DEWAN DISPATCHES: The King’s tacit message to Pakatan - respect Sultan Azlan Shah’s decision
By : Azmi AnsharDEWAN RAKYAT Feb 16, 2009:
Datuk Seri Mohd Nizar Jamaluddin flayed his arms, shouted over the top of his voice, pleaded and grovelled on behalf of his position, to no avail because Sultan Azlan Shah, in invoking his constitutionally-empowered discretionary authority as Sultan of Perak, told him to leave in simple, implicit terms.
Why is it burdensome for Nizar to skedaddle? As this piece goes out for publication, Nizar is still stubbornly entrenched in the Menteri Besar’s official residence though he did promise to vacate by this week. You could probably draw a balanced line between Nizar wanting to hang on to his job and the strict instructions of his political masters to tie himself to the position if necessary, only to buy time for a better legal and populist representation as to why he is still the legitimate chief minister.
Somehow, in the past three weeks of Byzantine and Machiavellian episodes, the people behind Nizar have subtly displaced the blame for the whole sordid outcome to Sultan Azlan Shah as the one who triggered the whole mess. Bottomline: this people don’t know when they have been taken down and outmanoeuvred.
Let’s backpedal this crisis from the beginning: one disgruntled Umno assemblyman from Bota decided it was high time to abandon ship after a series of incidents made him feel horribly unwelcome in his party, so he defects to Parti Keadilan Rakyat. But the loose coalition of Pakatan Rakyat still controls the Perak Government, merely upping its bragging rights to 32 - 27 in the Perak Assembly’s balance of power.
In politics, all is fair in love, scheming and manipulation. Anwar Ibrahim may have desired hard to make Sept 16 his power grab day of the Federal Government after boasting that he had secured the allegiances of 30 BN MPs. But in all reality, he failed and he floundered, even if everybody thought he possessed the numbers. He just didn’t make it happen and his power grab ploy remains an illusion of grandeur.
So, excuse the Deputy Prime Minister for being inspired by Anwar’s scheming ways and when the window of opportunity popped out, Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak capitalised on the three defections and wrestled his way into getting back the Perak Government. We may not be privy to what methods of persuasion he employed to convince the three defectors to switch support to the BN but it doesn’t really matter. All Najib had to do was prove to Sultan Azlan Shah that he had the definitive numbers - 28 BN assemblymen and three allied to the BN. The rest was up to the Ruler’s absolute discretion.
Of course, the cacophony of objections was understandable: how could Sultan Azlan allowed the BN to re-enable a toppled State Government? If convention was followed, the Ruler could have ordered dissolution of the assembly that automatically leads to fresh state elections. But in the end, Sultan Azlan Shah PREFERRED to invoke his absolute and constitutional right to use his discretionary powers in the selection. That goes above any norm and convention. And that he did, as routinely as he would have given consent to a package of Bills and funding requests. That should have been the end of story but instead, it dragged into a full blown sorry saga.
However, from the violent street demonstrations to the insolent manner the losers in the power play trotted out against the Sultan, it wasn’t so much they lost Perak as it was the manner in which they lost it - part naïveté, part complacency, and part incompetence, but totally outwitted, outsmarted and outgunned. That is why Pakatan is still sulking and smarting. They grossly underestimated Najib’s ability to pull this off. When he did, they had to find another excuse - BN illegal power grab, buy-over, Sultan not well advised…anything, anything but the fact that they had been outmanoeuvred by Najib’s master stroke, the Prime Minister-in-waiting whom Pakatan had demonised for a good year.
Ask MP for Bukit Gelugor Karpal Singh who appeared to have acknowledged Najib as playmaker. Karpal absolutely laid the blame of the whole fiasco on Anwar, Lim Kit Siang (DAP-Ipoh Timor) and Lim Guan Eng (DAP-Bagan). Kit was shocked and hurt by Karpal’s amazing outburst but not a peep on addressing Mr Singh’s grievances.
The Sultan of Selangor, upset at the slew of insipid insults thrown at his brother ruler, came out strongly in his defence last week in a special press statement, urging the people not to be rude to Sultan Azlan Shah. Today, at the opening of the new Parliament session, Yang di-Pertuan Agong Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin issued a subtler subtext to the fiasco.
“…the people must respect the federal constitution. I expressed the hope that there will be no attempts to create laws that contravene it,” the King implored at the opening of the new Parliament session earlier in the morning. It could be said that Tuanku Mizan knows a few things about choosing the appropriate Menteri Besar.
