Nurul Izzah is the right person to lead PKR post-Anwar

PETALING JAYA: Influential blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin predicts an internal revolt in PKR if Anwar Ibrahim tries to promote deputy president Azmin Ali to take over the party after his (Anwar’s) sentencing for sodomy.

“In fact there is already an internal revolt. If Anwar pushes for Azmin, there will be a backlash,” Raja Petra told FMT in an interview recently.

Raja Petra said Azmin is devious, likes to plot and scheme, and more worryingly, still had Umno culture in him.

“I have not seen anything from Azmin this far which impresses me or convinces me that he can lead.

“His forte is scheming and plotting, and that’s about it. But sooner or later we need to stop scheming and plotting and get down to business. This, Azmin appears incapable of,” he said.

“Azmin is deceitful and he will put his personal interests and ambition above the interests of the party and the rakyat.

“He is basically a product of Umno who has not been able to shed the Umno culture. He is still Umno through and through. And what we want is ABU: anything but Umno,” said Raja Petra.

Raja Petra also reiterated that PKR members would not have forgotten Azmin’s role in pushing out Zaid Ibrahim from PKR after the contentious party polls in 2010.

“The tragedy of Zaid leaving the party was Azmin’s doing. Then they tried to paint a picture of Zaid being a Trojan horse and whatnot,” he said.

He also added that even Pakatan Rakyat partners PAS and DAP would prefer someone else apart from Azmin to lead PKR.

“Azmin may be acceptable to Anwar as his anointed successor but PAS and DAP do not trust him and do not regard him highly.”

Nurul should take charge
When asked who could fill the leadership mantle in the party post-Anwar, Raja Petra said it was time for vice-president Nurul Izzah to step up and take charge.

“Nurul needs to get out of the father’s shadow. She needs to be Nurul Izzah, not Nurul the daughter of Anwar.

“She also needs to oppose her father if need be whenever she feels her father is wrong. Maybe the best thing for her would be if Anwar were to be sent to jail. Then Nurul can be her own woman.”

He also brushed aside general concerns that Nurul was inexperienced and too young to helm PKR, especially going into an election year.

“They say Nurul is too young. 200 years ago girls got married at 11, boys joined the army at 13, and by 30 you were considered old and over the hill.

“Nurul, by the standards of 200 years ago, would be old and over the hill. So, no, I do not think she is too young and certainly she is of the age when she can take over the leadership of the party.

“But does she have enough experience? If she does not play a leadership rolenow then how is she to get the experience? It is a catch 22 situation,” he said.

He was also harsh on Anwar’s leadership, especially in the lack of direction after the massive wins gained in the 2008 general election.

“Over the last three years, he has made more than 60 overseas trips. It appears like Anwar is more interested in lecturing at forums and universities than of managing Selangor as its economic adviser or managing party matters as the party adviser.

“Would Anwar’s absence really be missed?” he asked.

On the attack
On Sunday, Raja Petra told FMT that it was certain Anwar would be jailed for sodomy on Jan 9. He also alluded that Anwar was in fact guilty of the sodomy charge, saying that the PKR supremo was a victim of a honey-trap.

Apart from talking to FMT, Raja Petra had also granted interviews to other mainstream media in which he had said that Malaysians were unable to accept a homosexual to lead the country. However he did not state Anwar was homosexual.

He had also claimed that he was almost 90 percent sure that the man featured in a sex video released by the Datuk T trio was Anwar. He added that Anwar had lied by stating that he did not know the main personality behind the Datuk T trio, Shazryl Eskay Abdullah.

Anwar has not officially responded to Raja Petra’s hard-hitting interviews but PKR vice-president N Surendran said that Raja Petra’s “statements, insinuations and innuendos are unfair,untrue, unsupported by any believable evidence and plainly libelous”.

Surendran reiterated Anwar’s stand that the sodomy trial was “a transparent fabrication by Umno/BN with the connivance and cooperation of the police force and the Attorney General’s office”.

“Raja Petra’s insinuations are thus based upon a malicious conspiracy which is widely disbelieved throughout this country and abroad,” he said in a statement.

The Selangor government also took offence to Raja Petra’s claims that there was rampant corruption in the PKR-led state and that Anwar, as the economic adviser to the state, had not done anything to improve the state economically.

Political secretary to Selangor Menteri Besar Faekah Husin said the state was willing to finance Raja Petra to visit the state secretariat from wherever he is presently located to hear out his evidence of corruption in the state.

She also accused him of selling out on PKR and Anwar so that he would be allowed back into the country by the Barisan Nasional government.

Many online commentators also lashed out at Raja Petra for his attacks on Anwar, PKR and Pakatan in his interviews.

However Raja Petra, in a blog posting in his website Malaysia-Today today, said that he had expected to get a whacking and that he was unapologetic for his views.

“Not many can accept the truth. They would rather I say what is pleasing to their ears. I am to say that the emperor wears clothes even if he is stark naked,” he said.