DEWAN DISPATCHES

By Azmi Anshar

Lim Kit Siang (DAP-Ipoh Timor) is so vexingly itchy in taking on just about anyone from the governing side of the political aisle for a boisterous public debate on TV that its about time that he grasp the understanding that NO ONE from the Government has any enthusiasm or propensity to accept his brassy challenges. It’s been Kit’s enduring tactic for as many years as he is an MP to goad his rivals, even if they were a notch down his intellectual range, for a public debate. Can anyone recall whether Kit has succeeded in getting one with any BN leader on live TV? He’s equitable in his challenges, throwing them around like confetti to a hodge-podge of politicians from Umno, MCA, Gerakan, MIC, et al. He’s done it so many times that a challenge to a public debate from Kit is regarded as an irritable cliché that should be ignored like you nonchalantly ignore someone’s burp in public.

Kit’s latest heckled lure was laid out today to Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Syed Albar (BN-Kota Tinggi) but like all BN leaders intimately wary of Kit’s bait-and-switch, reel-them-in-once-they-are-hooked ways, the Home Minister shrewdly didn’t take the bait, not even a nibble.

It’s bad enough that they have to contend with his loud, in-your-face, no quarter given style inside the House day after day on just about any conceivable issue – a Lim Kit Siang hallmark, the range of his microscopic gaze scans without missing a bug – but to tango with him toe-to-toe to the crunching beat of thrash metal? Thank goodness for weekend breaks.

Kit’s challenge to the Home Minister to a public debate was on the ostensibly worsening crime rate but it was more of being raked in the coals by Syed Hamid, which Kit characterised as a campaign to demonise him as enemy of the police, on the account of three unflattering newspaper headlines attributed to Syed Hamid that made Kit look as if “I was crucifying the police force and belittling their credibility.”

“In my 42 years in politics as a MP and DAP leader,” Kit asserted in his blog ‘Lim Kit Siang for Malaysia’, “I have never treated or regarded the police as an enemy…the police officers and personnel perform an unenviable but important and critical function to keep the country safe and secure for socio-economic and political progress and to be able to attract tourists and investors to maintain Malaysia’s competitiveness.”

Kit admitted to criticising the faults or failures of the police, which he also applied to the Cabinet and the entire public service, but he made it known that he never, ever begrudged giving full support to the police force for proper and adequate recognition in pay increases, equitable remuneration and improvements in working conditions.

Kit also took issue with Deputy Home Minister Datuk Chor Chee Heung’s declaration that the worsening crime was a “misperception” of the people, which the DAP leader found to be a “contemptuous dismissal” of the daily nightmare of Malaysians about their personal safety.

On that remark alone, Kit demanded that Syed Hamid seek the sacking of Chor for such insensitive and irresponsible talk, to which Chor insisted on being correct, backed by what he claimed are facts and figures. “If he (Lim Kit Siang) doesn’t want to accept it, it has nothing to do with me,” Chor shrugged off Kit’s lambast.

Back to Kit’s taunt for a public debate, Syed Hamid simply scorned Kit’s pestering, which he described as a “publicity stunt”.

“I’m not going into a debate with him when he has made up his mind, Syed Hamid declared. “There is no problem if he wants to discuss about the police or to talk to us.”

Wary of Kit’s badgering homilies; Syed Hamid expressed no interest in indulging the MP for Ipoh Timor. “The challenge is politically motivated. He is trying to get political gains.”

That should be grating to Kit though he is not the type to get easily shook up. But Kit may still wonder what is it that he must do or sacrifice to get a shot on prime time TV, seeing that his erstwhile enemy turn ally, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, was given a crack for a tit-for-tat with Information Minister Datuk Ahmad Shabery Chik on what is now a dated issue, the Government’s abrupt petrol price hike to RM2.70 a litre when oil prices were hitting stratospheric heights hovering at US$120 a barrel. That seemed like ancient history now, petrol prices having contracted o RM2 a litre after oil prices slumped below US$50 a barrel.

But Kit won’t likely be disheartened by the lack of TV debating appearances, not that he has ever been invited by the mainstream TV stations to be a guest talking head. Short of the Pakatan Rakyat making good its radioactive leader’s luminously dubious promises for a power grab early next month where Kit can consequently make his national tube debut, there will be no let off for the Government when it comes to needling them on the compelling issues of the day – on the floor of the House where Kit still reigns.

Kit will also be heartened to know that his famed debating methods, flourishing oratorical style and histrionics of hyperbole has been uploaded and downloaded on numerous occasions, and stored for posterity from inside YouTube, web news aggregators and all forms of non-Government linked websites. His political debating legacy is intact even if no one ever engages him in a mainstream public TV debate. There are simply no takers.