For close to a year, Pakatan Rakyat existed only in name but not in fact.
For the past year, it was impossible to convene a meaningful Pakatan Rakyat Leadership Council meeting as the two pillars which have seen Pakatan Rakyat posed the greatest challenge to the Umno/BN coalition in the 13th General Elections and even reduced it to a minority government in Putrajaya had been knocked out – the Pakatan Rakyat Common Policy Framework which the three component parties DAP, PKR and PAS had freely, fully and voluntarily agreed in 2008 and the consensus operational principle that the consensus of all the three component parties is the only basis for PR decision-making and no one political leader or political party can exercise a veto power over the others.
The UMNO/BN coalition has lost the trust and confidence of Malaysians because it has demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt that it has no high political principles and national objectives but only the sordid interest of the UMNO/BN leaders clinging on to power so as to enjoy the perks of power – office, position and money-making opportunities.
The Pakatan Rakyat political coalition cannot make the same mistakes as the UMNO/BN coalition and must always prove that it is motivated by common political principles of justice, freedom and human dignity for the benefit of the people and country, and not opportunistic interests of self, whether for office, position or money-making opportunities.
Otherwise, there will be no difference between the Barisan Nasional and the Pakatan Rakyat coalition.
After the PAS 61st annual congress which passed a motion to sever ties with the DAP and yet remain in Pakatan Rakyat (PR) without debate, it is astonishing that there are those who could think that things in Pakatan Rakyat could remain the same – or that the Pakatan Rakyat coalition had not been destroyed and could continue to exist.
There is no way to avoid the reality – that the new PAS leadership at the 61st Muktamar had killed Pakatan Rakyat.
The question now is to pick up the pieces in the aftermath of the destruction of Pakatan Rakyat!