The King and U
The King and U-Mobile and the tale of two brave Hassans
Rocky’s Bru
Kuala Lumpur, Nov 22: That the vocal YB Hassan Karim has been called up by his own party’s disciplinary committee for criticizing the PMX and the King recently. The PKR man is very likely going to be censored by the committee but whether the “punishment” for speaking out for the Rakyat as their elected representative will leave a mark on the Madani government, for sure.
And for our freedom of expression.
In the meantime, two weeks have gone since Perkasa, the Malay NGO, lodged a police report on claims made in the media that the King had a 22% stake in U-Mobile, the telco that has been picked by the government to set up the long overdue second 5G network.
Syed Hassan Syed Ali, the Perkasa president, told me he hadn’t heard from the cops since making the report.
According the Perkasa, the Constitution clearly prohibits the King from active participation in business. And according to Hassan when he lodged that report Perkasa wasn’t certain if the claims made in the media were true.
If it’s untrue, he wants the police to act against the authors of those reports for trying to tarnish the image of the King. If it’s true, well, “we’ll have to find a way to deal with it”.
One portal saw Hassan and Perkasa’s report as Reverse psychology at play.
But are the actions by the two Hassans a mere charade, or do they echo what the masses, especially the Malay rakyat, feel? This is something the PKR Disciplinary Committee and the police have to decide. They must consult the Constitutional experts before making a decision. The Constitution is supreme. Avoid, at all cost, another Constitutional crisis.
