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Wednesday, 3 March 2010

PKR quitters and the need for all to improve

By Nathaniel Tan,

This comes a little late, but my longer thoughts on the recent quitters are up on TMI.

I had a nice lunch with some relatives, and had a conversation with an uncle about public perception.

He seemed to feel that people really aren’t falling for this whole PKR/Pakatan is falling apart, and oddly enough, even if they did, there was still no way they were gonna vote BN. I especially liked his comments that people are easily disgusted with these attempts to get people to quit Pakatan instead of working to improve the government.

This is obviously heartening on one level.

That said, I firmly don’t believe it’s an excuse for complacency.

I disagree with much of what these recent quitters have said, and as I said in my article, I’m firmly behind the ideas of Reformasi and staying focused on kicking BN out.

But I hope we’re not waiting for a major catastrophe before we look ourselves in the mirror and ask whether or not an internal Reformasi is required.

I reckon there’s plenty of space for consolidation and improvement. Certain issues should not be left to fester, and perhaps more dynamic and bold leadership would really help bring people together and represent a united movement that is ever ready to rise above petty individual vendettas.

I know it’s not easy, and I’m not trying to preach to those who have been willing to take up burdens I myself have not. I would completely disagree with any reports that the party is in disarray or any nonsense like that.

It’s just that no party is perfect. The difference between the good and the bad is that the former is more eager to take every opportunity to improve, whereas the latter will procrastinate and rot.

I do hope leaders are open to innovation and some internal change. I don’t think doing things the way we always have will be living up to the hopes of the rakyat. We will continue to vote Pakatan, but not shirk from urging them to be better. We can be more, we should be more.

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