THE REASON KHALID IS ATTACKING THE SULTAN

Anyway, thus far this week there were two out-of-court settlements involving Nurul Izzah Anwar. I hope Nurul’s enemies will not exploit this and accuse her of corruption because, to PKR, out-of-court settlements are evidence of corruption. You cannot settle out of court unless you are crooked.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad took another swipe at His Highness the Sultan of Selangor today. Two days ago, the Selangor PAS youth leader said that the reason PAS went against PKR and DAP by proposing two names for the new Selangor MB was because this is what HRH wanted.

DAP and PKR want just one name. The Sultan wants two names, said the PAS youth leader. Hence PAS proposed two names because the Sultan told PAS President Abdul Hadi Awang to do this.

Today, PAS denied this and said that when Hadi had an audience with HRH, Azmin’s name was never even discussed. So it appears like this was just a smear campaign against HRH.

Some leaders in PAS probably want to drive a wedge between their party and HRH the Sultan. PKR suspects that HRH will not accept a letter from Pakatan Rakyat because there is no such legal entity called Pakatan Rakyat.

Instead, HRH may ask for three letters, one each from PKR, DAP and PAS. And while DAP’s and PKR’s letters will state one name, PAS’ letter would most likely state two names.

Hence if they can get HRH pissed with PAS then HRH might just ignore the letter from PAS.

It is actually quite a good strategy in the event they are worried that PAS will not follow the one-name ‘consensus’ and instead propose two names. The more pissed HRH is with PAS the more likely HRH will not consider the two names from PAS.

Anyway, whether they manage to get HRH pissed with PAS is one thing. The damage done to PAS would be even worse. The internal problems in PAS would just accelerate to the extent that the party might break up — as it has a number of times in the past when Berjasa, Hamim, etc., were formed, not counting those leaders who left PAS to join Umno since the 1980s due to internal conflicts

Every decade or so PAS goes through an internal squabble. Old leaders are purged from the party and Young Turks take over. And every time this happens the party becomes less Islamic and more Secular and Machiavellian.

I suppose eventually we may see PAS as just another carbon copy of Umno as PAS becomes more like Umno and Umno becomes most Islamic. Then, one day, PAS and Umno might just merge and the non-Malays would be left out of mainstream Malaysian politics.

Anyway, thus far this week there were two out-of-court settlements involving Nurul Izzah Anwar. I hope Nurul’s enemies will not exploit this and accuse her of corruption because, to PKR, out-of-court settlements are evidence of corruption. You cannot settle out of court unless you are crooked.

In the meantime, I am sure you are waiting with bated breath for HRH the Sultan’s return on Saturday. Then we will know whether HRH has been intimidated by all the Sultan-bashing in the social media or whether he will put his foot down and tell Anwar to shove it where the sun does not shine.