DEWAN RAKYAT, March 19, 2009:
SUBMERGED UNDER the human volcanic eruptions of the political kind this past week was the little matter of an inquiry set up to size up last month’s fracas when Karpal Singh (DAP-Bukit Jelutong) was mobbed (accosted if you had asked Karpal’s people) by a group of Selangor Umno Youth officials upset over a typical Karpal flimflammery that went radioactive the moment the aggrieved politicians overreacted.
The inquiry would not have been necessary too had the Umno Youth mob remain cool and collected, calculative to the needling ways of Karpal’s venomous taunts. Karpal too might have calculated a certain measure of reaction the moment he accused Umno Youth on Feb 26 of being responsible for the vile threat against him and his family, of delivering to him a “live” bullet as a warning for his ‘seditious” threat to take legal action against the Sultan of Perak over the sacking and appointment of the state’s Menteris Besar.
On top of that, Karpal had to unleash the word “celaka” to define the vile bullet threat, “damn” being the benevolent translation but an unpronounceable yet contemptible one if Karpal’s word is to be taken in a more metaphorical tone. Even Karpal would have underestimated the Umno Youth officials’ reaction when they mobbed him at the parliament lobby, shouting and demanding that he apologised for his indiscretion.
As a prologue, the conventional wisdom would be that Umno Youth would produce a strongly-worded statement at a media conference to harshly rebuke Karpal, which was duly carried out by Khairy Jamaluddin (BN-Rembau) and Mukhriz Mahathir (BN-Jerlun). Karpal would not have been far off to expect a bunch of them to demonstrate outside his Kuala Lumpur law firm or Penang home. What Karpal did not expect but would still have been a tremendous boon to him was the way he was mobbed, a man on a wheelchair, against the in-your-face rants of young testosterone-pumped political operatives. Karpal didn’t buy into this hostility but the situation certainly bought into his notion of a feisty confrontation.
Of course, bad-tempered and acrimonious egging and epithets were tossed wildly between the Umno Youth mob and several DAP MPs, which included Karpal’s son, Gobind Singh Deo (DAP-Puchong), rushed to the scene to shield their physically vulnerable but mentally charged leader. Blows were almost traded and someone’s neat suit and shirt was roughed up. In the end, the warring parties were kept apart by colleagues and security, which Karpal accused of being idle when the mob made their move on him.
When Nazri Aziz moved a motion to form the inquiry, there was a majority of ayes from MPs and immediately, the names of the inquiry’s committee members were named but Opposition MP committee members, Lim Kit Siang (DAP-Ipoh Timur), Datuk Kamaruddin Jaafar (Pas-Tumpat) and R. Sivarasa (PKR-Subang), pulled out of the inquiry’s first meeting on Monday as a symbolic protest against Gobind’s one-year suspension over his uncouth treatment of the Deputy Prime Minister.
Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia shrugged off the boycott without any rancour, interviewing Karpal’s assistant, Michael Cornelius, and parliament security officers, Rahmah Idrus and Nurul Shida Kamarudin on Tuesday. Deputy Speaker Datuk Ronald Kiandee, who is on the committee, indicated that testimonies from these three witnesses was adequate for the committee to work on.
But dragging down the inquiry further were Fong Po Kuan (DAP-Batu Gajah), Fong Kui Lun (DAP-Bukit Bintang), Lim Lip Eng (DAP-Segambut) and N. Gobalakrishnan (PKR-Padang Serai), who were all present at the fracas, but refused to testify. Above all and naturally so, Karpal himself boycotted the panel, justifying the collective abstention to the House’s “contradictory” ways – setting up a panel to look into the mob confrontation but using the weight of its majority NOT to refer Gobind to the Rights and Privileges Committee to defend himself.
Nazri lambasted the boycotts and promised that there would be no replacements, even if the findings of the inquiry are not to the Opposition’s liking. On the other hand, the only striking thing about Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim’s (PKR-Permatang Pauh) support of the boycotts was the immediate ease in which he linked it to a “trend towards a more repressive political climate”, ahead of the leadership transition between Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and his deputy, Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
In Anwar’s noxiously focused political microscope, every viral seizure, every disease affliction and every pandemic attack would have to be linked, connected and fastened to Najib, even if there’s none, the reason being that Najib can emancipate a genuine threat to the Opposition’s future grip on the electorate, hence the need to demonise and ostracise the PM-in-waiting, slated to officially ascend to the highest office in the land on April 3 at 11am – according to some reports – after Najib is safely installed as Umno president next week at the Umno general assembly.
In the meantime, the inquiry into Karpal’s fracas proceeded yesterday, calling upon three Umno Youth members who hounded their piece to Karpal in his face: Gombak Youth chief Megat Zulkarnain Omardin, Serdang Youth chief Ungku Salleh Ungku Mohd Jamal and Petaling Jaya Utara Youth chief Latt Sharizan Abdullah and Shah Alam Umno Youth chief Azahari Shaari provided their testimonies without speaking to the media, preferring to have Datuk Reezal Merican face the media barrage. “They had given the panel their version of what had taken place that day,” Reezal, the Umno Youth vice chief aspirant explained. “They were in the room for about 30 minutes and I don’t think we can say anything more as the matter is under investigation.”
Umno Youth chief aspirant Mukhriz Mahathir provided a mollifying testimony for the mob. “They showed that they had not run away from their responsibilities in testifying before the panel. I have seen the video of the fracas and I don’t find it as terrifying as alleged by some quarters. The rakyat has the right to come to Parliament and meet MPs to seek clarification,” he told the media at the Parliament lobby, confident of a just decision.
Despite a rookie MP, Mukhriz is no slouch to the Pakatan Rakyat’s boycott strategy, articulating it as sly move to tamper the inquiry’s credibility. “Whatever the inquiry’s decision may be, it is bound to be criticised by the Opposition who will question the integrity and decision of the panel,” Mukhriz sounded off.
No doubt, the PR’s tactic is to invent a buffer zone of retreat should the inquiry exonerate the Umno Youth mob but the pivotal aspect of the whole sordid episode remains: it would seem that in the past month, whatever altercation and whatever controversy that rumbles in the House, or in the more jugular fields in Perak, Karpal just had to position himself in the eye of the political hurricane. Why is this so?
Let’s appraise Karpal’s latest existentialism in a nutshell: the temerity to suggest legal action against a monarch, the ensuing bullet threat, that ‘damn” word that inflamed Umno Youth, the amazing rant where he totally and bitterly blew away Anwar Ibrahim as a lousy leader for PR, the Parliament lobby fracas, his son’s suspension, the sedition trial. The easy theories are that Karpal was just being his principled, brassy and crass self with the tendency to blast away with what might look to be obnoxious streams of dissent but in reality, well-crafted words to provoke a chain reaction that is brilliantly forethought.
Then there’s this alternate universe theory: why should Karpal let Anwar Ibrahim have all the fun, free-wheeling and hog the limelight? Why should Karpal allow Anwar to dictate the Pakatan’s political direction, orientation and mien? Karpal had been well-placed to decry Anwar’s Sept 16 bid last year to grab Federal power by rules of defections, and with episodic appearances on bombshell issues exploding in tangent, Karpal has been able to check Anwar’s free-wheeling progress and in his own way, cautioned the great pretender to the Premiership that he can’t have his way all the time.
Come to think of it, is this why Anwar had been rather subdued in the presence of the Tiger?
Popularity: unranked [?]
