The two-week stalling by Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali from resigning as Attorney-General is petty and long enough – he should immediately resign without further ado if he does not want to be the greatest obstacle to legal reforms in Malaysian history.
Apandi cannot pretend that his appointment as Attorney-General is not akin to a political appointment, whether in the form of a contract or otherwise, and with the earthquake development on 9th May 2018 bringing about the historic change of the Federal Government in Putranjaya in the 14th General Election, it is completely untenable and undignified for Apandi to contine a single day as Attorney-General especially as he does not enjoy any confidence whatsoever from the new Malaysian Government.
Leaving aside for the moment the most suspicious and even inauspicious circumstances in which his appointment as Attorney-General was made in July 2015, Apandi, who had been a Federal Court judge, should not to subject the high office of Attorney-General to further indignity of being asked to go on leave and other forms of public humiliation!
Let Apandi demonstrate to Malaysians that he can act with dignity and honour to face the fact that his time as Attorney-General was up when Malaysians shocked the world with the historic decision on May 9 to have a peaceful and democratic transition of power – the first in the nation’s history; and that the vote of May 9, 2018 was not only to throw out Datuk Seri Najib Razak as Prime Minister and the Barisan Nasional government in Putrajaya, but also a personal vote of no confidence in him as Attorney-General.
In fact, all political appointees, whether Senators or appointment to GLCs and public bodies, should have submitted their resignation in the last two weeks after the results of the 14th General Election for new appointments to be made.
Recently, the Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad revealed that there are some 17,000 political appointees in the country, but the state of civic and political consciousness among these former wielders of power and influence in the country is so low and primitive that until now only the former Johor Baru MP Tan Sri Shahrir Abdul Samad had acted honourably in resigning as Felda Chairman after the general election.
What are these 17,000 political appointees waiting for instead of submitting their resignations without any further ado?
(Media Statement in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday May 23, 2018)