RELATED ARTICLE NAJIB: I Cheat, Therefore I Am (a Patriot) A Dramatic Story Three Little Pigs Retelling
relatedarticle Ummi Hafilda lost her locus standi when the prosecution never called her to testify in court to rebut the prostitute allegation
Can Najib do that. Is he himself so clean?”
help the Sarawakians, probe Taib and if guilty, impound his wealth, seize his assets, prosecute him to the highest courts and show Malaysians that no one is safe from such excesses of power abuse and corruption,” PKR vice president Tian Chua told Malaysia Chronicle.
PAS spiritual leader Datuk Nik Aziz Nik Mat said today he could not bring himself to accept the Barisan Nasional (BN) victory in the two by-elections yesterday because the government machinery was allegedly biased.
PAS lost in the by-elections in Kerdau, Pahang, and Merlimau, Malacca, because the entire government machinery and the mainstream media were allegedly biased towards the BN, he told reporters here.
Both the BN candidates, Syed Ibrahim Syed Ahmad and Roslan Ahmad, won with bigger majorities in Kerdau and Merlimau, respectively, in the by-elections yesterday.
Asked about DAP’s call for the PAS government of Kelantan to revoke the ban on gambling in the state, Nik Aziz, who is Kelantan mentri besar, said the state government was prepared to provide an explanation for DAP chairman Karpal Singh to understand the move behind the ban.
“The matter can be discussed, as Karpal Singh has mentioned,” he said.
Karpal Singh had called on the state government to revoke its ban on gambling, saying that federal law allowed gambling for non-Muslims, after the local authorities in Kota Baru raided three business premises where lottery tickets were sold.
As the political tsunami of 2008 and Najib Razak’s chant of change entered their second year, the public expected Parliament to be truly a place of intellectual discussion, discourse, and debate to determine and decide on the laws and direction of the nation.
Sadly, it proved to be a great disappointment.
Instead of displaying a parliament with verve, vigour and vibrancy, there were members of parliament who got into verbal brawls, others took pride in telling vulgar jokes, some remained virtually silent or vanished from most of the parliamentary sittings and a few were very versatile in histrionics and in veering towards a fist-fight!
There were of course those MPs who vaulted out of the PKR for reasons most vile and venal to be “independent” of the will of the very people who voted for the party they once represented! Their only contribution in Parliament was to spew venom against the PKR and to spill its supposed secrets, ironically spoiling their own reputation.
Vacuous answers were given by ministers, their deputies or representatives to vital questions posed especially by members of the opposition. To preserve the Barisan Nasional’s (BN) veneer of consensus, BN MPs voted according to what the PM and Umno wanted — they were reminded that they have no volition of their own when in Parliament!
At times the vituperative speaker and his deputies ignored and even allowed virulent attacks by the BN MPs on PR MPs. Umno MPs had a field day flagrantly violating the rules of parliament. A huge percentage of motions from the opposition were rejected whilst bills were blindly rushed through by the BN’s unabashed brute majority.
The sad and scandalous state of affairs in Parliament came to a climax on December 16, 2010. Anwar Ibrahim and three other senior leaders of PR were suspended from Parliament for six months through two separate resolutions in a process fraught with misinterpretation, misrepresentation and deceit.
Well-known writer Kim Quek called it “the butchering of democracy” in Parliament and “undoubtedly the most shameful episode in our parliamentary history”. Soon after the fiasco and fracas, almost all fingers were pointed at the man who plays a very decisive role in Parliament — Speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia.
Free Malaysia Today (December 21, 2010) put Pandikar in his place: “At every turn, Pandikar Amin was there to thwart the every move of the opposition to seek a just hearing. He was prompt to throw out those sitting on the other side without reason or rhyme. He acted as if he is lord and master of all he surveys and Parliament is just a plaything.
“When coming down hard on the opposition, he gave the impression that opposition lawmakers are an unruly bunch of hotheads who do not deserve to sit in the chamber. They should be ejected. He portrayed the other side as gentlemen of high honour and decorum.
