After the public outcry over the unruly first sitting of Parliament, the Information Minister Ahmad Shabery Cheek was thinking of scrapping the live telecast of proceedings in the Dewan Rakyat.

Unfortunately, even the Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi also agreed that live telecast of the proceedings should be scrapped, saying that he was ashamed at what had transpired in the Dewan Rakyat.

Luckily, the Cabinet decided to carry on with the half-hour live telecast, with Ahmad Shabery saying that it was too premature to decide to stop the live telecast based on one incident.

"This should be treated as a last chance for all MPs. We have to protect the (image of) Parliament," he said.

Nevertheless, while I believe most of the rakyat were clearly happy to see how their MPs behaved and misbehaved as it was wonderful to see them perform live, there are a few riddles went unanswered:

1. The Information Minister is concerned that MPs tend to play to the gallery by getting cheap publicity with the use of harsh words and name calling by the MPs.

   If that’s the case, the entire proceedings must be shown live, giving all Malaysians the basic right to see and evaluate their own MPs while articulating issues of public importance.

2. Instead of live coverage for 30 minutes, why not full coverage? Full live coverage of the proceedings could improve the decorum of parliamentarians!
3. The Information Minister put the blame on the Opposition’s failure to show appreciation for the institution of parliament and misused it during the session.

   If that’s the case, I’d suggest the entire Cabinet to show full support towards the full coverage, so that when the rakyat are well-informed, the Oppositions will be completely wiped out in the coming General Election?

4. If the first live broadcast is such a pain, how about the bocor statement, short-skirt a.k.a the tunnel remark, "you-tak-suka, you-keluar-dari-malaysia" and all kind of defaming remarks?

   Doesn’t the Information Minister agree that the entire hoo-haa looks trivial to be compared to the old days?

Finally, when the time comes for the entire Cabinet to agree that "enough is enough" for the live telecast, I hope the more sensible question to ask among themselves is, is stopping the live telecast going to deter the usual antics in the Parliament?

Honestly, I’ve no idea how knee-jerk the Information Minister is going to be in handling this matter, however I do hope the Cabinet does understand that the more the rakyat observe, the more it’s going to create a paradigm shift in them and hence more active political participation among relatively apolitical Malaysians.

What we, or rather this country needs, is more creative young brains to help shape the future of this country.

Let’s hope that eventually, common sense will prevail in the Cabinet.

Permalink | Leave a comment | Trackback
Subscribe to Email Feed | Subscribe to RSS Feed