Parliament is Inflicted by Perak Disease

ARCHIVES 2010

By admin-s On Dec 17, 2010

The august house will now be inflicted by the Perak disease which has brought chaos to all sittings so far. Imagine what can a day long state assembly sitting can do to a healthy debate on important bills and budgetary decisions? Nothing. The parliament may well be going the same way if a GE is not called by the next sitting in March 2011.

By Khoo Kay Peng

The motion to suspend opposition MPs Anwar Ibrahim, Karpal Singh, Sivarasah & Azmin Ali from parliament for six months is a prime example of abuse of parliamentary majority.

The motion would be passed effortlessly by Barisan’s brute majority in the parliament. The consequence is severe and unfortunate for our parliamentary democracy.

If any, the Barisan government should rise above the APCO fiasco and provide a solid explanation to dispel what the opposition had claimed. Opposition leader Anwar had linked Prime Minister Najib Razak’s ‘1Malaysia’ to the ‘One Israel’ policy introduced by Labour Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak in 1999.

He said that the international public relations consultants, Apco Worldwide, who are well-paid PR advisers to the Najib administration, were behind both policies. When challenged to furnish proof of his assertions, the opposition leader, in a follow-up speech, gave a detailed exposition, backed by documentary evidence.

He adduced evidence that Apco Worldwide had been PR consultants to some of the world’s more putrescent dictators, like the late Sani Abacha of Nigeria, and Hindu chauvinistic governor of the Indian state of Gujarat, Narendra Modi. (Terrence Netto. Mkini)

If the allegations against Apco were true, i.e. working with some of the most controversial regimes in the world, Barisan should justify to us why so much taxpayers’ money is being used to pay Apco for some superficial PR consultancy.