“Pandikar Amin may be the big boss in the Dewan Raykat but he cut a sorry figure in the court of public opinion… Every step he makes is strictly in accordance with the wishes of the ruling political masters… (He) may be a champion and a hero to the BN crowd, but to the people, he is a fraidy-cat who dares not beat an independent path”.
To Tunku Abdul Aziz (a very well-respected public figure and a vice-president of the DAP), “Mr Speaker is a total disgrace and has turned the Parliament of Malaysia into an object of fun and ridicule. He has completely lost the respect of all fair-minded people, and for sheer incompetence and arrogance he typifies the proverbial square peg in a round hole.”
He added rather aptly: “To the politically biased, it is all too tempting to blame members of the opposition for reacting robustly to the Speaker’s diabolically provocative and heavy-handed ‘interventions’ bordering on intimidation. But that is to ignore the fact that the House is as good as the Speaker. After all, he sets the tone of the House and the standards of parliamentary behaviour.”
The outrageous suspensions of the four PR leaders can only be seen as the pinnacle of Umno’s arrogance. The party has not changed at all. They still make use of the nation’s key democratic institutions like Parliament in their dirty and desperate political game to cling on to power and to contain, cripple and crush legitimate dissent and/or to hinder genuine change advocated by the opposition.
The worsening crisis of parliamentary democracy in Bolehland reduced the PM’s much vaunted promise of real and radical change and his visage of a transformed country to sheer hype and hypocrisy — especially considering the fact that he was hardly in Parliament in 2010 due to his frequent overseas ventures.
Perhaps for Najib, Parliament is a real nuisance, a non-entity in his great plans to change the nation. If parliament was so indispensable to the PM he would not have unveiled his supposedly radical and revolutionary New Economic Model (NEM) outside the august House — when Parliament was in session!
Soon after the circus on December 16, a disappointed and disgusted Lim Kit Siang declared that it is now “left to the Malaysian people to use their vote in the next general elections, which is not far away, to administer the full lesson by sending an unmistakable message that the country needs wide-ranging reforms and institutional changes, including Parliament, if Malaysia is to fulfil her promise to take her rightful place in the international arena as a united, competitive, progressive and prosperous nation in the international arena.”
FMT shared Kit Siang’s view: “The only way to restore dignity, honour and justice to the tarnished House and make the Speaker’s chair an object of respect is through the ballot box. Parliamentary democracy can only thrive when the Speaker works for and not against the
— Bernama
The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on Thursday demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Manomohan Singh, saying he lost the ‘moral authority and legitimacy’ to lead the government after The Hindu exposé accessed through WikiLeaks on cash-for-votes in 2008.
Addressing a press conference here, NDA working chairman L.K. Advani maintained that the cable by a senior American diplomat to his government vindicated the position taken by the NDA that the government attempted to monetarily induce MPs to vote in favour of the confidence vote at the height of the crisis over the India-U.S. nuclear deal.
Flanked by leaders of the constituents of the NDA, Mr. Advani ruled out the possibility of the Opposition tabling a no-confidence motion against the Manmohan Singh government.
“Some of us may want an election, but all MPs may not be in favour of it. Total Opposition may not be in its favour,” the former Deputy Prime Minister said in response to a question why the NDA did not go for a no-trust vote against the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in the Lok Sabha.
He said Dr. Singh should come before Parliament and announce his resignation owning responsibility. The main argument of Mr. Advani was that the cable published by The Hindu corroborated the position taken by the NDA that the vote of confidence in favour of the UPA-I was influenced by bribery.
‘Credibility of The Hindu is high’
The senior BJP leader complimented The Hindu on publishing the cable. Asked about the authenticity of the cable, Mr. Advani said: “Credibility of The Hindu is high and the paper found it worth publishing it.”
He said that in the wake of the recent scams that dogged the government, the NDA did not demand the resignation of the Prime Minister. But after the latest exposé, the Opposition would have failed in its duty had it not asserted that Dr. Singh has lost all “moral authority.”
