Democracy Put To Rest

Black Thursday in Ipoh
Sim Kwang Yang
http://www.malaysiakini.com/
May 9, 2009

When the Pakistan prime minister announced his government’s decision to go after the Talibans in the Swat Valley, he said it was to restore the “honour of the Motherland!” Honour, in one form or another, is one of the highest and most universal virtues held dear by many cultures.

We may not condone the sort of “honour killing” practised by some tribesmen in Pakistan. The ritual suicide of Japanese samurai warriors called ‘sepuku’ in defence of their personal honour may also sound extreme. But we still say, “There is honour even among thieves.”

We call our elected representative ‘The Right Honourable’, or ‘Yang Berhormat’, precisely because politics ought to be an honourable profession. Unfortunately, throughout the whole world, many politicians have prostituted their honour for personal gain and power – they are worse than thieves.

On May 7, honour in Malaysian politics was assassinated and buried by a bunch of people worse than thieves. The six-hour theatrical fiasco inside and outside the Perak state legislature has been variously described as “chaos”, “bedlam”, “mayhem” and “shambolic”.

In my ripe old age, and with my decades of active political participation and commentary in the media, I have never seen anything close to the murder of honour in Malaysian politics like what happened in Ipoh. Not even the infamous Operation Lallang can come close to the public display of the breakdown of rule of law and parliamentary democracy. Finally, new Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak has outdone Dr Mahathir Mohamad in the usurpation of the people’s sovereign will.

Election of new speaker dubious

Calling it a coup d’etat in his article on the blog, Hornbill Unleashed, blogger Pak Bui has this to impart to us all: “American hawk Edward Luttwak wrote in ‘Coup d’État: a Practical Handbook’, that ‘a coup consists of the infiltration of a small, but critical, segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control over the remainder.’

A coup is usually initiated by the military to overthrow a legitimate government. Remember when the Fiji military armed to the teeth marching into Parliament and put the lawmakers under arrest, thereby taking power from the politicians? Military coups are a rarity in these days. In Perak, it was achieved by more subtle means, through a congruence of forces – the UMNO-led Barisan Nasional coalition, the civil servants and the police, all bending the semblance of law to breaking point.

Looking at the picture, one can be forgiven in thinking that the Perak august house of legislature has turned into royal rumble on the World Wrestling Federation circuit!

The forcible removal of the House speaker by unidentified goons is a sight that is as macabre as it is surreal. We have finally achieved the dubious distinction of overtaking Taiwan as a country with gang-like behaviour in the legislative assembly.

By parliamentary conventions that are observed in most Commonwealth countries, the grounds of the legislature is a sovereign refuge from which government administration agencies like the police cannot invade unless upon invitation by the speaker. This convention has arisen from that time-honoured and almost sacrosanct doctrine of separation of powers between the three branches of government.

In the legislature, the House has its own sergeant-at-arms to enforce the decisions of the speaker and the whole House. This is the way of the legislature policing itself without the interference of the police.

To witness unidentified goons, speculated to be police personnel, carting away the speaker is to see the death of honour for parliamentary democracy in Malaysia.

Knowing something of parliamentary practices and House standing orders, I doubt the proceedings on May 7 in the Perak legislature is in accordance with the laws and the federal constitution. The election of the new speaker is dubious. The action of deputy speaker Hee Foong Yit in summarily usurping the power of the original speaker is entirely unlawful.

That much-maligned defector has once again played a critical role at the critical time. On the Internet and in private conversation, her name has been made synonymous with some of the most obscene words imaginable. It might be sexism at work, but some will argue that in this exceptional case, the vilification may be well-deserved.

Thanks to her, the picture of her tearing up one-ringgit bills or pointing what appeared to be a pepper spray at a fellow assemblyperson has come to be the most defining image of the entire circus on Black Thursday in Perak.

Police dragged into imbroglio

The biggest casualty of Black Thursday has to be the Royal Malaysian Police. Their demeanor in the discharge of their duty soils the image of the royal throne. I suppose one could argue that they have to take orders from their political masters. Being a federal agency, they do have to obey the demand of the federal cabinet and the new home minister. If the politicians drag them into playing a partisan role against the opposition coalition, then the fault lies in the UMNO politicians, and not the police.

But the enthusiasm with which the police went about arresting 120 people in the past three days or so does show a clear lack of professionalism. They arrested Wong Chin Fatt on very shaky ground. They arrested people attending peaceful candlelight vigil outside the Brickfields police station where Wong was held captive. To top absurdity upon absurdities, they arrested five lawyers who went to offer legal aid for those who were detained.

