Come clean on Selangor MB issue, Ambiga tells Pakatan
Pakatan Rakyat cannot be "wishy-washy" on whether or not opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim would take over as Selangor menteri besar if he wins the Kajang by-election, former Bersih co-chair Datuk S. Ambiga said.
In a forum, titled "The Kajang move" in Subang Jaya last night, she said that PR owed it to the people in Kajang to explain its plans should it win the seat.
Ambiga said many people had come up to her to complain that they did not like the "wishy-washy" talk when it came to the MB issue.
"This thing about the MB... maybe he (Anwar) will be MB, maybe not. I find that unsatisfactory and I think that needs to be addressed," she said.
Anwar is Pakatan Rakyat's Kajang by-election candidate after PKR assemblyman Lee Chin Cheh resigned as assemblyperson on January 27.
The move sparked an uproar among PR supporters and non-governmental organisations who saw it as a "betrayal to the people".
It also fuelled speculation that Anwar would take over the MB position from Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim to resolve an internal squabble between the latter and Selangor PKR head Azmin Ali.
The party's strategic director Rafizi Ramli, who was also one of the panellists at the forum, denied the allegations, saying that Anwar's presence in the state government would help "reinforce" it.
Ambiga, however, who was also former Bar Council president, said it did not make sense to see a leader of the opposition take a "huge risk just to be an assemblyman".
"To me, there has to be more clarity about the position of the MB.
"The people of Kajang need to know if they are voting for the future MB of Selangor. They're entitled to know.”
Ambiga added that she was still not convinced about Rafizi's argument for the reasons behind PKR's “Kajang move”.
"I don't agree with all the reasons. I may not be convinced that this is the best way to do it but I understand."
She also hit out at PAS for sometimes taking positions that seemed to "veer away" from what its coalition partners were doing.
"I'm all for disagreements in the coalition. You don’t have to behave like robots and that's fine.
"But on a critical issue like this, many are concerned that they do not see a united front."
The activist called on the people of Kajang to reject politics based on racism and religious enmity, noting that they were getting a second opportunity to have their say.
"You are getting a second chance to vote. This is an opportunity to say what you want about everything that's happened since the last general election."
She said the "plus point" about the Kajang by-election was that the politicians were going back to the people.
"It's not at all like the Perak crisis because there, they didn’t go back to the people," she added.
Ambiga was referring to the constitutional crisis in Perak where Jelapang assemblyman Hee Yit Foong had quit DAP to become an independent aligned to Barisan Nasional.
Her defection, along with two others, had contributed to the fall of the Pakatan Rakyat-led state government.
The new Bersih 2.0 committee had previously said in a statement that Lee's actions were "deplorable" and that there was little difference between Lee's and Hee's actions in the 2009 Perak constitutional crisis.
Earlier yesterday, the Election Commission announced that nominations for the Kajang by-election will be on March 11 while polling days will be on March 23. – February 6, 2014.
