DAP will be fielding DAP State Assemblywoman for Johor Jaya, Liow Cai Tung, to defend the Johor Jaya state assembly seat in the 14th General Election.
The Election Commission’s Constituency Redelineation Report is the worst case of gerrymandering in the six-decades of Malaysian electoral history.
The UMNO/BN coalition hope to steal 10 parliamentary seats in Peninsular Malaysia and some half a dozen state assembly seats in Johor through the latest constituency gerrymandering, so that they could continue in power in the state and nation.
But if there is a swing of 10% of the Malay voters and 5% of the non-Malay voters from UMNO/BN to Pakatan Harapan in the 14GE as compared to 13GE, then the chances are good that Pakatan Harapan will be able to defeat the undemocratic designs of UMNO/Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Harapan will not only be able to form the Federal Government but also the Johor State Government as well.
On 21st March, I had asked the Speaker, Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia to ensure that Parliament does not become a rubber-stamp to approve the Prime Minister’s Motion and the Election Commission’s Constituency Redelineation Proposals without ample time for MPs to study them and to get public feedback.
Instead, on Thursday on 22nd March, the Election Commission’s Constituency Redelineation Report was tabled in Parliament but the Speaker imposed an embargo to prevent MPs from any public consultation or getting public feedback until the parliamentary debate on the motion last Wednesday – which is against all parliamentary practices and procedures not only in Malaysia but the world as well.
On Friday on 23rd March, I issued a statement asking Pandikar to correct his grave error of misjudgement in imposing such an undemocratic and unparliamentary embargo.
I was suspended from Parliament for six months when I stood up last Wednesday to ask under which provision of the Malaysian Constitution or the Dewan Rakyat Standing Orders the Speaker claims to have such a power to impose an embargo on a report which had been tabled in Parliament.
I not only created history in being suspended for six months twice in the same Parliament, as happened to me in October 2015 when I tried to question the government handling of the international 1MDB money-laundering scandal, but I also became a “ghost” in Parliament, who could go in and out of Parliamentary chambers without being seen by the Speaker or Deputy Speaker, but unable to participate in parliamentary debates or to vote.
This is supreme insult to the voters not only in Gelang Patah but in Malaysia.
We must reform Parliament so that we have a world-class Parliament all Malaysians feel proud, and not a Parliament of a global kleptocracy, where MPs are regarded as “ghosts” by the Speaker of Parliament.
(Speech at the DAP Johor Jaya Election Preparations Dinner held at Johor Jaya on Friday, 30th March 2018 at 9.30 pm)