IPOH, Feb 6 — Their defections triggered the downfall of the Perak Pakatan Rakyat government one year ago but until today, former PKR duo Jamaluddin Mohd Radzi and Mohd Osman Mohd Jailu still insist that it was not their fault.
They blame the weak PKR leadership and top leaders in the fallen PR government for ostracising them and add that there is still a deep feeling of regret.
“Umno people often come up to us to thank us for giving them Perak but I always say to them — do not thank me. Thank (former mentri besar Datuk Seri Mohammad) Nizar (Jamaluddin) and thank the PR.
“The fall of the PR government was caused by the PR itself and not us, me and Osman,” said Jamaluddin.
The former PKR state treasurer and Osman spoke to The Malaysian Insider recently in an exclusive interview at the Impiana Casuarina Hotel coffeehouse here.
Both men, now Barisan Nasional-friendly independents, said that they still feel great disappointment with the PKR, a party they had grown to love over the past decade.
“It is sad, really. I feel very disappointed that things had to turn out this way,” said Osman.
Jamaluddin said that although a year had gone by and a certain calm had settled, he still often felt sad that all his years with the PKR had been for naught.
One year on, and the duo of Jamaluddin Mohd Radzi and Osman Mohd Jailu still insist that the fall of the PR government in Perak is not their fault. - Picture by Choo Choy May
“(PKR de facto leader Datuk Seri) Anwar (Ibrahim) was my idol. Yes, that is true. He was my idol for years, but when I saw him for what he truly became, things changed,” he said.
The Perak crisis erupted in the early days of February last year when rumours began to spread that the PR government was not as cohesive as it claimed to be.
The Ngeh-Nga cousins from DAP were rumoured to be dictating all policies and decisions made by the government and Nizar was called a mere “puppet mentri besar.”
When both Jamaluddin and Mohd Osman went “missing” on Jan 31, word spread like wildfire that the duo had already planned to defect.
Hence on February 3 when they tendered their resignations from the party and declared their allegiance with the BN, it did not come as a surprise to many.
Today, however, Jamaluddin and Mohd Osman claim that they never planned to leave the PKR or quit their seats.
“We were just angry with how the government was being run. Many decisions made were not told to us.
“It was just the top three guys in the government who were calling all the shots. How would you feel? Furthermore, the PKR leadership was weak and never made any effort to fight for our rights,” said Jamaluddin.
He added that to teach the PR a lesson, he and Mohd Osman decided to go on a “little holiday” at the end of January, hoping that they would buck up.
“We never wanted to quit. We were in Grand Seasons Hotel in Kuala Lumpur all that time when they claimed we had gone missing.
“And you know what? Nizar and no one from the PR government even tried calling us to say — please come back, let us discuss this,” said Osman.
Jamaluddin said that the plan was merely for the two of them to quit from their posts as state executive councillors and nothing more.
“If they failed to change, we only planned to quit as state executive councillors, nothing else. But when the PKR leadership submitted the undated resignation letters to (former Speaker) V. Sivakumar we knew what we had to do,” he said.
Jamaluddin and Mohd Osman (picture, right) also claimed that everything had been a part of a grand plan laid out by Anwar himself to remove them from the scene and replace them with his men.
“What we heard was that Anwar wanted to let Mustaffa Kamil and Ismail contest our seats in a by-election and if they won, he (Anwar) planned to cause trouble in the PR government and insist that Mustaffa replaces Nizar as mentri besar,” alleged Jamaluddin.
Mustaffa Kamil Ayub was recently anointed the Perak PKR chairman and Ismail Yusof is the former state PKR chief.
Party insiders say that Mustaffa Kamil is Anwar’s blue-eyed boy and he may very well be named as the next Perak mentri besar if PR wins in the next polls and PKR again takes more seats than PAS.
“These were the reasons why we had to leave. I believed in the party but the leaders are weak. And Anwar only cares about himself and his people. When there are people like these in a party, the party will be destroyed,” said Jamaluddin.
In agreeing with his friend, Osman said that the decision to leave PKR had been difficult but it had brought some calm into his life.
Both men admitted that in the early days of their defection, the response from the rakyat towards them were less than desirable.
“But it was not as bad as the people claim. I did not have people coming up to me to tell me off,” said Mohd Osman.
Jamaluddin said only two people had refused to greet him — a fellow villager and a PAS member. “Other than that, it was fine. I went out in public and served my constituents,” he said.
When asked if they had plans to migrate to Umno, both men laughed, saying it was too soon to ask such a question
Mohd Osman (picture, left), however, expressed interest in re-contesting his seat in the next general election.
Jamaluddin said he would leave it to the hands of fate and did not discount the possibility of even rejoining the PKR if the party were to court him.
“Who knows, we may be asked to recontest, if it is true what Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak said that he wants local candidates who are close to their constituents,” said Jamaluddin, but declined to say if he was willing to contest under Umno’s banner.
The duo said that although their daily schedules were taken up by having to make appearances in court for their ongoing corruption trial, they made it a point to meet with their constituents every weekend.
Both men face corruption charges for accepting bribes in exchange for expediting a RM180 million housing development project in Seri Iskandar in 2008.
“The most important thing is that we are close to the people. We make them our friends and we focus on servicing them, not on harping on political issues,” said Jamaluddin.
He noted that in the early days, people accused them of being “bought over” by the BN and that in exchange for handing over the Perak government, their corruption cases would be thrown out of court.
“We let it be. We never felt the need to go around explaining because at the end of the day, the truth will come out,” said Osman.
So what of the next election? A PKR source told The Malaysian Insider that while the seat of Changkat Jering was a relatively safe one for the PR, Behrang could very well pose as a threat.
“Changkat Jering is a state seat under Bukit Gantang and Nizar is the MP for the area. In general, people are still angry with the power grab. The sentiment is still there,” said the source.
For Jamaluddin’s seat. however, the situation remains murky. “He is close to the constituents, that is true. The seat is very crucial. We have to work hard,” the source added.
In the March 2008 elections, Jamaluddin beat MIC’s Dr M. Ramasamy when he polled 6, 771 votes against the latter’s 5,744 votes with a majority of 1,027 votes.
Mohd Osman beat incumbent, former Perak Speaker Datuk Mat Isa Ismail of Umno, and garnered 9,411 votes against 8,309 votes with a majority of 1,102 votes.
No comments:
Post a Comment