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YOURSAY | Time for PKR to be the change they want to see

This article is 3 years old

YOURSAY | ‘Let it be a civil contest and may the best team win.’

COMMENT | PKR needs internal reformasi before it loses crown jewel S'gor

PKR Youth dismisses fears of faction wars in upcoming party polls

YellowKancil0051: PKR seems to have a toxic culture which shows as their leaders seem to play a zero-sum game. We see infighting and clamouring for top spots based on personalities and egos more than ideas.

Former PKR leaders, International Trade and Industry Minister Azmin Ali and Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin, and their followers were products of this culture.

PKR president Anwar Ibrahim needs to take responsibility for such a culture as well as his own failures since 2018.

The change in leadership needs to occur pronto before PKR loses all its goodwill with voters. New leaders need to take big measures to change the culture in PKR and promote credible leaders based on merit.

There should be cooperation and collaboration within PKR and not the backbiting PKR has been so famous for.

RedHare6047: It is true - less finger-pointing and more action and implementation.

Talk is easy, anyone can do it. Tell us the solution or at least how you're going to go about it and then follow it up with action.

Vent: Spot on, Malaysiakini writer Martin Vengadesan, but who will let it all go or even go?

The party will regenerate by itself when Anwar goes. If he stays and the party will self-destruct. It's as simple as that. But who in this hopeless party will bell the cat? Certainly not Rafizi Ramli.

Permatang Pauh MP Nurul Izzah Anwar? Lembah Pantai MP Fahmi Fadzil?

Let's stop the charade. PKR cannot rejuvenate itself with that dithering pseudo-intellectual wannabes still holding the reins. There are none so blind as those who will not see.

And none in PKR can see. So I'm not pinning my hopes on Pakatan Harapan when there is no 'harapan' (hope) with the weakest link, PKR, still battling the windmills and blaming everything and everyone but its leader.

BlueJaguar0861: The Sheraton Move was a significant setback for Anwar. No one should trust the traitor (Azmin) who initiated the move that broke the trust people had in Anwar and PKR.

Rafizi and Nurul must revive that trust. No one will ever trust Azmin anymore. All Malaysians must come together as one and remove all corrupted politicians.

The Wakandan: “This does not mean that Malay voters are any more racist than others, as all are guilty in roughly equal measures of racism.”

True. This is the hard talk. There are not many multiracial countries in the world with different ethnic groups practising their culture, language and religion distinctly. In this sense, Malaysia is rather unique.

Politics is always to garner support and the easiest way to do that in Malaysia is for each race to appeal to its own race. Any others come second.

There is no perfect formula but our forefathers in their simple way saw fit to form parties that mirrored this. Different parties for the different races then formed a coalition or an alliance.

Thus, we had Umno, MCA and MIC respectively for the three major races in Malaya. That seemed to work, for a while at least.

However, the dominant party began to up the ante, to get more support and benefit. Then things began to get awry. That’s what we have today.

PKR tried to do away with racial politics. They can only be supported by the minority races who lost out in a racial party system and the dominant race (Malays) who saw its failure. As long as that holds true, PKR would still get their support.

However, once that status quo is shifted, then by the same token, the support would be lost too.

PKR’s feature has shifted because Anwar changed his outlook in order to cater for the support of the dominant race. He flirted with the usual racism and religious factors.

Currently, more importantly, both factors – PKR multiracial appeal and BN’s failure – are not there anymore. The pre-GE14 scenario is less conspicuous now.

That’s the reason PKR lost its relevance, and both the Malays and the non-Malays began to abandon them.

PKR needs to find its essence back. And I agree with the writer, Martin. It can start with a change in leadership or at least in its policies.

Just A Malaysian: Selangor under PKR is not any better. Where I live, the trees and grass contractors were on strike for three months because the state did not pay their dues. Town centres were dirty and messy.

Compared that to Penang, the management all the way down to the local council is efficient, smart and clean.

PKR is just another Umno using multiracialism as a selling point. Buck up PKR or you will end up as a party with only one seat in Permatang Pauh.

Headhunter: Let the PKR polls be a civil contest and may the best team win. With Azmin and his traitorous gang out of the picture, there is no reason why it should not be a friendly contest.

PKR still have time to reverse its poor image if it shows unity. Every political party has opposing camps but it's how they present themselves during and after elections that matters.


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