Najib’s new front line seizes control
It appears that Nazri and Pandikar have taken over for now from the likes of Rahman Dahlan and Salleh Keruak.
Scott Ng, Free Malaysia Today
Parliament is in session once again, and our regularly scheduled entertainment is turning out to be as diverting as the build-up promised it would be. Insults and quibbles are the order of the day, and as usual, the opposition has managed to get some of its representatives kicked out of the house.
Now, this is not to say the opposition is not doing its job. Some very hard questions have been asked, only to be ignored by the powers to be, and several motions of great interest to the public have been dismissed by the Speaker of the House, Pandikar Amin Mulia. Naturally, this has led to some shouting matches and the Speaker, in his infinite wisdom, has taken action.
The opposition cannot be faulted for assuming Pandikar is protecting Najib by eliminating “undesirable” motions. To the average man on the street, that is indeed what he seems to be doing. You’ll be hard pressed to find a member of the public who does not find Pandikar’s dismissal of pressing questions on the RM2.6 billion donation and his remarks about the no-confidence vote to be somewhat suspect.
Pandikar holds power in the august house, and he is not cowed by the aggressive opposition. His responses show a confidence in his standing, and his stalwart position will be a bugbear in efforts to bring a no-confidence motion against Najib, let alone to question him on matters of public interest. If he is indeed defending Najib, then he’s doing a much better job than the other members of the circus who give us migraines everyday.
