Khalid Ibrahim the Popular Outsider

8/11/2019 Khalid Ibrahim the Popular Outsider

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Khalid Ibrahim the 'popular' outsiderhttp://m2.malaysiakini.com/news/270394 11:54AM Aug 2, 2014

COMMENT Some interesting questions to ask in the Selangor MB fiasco

include: Why is Khalid Ibrahim so popular outside PKR/Pakatan Rakyat andso isolated within PKR/Pakatan? Does his unpopularity within the partycontribute to his popularity outside the party?

Is there a publics deep distrust of political parties which benefits Khalidamongst both some opinion leaders and even ordinary people?

I suspect the answers to the last two questions are affirmative. What we arewitnessing may be a legitimacy crisis of political parties amongst the middleground voters.

As a result of one-party rule for decades, political parties are generallyperceived seen as dirty, dangerous or both.

The ruling coalition, BN, becomes synonymous with corruption, cronyism andclientelism while until recently, the opposition stands for detention withouttrials, extremism, and infighting.

Distance from parties and politicians isseen as a virtue in many circles - civil society, religious organisations andacademia. Politics is often portrayed as a realm where the worst of humantraits reveal themselves, as if we are much noble persons in competition for
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money or love.

This impression is partly a legacy of despotism in the past, when humanrights enjoyed no protection and political participation might lead to loss of

life and break-up or even destruction of families. Despising politics in thatsense is a survival mechanism to stay out of trouble.

To put things in perspectives, political parties and politicians are still not heldin high regard in most countries. One reason is politics in modern states arecomplex and the technicalities can be quite off-putting for most people.

More importantly, the complexity of modern states and societies require a lotof compromises to be made in policies and laws.

This makes politics inherently unprincipled and breeds cynicism towardsand contempt of politics. Citizens, especially opinion leaders who areeducated and economically independent from the state, often make fun ofparties and politicians.

The virtue of being 'outsider'

To be more specific, the public who know well they cannot live in anarchythen focus their distrust and disdain for the political system onto to the

insiders and prefer to rally behind outsiders.

Outsiders are cool because they are not entrenched in the system. Oneattraction of these outsiders is their potential to disrupt or even break upthe existing distributional coalitions in the corridor of power.

One such good example is Barack Obama, who rose quickly in nationalpolitics to occupy the White House within four years.

In Japan, a lawyer and former TV personality beat his opponent supported bythe ruling party and the largest opposition party in the 2011 Osaka mayoralelection .

In Taiwan, an outsider surgeon will take on the ruling party KMT candidatein the Taipei mayoral election at the year end.

In India, the strong anti-corruption sentiment even vote in the outsider AamAadmi Party (Common Man Party) to form a minority government in theUnion Territory of Delhi in 2013 which, however, lasted for only 49 days.

Even the newly elected Prime Minister Nerendra Modi claimed himself to be an
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outsider to national politics though he had been a state chief minister since2001.

Many a time, outsiders are from businessbackgrounds, signalling efficiency and reform in stark contrast tobureaucracy.

The most recent example is Indonesias president -elect Joko Wikodo ( left )or Jokowi , who moved from furniture export business to politics, successfullygovern his home town Solo and then Jakarta.

New Yorks ex -mayor Michael Bloomberg , too, is a media tycoon who for manyyears pitted politicians against problem solvers as two different creatures.

Khalid - less Umno than PKR?

One would be tempted to compare Khalid Ibrahim with Michael Bloomberg.Like Bloomberg, Khalid Ibrahim came from a corporate background.

More importantly, in the words of his most articulate defender and formerstaffer Nathaniel Tan in The Star , Khalids ( left ) image is one who stands foreverything that Malaysian politics isnt".

"Politicians on both sides of the spectrum take a very liberal view as to publicfunds. Many feel that these are piggy banks, and that the use of public fundsto further partisan political interests is fully justified.
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This image is partly PKRs own doing . The anti-thesis to Khalid in Selangor has been Azmin Ali ( right ), the mostpowerful warlord in the party who has been accused of even having UmnoDNA.

The aggressive Azmin has no friends in both PAS and DAP but tightly controlsSelangor PKR and was keen to replace Khalid as menteri besar.

