A newer government?
Thursday, March 20th, 2008 | 12:17 am @ SK
A day after announcement of the new cabinet line-up by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, things happened at such a fast pace that I can hardly catch up with.
Immediately, two appointed deputy ministers declined their posts.
To add salt to the wound, one of the Perlis-duo Radzi Sheik Ahmad, who was excluded from the new cabinet line-up, resigned from Umno and Barisan Nasional (BN) secretary-general posts effective today, saying that he would not be able to discharge his duties effectively as the secretary-general of Umno and BN as he was not in the Cabinet.
Surprisingly, the PM "invited" the former minister, who is alleged to be one of the main character in the VK Lingam video to replace Radzi, merely a day after the appointment of former Kota Baru MP Zaid Ibrahim as the Minister in the PM’s Department tasked with law-affairs and gives suggestions on how to reform the Malaysia’s judiciary system?
How ironic is the PM? Even if it’s a sandiwara, let’s put up a more convincing show rather than the temporary viagra effect!
Anyway, let’s forget about that, we do know how flip-flop the PM is, don’t we? Remember the whole episode of the parliament dissolution?
But more importantly, if before this leadership crisis in the current administration was seen as an aspect which needs dire attention, the focus has now shifted.
The internal rife within UMNO, starting from the letter by the Umno Youth exco member Mukhriz Mahathir urging the PM to step down shouldn’t be taken lightly.
This is followed by a letter written by UMNO veteran Tengku Razaleigh to 193 Umno division leaders urging them to call for an EGM on May 11 to discuss on the party’s unprecedented electoral setback faced on the GE 2008 and the latest today, Ku Li said that he wanted to challenge Pak Lah for the president post in the coming party polls by offering himself as a leader to rehabilitate the party.
If the above mentioned is not severe enough to destabilize the PM’s position, latest warning by PKR de-facto Anwar Ibrahim saying that he is moving towards forming a new government, with the help of defectors from the ruling coalition must be taken seriously, in view of the weakening grassroots support towards Pak Lah’s administration ever since the heavy defeat suffered by the BN in the recent election.
However, Pak Lah is unperturbed, at least this is how he appears to be. He dismissed talks that the Government is in verge of being toppled and denied of any infighting within Umno.
So far, we do not know how true is the claim by Anwar, however, as much as I’m dissatisfied with Pak Lah’s performance, it’s not my wish to see the current government being toppled in such an undemocratic manner and the new Government is formed with defecting MPs from the BN’s coalition.
This is due to the fact that when the rakyat voted in March 8, it’s their wish to see their elected representatives from whichever parties they represent to walk the talk and fulfill the promises made.
How disgraceful it would be if their choice of MPs chose to betray the mandate given and cross path for their own political gain?
How can you expect the people to trust their wakil rakyat in the future when their democracy rights are denied outrightly in this undemocratic manner?
Say if a new Government is established, unfortunately via the strategy mentioned above, how proud can the leader be?
It’s time to start from scratch, just like a baby first learning how to crawl before learning how to walk, hence the immediate task now is to focus on the development in 4+1 states, prove to the people that the Opposition too is at least capable, if not better in managing the states government before putting sight in winning the next GE.
Anything more than that is not a gracious thing to do, no matter how weak the ruling coalition is.