As New Pakatan Protest Rally Approaches, Signs of Lost Control Multiply

The manner in which it seems as if PKR's intemperate rhetoric about electoral fraud and its seemingly endless rallies have unleashed a tiger in the form of NGOs and grassroots who took them seriously. We noted at the time that PAS and the DAP have long experience in managing their grassroots, and so have been able to accept the election results and move forward with the task of governance.

PKR, however, is and for as long as he lives will be the party of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, and so lacks the institutional competence to understand how far matters may be pressed. Matters were clearly becoming shambolic when various Pakatan Rakyat-aligned NGOs began calling on the Opposition to boycott Parliament. As noted at the time, this demand was perfectly reasonable if you believed Pakatan's ridiculous notion that the election was stolen – if the elections were stolen, Parliament is illegitimate, and it is morally and legally wrong to pretend otherwise.

This forced PKR into a complicated series of promises and climb-downs that ultimately ended with PKR's political officers voting unanimously to be sworn into Parliament, a move that likely confused those of their supporters who thought Keadilan serious about allegations of fraud rather than simply working up outrage to compel Anwar into Putrajaya.

This near-miss has not caused Pakatan's leadership to contemplate whether it might be wiser to tamp down the rhetoric; or if it has, they fear the consequences of such a move too much to stop. Thus, yet another Black 505 rally is planned for Saturday, ostensibly for Padang Merbok and in apparent violation of the Peaceful Assembly Act.

Yet six weeks after GE13, some of Pakatan Rakyat's most fervent supporters at online portals and outside have begun to ask whether there is some point to all of these rallies and assemblies, with hard work yet to be done. Perhaps most pressing is the redelineation exercise set for later in the year – a simple majority can set new boundaries for various seats, but experts agree that only a two-thirds majority can create new seats, as doing so will require constitutional changes.

Pakatan Rakyat does not command a two-thirds majority. Only by working with Barisan Nasional and showing seriousness of purpose will Pakatan have any say in new seats – and yet doing these things will be a slap in the face to those supporters whom they have convinced that working with BN is not many steps removed from treason.

Yet failing to work on new seats will leave BN to simply set new boundaries on its own and forego the addition of any new seats – something that will undercut Pakatan's message that only BN gerrymandering allowed the coalition to win GE13.

Yet the rally set for Saturday shows no signs of disappearing, and so Pakatan must now somehow lower the fires it has set – or be burned, one way or another.