fuelling Khalid’s machismo streak, risking the disintegration of the axis and yet two of their own broke rank.
Pas Hulu Kelang and Morib assemblymen Saari Sungib and Hasnul Baharuddin appeared with Dr Wan Azizah at yesterday’s press conference, implying that Pas is creating a rift between the elders and young pro-Anwar rebels.
Pas elders, party president Datuk Seri Hadi Awang, spiritual leader Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, and their powerful Syura Council in particular, have solidly backed Khalid on their grievance that Dr Wan
Azizah, as MB, is a disturbing proxy of her husband, whom Pas has blackballed as prime minister-designate.
Thirty members be damned. Khalid has wised up to all of the imploring. Besides, he sees himself unaffected by the PKR-DAP’s numbers game, which still has to be translated into a vote of no-confidence, and will not arrive any time soon when the
Constitution and the sultan’s consent arm him with the legal fortification to continue as MB.
Now that his exco has six vacancies, all Khalid has to do is fill them up with Pas representatives and if the word is true that Pas is already processing Khalid’s membership, the spectre of an all Selangor Pas government is becoming a gobsmacked reality, a prospect that hyperventilates Selangor voters.
Still, voters are not about to sanction Khalid’s obnoxious power play against the axis as a fait accompli.
It won’t be long before voters demand a snap election to recalibrate the skewed political alignment back to a multi-party administration, not one monopolised by Pas.
Perhaps Khalid did Malaysians a favour by giving a sneak peek to a degenerate PKR-DAP-Pas Federal Government roiling in a dysfunctional heap of power-hungry narcissists, egotists and egoists who’d rather scorch the earth than opt for a pragmatic solution to resolve the impasse.
To be fair to Khalid, his mulish motivation for this search-and-destroy mission could be conscientious, the only way to clean up Selangor of tinpot projects and dubious financial windfalls that exposes Pakatan’s nepotism and cronyism afflicting the richest state in Malaysia.