Dubbing the exposé the “biggest scandal” in the post-independent history, Mr. Advani said that any person proud of the Indian democratic system should feel ashamed of it.
“I have not seen in my political life a government as corrupt as the current one. Right from the top in the government establishment and the party all are involved,” he said.
A senior leader of the NDA argued that the latest exposé was to be seen against the backdrop of a set of allegations made on the eve of the crucial 2008 confidence vote. “Individuals claiming to be representing the government not only approached MPs with money but got them to speak to the interlocutors. The targeted MPs produced the cash in the Lok Sabha. What other evidence is needed?” he asked.
He maintained that the parliamentary committee set up to probe the allegations served no purpose as it was dominated by members of the ruling combine and even its recommendations for a further investigation in the matter was not followed.
A statement by the NDA noted that the cable published in The Hindu was a statement sent by an American diplomat to his government.
It said:
“It is contemporaneous in so far as it relates to the year 2008. He was the political counsellor in the American Embassy. The Americans were interested in the vote of confidence. One of the offenders was lavishly and liberally working in foreign cell of the Congress.
“The arrogant Congress displayed the rogue war chests to the American diplomat. He certainly could not have concocted these facts in relation to a friendly party in India. The likes of Sant Chatwal were inducted in order to induce the Akali Dal.”
The statement maintained that the Finance Minister’s defence in the Rajya Sabha that diplomatic immunity prevented the government from investigating the cable was of no avail.
“The diplomatic immunity extends to protecting the secrecy of the cable. That cable has already been released to the public. The diplomatic immunity does not extend to protecting an Indian offender, who has committed an act of bribery in India. Shri Pranab Mukherjee’s further defence that the offence vanished with the dissolution of the 14th Lok Sabha is incredible since the offence of bribery, committed in 2008, outside Parliament does not vanish because the 14th Lok Sabha has ceased to exist,” it noted.
The statement said the disclosure added to the campaign of the NDA against corruption and “these allegations of corruption shall continue to haunt this government till it continues.”
RELATED ARTICLE NAJIB: I Cheat, Therefore I Am (a Patriot) A Dramatic Story Three Little Pigs Retelling
relatedarticle Ummi Hafilda lost her locus standi when the prosecution never called her to testify in court to rebut the prostitute allegation
Can Najib do that. Is he himself so clean?”
help the Sarawakians, probe Taib and if guilty, impound his wealth, seize his assets, prosecute him to the highest courts and show Malaysians that no one is safe from such excesses of power abuse and corruption,” PKR vice president Tian Chua told Malaysia Chronicle.
PAS spiritual leader Datuk Nik Aziz Nik Mat said today he could not bring himself to accept the Barisan Nasional (BN) victory in the two by-elections yesterday because the government machinery was allegedly biased.
PAS lost in the by-elections in Kerdau, Pahang, and Merlimau, Malacca, because the entire government machinery and the mainstream media were allegedly biased towards the BN, he told reporters here.
Both the BN candidates, Syed Ibrahim Syed Ahmad and Roslan Ahmad, won with bigger majorities in Kerdau and Merlimau, respectively, in the by-elections yesterday.
Asked about DAP’s call for the PAS government of Kelantan to revoke the ban on gambling in the state, Nik Aziz, who is Kelantan mentri besar, said the state government was prepared to provide an explanation for DAP chairman Karpal Singh to understand the move behind the ban.
“The matter can be discussed, as Karpal Singh has mentioned,” he said.
Karpal Singh had called on the state government to revoke its ban on gambling, saying that federal law allowed gambling for non-Muslims, after the local authorities in Kota Baru raided three business premises where lottery tickets were sold.
As the political tsunami of 2008 and Najib Razak’s chant of change entered their second year, the public expected Parliament to be truly a place of intellectual discussion, discourse, and debate to determine and decide on the laws and direction of the nation.
Sadly, it proved to be a great disappointment.
