Off all the silly comments: Mukhriz - Potrait of a self-serving dunce

Deputy Trade Minister Mukhriz Mahathir commented that foreign investors liked Malaysia having draconian laws like the newly tabled newly tabled Peaceful Assembly Bill which is actually a misnomer, and should instead be called the Anti-Freedom of Assembly Bill.

According to Mukhriz, the youngest son of former premier Mahathir Mohamad, investors like to invest in countries where there are no street protests.

But contrary to Mukhriz’s self-serving observations, investors appear to be in no rush to invest in North Korea, a country where there are absolutely no street protests. They seem to prefer London, where protests are a commonplace. Or any number of European capitals, where no government would risk re-election by moving against their people’s democratic rights.

Some things never change

This latest silly statement by Mukhriz motivated us on a quest to find at least one intelligent statement that Mukhriz may have made, since being appointed a Deputy Minister by Najib Razak, to please Mahathir who despite having retired is still very powerful.

Some things never change, since when Mukhriz was a boy, we have it on good authority, his headmaster would move him up to the ‘A’ class even though he did not deserve it. This was to please Mahathir, who was the Education Minister, and the Headmaster’s eventual boss. Of course some more deserving child would be relegated to accommodate Mukhriz, but that could hardly be expected to bother Mahathir or his undeserving son.

Regretfully, we have been unable to detect any instances of intelligent statements, or for that matter, intelligence, by Mukhriz since he was appointed. Nor does Mukhriz appear to have done anything particularly productive as a Deputy Minister. The only consistent thing that he appears to have achieved, is to collect his salary and perks every month.

Two sets of laws

Mukhriz appears unconcerned by the fact that this new law is at odds with the Malaysian Constitution. Laws and constitutions for people like Mukhriz and his fellow BN politicians, are meant only for other people. He is quite right, of course, because Mukhriz could go out and hold a protest in the streets anytime he wants without fear of police interference.

We live in a nation with two sets of laws. One set of laws for most Malaysians like you and me, and another set for BN apparatchiks like Mukhriz and his like.

If you are a nasty little BN apparatchik, you may go about freely doing whatever you like in Malaysia. You may at will murder (including with restricted explosives), rape (including children and maids), commit CBT (including by buying multi-million dollar pieces of real-estate with funds meant to be used for the public good), blatantly accept commissions (even for equipment meant for the nation’s defence) and whatever else you like.

Nothing will happen to you. You will be protected. Your most incredulous explanations will be taken seriously and accepted solemnly by the BN’s nodding Ministers. No investigations will be carried out on you and when they are, you will be duly exonerated. Clearly, there is a lot to be said for pursuing a career as a nasty little BN apparatchik.

Protecting themselves from being overthrown

Of course, there was also a lot to be said for pursuing a career as a nasty little apparatchik of Gaddafi’s in Libya, until recently. They too could do whatever they wanted, for 40 years. And yet there are none who admit to being Gaddafi’s men now, for some reason.

The Gaddafians ugly dance in Libya, it seems, has come to an end. As all such regimes, corrupt and corrupting, must fall. As the BN too, must fall, in the next election in Malaysia.

So why is Mukhriz so anxious for the Anti-Freedom of Assembly Bill to be enacted? The answer is because the exercise of their democratic rights by the Malaysian people threatens him, it threatens his father, and it threatens the Barisan Nasional. And the Barisan Nasional is the cold, half-rotting corpse through which festering maggots like Mukhriz and his ilk frenzy-feed on the economic lifeblood of Malaysia.

True democracy, true democratic institutions and democratic rights would ensure transparency in all public transactions and it would force accountability in Malaysia.

Those with skeletons in the closet, and the corrupt, will always endeavor to stop the pure, cleansing light of democracy’s beacon from shining into their squalid crimes, their wretched corruptions. And so these machinations by the BN, these abominable ‘Acts’, these tortured, Machiavellian ruses to fool the public.

We cannot let them succeed.

Malaysia Chronicle