And the King had also a few comments on how the history of the country's independence and the constitution should be embraced - explained to the young to have a better understanding of the basis for the formation of Malaysia. "The young generation is the country's back-up and hope for the future. The principles of the Rukun Negara must be understood and appreciated by all strata of the society," he said.
The MPs from Barisan Nasional must have sensed a shift is about to happen after the King’s speech. When Tuanku Mizan said “respect the Constitution and principles of Rukun Negara”, he may have well meant in a single swath that to respect the Constitution was also to respect the sovereignty of the decision made by Sultan Azlan Shah, no matter how unpopular it may be to certain masses.
From those packed sentences, it could well be interpreted that the King is telling Nizar, Anwar and the whole Pakatan cabal that their recalcitrance in not making a dignified exit from the Perak Menteri Besar’s office was met with sublime consternation. Except for the more outspoken monarchs, Tuanku Mizan is playing his role perfectly here with the grace and dignity of a King, coaxing the belligerent parties to come to their senses - fast.
In the confusing, sound-byte laden and boisterously outrageous aftermath of the Perak crisis of state governance, a pitiable circumstance has emerged - the feeble idea that you can cling on to your seat of power although you, in polite terms, have been instructed to vacate the position, or in harsh terms, have been sacked, no less by the Ruler of your state.
Why is it burdensome for Nizar to skedaddle? As this piece goes out for publication, Nizar is still stubbornly entrenched in the Menteri Besar’s official residence though he did promise to vacate by this week. You could probably draw a balanced line between Nizar wanting to hang on to his job and the strict instructions of his political masters to tie himself to the position if necessary, only to buy time for a better legal and populist representation as to why he is still the legitimate chief minister.
Somehow, in the past three weeks of Byzantine and Machiavellian episodes, the people behind Nizar have subtly displaced the blame for the whole sordid outcome to Sultan Azlan Shah as the one who triggered the whole mess. Bottomline: this people don’t know when they have been taken down and outmanoeuvred.
Let’s backpedal this crisis from the beginning: one disgruntled Umno assemblyman from Bota decided it was high time to abandon ship after a series of incidents made him feel horribly unwelcome in his party, so he defects to Parti Keadilan Rakyat. But the loose coalition of Pakatan Rakyat still controls the Perak Government, merely upping its bragging rights to 32 - 27 in the Perak Assembly’s balance of power.
In politics, all is fair in love, scheming and manipulation. Anwar Ibrahim may have desired hard to make Sept 16 his power grab day of the Federal Government after boasting that he had secured the allegiances of 30 BN MPs. But in all reality, he failed and he floundered, even if everybody thought he possessed the numbers. He just didn’t make it happen and his power grab ploy remains an illusion of grandeur.
So, excuse the Deputy Prime Minister for being inspired by Anwar’s scheming ways and when the window of opportunity popped out, Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak capitalised on the three defections and wrestled his way into getting back the Perak Government. We may not be privy to what methods of persuasion he employed to convince the three defectors to switch support to the BN but it doesn’t really matter. All Najib had to do was prove to Sultan Azlan Shah that he had the definitive numbers - 28 BN assemblymen and three allied to the BN. The rest was up to the Ruler’s absolute discretion.
Of course, the cacophony of objections was understandable: how could Sultan Azlan allowed the BN to re-enable a toppled State Government? If convention was followed, the Ruler could have ordered dissolution of the assembly that automatically leads to fresh state elections. But in the end, Sultan Azlan Shah PREFERRED to invoke his absolute and constitutional right to use his discretionary powers in the selection. That goes above any norm and convention. And that he did, as routinely as he would have given consent to a package of Bills and funding requests. That should have been the end of story but instead, it dragged into a full blown sorry saga.
However, from the violent street demonstrations to the insolent manner the losers in the power play trotted out against the Sultan, it wasn’t so much they lost Perak as it was the manner in which they lost it - part naïveté, part complacency, and part incompetence, but totally outwitted, outsmarted and outgunned. That is why Pakatan is still sulking and smarting. They grossly underestimated Najib’s ability to pull this off. When he did, they had to find another excuse - BN illegal power grab, buy-over, Sultan not well advised…anything, anything but the fact that they had been outmanoeuvred by Najib’s master stroke, the Prime Minister-in-waiting whom Pakatan had demonised for a good year.
Ask MP for Bukit Gelugor Karpal Singh who appeared to have acknowledged Najib as playmaker. Karpal absolutely laid the blame of the whole fiasco on Anwar, Lim Kit Siang (DAP-Ipoh Timor) and Lim Guan Eng (DAP-Bagan). Kit was shocked and hurt by Karpal’s amazing outburst but not a peep on addressing Mr Singh’s grievances.