In Ipoh, within and outside the 500-metre limit of the Perak state legislature, they charged at strawmen like a bull in a China shop. They arrested 10 elected representatives like common criminals, handcuffs and all. They arrested people for wearing black. They arrested people for having breakfast, and for hanging around like my 69-year-old friend Bernard Khoo. Who would they NOT be arrested next?

One of the most cherished freedoms of a citizen in a free democratic country is the security and freedom of the person. It is the duty of the state within the ambit of that Social Contract (that of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau) to protect, preserve, and promote the personal liberty of its citizens. The unreasonable deprivation of that sacrosanct personal liberty, even for an hour, is a moral crime against the collective humanity of the citizens.

In a civil society, all forms of violence are outlawed, leaving the military and the police personnel to monopolise the right to violent means in enforcing the laws. When the laws are unjust, and when the police are overzealous in exercising their power in depriving peaceful citizens of their personal freedom, the moral legitimacy of the state and the police will deteriorate in the hearts of the people.

BN’s ‘ugly daughter-in-law’

Right now, the national attention is firmly fixated on Perak. The continuing battles in various courts between the belligerent parties will make sure of that. Malaysians are generally a meek lot. Apart from the activists and the bloggers, they may not rush to the streets of Ipoh to display their displeasure. They just watch events unfold with their cold eyes, making their own judgement in the silence of their hearts, waiting for their time of reckoning to come.

Again, the only honourable way of resolving this crisis in Perak is to hold a state general election, to settle the issue once for all. But that is what the puppet BN government in Perak will not do, for fear of a washout at the polls.

There is an old Chinese saying, “An ugly daughter-in-law will have to meet her husband’s father one day”. (In the old days in China, when marriages were arranged by parents with the help of a match-maker, the groom’s father may not see her daughter-in-law right up to the time of the wedding day when the bride’s face would be veiled the entire time. But a face-to-face meeting is inevitable after the wedding.)

The ugly illegitimate BN state government will have to face the Perak voters eventually – sooner rather than later. The ugliness of the loss of honour in Ipoh on May 7 may in fact drag down the BN coalition in the next general election. We can get an inkling of the voters’ sentiment in the Penanti by-election.

SIM KWANG YANG was MP for Bandar Kuching between 1982 and 1995. He can be reached at kenyalang578@hotmail.com.

Same Agenda, Different Methods

Why Sedition Act is the new ISA
By Syed Jaymal Zahiid and Melissa Loovi

KUALA LUMPUR, May 9 — The recent spate of arrests made under the Sedition Act has led opposition leaders and lawyers to unanimously conclude that the government might have found a better tool than the Internal Security Act (ISA) to quell dissent.

The continued use of the ISA, condemned locally and internationally, does not appear to be politically tenable. This week, a number of activists and opposition party leaders were detained under the Sedition Act.

Many Barisan Nasional (BN) component party leaders have also joined their Pakatan Rakyat (PR) counterparts in calling for the government to abolish the British-inherited law. Umno is the only party that believes that the unpopular law should be maintained.

The Sedition Act is, however, perceived to be less oppressive than the ISA but yet drafted in such a way that it gives the government absolute power to make arrests on its political enemies.

According to section 4 (1) of the Sedition Act, a person is considered to have committed an offence under this law if he or she attempts to do, or make any preparation to do, or conspires with any person to do, any act which has or would, if done, have a seditious tendency.

It further read that any person is found to have committed an offence under this law if he or she utters any seditious words, prints, publishes, sells, offers for sale, distributes, or reproduces any seditious publications or imports any seditious publications.
Yet in all of this, there is no real and clear definitive guideline as to what constitutes sedition.

Puchong MP Gobind Singh Deo, who is also a lawyer, said such a vague law lends the authorities indefinite power to silence the opposition.

“A conviction can be so easily secured under the Sedition Act because it is under the discretion of the judge (to conclude what is seditious or not),” he told The Malaysian Insider.

Malik Imtiaz, a prominent human rights lawyer, also said that due to the vague definition, the Sedition Act can be easily used by the BN government on its enemies.
“Where do you draw the line between responsible expression and unethical ones (if the law does not provide such guidelines) so the police are left with the power to draw its own conclusion,” he said.

