The Pakatan Harapan-Perikatan Nasional MoU and the Nur Sajat matter
More importantly, can this matter not be the excuse that Pakatan Harapan uses to call off or abort the MoU — since the rights of LGBTs is not being respected by the government, in breach of Pakatan Harapan’s perjuangan for a free and fair society.
NO HOLDS BARRED
Raja Petra Kamarudin
I have read through the MoU signed between the government and the opposition on 13th September 2021 a few times but, until today, one week later, I still cannot comprehend what the MoU entails.
I mean, it just says Pakatan Harapan and Perikatan Nasional will stop bickering, but that is all. In the first place, what is the bickering about? Even that I am not too clear about other than Pakatan Harapan is insisting it won the general election in May 2018 and that the rakyat’s mandate had been stolen from them.
READ MORE HERE
I have spent the last many months reading up various textbooks on political philosophy (some from the Oxford University course that I took) but I cannot find any reference to “mandate stealing” or how a mandate is stolen.
This must be a new philosophy just recently invented and which Oxford has not included in any of its courses or textbooks yet. Or maybe there is no such thing, which is the reason why Oxford does not teach this in any of its courses.
From what I gather, a mandate cannot be stolen because a voter surrenders this mandate to the wakil rakyat he or she votes for, and after that the voter does not own it anymore. Hence what you do not own cannot be stolen from you.
That is why you need to be very careful before giving anyone a mandate to act on your behalf because, once handed over, you lose your rights. The person holding your mandate can do whatever he or she likes in your name.
Most Malaysians do not seem to understand this. They think once a mandate is handed over (serah kuasa), they can still dictate and decide what to do. Then why serah a mandate to someone else to act on your behalf and in your name?
Anyway, that appears to be the main beef of the Pakatan Harapan fellas — that their mandate has been stolen. As for what else I really do not know because the 17-page MoU does not state anything. In fact, the MoU is very vague about what the government is supposed to do. It is not like there is a list of “must does” in that MoU.
So, in other words, what is the government supposed to do to meet the terms and conditions of the MoU? And in what manner would the government be in violation of the terms and conditions of the MoU?
That has not been spelled out. So how would we know if the government has violated the terms and conditions of the MoU?
A few Pakatan Harapan leaders have threatened that the opposition will pull out of the MoU if the government violates the terms and conditions of the MoU. That’s fair. If the terms and conditions of the MoU are violated, then Pakatan Harapan should call off the agreement.
But there are no details listed in the MoU. So how would we know when the government is breaching or not following the MoU? Pakatan Harapan can simply come out with a so-called incident and then say that incident is in violation of the MoU and then call off the agreement.
Let me take one incident as an example. The Malaysian government has asked the Thai government to arrest Nur Sajat Kamaruzzaman and extradite him back to Malaysia to face trial for allegedly dressing as a woman in 2018.
Is Pakatan Harapan okay with that? Many Pakatan Harapan people support the rights of LGBTs. Is Pakatan Harapan not outraged that the Malaysian government is enforcing Islamic or Sharia laws and is denying the rights of Malaysians to choose how to dress?
If Pakatan Harapan is okay with the Malaysian government enforcing Islamic or Sharia laws and if Pakatan Harapan is okay with denying the rights of Malaysians to choose how to dress, then Pakatan Harapan must surely support the RUU355 as well — which deals with amendments to the Sharia laws and allows more severe punishment to violators of the Sharia laws.
In short, this Nur Sajat matter has a relationship to the Sharia and the RUU355. So what is Pakatan Harapan’s stand? If they support action against Nur Sajat, then they support the Sharia and the RUU355 as well. And is this matter not covered under the so-called “transformation” or “reformation” program in the MoU that the government and the opposition signed?
More importantly, can this matter not be the excuse that Pakatan Harapan uses to call off or abort the MoU — since the rights of LGBTs is not being respected by the government, in breach of Pakatan Harapan’s perjuangan for a free and fair society.