The Sultan of Selangor, upset at the slew of insipid insults thrown at his brother ruler, came out strongly in his defence last week in a special press statement, urging the people not to be rude to Sultan Azlan Shah. Today, at the opening of the new Parliament session, Yang di-Pertuan Agong Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin issued a subtler subtext to the fiasco.
“…the people must respect the federal constitution. I expressed the hope that there will be no attempts to create laws that contravene it,” the King implored at the opening of the new Parliament session earlier in the morning. It could be said that Tuanku Mizan knows a few things about choosing the appropriate Menteri Besar.
And the King had also a few comments on how the history of the country's independence and the constitution should be embraced - explained to the young to have a better understanding of the basis for the formation of Malaysia. "The young generation is the country's back-up and hope for the future. The principles of the Rukun Negara must be understood and appreciated by all strata of the society," he said.
The MPs from Barisan Nasional must have sensed a shift is about to happen after the King’s speech. When Tuanku Mizan said “respect the Constitution and principles of Rukun Negara”, he may have well meant in a single swath that to respect the Constitution was also to respect the sovereignty of the decision made by Sultan Azlan Shah, no matter how unpopular it may be to certain masses.
From those packed sentences, it could well be interpreted that the King is telling Nizar, Anwar and the whole Pakatan cabal that their recalcitrance in not making a dignified exit from the Perak Menteri Besar’s office was met with sublime consternation. Except for the more outspoken monarchs, Tuanku Mizan is playing his role perfectly here with the grace and dignity of a King, coaxing the belligerent parties to come to their senses - fast.
The dice have been cast and it is too late to turn the dice ! It is an insult to the intelligence of the rakyat to infer that the publos cannot differentiate between a truth and a lie - the actions of the two political protagonists, Anwar and Najib - and who has acted openly, democratically and above board and who has not !
Do not try to shift the blame on the rakyat or HRH Sultan Azlan Shah for the sorry mess in Perak . If you are hunting for a scapegoat to be offered as your sacificial lamb,that honour should be given to the person or party responsible for this political drama currently playing in Perak.
HRH has been dragged into this melee, in this attempt to overthrow an erstwhile legitimate democratically elected state government but the main protagonist under estimated the reactionary power of the People's Court in his assumption that he can use the royal position of HRH Sultan Azlan Shah, an esteemed and admired monarch to legitimize his legally illegal scheme.
As a result ,HRH Sultan Azlan Shah has been put in between a rock and a hard place - not only is the action of HRH in question but the sanctity of the royal institution is now also in question ! And who is to be blamed for this tragegy !?! HRH and his rakyat !?! I DO NOT THINK SO !!!
DEWAN DISPATCHES: Elizabeth Wong’s voyeurism is NOT the same as Chua Soi Lek’s romp
By : Azmi AnsharDEWAN RAKYAT, Feb 17, 2009:
As it happens in some extra-adventurous relationship, Wong was snapped sleeping in a delectable position by her then boyfriend, which was very private, very fine and very none-of-our business, until the boyfriend, by this time an ex-beau, decided to impose those intimately clickable moments to an unsuspecting but wildly receptive crowd.
Elizabeth Wong’s world, the one she built with activist gusto and political idealism, practically collapsed overnight.
Sex, scandal and aberrant behaviour categorised under sex and scandal is perhaps the most seductive social spectacle in Malaysia, followed by Byzantine/Machiavellian politics like the brutish kind you see in Ipoh and Kuala Kangsar, and murder of the most heinous classification, like the horror in Ampang where a killer or killers slashed to death a family but spared the life of a one-year old. The madness is always pre-meditated, it would seem.
But, in the Malaysian scheme of things where tenuous crumbs of hinted scandal is good enough for a full-blown case, Elizabeth Wong has been hounded and ridiculed…and it’s not even her fault.
“In Barisan Nasional, we asked Datuk Seri Chua Soi Lek to resign after his video was circulated,” Dr Khir referred to the MCA deputy president forced to resign last year after a video of him having sex with a woman was widely distributed. Well, hang on. Chua was knee-deep in a bona fide sexual tryst, a married man caught with a woman who is not his wife that fits into the definition of a scandal, no matter how much it was his business and not ours.
