Another epic contest for power in PKR

DATUK Seri Anwar Ibrahim has been quite decorous about the big fight for the PKR deputy presidency.

The PKR president does not wish to add to the rivalry looming in the party election that will take place next month or as Kota Anggerik assemblyman Najwan Halimi put it, Anwar is “staying above the fray”.

But the battle lines have been drawn and it is reminiscent of the 2018 party election that ruptured and damaged the party.

However, this election could be more dangerous for the party. The previous polls happened after the general election while this one is unfolding ahead of the next general election.

Losers rarely lose like gentlemen in party elections, the splits deepen into trouble come the general election, and contests are apparent at every level in the party except for the presidency.

Key posts, namely the deputy president and two of three vice-presidents, have been vacant since the “the cartel” - the label for those aligned to former deputy president Datuk Seri Azmin Ali - left the party.

Tian Chua was the sole elected vice-president left and the joke was that if anything had happened to Anwar, Chua would have ended up as the acting president.

Despite Anwar’s attempt to appear neutral, it is no secret that he favours Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail over Rafizi Ramli as his deputy.

Saifuddin, who confirmed his candidacy on Friday (April 1), has several advantages.

He is the incumbent secretary-general and one of the few to be an MP (Kulim Bandar Baharu in Kedah) as well as an assemblyman (Pantai Jerejak in Penang).

Saifuddin has presented himself as a team player who believes in forging working relationships. He also pledged support to Anwar and said that he would stay loyal to the party even if he loses.

That was a rather ingenious way of suggesting that Rafizi had problems working with people in the party while casting doubts on the younger man’s loyalty to Anwar.

Saifuddin seemed to be reminding party members that Rafizi had walked away after losing in the last party polls.

Rafizi’s decision to make a political comeback has caused a stir inside and outside the party; it is a sign of his star power that, after a three-year hiatus, he still has that sort of impact.

He has, once again, kicked off his campaign with a clever pitch.

When Rafizi took on Azmin in 2018, he said his aim was to see Anwar become the prime minister.

This time, the Invoke founder and CEO is offering himself as someone who can take on Datuk Seri Najib Razak whom he said has hijacked the opposition’s narrative and whose popularity, he claimed, is “choreographed”.

They have been arguing over the Sapura Energy issue, with Rafizi calling Najib a “hypocrite” for defending the oil and gas company. Najib returned fire, labelling Rafizi as “raja formula songsang,” implying that the younger man is a master of twists and turns.

Rafizi’s change of heart about party politics came after PKR’s dismal performance in the string of state elections.

He wants to restore public confidence in the party and win over the fence-sitters.

The Saifuddin-Rafizi challenge has also pitched Anwar on one side and his daughter Nurul Izzah Anwar on the other.

Nurul Izzah has always been with Team Rafizi and everyone still remembers how she was all teary-eyed when paying tribute to Rafizi after he lost to Azmin in 2018.

Like Rafizi, she also stepped away from PKR politics, resigning as vice-president two months after winning it with the highest votes.

Will she also be making a comeback?

The Permatang Pauh MP is not easy to read. In fact the entire family is so good at keeping secrets.

For people who have lived life in the public eye, they have been able to build a wall between family and politics.

The Puteri Reformasi still has the princess look and that special brand of charisma but Nurul Izzah needs to convince party members that she is not treating the party like a hotel where one can check in and out.

PKR leaders are not taking Rafizi’s challenge lightly.

He has a huge fan base on social media. For instance, a playful query asking for advice for the scar on his right cheek caused by a cycling mishap drew 18,000 likes.

He also has a new look - a more chiselled face and a leaner body shape thanks to his fitness regime.

Some think Rafizi is showing his cards too early in the day but he seems to have a strategy and his team has begun airing the narrative of reclaiming the party’s identity, stressing that there are no shortcuts to Putrajaya.

The contest for the No 2 post will take centrestage because the optics are such that it is seen as some sort of referendum on Anwar’s leadership.

A win for Rafizi will be taken as an endorsement for him to take the party forward because his return to active politics has been likened to a white knight trying to save the party.

But it could also lead to the kind of fissures seen after Azmin became the deputy president.

Party members will have to decide whether they are more comfortable with Anwar and Saifuddin leading in the general election or if they are ready to take a leap of faith.

Anwar wants to see a civil election that will not break up the party all over again, but can he manage the momentum?

There is so much at stake in the quest to be the next deputy president of PKR.

The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.