Mukriz: Butt out America, now butt out Karpal?

When USA made a statement concerning unfair treatment of Anwar, Mukriz was quick to tell them off.

Now, he has told Karpal Singh not to meddle in Umno affairs when the latter said that Pak Lah should be allowed to serve his term in office. My hunch was right when I read in the papers the reason Karpal prefers Pak Lah to stay on, was he rather not have Najib as PM!

It was a clear case of whether we have the choice. Since we do not have the choice, between the two, Pak Lah seems more tolerable, for want of a better term.

It is a pity that Mukriz had to resort to this type of posturing to win support for his quest in the Umno Youth elections. Given the contenders, many would have preferred him to his opponents.

I have mentioned before in comments elsewhere, and I am sure many others have done so too, that Umno cannot be left alone because they are facing a tussle for leadership within, and the winner invariably becomes our Prime Minister. Are we not stakeholders as well, indirectly or vicariously? Would he prefer that Umno be an irrelevant party instead and be left alone by non-member members of the public?

It was only since the last General Election on March 8, 2008 that we have a viable alternative coalition in sight. Now, the political situation is so fluid that nobody can be certain what is in store for us in the next few weeks.

A few days ago, when I watched the ending of Gambling Gods (HK movie), I thought the final twist to the story could be the future in store for us.

The two contenders for the title of Gambling God put their last bet in the poker game. Bearing in mind this is a film version and that the examples of sleight-of-hand were too good to be true. One side has been playing dirty with one assistant being able to peek when the opponent peeps at his card and the information transferred by hand signs to another and eventually to the player.

The sweetheart of Leon Lai (wish I know the name of the characters and more details about this film) who was forced to marry his opponent, was trying to help him. She was the one with the ability to use one strand of hair to change 3 dices to whatever was necessary (incredible, isn’t it?) and she gave the impression that she was helping him. Leon himself had been using tricks to trick the spy (unknown to us). So imagine the shock he got when he discovered that his real card was not what he intended and he ended with triple 2, and his immediate reaction was he had been played out by his sweetheart. But the final twist was when his opponent realised his covered card turned out to be something else, which could not complete his ‘straights’.

I could not help comparing the situation of the gamblers with our current political situation, as when the outcome is known, some will feel played out like in the poker game.

At the coffee shops, some people even compared the tussle within Umno with that within Gerakan for Chief Ministership before March 8 and we know what happened to the contenders. Will it end up with a dark horse romping to victory?