For Dr Khir to compare Dr Chua’s dubious prerogative with Elizabeth Wong’s unwitting situation was akin to comparing a predator to a victim. It was a lame comprehension but politically, it was opportunistically expedient. This would also mean that absolutely nobody - politicians, CEOs, VIPs, the rich and the famous especially - can sleep stark naked in the privacy of their haven in case a miscreant who happens to be their ex-spouse, ex-lover or ex-partner, snaps digital photos of that Kodak moment and puts up a rogue’s picture gallery in some blog.
At Parliament House today, PKR defacto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who also knows a thing or two about being drowned in sex scandals, emphatically rejected Wong’s immediate offer to resign as Selangor Exco member and assemblyman for Bukit Lanjan. But for now, Wong has decided to withdraw from the hubris and has slipped into an indefinite leave while her party extricate themselves out of this mess.
Anwar and his wife, Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, tried to coax Wong to stay put but the political flavour of the week won’t have any of it. After the PKR brass met for two hours at the Opposition Leader's tower block office in Parliament building, the official line was to express sympathy for her but it would be up to Wong to have the final say of whether she wants to stay or step down from both positions.
Anwar decided to float an upbeat view of Wong’s predicament. "I don't believe it is the end of her political career,” he avowed at the packed Press conference. “She is a tough, capable leader and has a good record as an Exco and assemblywoman. She has courage and resilience to ride through this scandal.”
Taking a swipe at the likes of Dr Khir, Anwar likened Wong to being sucked into a "malicious political game." But Anwar should also appreciate the empathy and spirit of bipartisanship expressed by Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz and Wanita MCA chief Chew Mei Fun, who quickly came to Elizabeth’s defence.
If you think that Ms Wong is the same plate of fetish delight sautéed to entertain the masses baying for blood and opprobrium, think again. She is hardly typical. Granted, the low resolution pictures of her slumping torso - likely snapped with a low-pixel handphone camera under mild lighting - was somewhat compromising. Well, who wouldn’t be that way in the strict privacy of your own bedroom? That is the absolute point. Any pictures taken from within that moment and released to the outside world - provided Ms Wong genuinely had no knowledge of the deed - will always be viewed out of context and out of your mind.
But released to the outside world it was and according to some reports, a handful of pictures and perhaps a video too is on floating in cyberspace. The spurned boyfriend, whoever the scoundrel was, mischievously released the pictures/video in a moment of post-breakup wrath. It is this lout, and not Elizabeth Wong, who should be pilloried.
It was also bit surprising that Anwar should characterise Elizabeth’s Wong plight as a “scandal” when it was simply a deliberate sleight of hand by the sleazy ex-beau. By dictionary definition, a scandal is a disgraceful or discreditable action or circumstance, an offence caused by a fault or misdeed that may damage ones reputation and that would lead to public disgrace.
As her situation is made to become untenable, Elizabeth Wong remains doggedly veracious to her probity. A telling remark from her weepy Press conference: “…I have done no wrong. I wish to state that I am not ashamed of my sexuality as a woman and as a single person. I have broken no law. I stand by the fundamental principle of a democracy that everyone has a right to privacy…,” may have been her last defiant scorn against the hypocrisy that shammed her.
What Elizabeth did, or did not do, hardly qualifies as a scandal or discreditable action. It was her enemies who made that characterisation and because of that and because she offered to resign, the slap-in-the-face scandal that implicated her somehow fits into the definition of “damaging one’s reputation”, no matter how hard she declares or proves that she has not committed a crime.
This is a pity. If anything, the services of a competent and conscientious politician/activist may have been squandered but one would greatly hope, not lost permanently to wilderness and oblivion.
Poor Elizabeth Wong. All she did was sink into a nap, glasses still attached, and a moment of voyeurism that was thrillingly executed then while she slumbered - her mind probably fantasising on her charge to Federal electoral victory - will soon catapult her into titillating bedlam, rocking her party and spice up, yet again, Malaysia’s throbbing political narrative.
Elizabeth Wong’s world, the one she built with activist gusto and political idealism, practically collapsed overnight.
Sex, scandal and aberrant behaviour categorised under sex and scandal is perhaps the most seductive social spectacle in Malaysia, followed by Byzantine/Machiavellian politics like the brutish kind you see in Ipoh and Kuala Kangsar, and murder of the most heinous classification, like the horror in Ampang where a killer or killers slashed to death a family but spared the life of a one-year old. The madness is always pre-meditated, it would seem.
But, in the Malaysian scheme of things where tenuous crumbs of hinted scandal is good enough for a full-blown case, Elizabeth Wong has been hounded and ridiculed…and it’s not even her fault.
