Response to The Malaysian Insider
Khairy Jamaluddin
I refer to your editorial titled "Najib and Khairy's unconvincing Perak script" which betrays muddled thinking, slanted arguments and an unconvincing script of your own.
In your haste and determination to push for a dissolution of the Perak State Assembly as the only credible and just resolution to the current impasse, you have also abandoned sound journalistic judgment by ascribing to the Prime Minister and myself positions that do not frame the debate fairly and extensively which include looking at the workings of a representative democracy.
First, you say that two wrongs do not make a right. According to you, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s courting of defectors in the run up to his September 16 project last year was wrong and therefore there is no virtue in what has happened in Perak either. Let me make it clear that I have consistently frowned upon legislative crossovers, whichever direction they happen. I am troubled by the notion of an elected representative leaving the political party which gave him or her the platform to win a mandate from the voters. But the fact remains that legislative crossovers are legal, not just in Malaysia but many other representative democracies throughout the world – governments have fallen in other countries without fresh elections being called.