Centre for Public Policy Studies, or ASLI, chairman Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam told The Malaysian Insider that with the Sedition Act, the government would stand to gain more if it were to make arrests under the Sedition Act instead of the ISA.

"With the Sedition Act, one can stand for an open trial and the government would be seen as conducting a proper exercise of the rule of law.

"But with the ISA, its provision for detention without trial is a violation of one's fundamental rights and a vital aspect of a democracy and the people would perceive this as oppressive," he said.

Navaratnam added that it was wrong for the government to clamp down on opposition leaders and rights activists in recent days as it had encroached their democratic rights to freedom of expression.

Looking back at the history of the Sedition Act, prominent academician Farish A. Noor said it was rather ironic that the British-inherited law is being used against the opposition.
"I think members of the public should remember that the Sedition Act was created by the British colonialists and it was used to silence nationalist opposition who were freedom fighters fighting for the country's independence.

"So it's ironic that the current leaders that came from the same background are actually using the Sedition Act to silence their opposition," he said.

Already Dozens Arrows In The Target (NEP)

Constructive criticism
Neil Khor@ www.malaysiakini.com ( April 28,2009)

In his blog postings about the stock market and financial institutions, Dr Mahathir Mohamad is giving us a very good lesson in economics. More importantly, he is doing what the Barisan Nasional and the opposition are not able to: re-focus the national lens on economics and the well-being of the country.

In late 2007, upon returning from the United Kingdom, I realised that the cost of living in Malaysia had gone up quite dramatically. By March 2008, Malaysians have all effectively become poorer due to inflationary forces. But what was worse, the working class and even the lower middle class (people with income less than RM2,000 per-month and living in urban areas) were badly effected. The government was, however, too reliant on feel-good facts and figures. In the end, I am quite sure that many decided to vote opposition because their quality of life had deteriorated.

It is now more than a year after that watershed political event. Though unseen but felt acutely, the insidious economic tsunami is pushing many Malaysians onto the edge of financial ruin. Car loans, housing loans, credit card debts; all need to be serviced based on shrinking incomes.

Whether or not we realise it, our economy is very much export-driven. Malaysia ranks third in Asia behind Singapore and Hong Kong on the export dependence indicator. This exports measured against the overall size of the economy. Petroleum, palm oil, rubber, electronics and electrical products are our mainstay. For many years, the government has tried to develop the services sector: banking, healthcare, education, information technology and tourism-related products.

Unlike mono-ethnic states, Malaysia has to achieve development whilst playing a fine ethnic-balancing act. But most Malaysians agree that development should not result in the alienation of anyone.

Intra-ethnic problem

However, the reality is that we are also one of the most unequal societies in Asia and governmental policies have inadvertently made that gap an intra-ethnic problem, especially amongst bumiputeras. The nature of competition is such that talent is concentrated in particular segments of society sustained by wealth and education. By this I mean, the wealthy have access to capital and better education.

To remedy this, the BN-led government decided to provide, what in golfing terms, are called handicaps; which is an amateur’s playing ability. Ethnic-based policies means the handicap was applied across the board but we know now that it ended up handicapping whole ethnic communities whilst building up resentment in others. For Indian Malaysians, the pit was even deeper with a staggering 40 percent of crime in Selangor allegedly committed by this vulnerable group.

Malaysia’s tired social and economic engineering programmes now need revision although for a time, they were successful. Put the hardware in and some level of progress can be achieved. But in the process, freeloaders have gotten used to easy contracts. As a bumiputera friend said to me, “the Chinese are stupid. Why work when you can freeload, get commission and sub-contract the work to the others?”

One of the reasons why a governmental ombudsman was recommended by the first National Consultative Council in 1971 was to monitor the implementation of the NEP. The ombudsman is responsible directly to Parliament and would have acted as the eyes and ears of the NEP. Why the government did not set-up such an institution is a question for those former prime ministers to answer.

It is easy to say all these things with the advantage of hindsight. Few would have been able to foretell the negative impacts of privatisation. Despite his critical comments about western financial institutions, Mahathir’s government also attempted to profit by indulging in forex trading with less than happy ends. But there is no point in crying over spilt milk and Mahathir is correct to emphasise what he has learned from past policies and mistakes. For a long time, non-governmental organisations in Penang, for example, have warned against over-dependence on exports and foreign direct investments.

They put forward the idea that development should be sustainable. In the past, the strategy, to put it crudely, was to throw money at a problem. Today, we have to pay more attention to quality interventions.

