It looks like Ibrahim Ali, praised to the skies by the right-wing Malays and villified as an evil cartoon by others, is bent on staying in the headlines and accumulating notoriety. No matter how strong the torrent of complaints, no one is going to do him out of his two cents in the limelight.
And somehow he has managed again to draw a combination of laughter and scorn from his most hostile audience. On Saturday, Ibrahim denied accusations that he is racist, citing as an example his past gifts of fertiliser and cash as proof of his affection for the Chinese.
The Chinese, though, disagree with his latest presumption. To them, "a few bags of fertiliser" was nowhere near sufficient to compensate for his racial insults of the past.
"He is not doing anything more than what he should be doing as an elected representative to help his constituents. More likely than not, he is probably doing much less than he should," PKR vice president Tian Chua told Malaysia Chronicle.
"Also, why should the Chinese in Pasir Mas think of him with gratitude, especially if the fertiliser and cash-aids came from his MP allocations. Whatever it is, he had already proven himself to be someone who will say anything just to create trouble and get publicity."
Troublemaker extraordinaire
Troublemaker or not, there is no doubt that Ibrahim Ali may be ratcheting up the publicity for himself. In the 12th General Election he won the Kelantan parliamentary seat of Pasir Mas on a PAS ticket, but soon walked over to the Umno side of the fence.
PAS leaders have already vowed to have nothing to do with him come GE-13, which should be sometime this year if not within the next 2 months. However, their rejection is unlikely to faze him. Even the stripping of his Datuk title by the Kelantan Sultan couldn't pierce through his well-armoured skin.
Today, thanks to his Malay-rights vehicle Perkasa, Ibrahim is no longer without bargaining power. Good times have come to him since forming Perkasa to help Umno out of a religious row in 2010 over the usage of the word Allah by non-Muslims.
Prime Minister Najib Razak's Umno party is bound to sponsor him on a BN ticket at the very least. Even though Ibrahim was sacked from Umno previously, grateful party leaders will surely open the door for him one way or another. If at all he is deemed too 'hot' for Umno, Najib could offer him to multiracial but talent-comatose BN components, like Gerakan. It would certainly liven them up.
"I guess to an extent there is the thought of retaining his seat and this could be one reason why he is going all-out to rally support for himself. But I suspect the overriding motive is still to provide support for the right-wing in Umno," MP for Shah Alam Khalid Ibrahim told Malaysia Chronicle.
In 1986, Ibrahim Ali won Pasir Mas on an Umno ticket with nearly 4,000-majority. In 1990, he retained the seat with nearly 10,000-majority but he had contested under the Semangat 46 party led by Kelantan prince Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah. In 1995 and 1999, he contested under Umno again but lost with margins of 3,000 and 8,000-odd votes. In 2004, he tried his luck as an Independent, and crashed out with a negative majority of some 33,000 votes.
Finally, in 2008, he managed to persuade PAS to sponsor him and this time he won by nearly 9,000 votes. But he soon reneged on his promises and made it very clear that he would support BN. Despite his chequered relationship with Umno, his rapport with former premier Mahathir Mohamad is especially strong.
Obsession with death
In recent weeks, Ibrahim has been the talk of town after he rushed to take Umno's side in a Christian-conspiracy row with the DAP and the Christian community.
When DAP called on the public to boycott Umno-owned newspaper Utusan, Ibrahim's Perkasa held a nosiy protest and declared they would defend Utusan at all costs, even if "over their dead bodies".
Just days before that, Ibrahim himself had volunteered to sacrifice the lives of his Perkasa members, pledging to die "sprawling in blood" to protect Islam from Christianity although no one in the Christian community had challenged him or Islam. Only Utusan had made the unsubstantiated allegations.
Ibrahim then backed off somewhat after causing a huge public uproar and triggering nationwide calls for his imprisionment for stirring up racial tensions.
“You can go to Pasir Mas and ask the Chinese there,” Malaysian Insider reported Ibrahim as saying on Saturday. He was referring to his fertiliser gifts, donation of RM5,000 to a Chinese temple, patching potholes in a road in a Chinese area and cash gifts to high-scoring Chinese and Malay students.
“This is proof that Datuk Ibrahim Ali, Perkasa president, is not racist, is attentive to all races — 1Malaysia. What is being defended is the federal constitution and this is the same with the command and reminder from the Conference of Rulers."
Days of thunder
But to those who think the pint-sized but rotund Ibrahim Ali has learned his lesson, they are wrong. Even a triple by-pass heart operation in late 2010 could not stop the 60-year old, who is reputed to have 4 wives and a soft spot for the fine life.
Nonetheless, he had his days of thunder too.
In December 1974, when the state of Kedah was plunged into near famine conditions and Malay farmers could not eke out a living because of a collapse in rubber prices, Ibrahim Ali and Opposition Leader Anwar took part in mass demonstrations against the government. Side by side both men marched, fearless of the rubber hoses and longrotans swung at them by the FRU and the police.
At one protest, they were chased by the authorities, caught and flung into an FRU truck. Both men were daring enough to jump out and escape. For a while, they hid in an Indian temple in downtown Kuala Lumpur but eventually both were caught and thrown into the Kamunting Detention Centre under the dreaded Internal Security Act.
After they were released, their paths diverged and Anwar went on to become Opposition Leader.
As for Ibrahim Ali - there is only one Ibrahim Ali. His critics may say that is already one too many, but his admirers insist that with the right science and technology he should be cloned. Like Dolly, the sheep.
