AUG 17 — The forum held by Pakatan to condemn the CIQ toll implemented on 1 August failed miserably without achieving any political gain for the organiser and the speakers alike.

The forum held at Good Hope Hotel Johor Bahru were attended by star speakers — Tony Pua and Rafizi Ramli. Just like the malaise affecting Pakatan Rakyat in Selangor, this disease has spread south as can be seen from the forum.

The organisers were thrilled initially when they saw a huge turnout of about 100 people in the seminar room but that excitement in the eyes of the organisers and speakers soon turned to gloom.

The most evident missing from the line up was Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad, head of PAS think tank. It seems that to Dr Dzulkefly and PAS, this forum is a waste of time compared to the D-Day on August 17 where PAS Central Committee will decide on the fate and future of Pakatan Rakyat haggling on who to become Selangor Mentri Besar.

A PAS local leader, Haji Dzulkifli appeared instead in the event as a token replacement for Dr Dzulkefly in a faint attempt by Pakatan to show a multi racial front against the toll.

Johor state opposition leader, Dr Boo Cheng Hau, the prime mover for this event will definitely be gone hiding in his cave in Skudai after an initial 100 people in the forum turned to just 20, an hour after the forum began.

However, the most obvious is the missing of the 3 DAP ADUNs; Andrew Chan Kah Eng (Stulang), Wong Shu Qi (Senai) and Yeo Chee How (Pengkalan Rinting) from the line-up of this forum.

It is an open secret that Dr Boo and the 3 DAP ADUNs cannot see eye to eye. They form the Team A and Team B of DAP Johor. The 3 ADUNs aligned to the Grand ‘Tokong’, Lim Guan Eng as compared to Dr Boo in the Anti-Guan Eng camp.

Dr Boo and the Guan Eng camp has been trying hard to upstage one another in Johor and it is affecting the morale of their die-hard supporters.

This forum is a clear agenda by Dr Boo to propel his name as a people’s champion.

However, it turned out to be a total failure to Dr Boo and the spillover also affected the speakers — Tony Pua, surprisingly this fan-boy of Guan Eng turned up to Dr Boo’s invite, as well as Rafizi Ramli, the NFC-assasin.

With all these tangy ingredients, no wonder the event was a fait accompli — a public relations disaster to Pakatan Rakyat Johor.

The local and imported speakers threw everything except the kitchen sink towards the government in their hope to raise the ire of Johoreans towards the CIQ toll — from misuse of public funds to inflation.

All the poison could not make a dent with the majority of Johoreans, what the heck, even the attendees of the forum were not impressed.

After just an hour into the event, some 70-80 people stood up and left the room. Some expressing their displeasure at the skewed arguments while some demanded for the question and answer session to be expedited.

The room which was three-quarter filled up turned into a farce with only some 20 people left in the room — only the ardent and die hard supporters of DAP.

Meanwhile, difficult questions from the floor - from minimal impact to the locals to the reduction of goods price — were left unanswered by the Herculean tag team of Tony and Rafizi.

In the end, the forum ended on a low note almost sombre the effect is that the speakers left instantaneously. It is as if this was just an unwanted distraction from the zero-sum game i.e. the Selangor Mentri Besar issue.

The advise that Tony, Rafizi and Dr Boo might want to take from this bitter lesson is that, the people are tired of all the rhetorics. People of Johor (or Selangor, for that matter) will reject Pakatan just like the manner they rejected the forum. 

* Arman Siddiqi reads The Malay Mail Online.

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