Between reality and wishful thinking

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
malaysiatoday - [...] So, getting at least 30 Barisan Nasional MPs to cross over is not that difficult. The only thing is they will not personally cross over as such. They will remain in their parties and their parties will leave Barisan Nasional and join Pakatan Rakyat. The Umno Sabah MPs, in turn, will form a new party (or revive an old party) and their party too will join Pakatan Rakyat.

And that only leaves the Umno MPs from West Malaysia. If a device can be created whereas they need not resign from Umno to join PAS or PKR but instead they can join a new (or old) party that will become a component party of Pakatan Rakyat, then Anwar Ibrahim’s 16 September deadline is no wishful thinking.

When that happens, though, Umno will be forced to reinvent itself, or will at least be embroiled in a leadership change. It will not die. And a reinvented Umno will be a stronger Umno. And when Umno becomes strong again it will no longer remain in the opposition. Instead, it will bounce back come the next election, just like PKR in the recent election, and it will retake control of the federal government.

Chances are Pakatan Rakyat, if they form the next federal government come 16 September, will be just a one-term government. They will have to invent some marvellous new strategies if they want to stay two terms. Just pointing out the wrongs of the previous government is not good enough any longer. People will soon get tired of all the blaming and finger pointing. By then Umno would have reinvented and repackaged itself to attract the voters. And that can only mean good things for Malaysia. When two parties try to outdo each other and fall over each other in trying to impress the voters, then Malaysians can only benefit.... selanjutnya.