Here’s a way forward – Noor Farida as PM candidate
Amanah: Harapan needs PM candidate to avoid power struggle
Proarte: After 18 years of cooperation, if Pakatan in its various incarnations cannot form a shadow cabinet, then it has sent a clear message that it cannot work together as a united team.
I don’t believe Muhyiddin Yassin qualifies to be PM, for he is ‘Malay first’ and helms a party that denies Chinese, Indians and ‘others’ equal status. Surely, he cannot be the candidate for the top job in a coalition which espouses ‘reformasi’.
Lim Kit Siang would be the most qualified and deserving but such is the racist and bigoted mindset of the Malay masses weaned on Umno and PAS ‘Ketuanan Melayu dan Islam’ propaganda that Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail would be the best ‘compromise’ candidate for PM.
A shadow cabinet lends cohesiveness to Harapan, a coalition of disparate parties with ostensibly different ideologies and constituencies.
A shadow cabinet can only come about through compromise and shared higher ideals, with a clear notion of the ‘bigger picture’ concerning the well-being of this plural nation and not selfish party or individual interests.
Thirdeye: Indeed, to avoid a struggle for PM position should Pakatan/Bersatu win the next GE, the PM candidate should be pre-determined and agreed upon first.
Whether the chosen candidate is announced before the election or after winning the election should be left to party strategist to deliberate on.
However, a decision should be made in advance. If the leaders of Pakatan and Bersatu cannot even do this, how much confidence do you think it can command from the voters?
Kangkung: If there is going to be a post-election power struggle, then Pakatan should not be the winning coalition in the first place. The rakyat want leaders who are selfless and not corrupt.
Anonymous_1388029052: I propose Khalid Samad to be PM if Pakatan is elected at the next GE. This man is clean, smart, intelligent, courageous and a moderate – acceptable to both Malays and non-Malays and also to Sabahans and Sarawakians.
In my opinion, he is an ideal candidate for the highest post in the country.
6th Generation Immigrant: Everyone and anyone who has been hauled up and trumped up with charges are all potential PMs – Anwar Ibrahim, Lim Guan Eng, Nurul Izzah, Rafizi Ramli, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Maria Chin, a number of bright youths, etc.
Once guilty, you cannot participate in elections, so Umno is aborting you at the fertilisation stage. Start thinking out of the box.
Hang Babeuf: So, what is the ‘way forward’? My suggestion is simple: that all the (sane) opposition leaders and groups and personalities and groupies should get together to make a joint appeal, offer a joint invitation to Group of 25 (G25) leader Noor Farida Ariffin to lead the opposition GE14 slate/team (as the prospective incoming PM if they win).
They should say to her that she needs not and must not join any party, run as any one party’s candidate/member, but as a ‘good government’ independent; and that they will all support her if/when she stands as a widely supported independent candidate in a clearly winnable and strategically significant seat/constituency that none of them (on solemnly given and held undertakings) will contest.
And then start building a new Malaysian politics and a new popular political force around and upon that foundation.
That is the challenge that people should now be putting to Kit Siang, Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and family, to the Parti Amanah Negara pipers, even to Umno (and BN) outcasts/rejects and remaining ‘unhappy campers’, and to everybody else you care to think of.
Find a way forward and take it. Go for it, “Just do it”.
A friend comments: I do hope you’re kidding. Noor Farida as PM? I responded: Strange times demand ‘strange’ measures. Do you have any better ideas/way/proposal for preventing GE14 becoming a shamble and a slaughter – and the death of most of what sane Malaysians still hold dear?
My friend countered: I just don’t think Noor Farida would be the right, nor popular, candidate. And I further replied: Well, in that case, and you may be right, we must think of somebody else, somebody more suitable to play this ‘circuit-breaking’/mould-shattering role.
For my part I would be happy and delighted to see Ambiga Sreenevasan play that role – but I do not think that she now can any more, since she has been so badly stigmatised and ‘branded’ and typecast in the eyes of so many among the general public by ‘the old management’ of ‘Malaysia Farm’.
Kit Siang: ‘World will laugh if Section 124C used on Dr M’
Sa Tombs: Kit Siang, since when did those like the attorney-general or Home Ministry, or even the Mrs and Mr PM, been embarrassed by being the laughing stock of the rest of the world?
They can’t stand Zunar’s truthful cartoons. They are only embarrassed at home because they need the votes. So, they enact and use all the laws to protect and insulate themselves.
The only thing that they care about is, allegedly, lining their own pockets as well as that of their own cronies.
Justine Gow: Mahathir may have set up the scenes for the alleged blatant abuse of power and the astounding level of corruption we now see.
But what distinguishes him from another living ex-PM is that he recognises that the country is heading dangerously in the wrong direction and he is doing something about it.
The Analyser: The Wheel of Hypocrisy turns full circle and the old hypocrite is now defending his once arch enemy against a charge that his party has blatantly flaunted in its own politicking.
At a rough guess, the last thing ‘the world’ will be doing at the moment is laughing at yet another act of rampant stupidity by Malaysians. The rest of the world has more on its plate than to even record your petty little squabbles.
But I got to admit, you have hit or a real election winning strategy here, Lim, old chap. At a rough guess, not more than 10 percent of the voting population could give a damn about what happens to Mahathir.
Plus, a goodly proportion of once DAP supporters would be delighted if your old buddy was put out of action.
Anonymous 1890491455255851: Yes, being a laughing stock doesn’t seem to hinder them from continuously abusing the laws to protect themselves. They have completely lost any sense of right and wrong.
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