Anwar Ibrahim - Time to abandon ambitions to be PM? New candidate? If ousted, will new government fulfil REFORMASI promises?

Anwar Ibrahim, is it time for him to abandon his dream to be Prime Minister? Maybe what we need is for some new Prime Ministerial candidate from amongst the now elected MPs for the Opposition?

Not every former Deputy Prime Minister should be the BEST choice for Prime Minister. It is sad that people have no say in who will be Prime Minister - it is left to the elected Members of Parliament to decide.

Anwar's past contributions we may appreciate, but the desire of advancing Anwar as a future PM may not be shared by the majority of Malaysians. Within his own party, many do not want him to be PM - did that not influence many of the PKR MPs and ADUNs leaving? There was much sympathy about the way that Anwar was 'expelled' from UMNO in 1998 - but the REFORMASI protests was about so many different issues that people were unhappy about the then government. After release, when Anwar went around, many came out to see him - but subsequent visits saw a much reduced crowd.

Unlike Mahathir and Kit Siang, who writes and speaks up regularly on the various issues affecting Malaysia, Anwar sadly failed to do so. Anwar(after expulsion from UMNO), in his speeches highlights 'wrongdoings' - but what is missing is his proposal/ideas of what he would do differently. Anwar seems to be upset about premiership of Mahathir - but really, what exactly was wrong - what actions/ommissions were criticized with concrete alternatives proposed. Difficult to find? The only issue that people remember was that he wanted Mahathir to hand over the premiership to him fast...

NOW, the priority for the Opposition should be a return to power > which means showing that PM Muhyiddin does no longer enjoy majority support, and that some other does...Remember, when they last met the King, only the remaining MPs in PKR and MPs in DAP and Amanah seems to support Anwar as the Prime Minister > that simply is not enough. 

So, maybe the BEST solution is for the Opposition to advance a NEW candidate for Prime Minister - he/she needs to be a good principled person who will not just TALK but also do.

UNHAPPINESS WITH PAKATAN HARAPAN.

Many Malaysians were not very happy when suddenly the Pakatan Harapan government was ousted from power, by a NEW 'coalition' now known as the 'Perikatan Nasional' as a result of 'party hopping' of MPs out of PH - and what angered many was the return of UMNO-BN back into power.

Although the unhappiness level against PH had been growing, brought about the various U-turns on promises or the unexplained delay in making good the promises. Many were willing to give a CHANCE to see whether the promises made before were going to be fulfilled before the next GE. Many were looking forward to the restoration of a democratically elected local government - which the then PH Minister said will happen by 2021(interestingly, she remains the Minister still in the new PN government]

Unhappiness with the PH government also included 

- The similar 'special preference' to government MPs in the additional allocation of OUR monies. It was always criticized when BN MPs received millions annually to be spend for their constituency, whilst the Opposition did not. When in power, PH simply followed that criticized practice of BN...WHY? People freely chose their MP, and why should any Constituency be DISCRIMINATED against simply because they chose an MP, not in parties that support the incumbent party? [Of course, my position is that money to be used for the good and welfare of people(constituents) is best done by the relevant government departments/agencies - not MPs or ADUNs. For MPs, there must be allocation of funds to cover rental and utility bills of service centers, staff, etc ...and it should flow from the government - maybe their staff be made 'temporary' public servants...]

- The 2nd issue of concern was the 'political appointments' of 'politicians', including sitting MPs and ADUNs as Chairman's, Directors of government agencies, government owned companies and GLCs.

- Despite raising the point of being 'overpaid' with regard to some public servants, CEO/Directors of GLCs, etc > nothing changed, and most likely all the PH political appointees continued to receive very high wages [As a principle, no public servant, government owned or GLC CEO, Directors, Staff...should be earning more than an MP or a Minister or the Prime Minister]. How much is the salary of the CEO of Malaysian Airlines? Petronas? ..

- And the major disappointment was non-fulfilment with the Election Promises - bad laws that ought to have been REPEALED still remain, even the draconian Peaceful Assembly Act remains - where police still have powers to restrict numbers and impose all kinds of conditions, where we still cannot have an assembly in Dataran Merdeka unless DBKL says 'YES',...

Current Anger - People wanted to give PH at least a term, and they certainly did not want BN to be back in power

THAT UNHAPPINESS about PH being made clear, most people wanted to give them the chance of a single term in government to show us what they can do... so, many were UNHAPPY and remain unhappy at the change of government ...

