Thursday, 16 February 2012 Super Admin
John Soh refused to fork out the RM300 million and that ended the September 16th dream to march into Putrajaya. And that also meant Anwar would have to face trial for Sodomy 2. The only way to escape Sodomy 2 would be for Anwar to become the Prime Minister, which was not going to happen now.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Let us continue the story regarding Datuk John Soh Chee Wen.
After the euphoria of the March 2008 general election, which for the first time since May 1969 saw the opposition make impressive inroads into creating a two-party system in Malaysia, there was a need to get down to the business of governing.
As what John Soh tried to emphasis and to make the opposition understand: winning the election is not the hard part. That is only the beginning of your problems, not the end of it. Your problems really start after you win the election because running a government is more difficult than winning it.
John Soh realised that the first thing to do was to get proper premises for PKR plus furnish and equip it so that it can function as a proper nerve centre, not only for PKR but for the opposition coalition, Pakatan Rakyat, as well. More importantly, there was a need to establish a strategic plan on how to govern effectively with the objective of winning the next general election expected in 2012-2013.
That only gave them four or five years, which is not really that much time to do everything that needed to be done to become a credible and viable federal government.
What was unknown to many, except to those within Anwar Ibrahim’s inner circle, John Soh was not just PKR’s financier. He was the master strategist who focused on how to win the federal government in the next general election. However, to be able to do that, you must first demonstrate that you know how to govern. Only this will give you the federal government.
There are no short cuts. It was going to be a long and winding road over the next four or five years. And that journey starts today. But it was not going to be just a long and winding road. It was going to be a rocky road as well. And almost from the word ‘go’, John Soh and Anwar could not see eye-to-eye on many issues.
John Soh kept reminding Anwar that his sentiments and emotions must not get in the way of the agenda, which was to form the next federal government. But that warning did not go down well with Anwar. Anwar felt that John Soh was trying to ‘control’ him just because PKR depended on his financial support to realise its aspiration.
Very early in the day, John Soh argued that there was a need to groom a new generation of leaders, given the lack of quality among the present crop that were voted in on March 2008. Even Anwar admitted openly that many who had won the 2008 election were not expected to have won and that it was a mistake to field these people as candidates.