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The recent Pakatan Rakyat’s inaugural national convention seemed to have brought a fresh breath of life to the opposition coalition. Amid the recent internal bickering, the convention appeared to have reached its intended objectives. One important objective adopted by the 1,500 strong delegates are the "Muafakat Kebudayaan Baru" or New Cultural Consensus.
Having the component party leaders sitting at the same table acknowledging each other with mutual respect and smiles was a great PR move. Stage-acting aside, it was essentially the unveiling of its tripartite common platform officially called the Common Policy Framework (CPF) which proved to be a big and positive step taken by the Opposition. The announcement of this Muafakat Baru agenda, which will be used to go toe-to-toe against BN/Najib’s 1 Malaysia, gives the impression that PR is not messing around in taking over Putrajaya.
Pakatan Rakyat's Common Policy Framework covers important aspects such as the Malay rights, education and economic reform and the abolishment of the ISA. The CPF promises to defend the Federal Constitution, Islam as the religion of the Federation while other religions can be practiced peacefully anywhere in the country. It also promises to uphold the use of Bahasa Melayu in accordance to Article 152 of the Constitution and promote Bahasa Melayu as the regional lingua franca, while protecting and strengthening the use of mother tongue languages for all races.
On the economics part several important steps like the introduction of minimum wages to all Malaysian workers, to reject privatization which burdens the people, to re-negotiate unfair concessions and contracts that profited cronies, including IPPs, highway tolls and water infrastructure among others. Anwar said Pakatan's common policies put in place matters where rivals UMNO dare not thread and at the same time going all out to win the hearts and support of the people in the East Malaysian states.
On the other side of the spectrum, Najib’s PR machine has done a pretty remarkable job since day one but problems are starting to build up on Najib’s plate with the recent unveiling of scandals and corruption (PKFZ, MACC/Teoh Beng Hock) among other quandaries like the MCA fracas, MIC, GST , RMAF's missing jet plane engines (I wonder who was heading the Defence Ministry at the time), sugar and petrol prices hike. You have to give them credit for one thing though and that is people are already forgetting about that whole dirt involving a French-made submarine. To make matters worse, the 1Malaysia policy didn't came with a complete and clearly defined manifesto which is beginning to make it looks rather superficial in nature.
The PR inaugural convention on Dec 19 can be seen as a moment of triumph for Anwar and gang as the move did give a sense that Putrajaya is within PR’s reach. It’s also a testimony of it’s component parties’ readiness to put their ideological differences aside for the greater good. But Anwar also has his own set of problems. He won a recent case but has some more cases pending and word has it that there’s a video footage that could prove him guilty of the charges against him. But, then again, if there's any truth in this, Anwar would have been locked up by now (maybe this move was to counter the Ziana Zain footage on the other side of the political spectrum). Other than this and the less major nuisances within PAS (Abdul Hadi and friends’ boo-boo about uniting with UMNO and Tuan Guru‘s son-in-law trouble), it looks like it’s all systems go for PKR. The next election is their best chance at winning so they might as well go all out.
As far as CPF is concerned, planning and drafting is one thing but implementing is a whole different thing altogether. Related News
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