DISAPPOINTMENT now is HIGH because for many, there seems to be NO ALTERNATIVE in sight after experiencing PH governance of Malaysia ...Between BN and PH, the PH parties are the BEST OF THE WORST...that we have now.

TRUE, when PH came into power, there was much EXPOSE of the wrongdoings during the BN rule and action was taken like the cases concerning 1MDB, SRC and corruption and wrongdoings in other agencies, companies...and, now hopefully, this new PN government will EXPOSE the wrongdoings done when PH was in power...

GOVERNMENT CHANGE - WHO TO BLAME? MAHATHIR? ANWAR?

It all started with the RESIGNATION of Mahathir. His reasons was simply that he had lost the confidence of the majority of MPs following the leaving of Muhyiddin and his BERSATU MPs plus Azmin and his gang of 11 MPs. TRUE or not > was there still not sufficient MPs remaining in PH and friendly parties, which at time included the Sarawak MPs as well?

The 2nd reason advanced was possibly when he, as Chairman of BERSATU, was having problems when BERSATU Central leadership decided to leave PH made it untenable for him to continue to be Prime Minister of the PH government. Well, again, the fact that his party leaving PH may not be a very good reason - for what keeps someone as the PM is whether he enjoys the confidence of the majority of the MPs..

Mahathir wanted to be SURE that he still had the support of the majority - here lies the problem. He could have simply not resigned, and made a determination then without RESIGNING, could he not?

The ISSUE that may have caused all this may be Anwar Ibrahim's impatience to be the Prime Minister - which obviously did not even get the support of many of the then PH MPs. In any event, any agreement that Mahathir after a time passes the Premiership to Anwar was also unconstitutional - because whether WHO becomes a Prime Minister depends on whether the individual MP has the support of the majority of the MPs.

THEN, the King met with the MPs to decide which candidate had the majority support to be appointed Prime Minister.

At that time, many Malaysians were confident that Mahathir will be back as Prime Minister - given the fact that the PH parties(DAP, Amanah and PKR) also said that they will support Mahathir as Prime Minister > which would have meant that the PH led government(less some BERSATU MPs) will be back in power.

Then, the 'SHOCKER' when the PH parties almost towards the end of the process came out and said that their MPs had named Anwar Ibrahim as their Prime Minister candidate ...

End result, Muhyiddin Yassin and the PN(UMNO-BN and PAS, some BERSATU MPs, plus several party hopping ex-PKR MPs) became government..

Then, after the King issued the letter of appointment and before the formal ceremony, the PH parties had a change of mind, and they put forward a list of 114 MPs having the confidence that Mahathir be Prime Minister. Within hours, 2 on the list disputed vide a video...then ...the list was questionable > The King was not keen to meet any other contender after his appointment and before the ceremony...

Of course, thereafter, if Mahathir had the support of the majority - automatically, Muhyiddin will have to resign > but then nothing happened...only statements that a vote of no confidence will be voted in the upcoming Parliament..

Now, any vote of confidence to effectively succeed must be supported by at least 112 Members of Parliament - so, if that number is not achieved, then nothing changes..Nothing will happen even if the vote of no-confidence is successful but just 110 MPs voted for it...If 112 MPs come out personally and publicly(maybe on TV), and say they have lost  confidence in Muhyiddin, and have confidence on Mahathir - that is it, is it not...Muhyiddin will be forced to RESIGN, would he not...

Does Anwar have the needed support to be Prime Minister ever?

Many now really want UMNO-BN out of government more than they want Muhyiddin not to be Prime Minister. 

Even after PH was ousted, have Anwar really been critical of things done(or not done) by the PN government - the only concern of not just Anwar, but many of the past PH government MPs have been about 'back door government' ..., has it not?

Today, as it stands, the only serious Prime Minister contender may be Mahathir...or maybe, we will see some other NAME emerging. 

IF PAKATAN HARAPAN AND FRIENDS MANAGE TO OUST MUHYIDDIN AND HIS PN GOVERNMENT, THEN, WILL WE SEE REAL REFORMS including the abolition of draconian laws, including SOSMA and the removal of unjust provisions from Societies Act, University and University Colleges Act(UUCA), Trade Union laws, Labour laws,...or will it simply just be NEW FACES in government?