Pakatan’s Port Klang rep gives Anwar’s visit a miss

By Asrul Hadi Abdullah Sani

KLANG, Sept 14 — Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim made a special visit yesterday to the Port Klang state constituency held by the elusive Badrul Hisham Abdullah of PKR, the man who has been speculated for months and now possibly on the verge of defecting to Umno.

Badrul did not help quell the speculation yesterday as he was also absent from the series of functions attended by his party and other state Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leaders.

Anwar's visit was clearly an attempt to boost the administration of Selangor Mentri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim, which is facing a controversial graft investigation and also swirling rumours of an impending power grab by Barisan Nasional (BN).

The appreciative crowd in Pandamaran Jaya. - Picture by Choo Choy May

Other state PR leaders Xavier Jayakumar,  Klang MP Charles Santiago, Kuala Langat MP Abdullah Sani, Seri Setia assemblyman Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad and Pandamaran assemblyman Ronnie Liu were all present for Anwar's visit except for Badrul.

Mentri Besar Khalid looks on at his boss speaking at Masjib Ar Rahman, Pandamaran Jaya. - Picture by Choo Choy May

The marathon session of visits began in Masjid Ar Rahman where both Anwar  and Khalid distributed donations to the orphans and broke fast with voters.

In a speech, Khalid blasted Umno for propagating what he called false Islam and urged Muslims not to be influenced by their provocative actions.

"The Selangor state government hopes the people who love peace to be open minded and not easily influenced by attitude of a minority that still wants to be provocative, incite and insult other religions and communities," he said.

At a small rally later, Anwar slammed Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak for wanting to topple the Selangor state government.

"I want to tell Datuk Najib… yes or not, can or cannot, it is not for you to decide on Selangor but the people. We can use the police, MACC, judges, media – Utusan Malaysia, TV3, but you can fool some of the people all the time, you can fool all of the  people some of the time but you cannot fool all Selangorians all the time ," he said to a rapturous applause.

Later Anwar confirmed with reporters that Badrul's status was being reviewed and that the party had given the mandate to Selangor's mentri besar to decide.

"Certainly  he is virtually incapacitated, I mean all the programmes he is not seen. I was in various mosques and the committees lamented the fact that he is completely incompetent and not able to serve," he said.

Khalid had said previously that the state lawmaker was suffering from a medical condition due to an accident and the state would extend a helping hand to him.

He said that Badrul met with an accident before being elected but his condition had deteriorated due to the stress of being a lawmaker.

However Badrul had rejected the claim that he was too sick to perform his duties and was adamant that he was still a party member serving as Port Klang assemblyman.

PKR has issued a show-cause letter to Badrul for not attending a state political bureau meeting for all party lawmakers and his fate will be known after Hari Raya.