Anwar-Shabery Debate – An Unfair Match

A Kadir Jasin

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[UPDATE, July 24] -- WHILE Anwar Ibrahim's promise of cheaper fuel may never see the daylight or may not materialise any time soon, the Abdullah Ahmad Badawi Government set a new record for causing misery to the rakyat.

His loyal servant, the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister, Shahrir Abdul Samad, yesterday announced that the consumer price index (CPI) -- the measure of inflation -- for June rose by 7.7 per cent, the highest in 27 years.

According to The Star newspaper, the 7.7 per cent monthly jump was the highest since April 1981 when the CPI was recorded at 10.8 per cent.

The 41-per cent rise in the prices of petrol and diesel announced by the Government on June 5 was the main reason for the surge, said Shahrir.

He said the inflation would probably remain at 7.7 per cent for July because it would see the impact of increase in the electricity tariff.

But many sources in the trade told me that real inflation could have been in double-digit territory.

[ORIGINAL POST]

THE DUST kicked up during the historic televised debate between Information Minister Ahmad Shabery Chek and PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim has settled. Maybe it’s time for me to put down my two cents worth of thoughts.

First I must congratulate the news portal Agenda Daily and its webmaster, Rosli Ismail for the courage to promote and execute the debate, and fellow scribe Johan Jaaffar for partiality in moderating the debate.

It was an unfair match to begin with. For all his bravery and bravado, Ahmad Shabery was not a fair match for Anwar.

He might have the government machinery on his side but that in itself, was a liability. A junior minister trying to defend a very unpopular government decision against a rabble-rousing orator of Anwar’s caliber did not look like a viable proposition from the start.

Elsewhere, it would have been the head of government versus the head of the opposition. But for us in Malaysia, it was better to have Ahmad Shabery versus Anwar than Abdullah Ahmad Badawi vs Anwar.

Some people said Ahmad Shabery was brave while others thought he was foolhardy. I would like to look at it differently. He was neither brave nor foolhardy.

He was, in fact, a victim of circumstances of sorts. It was either he or no debate at all. No Umno minister would dare risk his or her reputation taking on Anwar.

Logically, since the subject of the debate was the effects of oil price increases and Anwar’s promise to lower prices if the Pakatan Rakyat comes to power, the appropriate government representative should have been one of the economic ministers – Finance Minister 2 Noor Mohamed Yackop, Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Shahrir Abdul Samad or one of the Ministers in the Prime Minister Department namely Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz or Senator Amirsham Aziz.

Ahmad Shabery is not our standard Umno minister. If he is, he would not have dared taking Anwar on. He is better known for his role as the information chief of the now defunct Parti Melayu Semangat 46 and an ally of the Gua Musang MP, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah.

I sympathize with Ahmad Shabery. In a televised debate on a subject as unpopular as oil price increases, he could not win. Especially when his party only months ago promised that there would not be price increases after the general elections.

But what surprised me was the caliber of his backers who were supposed to help him to demolish Anwar with razor sharp questions. Instead they turned out to be a big, big disappointment. Perhaps they have been in the official woodwork too long to realise that the mood of the rakyat has changed.

Fortunately for Ahmad Shabery and his cohort, Anwar too wasn’t in his sharpest form. While his stance was populist, his real economics was not wholly believable. Economics has never been Anwar’s forte.

Had Anwar been in a better state of mind, he could easily demolish the personal attacks mounted by Ahmad Shabery and his cohort.

He could have easily taken credit for his leadership of the 1974 rubber smallholders’ protest in Baling.

It was as a consequence of that protest that the Government launched a series of emergency programmes. Among them were the rubber price support scheme, the national rubber stockpile, the accelerated replanting of rubber smallholdings by Risda, the issuance of land titles to the illegal smallholders and the setting up of hostels for children of rubber smallholders.

He paid his dues by spending 22 months under the Internal Security Act (Isa) detention.

Still Ahmad Shabery should be congratulated for his efforts although blogger Khalid Jaafar, an Anwar ally, likened the debate to the duel between Hektor and Patroklus in Homer’s Illiad.

According to blogger Ibrahim Yahya aka Tiger, he was informed by his ejen kenit (minor agent) that the Prime Minister congratulated Ahmad Shabery for “successfully debating with Anwar” and told him that he did not have to resign.

Ahmad Shabery had apparently uttered something to the effect that he would step down if he lost the debate. He might not have won but he certainly did not suffer from the dreadful “koro” malady (see June 17 posting).

As Tiger put it, the people won.

[FOOTNOTE -- MY apologies for not being able to update this blog as regularly as I should. Unfortunately I have other things to do – dependents to feed and employees (some 80 of them) to take care of. The times are hard and getting harder. I thank visitors for continuing to drop in and to commentators for spiritedly debating with each other. That’s the spirit of this blog. Thank you.]