Nurul Izzah calls BN anti-democratic
By Shannon Teoh, The Malaysian Insider
PKR vice president Nurul Izzah Anwar blamed Barisan Nasional (BN) today for imposing an anti-democratic regime that lacked the political will for reform.
Accusing the ruling coalition of establishing a police state, the Lembah Pantai MP said during the debate on the King’s address in Parliament that the BN government was run by “political and economic pirates.”
Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s attempts to reform the economy in his two years in power was recently questioned by the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg’s Business Week.
Malaysia’s economic performance has also been the subject of debate as it finds itself on the verge of being overtaken by the island republic of Singapore as Southeast Asia’s third largest economy.
Malaysia was also criticised by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative yesterday for failing to fulfill human rights pledges made to the United Nations.
“This country needs to be more democratic through political reforms so that it will not be less behind other nations in political, economic and social terms,” Nurul Izzah said.
The daughter of Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said that the popular revolt in the Middle East should be taken as a sign of a universal desire for freedom and change and challenged BN to take heed and implement reforms.
“In which country does the public need police permits to assemble even though that right is guaranteed in the original constitution? In which country does the government use the police to restrict democracy and disallow a free press? In which country do citizens get arrested without cause and trial and then get tortured and die in custody?” she added.
She called on the government to pass a bill abolishing all four states of emergency still in force, revive plans to use indelible ink as part of a total reform of the electoral system and to establish an independent police complaints and misconduct commission on to prove that it was a democratic administration.
She said there was no longer any need for a state of emergency as the time of the communist insurgency was over and we are no longer threatened by the 1960s Confrontation with Indonesia.