“In Barisan Nasional, we asked Datuk Seri Chua Soi Lek to resign after his video was circulated,” Dr Khir referred to the MCA deputy president forced to resign last year after a video of him having sex with a woman was widely distributed. Well, hang on. Chua was knee-deep in a bona fide sexual tryst, a married man caught with a woman who is not his wife that fits into the definition of a scandal, no matter how much it was his business and not ours.
For Dr Khir to compare Dr Chua’s dubious prerogative with Elizabeth Wong’s unwitting situation was akin to comparing a predator to a victim. It was a lame comprehension but politically, it was opportunistically expedient. This would also mean that absolutely nobody - politicians, CEOs, VIPs, the rich and the famous especially - can sleep stark naked in the privacy of their haven in case a miscreant who happens to be their ex-spouse, ex-lover or ex-partner, snaps digital photos of that Kodak moment and puts up a rogue’s picture gallery in some blog.
At Parliament House today, PKR defacto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who also knows a thing or two about being drowned in sex scandals, emphatically rejected Wong’s immediate offer to resign as Selangor Exco member and assemblyman for Bukit Lanjan. But for now, Wong has decided to withdraw from the hubris and has slipped into an indefinite leave while her party extricate themselves out of this mess.
Anwar and his wife, Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, tried to coax Wong to stay put but the political flavour of the week won’t have any of it. After the PKR brass met for two hours at the Opposition Leader's tower block office in Parliament building, the official line was to express sympathy for her but it would be up to Wong to have the final say of whether she wants to stay or step down from both positions.
Anwar decided to float an upbeat view of Wong’s predicament. "I don't believe it is the end of her political career,” he avowed at the packed Press conference. “She is a tough, capable leader and has a good record as an Exco and assemblywoman. She has courage and resilience to ride through this scandal.”
Taking a swipe at the likes of Dr Khir, Anwar likened Wong to being sucked into a "malicious political game." But Anwar should also appreciate the empathy and spirit of bipartisanship expressed by Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz and Wanita MCA chief Chew Mei Fun, who quickly came to Elizabeth’s defence.
If you think that Ms Wong is the same plate of fetish delight sautéed to entertain the masses baying for blood and opprobrium, think again. She is hardly typical. Granted, the low resolution pictures of her slumping torso - likely snapped with a low-pixel handphone camera under mild lighting - was somewhat compromising. Well, who wouldn’t be that way in the strict privacy of your own bedroom? That is the absolute point. Any pictures taken from within that moment and released to the outside world - provided Ms Wong genuinely had no knowledge of the deed - will always be viewed out of context and out of your mind.
But released to the outside world it was and according to some reports, a handful of pictures and perhaps a video too is on floating in cyberspace. The spurned boyfriend, whoever the scoundrel was, mischievously released the pictures/video in a moment of post-breakup wrath. It is this lout, and not Elizabeth Wong, who should be pilloried.
It was also bit surprising that Anwar should characterise Elizabeth’s Wong plight as a “scandal” when it was simply a deliberate sleight of hand by the sleazy ex-beau. By dictionary definition, a scandal is a disgraceful or discreditable action or circumstance, an offence caused by a fault or misdeed that may damage ones reputation and that would lead to public disgrace.
As her situation is made to become untenable, Elizabeth Wong remains doggedly veracious to her probity. A telling remark from her weepy Press conference: “…I have done no wrong. I wish to state that I am not ashamed of my sexuality as a woman and as a single person. I have broken no law. I stand by the fundamental principle of a democracy that everyone has a right to privacy…,” may have been her last defiant scorn against the hypocrisy that shammed her.
What Elizabeth did, or did not do, hardly qualifies as a scandal or discreditable action. It was her enemies who made that characterisation and because of that and because she offered to resign, the slap-in-the-face scandal that implicated her somehow fits into the definition of “damaging one’s reputation”, no matter how hard she declares or proves that she has not committed a crime.
This is a pity. If anything, the services of a competent and conscientious politician/activist may have been squandered but one would greatly hope, not lost permanently to wilderness and oblivion.
What a piece of worthless rambling from a carma cum sanctimonious piranha of a gargantuan proportion !
The only reason this whole sorry episode has reached such a spectacular and sensationalized magnitude, scandal or not, is because the publication that pays your wages is so bankcrupt of true professional journalism that it has to resort to sleazy tabloid methods of reporting to sustain its dying readership !!!
In Europe,the Elizabeth Wong "saga" would have been stale news by now and least of all, a deserved spot in a front page !!
No comments:
Post a Comment