Instead of displaying a parliament with verve, vigour and vibrancy, there were members of parliament who got into verbal brawls, others took pride in telling vulgar jokes, some remained virtually silent or vanished from most of the parliamentary sittings and a few were very versatile in histrionics and in veering towards a fist-fight!
There were of course those MPs who vaulted out of the PKR for reasons most vile and venal to be “independent” of the will of the very people who voted for the party they once represented! Their only contribution in Parliament was to spew venom against the PKR and to spill its supposed secrets, ironically spoiling their own reputation.
Vacuous answers were given by ministers, their deputies or representatives to vital questions posed especially by members of the opposition. To preserve the Barisan Nasional’s (BN) veneer of consensus, BN MPs voted according to what the PM and Umno wanted — they were reminded that they have no volition of their own when in Parliament!
At times the vituperative speaker and his deputies ignored and even allowed virulent attacks by the BN MPs on PR MPs. Umno MPs had a field day flagrantly violating the rules of parliament. A huge percentage of motions from the opposition were rejected whilst bills were blindly rushed through by the BN’s unabashed brute majority.
The sad and scandalous state of affairs in Parliament came to a climax on December 16, 2010. Anwar Ibrahim and three other senior leaders of PR were suspended from Parliament for six months through two separate resolutions in a process fraught with misinterpretation, misrepresentation and deceit.
Well-known writer Kim Quek called it “the butchering of democracy” in Parliament and “undoubtedly the most shameful episode in our parliamentary history”. Soon after the fiasco and fracas, almost all fingers were pointed at the man who plays a very decisive role in Parliament — Speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia.
Free Malaysia Today (December 21, 2010) put Pandikar in his place: “At every turn, Pandikar Amin was there to thwart the every move of the opposition to seek a just hearing. He was prompt to throw out those sitting on the other side without reason or rhyme. He acted as if he is lord and master of all he surveys and Parliament is just a plaything.
“When coming down hard on the opposition, he gave the impression that opposition lawmakers are an unruly bunch of hotheads who do not deserve to sit in the chamber. They should be ejected. He portrayed the other side as gentlemen of high honour and decorum.
“Pandikar Amin may be the big boss in the Dewan Raykat but he cut a sorry figure in the court of public opinion… Every step he makes is strictly in accordance with the wishes of the ruling political masters… (He) may be a champion and a hero to the BN crowd, but to the people, he is a fraidy-cat who dares not beat an independent path”.
To Tunku Abdul Aziz (a very well-respected public figure and a vice-president of the DAP), “Mr Speaker is a total disgrace and has turned the Parliament of Malaysia into an object of fun and ridicule. He has completely lost the respect of all fair-minded people, and for sheer incompetence and arrogance he typifies the proverbial square peg in a round hole.”
He added rather aptly: “To the politically biased, it is all too tempting to blame members of the opposition for reacting robustly to the Speaker’s diabolically provocative and heavy-handed ‘interventions’ bordering on intimidation. But that is to ignore the fact that the House is as good as the Speaker. After all, he sets the tone of the House and the standards of parliamentary behaviour.”
The outrageous suspensions of the four PR leaders can only be seen as the pinnacle of Umno’s arrogance. The party has not changed at all. They still make use of the nation’s key democratic institutions like Parliament in their dirty and desperate political game to cling on to power and to contain, cripple and crush legitimate dissent and/or to hinder genuine change advocated by the opposition.
The worsening crisis of parliamentary democracy in Bolehland reduced the PM’s much vaunted promise of real and radical change and his visage of a transformed country to sheer hype and hypocrisy — especially considering the fact that he was hardly in Parliament in 2010 due to his frequent overseas ventures.
Perhaps for Najib, Parliament is a real nuisance, a non-entity in his great plans to change the nation. If parliament was so indispensable to the PM he would not have unveiled his supposedly radical and revolutionary New Economic Model (NEM) outside the august House — when Parliament was in session!
