Pakatan Rakyat Buzz & Blog

By Rashid Yusof

Lim Kit Siang's official title does not indicate that he is the paramount leader of DAP.

Not any more. He was once secretary-general, taking over from Goh Hock Guan, the architect. Lim has long retreated to be "party adviser".

Both this adviser and secretary-general Lim Guan Eng must be credited with swiftly putting an end to the potentially combustible episode in Perak DAP.

DAP's affairs are not exactly cryptic; just that, somehow, clashes rarely morph into infighting.

Everyone naturally perked up when hostilities broke out over the weekend between Datuk Ngeh Koo Ham, the Perak DAP chairman, and his deputy, M. Kulasegaran,only for them to instantly offer apo-logies.

"To all party leaders and members as well as supporters who have felt disappointment or even anger over the Perak family problem becoming a public issue, I hereby tender my sincere apologies," Kulasegaran wrote in his blog on Tuesday.

Ngeh had apologised a day earlier for his "less than perfect" role in the episode, which popped up ahead of next month's state party elections.

Kulasegaran topped the previous elections -- voted by state-wide delegates -- but 15 elected committee members picked Ngeh, who finished fifth, as chairman.

Buoyed by a new national mood of transparency and willingness to disagree openly, the media has been excavating stories generated by things deemed to have gone wrong in politics.

Umno is the most scrutinised party. The MCA disorder, too, yielded considerable media space right up to last March's new party elections. Gerakan has been denigrated after losing Penang to DAP in the March 2008 general election.

But DAP has shielded itself from media glare.

Critics may suggest it is not fully democratic for not being transparent, while party bosses will flaunt this as a mark of greater cohesion and discipline.

Juxtapose DAP with Parti Keadilan Rakyat, which appears to be in a mess. Leaders even defied the call by de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to emulate DAP by not talking to the national media.

Nurul Izzah, the member of parliament for Lembah Pantai, insisted she would keep talking to the national media.

Pressure will now mount from within the ranks of DAP and also Pas for their parties to contest PKR seats -- given their superior political culture and organisation -- and for their leaders to be installed as the leader of Pakatan Rakyat, instead of Anwar.

Kit Siang is seen by some as the "de facto leader" of Pakatan for the clout he wields, especially in agenda-setting, shouting down those he brands as "racists".

None of the Pas leaders has projected themselves as the alternative chief of Pakatan.

Indeed, a major Kit Siang brand has been the appearance of his crusade against racialist politics, a position that should next, rightly, see him energetically champion the cause of national schools as the biggest unifier.

That would be applauded enthusiastically for, our kids are being separated -- some will prefer "segregated" -- forcibly by their parents and by the communal tone of our politics at such a young age.

It is also a human rights issue, as Kit Siang would readily agree, given that children are being deprived of the wonderful opportunity of getting to know each other.

Some phone up each other (on their parents' mobile) when they are attending preschools, drawn to the diversity offered by the other.

Enter Year One and they live their most formative years apart.

It will be electrifying to have an outwardly "Malaysian" leader like Kit Siang to actually start espousing -- in our lifetime -- the merits of a unified education system. - New Straits Times