Wan Azizah Remains PKR President, Temporarily

For The Record:

Incumbent Parti Keadilan Rakyat Datin Seri Wan Azizah Ismail has said she would remain in the top post of the party only until her husband, DS Anwar Ibrahim could take over once the time-bar of five years runs its course in April 2008.

She also was quoted by malaysiakini.com this afternoon as saying that “I am the de jure president and Anwar is de facto president … People will understand my predicament that I am in politics by accident.”

The sole PKR Member of Parliament (Permatang Pauh) retained her post as PKR president after contenders Anwar and former party treasurer Abdul Rahman Othman pulled out.

PKR election committee head William Leong officially announced Wan Azizah’s new three-year term at 3.10pm at a school in Seremban, where the party’s second election and fourth congress were held, malaysiakini reported.

DESIDERATA: Is happy to note the "big hearted" way Abdul Rahman decided to withdraw in the spirit of preserving party solidarity. Had a contest proceeded one-to-one with the incumbent President, there would have been ill feelings created between the supporters of the two camps, a situation the 9-year-old party can ill-afford with General Elections expected to be called before April 2008. (Then BN president would thus prevent Anwar's contest in the 12th GE as his time bar would still be a stumbling block to Anwar's active politics participation, the same hurdle preventing his contest for the PKR presidency this morning.)

That Anwar would still lead the Opposition charge against the BN in the forthcoming general elections is never in doubt for at trhe moment, he is the only Opposition leader with the clout and stature to act as a rallying for the three main parties -- PKR, PAS and DAP -- to give some semblance of a united front.

The issue of urgency that Anwar/Wan Azizah need to address is to bridge the Islamic dogma-centred PAS and the Chinese-dominated DAP which is now holding the largest number of MP seats after the March 2004 GE, with its Chairman Lim Kit Siang sitting pretty as Opposition Leader. Anwar would have to "sell" his party's newly-minted National Economic Agenda (NEA) to the whole nation, and it would be the Malay consituency who needs the most convincing that the NEA would be a better alternative to the NEP (New Economic Policy) that the big brother in the 14-member BN coalition , UMNO, has been relentlessly championing for more than three decades.

Would Anwar be able to truly convince the non-Malay constuencies that he truly had abandoned UMNO politics to progress a different agenda based on economic needs, not on race, religion or colour?

Malaysia enters a critical phase of electoral contest soon with progressive ideas and programmes that PKR spearheads, trying to dethrone entrenched decades-long policies much maligned by the general populace as being blatantly abuised by UMNOputras, widening the gulf between the rich and the have-nots. The globalisation monster has made countries borderless and Malaysia cannot forever depend on its oil resources to buttress its sliding competitiveness and protected interests against global trends.

Desi prays that innovative thinking and decency wins over olde thinking and corrupt ways. I pray not for myself but for Malaysia, NegaraKu, which I love. In fact most Malaysians -- save the corrupt oners who stash their ill-gotten gains through illegal ways and means -- are patriotic to this Lucky Country. We must not allow the delinquent minority to continue to plunder the nation's resources at the expense of the long-suffering "silent" majority. God save us from the wayward ones who rob and plunder in the Steal of the Malaysina moonlit night.

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