Hishammuddin’s incompetence

ARCHIVES 2009

By adminK On Nov 20, 2009

How cabinet appointments fail the nation

Surely, if we are to achieve all the development goals that our prime ministers have been so fond of announcing, what we need are appointments based on meritocracy. Not political patronage nor family ties nor positions within a party.

By Jacqueline Ann Surin, The Nut Graph

HERE’S what I want to know: why was Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein appointed to the cabinet, and why is he still a minister despite an appalling track record of saying and doing the wrong things?

Hishammuddin’s statements as Home Minister since he was sworn into Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s administration in April 2009, betray either how clueless or disrespectful he is about human rights, democratic principles and gender equality.

Examples abound. Most notably:

Hishammuddin may as well have said this…(all pics of Hishammuddin courtesy of theSun)

Hishammuddin famously said he was “thankful” that no “serious incidents” occurred in Perak on 7 May 2009 despite police action in arresting scores of people, including elected representatives, and the unlawful imprisonment of Perak Speaker V Sivakumar.

…and this…

He also famously declared that lawyers were not above the law in justifying the arrest of five legal aid lawyers who were trying to represent their clients who had been arrested at the Brickfields police station on the night of 7 May 2009. It wasn’t just the Bar Council who was outraged, even the MCA was appalled at the arrest of lawyers who were merely doing their job. But Hishammuddin still found it fit to defend such police action.

…also this…

Of course, the starkest example of the kind of minister Hishammuddin is was demonstrated when he not only welcomed the Shah Alam cow-head protestors, he also defended them. With Hishammuddin’s powerful and public legitimisation of bigotry and the threat of violence against Hindus in Malaysia, I reckon that Hishammuddin’s behaviour was far more shameful than the protestors’. After all, his is a public office paid for by all tax-paying Malaysians to protect the nation’s, and not some thugs’, interest.