In this context, Khalid has been featured as a fighter against corruption andcronyism and the one who can block the advancement of Azmin.

For many, the Kajang Move first appeared as a tactical move to removeKhalid to appease Azmin. Then, it was seen a move for Anwar or whoever hisproxies to break into Selangors state coffers to squander the RM3 billionreserve Khalid had saved over six years.

Through poor communications and disconnection with the public, PKR slowlypitted itself against Khalid, with the party as a mini-Umno full of self-servingpoliticians and the MB as one good man standing up to the old evil.

When Khalid resisted the pressure for him to quit, the stories of his out-of-court settlement with Bank Islam, of his secret water deals with the federalgovernment, of ulterior reasons behind his enthusiastic support for the Kidex

project travelled farther.

Perhaps many in the anti-Khalid camp hope that these allegations wouldmake a case to convince more in Pakatan and also the wider public thatKhalid must go.

They do not realise all these only make Khalid look like a poor scapegoat whois vilified simply for standing his ground on good governance. The moremoralist attacks are levelled against him, the more public sympathy Khalidwould get: This is one good man standing against a corrupt party.
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Otherwise, why praise Khalid when he was needed to check Azmin anddemonise him when he is being pushed out?

It just looks characteristically so Umno: selective persecution of political

enemies.

And for PKR to be accused of resembling or even evolving into the party itwas born to overthrow, it is simply tragic.

Institutional response

Coming back to the thrust of the matter, should Khalid be asked to go? Whycant Selangor have him serve two full terms when New York could haveMichael Bloomberg for four full terms?

Khalid differs from Bloomberg fundamentally in institutional context.

The New York mayor is a presidential chief executive with a personalmandate anyway he liked it and New Yorkers could reward or punish him inthe next elections. He stays in power for full term unless impeached.

In contrast, the menteri besar of Selangor is a parliamentary chief executivewhere the mandate is vested in lawmakers who stand under the party ticket.

Khalid stays in power because he has 44 votes from Pakatan Rakyat in theLegislative Assembly. When they cease to support him, he should make wayfor another person in the coalition.

They dont need even a vote of no -confidence in the House to remove himunless the coalition collapses or party discipline breaks down.

Revolt against a head of parliamentarygovernment - only first among equals - can even be initiated by his/hercabinet colleagues, who are not his/her subordinates but his/her peers,


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potential successors and competitors.

And this may simply be triggered by a drop in popular support.

Thats how Margaret Thatcher lost her job in 1991, the unpopular poll taxand divisions over Europe prompted a leadership challenge to the Britishprime minister by a former minister Michael Heseltine.

She chose to resign after failing to win an outright majority - a lead of 15percent to her rival - among Conservative parliamentarians.

Similarly, in 2010, Australia Prime Minister Kevin Rudd resigned straightawaywhen he was challenged by his deputy Julia Gillard and realised that hecouldnt win the support within Labour parliamentarians.

Gillard had staged the revolt as a controversial mining tax caused the LabourGovernments popularity to plummet.

Did Thatcher or Rudd commit any crime, misconduct or get implicated in anyscandal? No, they didnt. Their only fault was that their leadership was nolonger popular with the public and their party colleagues wanted a newleadership to rescue their electoral fortune.

The anti-Khalid camp should stop the vilification of Khalid without concreteevidence - if they do have evidence, they should reveal it to the public sothat he may be charged and tried.

Instead, their assemblypersons should state clearly why they have lostconfidence in Khalids leadership.

If Khalid has failed to lead them as a team player, if they have fundamentaldisagreement with him over policy issues, if they think that Khalid is toblame for Pakatan Rakyats 35 percent support in Selangor, they should make astrong case publicly and Khalid can make his defence.

Then all Pakatan assemblypersons should vote on his job. And their decisionshould be final. Under the parliamentary system, you stay as a captain onlyfor as long as your teammates recognise you. Cut all the crap.

WONG CHIN HUAT is a member of the multiculturalism research group at the

Penang Institute. He earned his PhD from the University of Essex with athesis on electoral system and party system in peninsula Malaysia.
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Khalid Ibrahim the Popular Outsider