PKR Deputy President Calls On Youth Wings to Buck Up

By YL Chong

Seremban, Friday: Deputy Parti Keadilan Rakyat deputy president Dr Syed Husin Ali today called on the Wanita and Pemuda Youth Wings to get their acts together so that they are prepared to gain greater electoral success as the next General Elections (12th) would be expected to be called by end of this year or early 2008.

Three attributes in mindset change he called on the youth to strive for were:

* discard feudal/authoritarian thinking, where leaders deem themselves as beyong question, and "macai" say things that the leaders like to hear, ignoring the real challenges and weaknesses facing the party; Husin said followers within PKR should not owe or swear"blind loyalty" to any leaders.

** change the materialistic mindset -- a culture well entrenched in the BN-UMNO culture which must never be allowed to enter the PKR which is stribing for Change. Hence, the divisions were told not to expect "funds" to be channelled to them before they could activate programmes to promote the party's agenda based on justice for society and the Rakyat's welfare; Husin said it was the UMNO's way to practise money politics to maintain power and enable a small group to continue to rob the nation's riches;

*** Maintain and promte party discipline as well as at the individual level. There are rules and regulations government party discipline, and any leaders who breached discipline should be dealt with firmly. He cited the example of party leaders who were insincere by publicising private dissent and making wild allegations, especially highlighted by the UMNO-controlled media.

While the party encouraged healthy competition for party posts, he cautioned about cliques formation and party leaders going public to the media with ungrounded allegations -- acts which would be used by the Barisan Nasional, especialy UMNO, to use as ammunition against the 10-year-old party. He urged that such element and those playing "BN-style" money politics to grab party positions to just "say goodbye and leave the party".

Dr Husin was speaking when opening the 4th Annual Congress of Pemuda PKR at the Chung Hua High School this morning in Seremban, to be followed the next two days by the Party Congress which would see an interesting contest for the top post between incumbent Datin Seri Wan Azizah Ismail, sole PKR MP for Permatang Pau, her husband Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, and former PKR Treasurer Abdul Rahman Othman. Othman contens that Anwar is "not eligible" to contest as the former DPM's bar from active politics ends only in April 2008.

Husin also warned that the next General Elections would see the BN paries emply the same "dirty" tactics as they used in the recnt Ijok by-election, where the 3Ms -- Money, Machinery and Media -- were used in a concentrated way to overwhelm the Opposition.

He stressed that a fourth M which PKR would likeown members, and the community at latrge especially the youth, not to fall victim to the ways of the Barisan Nasona leaders, who wish to see the young fettered to shallow diversions like entertainment, and kept in the dark about national issues like Corruption, Power Abuse by the Elections Commission and Police (as evidenced in aiding the BN during recent Machap and Ipok by-elections), and the continued practice of Cronyism and Nepotism to create a situiation where the gap between the rich and poor and have-nots is widened further.


It is "Time For Change", Husin said to applause by the delegates, the theme of the party's current congress which should see many new faces to take the aprty to face the next General elections. Party Adviser over the next two days will be expected to expound in greater detail on the party's newly adopted National Economic Agenda -- based on economic needs, not on race -- that has been proposed to replace thmuch maligned and BN-abused National Economic Policy since 1970.