By Tay Tian Yan, Sin Chew Daily

A massive change is in the making within PKR.

The party's disciplinary board has earlier issued a show cause letter to Zuraida Kamaruddin to seek her explanation on alleged transgressions.

Details of the alleged "transgressions" have yet to be made public, but could very likely be associated with the gathering of pro-Azmin camp at a hotel after the party's national congress last month, in which Zuraida declared publicly that Anwar had attempted to convince her it was Azmin in the sex video.

The party's disciplinary board said it was a serious act meant to discredit the party's leader.

It is believed that Zuraida could face the harshest possible punishment — expulsion from party — if her explanation is found to be unacceptable to party leadership.

Zuraida has handed in her letter in which she said everything she had said at the dinner was real.

Such character is typical of the PKR vice president: strong fighting spirit and absolutely no submission to intimidation.

It is easy to believe that the disciplinary board is not going to accept her explanation anytime, and we will have to see whether the disciplinary board or Anwar Ibrahim will actually take Zuraida out of the party.

The question is, why should any action be taken against Zuraida, and at this point of time?

Zuraida is Azmin Ali's most trusted confidant, a frontline pioneer in the Anwar-Azmin fracas. Her ministerial post and powerful grassroots support — in particular within the women's wing — have made her a mighty combatant in Azmin's camp, making her not less a target of Anwar's relentless onslaught than Azmin himslef. Taking out Zuraida is therefore in Anwar's best strategy to cripple Azmin's influences.

Azmin will have one arm lopped off with Zuraida out of the party. Moreover, there is more to simply removing Zuraida: to test Azmin's reactions and gauge his real power, which should make the whole battle a much safer bet than hitting the top man in the face.

Not taking actions against Azmin because he has been given a safe passage by the PDRM and AG's Chambers in the male sex video scandal, and therefore taking actions against Azmin now is neither convincing nor justifiable.

By contrast, Zuraida's outspoken and impulsive posture offers a much more promising chance.

Such maneuver nevertheless has its share of risks. The disciplinary board's move has met with a powerful backlash from Azmin's camp. 46 party leaders — people from ministers to MPs and central exco members — have signed a joint declaration to urge the disciplinary board to halt the investigation. They have even mobilized their people down to the grassroots level to rally support for Zuraida.

Sure enough they know the real intention behind all this is to bring down Azmin Ali and crush the whole organization. Anwar's team will have the upper hand once they have managed to get rid of Zuraida. By all means Azmin's camp must protect Zuraida while contemplating the next course of action in the event this mission fails.

In the meantime, Anwar's camp must also take the rival camp's strike ability into serious consideration before finalizing their move. Underestimating the opponents' capability will actually risk consolidating their cohesiveness in pooling their resources and manpower together to challenge the party president's position, or expediting the exodus by Azmin and his people, halving the party's strength and pushing Anwar further away from the PM's seat.

Another thing is that Anwar will never know whether Mahathir will do something to back Zuraida and Azmin. Anwar will invariably suffer a setback if the PM decides that Zuraida can continue to serve as cabinet minister be she in or out of PKR.

Anwar will have a big headache if Mahathir indicates publicly or in private that sacked PKR leaders can still join his PPBM or remain in the PH coalition.

Zuraida has now become a a crucial factor. The shakeout will begin the moment PKR disciplinary board's ax falls on her head.