What lessons can we learn from PKR post-Xavier?

MY original plan today was to write about the 330 people who were fined RM10,000 - a truly excessive sum.

Other countries successfully keep their Covid-19 numbers down by making examples of leaders who break SOPs.

We seem to try and threaten everyday citizens with harsher and harsher punishments while letting politicians get off scot-free. Being fined so much for not scanning while so little real contact tracing is currently done, is also mind-boggling.

In any case, we woke up today to news of PKR vice-president Datuk Dr Xavier Jayakumar quitting the party. It certainly caused a stir, one that was hard to ignore.

I don’t claim the following to be the only facts surrounding the case, so I welcome others who want to fill in more blanks.

Dr Xavier was most recently the minister of Water, Land and Natural Resources when Pakatan Harapan was in power.

Perhaps a lesson here is to take great care before starting the MP jumping game.

A few months ago, PKR president Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim made the bold claim that he had strong, convincing numbers to form the government - basically claiming that some MPs had pledged to cross the aisle and change their support from Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin to himself.

Nothing came from this claim, and now, it appears that instead of having more MPs join Anwar, he has in fact fewer MPs supporting his effort to become prime minister.

One cannot help but notice that this isn’t even the first time this has happened to Anwar.

In 2009, Anwar also made a similar claim. The end result in 2009 was just as similar - fewer MPs supporting him than before, rather than more.

This brings to mind Aesop’s fable involving how greed and trying to increase what one has results in having even less than one did before.

Sometimes, in an eagerness to recruit MPs from such varying and different backgrounds, one forgets one’s own core values.

Sometimes, being too flexible regarding who one is willing to take on leads to a scenario in which the political spectrum is not defined by principles, values, or ideas, but only some sort of feudal free-for-all.

Indeed, nowadays, it seems that people negotiate which cabal they want to be in first, and then only subsequently decide which type of ideology best fits the cabal, not the other way around.

I imagine many people will understandably not take what Dr Xavier said about his reasons for quitting at face value.

He did use the words "extremely frustrated". Whether or not this was actually a factor in his decision, I think it may be an apt description of people who support the party.

Maybe another lesson is that a movement like a political party always needs a clear direction and it needs momentum.

If the "clear direction" is always only grabbing power, we will invariably arrive at exactly where we are today - an anchorless free-for-all.

People cannot sit around and wait while one leader invests a majority of time and energy into trying to make all types of deals. They need to have a common goal to work towards together.

Perhaps the last lesson is as brief as it is important: Choose your friends and colleagues wisely.

The best-case scenario for PKR is that after Larry Sng and Steven Choong, Xavier will be the last defecting MP.

The worst-case scenario is that this is the beginning of the end, and merely a stop on the way to a full-blown implosion.

PKR lost its deputy president, and now its vice-president. The former deputy president even appeared to rejoice at the news today, and seemingly hinted at even further defections.

If he gets his way, then implosion is exactly what PKR will face.

The fact that the party has arrived here can only mean - at some level at the very least - that some bad decisions and choices were made.

No one is perfect, and everyone makes mistakes. The question is, will the party learn from these mistakes, and will they keep repeating them over and over, trying the same things, and getting the same results?

NATHANIEL TAN is a strategic communications consultant. He tweets @NatAsasi, clubhouses @Nathaniel_Tan and can be reached at [e-mail].