Parliament has been reduced to a theatre of the absurd with the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Chairman Datuk Hasan Arifin wearing the dunce’s head as the most absurd Parliamentarian with his absurd edict banning Tony Pua from speaking about 1MDB in public.
At the rate of such absurdity in Parliament and the higher echelons of government leadership, it appears to be just a matter of time before “1MDB” joins the select group of subjects where mere criticism will be criminalized and construed as an act of sedition!
It is clear that the Najib leadership had been brainstorming for quite some time to find a way to criminalise and ban public debate on the twin1MDB and RM2.6 billion “donation” twin scandals, starting with Parliament before the ban is extended to all public spaces in the country, especially with the two scandals acquiring lives of their own, exploding every few days with new revelations completely beyond the control or ken of Najib’s PR handlers – to the extent that more than half a dozen countries have initiated their own separate investigations into the twin mega scandals.
Worst of all, the Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had been pinpointed by the United States media as being the target of a FBI probe under the United States Department of Justice Kleptocracy Assets Recovery Initiative 2010 with neither Najib nor the Government able to deny or clarify such a damning report of Najib being investigated as a kleptocrat although more than a month had elapsed since the United States media report.
Isn’t it taking absurdity to new heights trying to institute a ban on all discussions and reports about the 1MDB and RM2.6 billion “donation” twin scandals in Malaysia in the age of information when news travelled at the speed of light with the latest developments and reports about the twin scandals happening all over the world, outside the borderless borders of Malaysia?
Dewan Rakyat speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia was breaking all parliamentary conventions, practices and procedures with his unprecedented ruling today that Pua should either resign from the Public Accounts Committee or abstain from the committee’s probe on 1MDB if he wants to debate with 1MDB CEO, Arul Kanda.
Pandikar also ruled that Arul can no longer be a witness in the PAC probe if the debate goes on.
One would have thought that the Malaysian Parliament could not have been hit by a bigger seismic shock in one day than these rulings by the Speaker, but Hassan Arifin as new PAC Chairman has out-Pandikar Pandikar and created an even greater seismic shock with his instant weirdo interpretation of the Speaker’s ruling and declared that Pua must cease and desist from making any statements on 1MDB, whether in Parliament or outside?
Does Pandikar agree with this interpretation of his ruling by the new PAC Chairman?
The Malaysian Parliament has really entered the realm of the absurd in our journey to First-World Parliament!