They were reacting to DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang’s proposal that PKR president Wan Azizah Ismail be Pakatan’s candidate for interim prime minister pending a royal pardon for Anwar.
“Wan Azizah is not a strong enough leader. If she was, she’d have been able to pull the opposition together,” said Faisal S Hazis of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia in a remark alluding to the widespread belief among political observers that Pakatan has been in disarray for quite some time.
However, he acknowledged Wan Azizah was for the moment the best choice the opposition had.
“You can’t suggest Muhyiddin Yassin (PPBM president) because his party doesn’t have any representatives in Parliament yet,” he said. “PKR has a large number of representatives and Wan Azizah is its leader.”
He also said Lim, in naming Wan Azizah, had shown his understanding of the need to have a Malay as prime minister.
Faizal said the question of leadership was one issue the opposition needed to be serious about.
“The opposition needs to get new leadership and give the second generation leaders the opportunity to rise,” he said.
“Anwar played a critical role in the last two elections, but the silver lining in his imprisonment is that the opposition is given the chance to look beyond him. Unfortunately, they haven’t managed to do that.”
Wan Saiful Jan, who heads the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs, said that in naming Wan Azizah as prime minister candidate, the opposition was showing it wasn’t willing to move forward.
“Despite Wan Azizah’s success in leading the opposition, the public does not perceive her as a leader in her own right,” he said. “Many people still see her as being Anwar Ibrahim’s wife and as though she’s tied to his demands.”
He said a prime minister could not be taking orders from someone else.
“Let me just give a blunt analogy here,” he said. “Many people accuse Prime Minister Najib Razak of taking orders from Rosmah, but that is merely an allegation. In the case of Wan Azizah, it would not just be a mere allegation if they were to accuse her of taking orders from Anwar Ibrahim.”