The UMNO/Barisan Nasional agenda to remove DAP MP for PJ Utara, Tony Pua from Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) hearings on the 1MDB scandal is still on stream and seeking to gather greater support, enlisting Ministerial endorsement after the campaign opener by Prime Minister’s choice lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah and former Cabinet Minister and PAC Chairman Datuk Sri Shahrir Abdul Samad.

This is why the Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Seri Shabery Cheek has waded into the 1MDB/PAC controversy to spearhead the UMNO/BN guerrilla campaign and tactics demanding that Pua be removed from the PAC hearings on the 1MDB scandal.

Shabery claimed that by his outspokenness on the 1MDB scandal, Pua had “not only shamed the PAC, but also the parliamentary system itself and was no longer qualified to sit in the PAC”.

Shabery was quite hysterical when he charged: “He (Pua) makes biased statements, he should be ashamed, his party should be ashamed, his supporters and those associated with him should also feel ashamed.”

Shabery has indeed made a sorry spectacle of himself.

It is Shabery who should be thoroughly ashamed, and UMNO/BN and the Cabinet who should feel ashamed, for his hysteria and spearheading the UMNO/BN guerrilla campaign and tactics to remove Pua from PAC hearings on 1MDB scandal.

Far from being ashamed for Pua’s role in demanding transparency and accountability in the 1MDB scandal, I have no doubt that not only the 53% of the electorate who voted for Pakatan Rakyat in the 13th general elections (although PR is now no more), but a substantial portion of the 47% of the electorate who had voted for UMNO/BN in the general election two years ago, are proud of Pua’s public spiritness and patriotism and would give full endorsement for his role in demanding accountability and transparency in the 1MDB scandal.

If Shabery disputes this, is he prepared to have a debate with Tony Pua on TV on 1MDB to gauge whether Pua has popular support for his sterling role in demanding accountability and transparency in the 1MDB scandal?

It was only yesterday that the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak declared that he had never been afraid of accepting criticisms, but this is immediately countered and repudiated by Shabery in his support of the guerrilla campaign and tactics to remove Pua from the PAC hearing on 1MDB.

It is such frequent flip-flop policies and government actions which is why the Najib administration has lost widespread public support and credibility.

Is Najib and the entire UMNO/BN coalition and government so afraid of Pua that they want to throw him out of the PAC, although this will be against all parliamentary rules, practices and procedures as well as sending out a most negative even damning message to all Malaysians?

As Pua has rightly pointed out, are the eight UMNO/BN representatives on the PAC such useless digits that they are afraid of one DAP person?

Shabery does not seem to know that the PAC is appointed by Parliament to examine public accounts and to submit its report to Parliament.

Does Shabery next want MPs who are critical of the 1MDB scandal to be removed from Parliament, so that Parliament can rubber-stamp approval for the biggest financial scandal in the nation’s history without upholding the principles of accountability, transparency, integrity and good governance?