Kit Siang does u-turn to save his son
The Third Force
For most of his political career, Lim Kit Siang has made a travesty of Barisan Nasional’s system of governance and social justice, such that he has accused every Prime Minister since the days of Tun Hussein Onn of corruption and acts of criminal malfeasance.
However, not all of his criticisms were levelled at heads of government alone. On the 11th of April in 1997, the senior Lim told Tan Sri Muhammad Taib, the then Menteri Besar (MB) of Selangor, to go on leave pending the outcome of Court proceedings against him by a court in Brisbane, Australia.
Taib was being tried by the Aussie court for failing to declare RM2.4 million in cash that was found on him at the Brisbane International Airport the year before. In Australia, it constitutes a crime when a person attempting to leave the country fails to declare physical currency in excess of 10,000 dollars which may be on him or her at the time of travel.
The then Prime Minister, Dato’ Seri (now Tun) Dr. Mahathir Mohammad, declared that the Anti Corruption Agency (now the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission, or MACC) was free to conduct a discovery on Taib. Not only did Kit Siang second the Prime Minister’s statement, he went so far as to suggest that Taib resign for the embarrassment that he had caused the nation “with endless international reports about his vast wealth.”
That was Taib.
On the 6th of February in 2012, the senior Lim urged government to extend Dato’ Sei Shahrizat Jalil’s stay from duties pending the outcome of a probe the MACC was conducting into an RM330 million National Feedlot Centre/National Feedlot Corporation (NFC/NFCorpn) “cattle condo” scandal.
A day later, Kit Siang entered into his blog that the scandal had brought “the 34-month Najib premiership to the lowest point in terms of public accountability and integrity and threatened to topple Malaysia’s Transparency International Corruption (TI) Perception Index (CPI) 2012 next year to a new low in both CPI score and ranking – even lower than the deplorable 60th ranking and 4.3 score in TI CPI 2011.”
That was Shahrizat.
Then, on the 8th of December last year, Kit Siang was steadfast with calls for Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Razak to take leave pending investigations into 1MDB and the RM2.6 billion that Najib was then alleged to have siphoned into his account from the investment firm.
The 8th of December call by the senior Lim was in response to a suggestion by Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin a day earlier. According to Kit Siang, he was certain that Najib would never heed to Muhyiddin’s advice, and as Malaysiakini had quoted him as saying, “not for a thousand years.”
“Muhyiddin’s speech in Kuala Lumpur (the day before) is the most powerful rebuttal of Najib’s claim that the opposition spews nothing but lies on 1MDB,” the senior Lim said.
Now, take a good read of the above, and read again if you must. What does all of this tell you?
It tells you that Kit Siang is the sort of man who detests that office bearers, particularly those in government, be allowed to perform their designated duties pending the outcome of discoveries that may be in progress and implies on the credibility of the official or his or her eligibility to perform those duties.
Put differently, Kit Siang portrays himself to be the type of man who disagrees when an official is allowed to perform duties while under investigation, particularly if the investigation relates to a crime of corruption or criminal malfeasance.
Earlier today, Kit Siang’s son, Lim Guan Eng, was faced with two charges, the first being under section 23 of the MACC act for having allowed an application to rezone a piece of land which was owned by Phang Li Khoon’s company, Magnificent Emblem Sdn. Bhd. The second charge came under Section 165 of the Penal Code and pertained to him having bought a property under market value from Ms. Li Khoon while serving in office.
In short, Guan Eng, who happened to be the Chief Minister (CM) of Penang at the time of arrest and is yet, is being accused of corruption and a possible act of criminal malfeasance, which is similar to the allegations that were piled on Shahrizat and Najib and borders on charges that were brought against Taib.
But not only is Kit Siang silent on his son’s position as Penang CM, he has yet to comment on a decision by the state DAP leadership, which has resolved to allow Guan Eng to resume his official duties. In the first place, under whose or what authority did the state DAP leadership override the state government in deciding the fate of the CM?
Moreover, shouldn’t Kit Siang demand that his son resign or apply for a stay in performing official duties “pending the outcome of Court proceedings?” After all, Guan Eng most certainly seems to have caused an “embarrassment to the nation with the endless reports about his dodgy dealings in the state government.”
Oh, and lest we forget, back in 1994 Kit Siang demanded Anwar Ibrahim’s resignation regarding the RM30 billion Forex losses which had not even been investigated yet and it had not yet been established if any crime had been committed.
See the hypocrisy yet?
