The 13th Parliament has been dissolved and the country is all set for the 14th General Election.
The country has been long awaiting for this dissolution, from the Sarawak state general elections in 2016, to 2017 and then to 2018; from January this year to February, March and then April; from 11.30 am yesterday for the live telecast of the announcement of dissolution of Parliament by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak to 11.40 a.m; 11.50 am and finally after noon!
The picture that is given is one of great hesitancy and indecisiveness on the part of the sixth Prime Minister to dissolve Parliament for the stakes for Najib is very high.
Most symbolically, in Seoul some 4,600 kilometres away, the former South Korean president Park Geun-hye was yesterday sentenced to 24 years in prison for abuse of power and corruption.
Can such an event happen in Malaysia, considering that South Korea had not plumbed the depths of corruption as is the case with Malaysia which, in the last few years, had catapulted to become a global kleptocracy because of the international multi-billion ringgit 1MDB money-laundering scandal, as well as a litany of other corruption scandals of the UMNO/BN kleptocrats.
I had been a Member of Parliamnt for 10 terms from 1969 to 2018, except for the tenth Parliament from 1999 to 2004, spanning 45 years from 1969. However, I have not felt so ashamed as a MP than in the 13th Parliament which was dissolved at midnight to give way to the 14th General Election.
Its not because I was suspended twice, and for six months, basically because I demanded answers and accountability over the 1MDB scandal but because Malaysia became known as a global kleptocracy during the tenure of the 13th Parliament.
I call on Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and the Parliament Speaker, Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia to apologise to all Malaysians for the 13th Parliament’s failure to do anything to clear or purge Malaysia of the infamy, ignominy and iniquity of being regarded worldwide as a global kleptocracy.
The 13th Parliament not only did not do anything to clear or purge Malaysia of the infamy, ignominy and iniquity of being regarded worldwide as a global kleptocracy, it ignored and subverted the fundamental doctrine of the separation of powers and allowed Parliament to be a rubber stamp of the Executive, not only to suppress questions and debates on the 1MDB scandal, it became a partner in the political crime of enacting the Anti-Fake News legislation to try to save Najib from the full consequences of the 1MDB scandal.
Can the nation expect a fulsome apology from Najib and Pandikar for failure of the 13th Parliament to clear or purge Malaysia of the infamy, ignominy and iniquity off being regarded worldwide as a global kleptocracy?
(Speech at the Johor DAP State Committee meeting in Ayer Hitam on Saturday, April 7, 2018 at 10 am)
