JEFFREY KITINGAN IS PART OF THE PROBLEM?

By : JOE FERNANDEZ

         

THAT'S what I was told by senior party leaders and young Turks who are full of nothing but complaints. The young Turks in the Star want Dr Jeffrey Kitingan to phase himself out because he has failed to reinvent himself and is in danger of becoming irrelevant.

Dr Jeffrey should consider all and alternative points of view. How can he shut himself off from the people and decide on everything surrounded by a small group of people when their advice is suspect?

How can C.K. Low help on media when he's not a subject matter expert? He doesn't know the difference between reporting and editorialising. He doesn't write to express but impress for no rhyme or reason. He doesn't say what he means and doesn't mean what he says. He goes all over the place. He doesn't know whether he's coming or going. He beats around the bush.

On law he doesn't know the issues in Sabah and Sarawak. What is the 'perjuangan' about? All politics are about restructuring political power and restructuring the allocation of resources.

Having said that, would the perjuangan be about compliance -- barking up the wrong tree - even though there was no Referendum or about the restoration of sovereignty?

People are confused. That's why Lajim at one time said that Star lacks a clear direction. I agree with him.

Star should not give the impression that it doesn't know whether it's coming or going.

It should not go all over the place and beat around the bush. It should say what it means and mean what it says.

Call a spade a spade.

Don't be vague and wishy washy. Don't try to dazzle people with statistics they can't understand and mountains of garbage information -- yawn, yawn -- and ancient crap.

That's why all Star candidates, except Dr J in Bingkor, lost in GE13.

People in Bingkor only decided to give Dr J the benefit of the doubt because he was once their respresentative and PBS seems to have lost its way.

Dr Jeffrey lost in Keningau because the Chinese there totally rejected him. He should have reached out to them and explained his King of the Frogs crown. He should explain 1994 and apologise for it. He should stress on the return of sovereignty and not compliance. The Chinese are very practical when it comes to politics.

If Dr Jeffrey cannot convince the Chinese, among others, blame people like C.K. Low, Cecilia Kasun, Guandee Kohoi, Awang Ahmad Sah, Rosalind Bion, Juliana Siton and yourself running amok like chickens with their heads cut off and pissing off the other party leaders.

The Star Election Manifesto was a very bad job. For example, how can it compete with BN on development? Why should it compete with BN on development? The emphasis should have been on due diligence, restructuring of development plans and the addition of new components.

Why no Star website or activities in FaceBook and Twitter?

Meetings are not held regularly and even when they are held, there are no proper minutes -- Item, Decision, Action -- taken and no notes kept on the dialogue and discussions. There's no follow up.

Star has potential but that's all it remains, potential, because it's still be tapped because the leadership is very poor and organising skills almost zero. Sapp is zero.

That's why I wrote on Beyond Bingkor and Star in Sarawak.

I have previously written that Sapp is irrelevant. Sapp became irrelevant in BN once PBS returned to the coalition. So, it left BN to try and re-invent itself -- harping on the very autonomy they compromised -- but failed as expected. Sapp will continue to be haunted by 1994. They are yet to apologise for it.

Some people in Star used GE13 to collect money for themselves and are laughing all the way to the bank.

It would be better for Dr Jeffrey to return to PBS and leave Star to the young Turks. He must admit that he's no spring chicken. Some people don't mind if Dr Jeffrey becomes 'Ketua Umum' of Star.

That would be a serious mistake and creates a dangerous precedent.