Soon after the circus on December 16, a disappointed and disgusted Lim Kit Siang declared that it is now “left to the Malaysian people to use their vote in the next general elections, which is not far away, to administer the full lesson by sending an unmistakable message that the country needs wide-ranging reforms and institutional changes, including Parliament, if Malaysia is to fulfil her promise to take her rightful place in the international arena as a united, competitive, progressive and prosperous nation in the international arena.”
FMT shared Kit Siang’s view: “The only way to restore dignity, honour and justice to the tarnished House and make the Speaker’s chair an object of respect is through the ballot box. Parliamentary democracy can only thrive when the Speaker works for and not against the
— Bernama
The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) on Thursday demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Manomohan Singh, saying he lost the ‘moral authority and legitimacy’ to lead the government after The Hindu exposé accessed through WikiLeaks on cash-for-votes in 2008.
Addressing a press conference here, NDA working chairman L.K. Advani maintained that the cable by a senior American diplomat to his government vindicated the position taken by the NDA that the government attempted to monetarily induce MPs to vote in favour of the confidence vote at the height of the crisis over the India-U.S. nuclear deal.
Flanked by leaders of the constituents of the NDA, Mr. Advani ruled out the possibility of the Opposition tabling a no-confidence motion against the Manmohan Singh government.
“Some of us may want an election, but all MPs may not be in favour of it. Total Opposition may not be in its favour,” the former Deputy Prime Minister said in response to a question why the NDA did not go for a no-trust vote against the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government in the Lok Sabha.
He said Dr. Singh should come before Parliament and announce his resignation owning responsibility. The main argument of Mr. Advani was that the cable published by The Hindu corroborated the position taken by the NDA that the vote of confidence in favour of the UPA-I was influenced by bribery.
‘Credibility of The Hindu is high’
The senior BJP leader complimented The Hindu on publishing the cable. Asked about the authenticity of the cable, Mr. Advani said: “Credibility of The Hindu is high and the paper found it worth publishing it.”
He said that in the wake of the recent scams that dogged the government, the NDA did not demand the resignation of the Prime Minister. But after the latest exposé, the Opposition would have failed in its duty had it not asserted that Dr. Singh has lost all “moral authority.”
Dubbing the exposé the “biggest scandal” in the post-independent history, Mr. Advani said that any person proud of the Indian democratic system should feel ashamed of it.
“I have not seen in my political life a government as corrupt as the current one. Right from the top in the government establishment and the party all are involved,” he said.
A senior leader of the NDA argued that the latest exposé was to be seen against the backdrop of a set of allegations made on the eve of the crucial 2008 confidence vote. “Individuals claiming to be representing the government not only approached MPs with money but got them to speak to the interlocutors. The targeted MPs produced the cash in the Lok Sabha. What other evidence is needed?” he asked.
He maintained that the parliamentary committee set up to probe the allegations served no purpose as it was dominated by members of the ruling combine and even its recommendations for a further investigation in the matter was not followed.
A statement by the NDA noted that the cable published in The Hindu was a statement sent by an American diplomat to his government.
It said:
“It is contemporaneous in so far as it relates to the year 2008. He was the political counsellor in the American Embassy. The Americans were interested in the vote of confidence. One of the offenders was lavishly and liberally working in foreign cell of the Congress.
“The arrogant Congress displayed the rogue war chests to the American diplomat. He certainly could not have concocted these facts in relation to a friendly party in India. The likes of Sant Chatwal were inducted in order to induce the Akali Dal.”
The statement maintained that the Finance Minister’s defence in the Rajya Sabha that diplomatic immunity prevented the government from investigating the cable was of no avail.
“The diplomatic immunity extends to protecting the secrecy of the cable. That cable has already been released to the public. The diplomatic immunity does not extend to protecting an Indian offender, who has committed an act of bribery in India. Shri Pranab Mukherjee’s further defence that the offence vanished with the dissolution of the 14th Lok Sabha is incredible since the offence of bribery, committed in 2008, outside Parliament does not vanish because the 14th Lok Sabha has ceased to exist,” it noted.
The statement said the disclosure added to the campaign of the NDA against corruption and “these allegations of corruption shall continue to haunt this government till it continues.”
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