OCTOBER 8 — Is PKR desperate, a desperado, or just doing the Despacito?

Maybe too busy on the political dance floor to notice the music was cut aeons ago.

Hard to say reading their disco moves.

From the outside, it looks like the party has gone loco.

Kamarudin Jaffar, Steven Choong and Edmund Santhara have been reinstated as members.

As of September 27, thanks to the central leadership council.

If those names don't ring a bell, that's absolutely fine.

Not exactly giants of contemporary Malaysian politics.

Their claim to fame is infamy.

Kamarudin and Edmund Santhara walked out in the Sheraton Move of February 2020, which brought down the Pakatan Harapan government duly elected less than two years earlier.

Choong followed a year later, propping up Muhyiddin Yassin as an "independent" while keeping a seat PKR had won for him.

And now all three are back, in the warm motherly embrace of the party.

What the fish!

Some will deem it a pragmatic act by a prime minister taking intermittent sniper fire.

I call it a party bereft of ideas and now has undeniably hurt its own chances at GE16.

The unfanciful observation disquiets all: has PKR slid closer to Umno or Bersatu, truly worshippers of Machiavellian machinations, bent on seats therefore power over principles.

Buying players past sell-by dates

Glance at their CVs and one risks being duped.

Kamarudin is an old hand.

He has been in politics since the 1970s, worked with Anwar in ABIM, went to Umno, then rose through PAS after Reformasi to become its secretary-general.

He won five general elections: four in Tumpat and then Bandar Tun Razak in 2018.

Santhara was a corporate man before he was a politician, as CEO of Masterskills.

He ran as an independent in 2013 at Hulu Selangor and lost badly, then joined PKR and rose quickly to deputy treasurer.

He won Segamat for the party in 2018 and later served as deputy minister under both Muhyiddin and Ismail Sabri.

Choong worked the ground in Johor, lost Tebrau in 2013 and won it in 2018.

On paper, three people with experience.

In reality, the opposite holds.

Kamarudin lost Bandar Tun Razak in 2022 as a Perikatan Nasional candidate.

Santhara did not even contest GE15.

Choong ran for DUN Puteri Wangsa in 2022 under Parti Bangsa Malaysia and lost his deposit.

Kamaruddin can say he brings political nous as a former PAS national leader.

But his era appears over.

He turns 75 next month.

He can't win in Kelantan, despite four prior victories there because this time he has to overcome his old party, PAS.

Cynically, one dare suggest he won four times because he was a PAS candidate.

And, he may win in Kuala Lumpur using the PKR logo at Bandar Tun Razak, but that would be PKR endowing him a gift rather than him lifting the party.

Edmund Santhara is unknown outside his residence which many feel is New Zealand and Steven Choong brings rigour but not glamour.

So, what is the point?

Et tu, Brute?

The central issue remains, how does PKR forgive those who tried to bring it down?

Tian Chua I can process.

He is a genuine Reformasi veteran whose falling-out with the leadership — primarily Anwar — led him down the wrong road, all the way to contesting against his own party.

He did not sell out to the party’s enemies in the aftermath.

He is a one-party man.

These three are different.

Anwar, of all people, should be furious with Kamarudin, a fellow ABIM man who treated the struggle as a stepping stone for himself and spited Anwar.

Are PKR members the better from these readmissions?

That they experienced trying years after the 2020 ouster, thanks to these frogs’ greed, and now are expected to change their minds and work with them heading to GE16?

It’s insane.

It stupefies.

Alarmingly, so few in the leadership questioned it, objected, or told Anwar that a party without principles is not a party but an election-winning machine.

It also sets a precedent.

Why wouldn't more politicians change colours with the season, when opportunities absent of principles are presented to them, if PKR has shown it will forgive them later?

Then there is the money.

All three signed PKR's 2018 bond, which makes elected representatives liable for RM10 million if they jump ship.

PKR is in court right now pursuing Edmund Santhara and Kamarudin for that sum.

The party spuriously argues the bond is a separate matter, even if the gentlemen are readmitted as members.

Eh?

You demand RM10 million from these men in court, who ostensibly prefer not to pay, and then turn around to the members and remind them they are priceless leaders?

When secretary-general Fuziah Salleh sits across from them, does she ask about their latest party work, or about the payment outstanding?

The heat is on

The push factors are evident.

Rafizi Ramli and Nik Nazmi have left to lead Parti Bersama Malaysia.

Former Subang MP Wong Chen has joined them.

I suspect former Petaling Jaya MP Lee Chean Chung is just waiting for the right moment to say he has done the same.

Nurul Izzah Anwar tried to resign as deputy president and was talked into an open-ended leave instead.

The people expected to lead PKR's next generation are leaving.

However, do the older faces change the party's fortunes?

Here is another scenario.

If Bersama keeps losing deposits, as it did in Johor, will PKR quickly reopen the door to Rafizi, Nik Nazmi and Wong too?

After all, PKR is a party with selective amnesia.

At the PKR National Congress in Melaka on August 15, Anwar apologised and pleaded: otai-otai, baliklah.

Return to the path of the struggle.

I doubt many delegates in that hall pictured this as the outcome.

So, who's next?

Azmin Ali?

The almost forgotten, voters

There is one thing almost nobody in PKR seems to be asking: what will ordinary voters make of this, and how will they vote?

Will the return of Kamarudin and Santhara warm anyone's heart?

More likely, voters under 40 won't recognise them.

What they already believe is that no party has principles.

They have watched Umno in Negeri Sembilan and PAS cutting Bersatu loose, and concluded that every party is the same, chasing short-term returns.

Now PKR looks the same too, willing to take back those who lied to it and betrayed it.

If PKR is not careful, voters at GE16 will treat the ballot like a roll of the dice, picking randomly, since it’s becoming impossible to tell the parties apart.

That’s undesirable, for PKR and Pakatan Harapan.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.