The Third Force.

                                  Is It The Third Force?

Daro,Malaysia:

The Malaysian political scenario, at least for this year, is getting more interesting. While the people at large is really warming up to the political leadership of Najib Razak the persistent tussle for the top post in MCA and PPP is not showing signs of settling down.

The MCA and PPP are both components of the ruling National Front Coalition.

However, the opposite camp is getting noisier by each day especially in PKR which is headed by none other Anwar Ibrahim.

The situation has really heated up in the Parti Keadilan Rakyat for the last week or so. There are talks of taking disciplinary actions against certain members of the party. From the other side there are accusations of being too submissive to the Democratic Action Party or otherwise known as the DAP. Both DAP and PKR or Parti Keadilan Rakyat are member of the Opposition Alliance known as Pakatan Rakyat or PR. The other main component of the Opposition Alliance is the Islamic Party of Malaysia or PAS.

This is actually a very puzzling scenario since it was the Opposition that proudly declared to the world it will be in power come September 16^th 2008. A few days after the 12^th General Election of 2008, PR’s adviser, Anwar Ibrahim, claimed to have thirty additional members of Parliament just waiting for their time to cross over to his side. Then, he crowed, he will grab the top post in the country which he maintained is actually his. Anwar’s dream has always been to be the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

However, things are really bad in the Opposition camp now. Several members of Parliament from the PKR left the party complaining of not being given the chance to present their side of the story. It seemed that their supreme leader, Anwar, is always listening to leaders of the DAP and not to his own followers.

It started with one Datuk Zahrain, a former PKR leader of the state of Penang. Then there is Sallehudin Hasyim, Fairus Osman and Tan Tee Beng. When they jump over from the PKR these politicians insisted on being independent. Only Fairus Osman applied to be a member of UMNO.

There are several members of Parliament who are already in the middle group. The most prominent being Ibrahim Ali, a former UMNO stalwart who contested the seat of Pasir Mas on a PAS ticket. Two members of Paliament are from the state of Sabah and one from Kedah. That makes seven of them who are independent.

There are really talks of more defections especially from the PKR and even PAS. Some analysts are already talking of the benefits of a third force.