New Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr. Ahmad Zahid Hamidi asked today “what is there to fear” and said he is ready to face a censure motion in Parliament against him over his statement in Utusan Malaysia urging those who are not happy with the current electoral system to “migrate elsewhere”.

Is Zahid really not afraid of the censure motion against him?

If so, I challenge Zahid to get the agreement of the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak for one full day to be reserved in the first week of the new 13th Parliament for a full debate on the censure motion against him and to announce this decision at the end of the first new Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

I do not expect any such announcement as it is not only Zahid who is afraid of the censure motion against him, Najib and all the other Cabinet Ministers are also worried and mortally afraid of the censure motion against Zahid.

This is because if there is a division and a full vote taken on the censure motion against Zahid, I will not be surprised if several of the 133 Barisan Nasional MPs would absent themselves from the division to dissociate and repudiate Zahid’s call on Malaysians who vote against BN in the 13GE and not happy with the current electoral system to “migrate elsewhere”.

In fact, most of the Cabinet Ministers must be praying that the Zahid issue will die down and there would be no censure motion against Zahid, for they know that it is not possible to dismiss Zahid’s statement as a personal statement, as the new Sports and Youth Minister, Khairy Jamaluddin had tried to do.

After all, it was Najib himself who, at the two-hour briefing to the new Cabinet after the Ministerial and Deputy Ministerial swearing-in on Thursday, who “killed” Khairy’s weak attempt to distance himself from Zahid’s statement by claiming that it was merely Zahid’s “personal opinion” and does not reflect the government’s position.

This was totally against the clear and specific directive by Najib to the new Cabinet Ministers last Thursday, where the Prime Minister stressed the importance of trust and confidence the people have given to the government and laid down the law that “whatever raised by Cabinet members is not in the name of the individual but something that represents the government and is a common stand”.

Najib said: “Whatever do we, it must be in the name of the government, we do not move in compartments or our respective silos.”

Are you listening, Khairy? Unless the Cabinet on Wednesday publicly and collectively repudiates what Zahid had said in Utusan last Thursday, the new Home Minister’s call to Malaysians not happy with the current electoral system to “migrate elsewhere” IS the official stand of the Cabinet and government.
This is why the parliamentary censure motion against Zahid is also a censure motion against Najib and the entire Cabinet for not openly repudiating Zahid’s position.

In the 13GE, over 5.6 million voters, majority of whom are Malay voters, voted in support of Pakatan Rakyat against the Barisan Nasional.

What authority and right has Zahid or the Najib government to call on Malaysian citizens, comprising Malays, Chinese, Indians, Kadazans and Ibans, who are not happy with the current electoral system, to “migrate elsewhere”?

Malaysians who do not like the current electoral system because it is unfair and undemocratic, where a leader of a political coalition with 51% popular vote is denied the Prime Ministership which goes to a leader of a political coalition with only 47% popular vote, is entitled to be unhappy, dissatisfied, outraged and angry and to want to change the government. If Zahid is not happy with this, he can “emigrate elsewhere”!

The pressure from the knowledge that he has committed a major faux pas must have caused Zahid to lose his emotional balance as to make him to react publicly in a very childish fashion.

For instance, he retorted to PKR leader Anwar Ibrahim’s “this is not your father’s country” jibe by aping a tit-for-tat response, viz:

“This country is also not (Anwar’s) father’s. It is neither my father’s country nor his father’s country.”

This is an utterly stupid and mindless response.

What Anwar or anyone who made such a remark meant is that “this is not only your father’s country” but also my father’s country, i.e. the country belongs to all!

It cannot be reduced to “This country is not your father’s. It is neither my father’s country nor his father’s country” which made no sense at all. It should be “This country is not only your father’s, neither is it only my father’s country – it is the country of all.”

It is sad and pathetic that Zahid has been reduced to such gibberish straits, and yet he says he is not afraid of the censure motion against him in Parliament!