BN to seek RCI on sex tape caper
(The Malaysian Insider) – The Barisan Nasional (BN) is to propose a parliamentary motion seeking a royal commission of inquiry (RCI) to investigate the sex tape allegedly featuring Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, although the parliamentary opposition leader has denied the accusation.
Police said last week the sex video is not doctored but did not name the people featured having sex in the 21-minute clip. The video first came to light in a secretive screening at the prestigious Carcosa Seri Negara hotel on March 21.
“The BN will propose a motion to form an RCI to get to the bottom of this matter,” a source told The Malaysian Insider.
It is understood that Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, who is in charge of parliamentary matters, will file the motion as soon as possible before the current session ends this Thursday.
He has also lined up several BN MPs to support the motion. Anwar will be unable to speak about the matter in Parliament as he is serving a six-month suspension until June for linking government strategist APCO Worldwide with Israel last year.
Nazri had said over the weekend that Anwar could benefit most from an RCI if it cleared him of the accusation by the trio that had screened the video clip, former Malacca Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Rahim Thamby Chik, businessman Datuk Sharzyl Eskay Abdullah and Umno stalwart Datuk Shuib Lazim.
“If the man in the video is not Anwar, then it can be great political mileage to the opposition in the general election. I think he and the opposition can win big. So, what is he afraid of?” Nazri asked at a function at SM Teknik here on Saturday.
“For Barisan Nasional, we want to clear our name too since we have been accused to be the mastermind behind the video,” he added.
This would be the first time that an RCI has been proposed to investigate sex tapes involving politicians. Two BN politicians resigned in the past after being linked to sex tapes, with current MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek forced to quit as health minister after admitting to being caught in a sex tape that surfaced at the end of 2007.
In 1989, former MIC secretary-general D.P. Vijandran was forced to resign as Dewan Rakyat Deputy Speaker after a sex video controversy.
The current sex tape controversy has made an impact among the public with a Merdeka Center poll a week ago revealing that Anwar and his Pakatan Rakyat (PR) pact may be in trouble with voters as the independent pollster found that while most people rejected the video’s authenticity, purportedly featuring Anwar with a foreign prostitute, a significant number were unsure.
Adding to the bleak outcome, many of the 504 respondents surveyed also felt that the entire episode that first came to light on March 21 would affect their confidence in PR.
“A lot of grey areas with the public, denoting possibly uncertainty, some hesitation or simply the lack of information when talking about Anwar, given that most publicly available news about him tends to be one-sided and negative,” Merdeka Center director Ibrahim Suffian said of the survey results.
The telephone survey between March 24 and 27 has an estimated margin of error at ± 4.40 per cent. A total of 504 respondents were selected via random stratified sampling method along the lines of state, ethnicity, gender and age.
According to the survey findings obtained by The Malaysian Insider, of the 504 respondents polled, 85 per cent were aware of the existence of the video while 15 per cent were not.
In total, 51 per cent did not believe that Anwar was the man in the 21-minute recording while a significant 29 per cent were unsure.
A total of 17 per cent believed in the video, with three per cent saying they strongly believed that Anwar was the man in the recording.
Anwar and his PR comrades have been on damage control mode since the release of the controversial video, but many have predicted that this latest scandal would cause a chink in the pact’s armour.
Anwar has himself denied that he was the man, and called the emergence of the video recording a “scurrilous attack” against him, his family and PR.
But the video, coupled with Anwar’s ongoing Sodomy II trial and several revelations made by his arch-nemesis, former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, in the latter’s latest book, could very well become the last straw for opposition supporters, who are said to have grown increasingly disillusioned with PR since Election 2008.