Class F contractors

Let us take the case of Class F contractors. Government contracts are often given to bumiputera companies to help them gain capital. This, theoretically, will help them build capacity in management and the procurement of talent to do the work. A long-term strategy, these contractors will then move up the value chain ultimately becoming a YTL, etc. But the reality is that no capacity-building is happening because they sub-contract out the work to non-bumiputeras.

Instead of giving contracts to bumiputera companies, what the government should do is to require these companies to have genuine working relationships with their non-bumiputera partners. The onus should be on the bumiputera companies to find expertise outside their own “gene” pool and thus create a sustainable business model.

Non-bumiputeras would also be more willing to establish genuine partnerships if they feel assured that their bumi partners will not only get the contract but also contribute qualitatively to the partnership. It is also important to make sure that we have only a certain number of contractors. This will encourage other bumiputeras to aspire to other types of professions that are less dependent on government contracts.

In the education sector, meritocracy must be practiced relentlessly. This is simply because Malaysians cannot be short-changed by having half-baked teachers at primary, secondary and tertiary levels. Moreover, if we are to be a supplier of educational services, we need to have the best teaching at private colleges, public universities and our think tanks.

Some will cry foul but they should crawl out of their time-warps. This is not 1971 or even 1985. Most of the members of Gapena, for example, have sent their children to overseas universities and they have all done very well. It is time, that the same opportunities be given to poorer Malaysians in the rural areas. This means investing more in education by raising the salaries of quality teachers.

As we make ourselves less dependent on exports, we need to offer the world better services. But unlike the policies of the past, let us put Malaysians first. If our health, education and tourism products are so good that Malaysians feel proud of them, then it should be quite natural that they will be good enough for regional and international investors and customers.

It is therefore time to put into practice the ethnically neutral aspects of the NEP so that we can build a strong and sustainable nation. On this point, the constructive criticisms and observations of Mahathir should be heeded.

Poor, Poor Police

Time for IGP Musa to resign when crime rampages beyond police control until even the JB South OCPD is tied up and robbed at knife point in his house
Lim Kit Siang

It is time for the Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan to resign when crime rampages on in the country beyond police control until even the Johore Baru South OCPD Asst Comm Zainuddin Yaakob was tied up and robbed at knife point in his house in Johore Baru on Thursday morning.

ACP Zainuddin was home alone when three men, believed to be Indonesians, tied him up and ransacked his home at about 5.45 am on Thursday, leaving later with some cash and valuables.

The tying-up and robbing at knife-point of an OCPD in his own house is not just a humiliating episode for the Malaysian police, but highlights the sheer inability of the police force to bring crime under check and control, especially in the several capitals of crime in the country.

One of the greatest failures of the Abdullah premiership is his failure to reduce crime to restore to Malaysians their fundamental right to be free from crime and the fear of crime, whether in the streets, public places or the privacy of their homes.

Although Abdullah started his premiership with the pledge to fight crime, he left office with Malaysians feeling even more unsafe from crime which has reached endemic dimensions.

Under Abdullah’s premiership, the police fought a losing war against the rising crime index, which had worsened from 156,315 cases in 2003 to crash through the 200,000 barrier for the first time in nation’s history.

Now, it is not only the ordinary citizens, visitors, tourists and investors who do not feel safe, even police personnel and police officers like the JB South OCPD are themselves victims of crime. Until recently, only ex-police officers fall victim to crime – like the former Penang Chief Police Officer who was killed when robbed in his Petaling Jaya home recently!

Abdullah did make an attempt to address the endemic crime problem at the beginning of his premiership, setting up the Royal Police Commission to revamp the police force.

However, the Royal Police Commission’s recommendations to create an efficient, incorruptible, professional and world-class police service to declare an all-out war against crime and to keep crime low was opposed by the police force, UMNO and UMNO Youth then led by the present Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, sabotaging the establishment of an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC).

Abdullah did not have the political will to implement the Royal Police Commission’s recommendations to establish a professional world-class police service to keep crime low, eradicate corruption and uphold human rights.

Does the new Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak has the political will to implement all the recommendations of the Royal Police Commission, in particular to set up the IPCMC?

The signs are not favourable, especially from the way the story of the tying-up and robbing of the JB South OCPD had been played down by the mainstream media.

A cold and wintry wind is blowing through the news rooms of all news media organisations, particularly the mainstream media – heralding the return of Mahathirism on news control and censorship to serve the interests of the political leaders in government rather than those of the people.