The Mother of All Feuds: PKR Power Struggle Gets Weirder and Weirder

The escalating feud inside the PKR over the re-appointment of Selangor MB Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim is getting weirder by the minute. It is moving from being an embarrassment for the apparently divided family of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to an embarrassment for PKR as a party to an embarrassment for PKR's allies in Pakatan Rakyat, namely the DAP and PAS.

The latest antics came on Saturday – as Anwar appeared to contradict his wife's support for Khalid Ibrahim and to throw his own support back to his long-time aide, Deputy President Azmin Ali.
Even more confusing was Azmin Ali's trigger-happy tweeting, in which he appeared on Saturday to be reversing course and offering his support to arch-rival Khalid Ibrahim for MB.

"We must support Khalid to continue," tweeted Azmin, a day after publicly knifing Khalid with his rhetoric.

Anwar Ibrahim now risks both rewarding disloyalty and being perceived as publicly disloyal to his wife as he struggles to impose his authority on the battle within PKR to fill the Selangor Menteri Besar post.

Just a day after deputy president Azmin Ali aired the party's dirty laundry in public with his remarks that Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim's presumed re-appointment had bypassed the democratic process and illustrated PKR nepotism, Anwar appeared to back his one-time protégé in a comment to Sinar Harian.

"I have no problem with Tan Sri Khalid," Anwar was quoting saying. "But the problem is...should there be consultation. Are there other names? New faces? Do we continue?"
Anwar's support for Azmin appeared to contradict his wife, Datin Seri Wan Azizah Ismail, who sent a letter to the Sultan of Selangor backing Khalid without discussion or seeking consensus within PKR, Azmin claimed on Friday. This infuriated Azmin.

But how will Anwar's wife feel now that the pro-Pakatan portal The Malaysian Insider is writing headlines such as this one: "Anwar backs Azmin on Khalid's MB job, says must have consensus"?

And how should Pakatan's other leaders, and Pakatan supporters feel when they read The Malaysian Insider saying that "the tussle over the mentri besar post has pushed PKR into a leadership crisis"?

The word is that the DAP is getting both embarrassed and impatient at Anwar's inability to resolve the internecine warfare going on around him. Perhaps he is distracted by his retooling of the 1998 playbook as he races around Malaysia shouting about GE 13 as "The Mother of All Frauds."

While Anwar does his stadium thing, his party is imploding in what we would call "The Mother of All Feuds."