Oleh Terence Netto/ MKini

PKR secretary-general Salehuddin Hashim resigned from his post today after months of swirling speculation.

He sent copies of his resignation letter to both party president Dr Wan Azizah Ismail and deputy president Dr Syed Husin Ali, as well as an email copy to party adviser Anwar Ibrahim.

salehuddin hashim interview 110408 thinkingThe ostensible reason for his resignation was his need to return to the oil and gas consultancies in which Salehuddin was involved prior to becoming an organising secretary of the party in April 2004.

“I came in when things were bleak and now I leave when things are better,” said Salehuddin, in euphemistic remarks made to Malaysiakini in-between fielding calls from sundry journalists and friends.

He was at pains to portray his resignation as owing more to the need for moving on in his career as a management consultant rather than to disgruntlement with the way things are going in PKR.

“I’m a reformer,” was all he would say when pressed for background to the latest scrape that he may have been involved in with sundry adversaries in the party.

The grapevine has buzzed with word of Salehuddin’s impending resignation since October.

On Oct 26, he sent a strongly worded letter of resignation to Anwar Ibrahim, who professed hurt at what Salehuddin said in that letter.

The ensuing commiseration between old friends prompted a change of heart in Salehuddin, 58, an admirer of the older man going back to their student days at Malay College in Kuala Kangsar in the mid-1960s.

Salehuddin retracted the letter, allowing Anwar, the conciliator, to pat himself on the back at yet another demonstration of his panache at smoothing the ruffled feathers of party stalwarts exasperated by intra-party battles and wanting to give up.

Rocky ties with Selangor MB

The background to the flap in October was Salehuddin’s indiscreetly expressed criticism of PKR’s Selangor Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahhim on the state government’s rescue of private entity, Talam Corporation.

The contretemps allowed party’s adversaries in Selangor Umno ammunition to hurl criticism at the PKR-led state administration.

Salehuddin and Khalid have had a rocky relationship going back to the 1970s when they were executives on the make in ventures spawned by the New Economic Policy.

Salehuddin became organising secretary of PKR at its gloomiest point in its brief 11-year history when the party was reeling from losses it suffered in the general elections in March 2004.

That year the Abdullah Ahmad Badawi wave swept the Umno-led Barisan Nasional to its best showing since independent Malaysia’s first polls in 1959.

Salehuddin was appointed secretary-general in April 2008 in the immediate aftermath of the party’s resounding gains in the general elections held the previous month.

He wasted no time in letting both friends and foes in the party and outside know that he would leave if he found that his position was untenable. Today, he did not say what had pushed him over his threshold.

“I will always be a party man whether inside the administration or outside,” he allowed tersely.