Wan Azizah seems set to be the first Madam Opposition

Wan Azizah, by virtue of her being President of PKR, which has the largest number of seats (31) among the opposition parties (DAP 28 and PAS 23), will be the first ever Madam Opposition in Malaysian Parliament. Sorry, Cheng!

When my daughter (at 12) naively said that she wanted to be the first Madam Opposition, 13 years ago, it was then so unlikely that people did not give a second thought to it. There were so few women politicians and political parties tend to be led by men.
The recent Mr. Opposition, Lim Kit Siang seems synonymous with the title, having held the position for so long except for the period when Hadi Awang held it under PAS.

When DAP was the largest opposition party, Teresa Kok came to mind but still I could not imagine her being its supreme leader, at least not yet (to avoid being labelled an MCP).

While on this topic, I wish to post an excerpt of a comment by Semua Sama in The People’s Parliament, which I think is relevant in certain aspects:

"At parliamentary level, PKR is set to assume the position of opposition leader via Dr. Wan Azizah. Fair enough, in view that they hold the most number of seats among the opposition parties. The lingering question is, do they believe in democracy more than meritocracy? Wan Azizah has been in Parliament since 1999, a total of 9 years – which is a long time. She has had enough time to prove her salt but does anyone actually remember any moments where she created waves in parliamentary debates?

As far as I can remember, it was always the 12 DAP parliamentarians that received the worst from the rude and arrogant UMNO Mps when the DAP bench raised issues that were pertinent to the people of Malaysia. I have not read much of Wan Azizah raising any eyebrow or waking any sleepy eyes in all her years in parliament. If verbal abuses and insulting taunts were a measure of how active an MP was in parliament, Kit Siang, Karpal Singh, Kulasegaran and Fong Po Kuan are way ahead at the forefront. They have been outnumber 10:1 in Parliament and insulted beyond belief – all because they tried to stand up for stupid Malaysian voters. On the contrary, Wan Azizah has not ruffled any UMNO/BN feathers, at least none that ever made it to the press. If PKR truly believed in meritocracy, then there are many DAP parliamentarians that are more suited and qualified to lead the opposition bench compared to Wan Azizah. At the same time, if they truly believed in the principles of democracy, then they would have lobbied for DAP to lead the Perak state government in view that DAP held the most number of seats. Either way, there is the element of cakap tak serupa bikin coming from the PKR camp.

Would you as an employer hire someone who tells you he/she is not interested in the job? Surely not, I say. However, that is exactly what we’ve done. Wan Azizah was never interested the job of being an MP. She was thrust into it after the downfall of her husband. She held it for eight years and has recently announced that she just might step aside after being elected to allow Anwar Ibrahim to contest in a Penampang Pauh by-election. Do you really think a person who is not interested to be an MP is the best person for the task of being opposition leader? Or maybe you think that Wan Azizah will eventually pass the baton of being opposition leader to Anwar Ibrahim later?

Well, Anwar Ibrahim will indeed make a great opposition leader. Just one problem though, like his wife, he too is not interested to be opposition leader. He wants to be Prime Minister …”