In a parliamentary democracy, the role of speaker of the Lower House, which is the Dewan Rakyat, is an august one, with powers and perquisites to match.
By appointing Pandikar Amin Mulia to the position for the duration of the 12th Parliament, honour was not just conferred on the former MP who is also a lawyer and thereby adept, by professional calling, at coping with the minutiae of parliamentary procedure; the choice gained for Sabah the distinction that a member of its professional elite was chosen for the role of national debating umpire.
Hitherto, only similar positions in the Upper House, Dewan Negara, had seen appointees from Sabah or Sarawak, a situation not likely to assuage their elites' sense of being peripheral rather than central players on the national stage.
Pandikar's appointment as Parliament speaker in March 2008 thus went some way towards easing the attenuation Sabahans and Sarawakians feel with regard to stellar positions in civic and corporate Malaysia.
It's all very well that their parliamentarians are now regarded as the "fixed deposit" of the ruling BN coalition; it's quite another thing parlaying that factor into representational gold in the upper brackets of national life.
Thus panache in his role as umpire of parliamentary discourse would have enabled Pandikar to achieve a "double first" - doing the role singular honour and his under-represented state solid credit.
To be sure, the speaker's role is a tightrope act: you are beholden to the ruling party for your appointment but you have to assay the umpire's task in a way that suggests a capacity to rise above purely partisan considerations.
Anwar suspended for six months
On the latter count, in two signal instances in the last 15 months, Pandikar has supplied cause for grief.
When opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was referred in 2010 to the Privileges Committee for allegedly misleading the House by claiming that international public relations consultants, Apco, were behind the formulation of Prime Minister Najib Razak's ‘1Malaysia' policy, Pandikar as committee chairman inexplicably reversed himself on a crucial decision allowing Anwar to call witnesses in his defence.
The reversal was a peremptory decision which was against the rules of natural justice, and was taken in a manner that suggested Pandikar was not acting of his own volition.
By appointing Pandikar Amin Mulia to the position for the duration of the 12th Parliament, honour was not just conferred on the former MP who is also a lawyer and thereby adept, by professional calling, at coping with the minutiae of parliamentary procedure; the choice gained for Sabah the distinction that a member of its professional elite was chosen for the role of national debating umpire.
Hitherto, only similar positions in the Upper House, Dewan Negara, had seen appointees from Sabah or Sarawak, a situation not likely to assuage their elites' sense of being peripheral rather than central players on the national stage.Pandikar's appointment as Parliament speaker in March 2008 thus went some way towards easing the attenuation Sabahans and Sarawakians feel with regard to stellar positions in civic and corporate Malaysia.
It's all very well that their parliamentarians are now regarded as the "fixed deposit" of the ruling BN coalition; it's quite another thing parlaying that factor into representational gold in the upper brackets of national life.
Thus panache in his role as umpire of parliamentary discourse would have enabled Pandikar to achieve a "double first" - doing the role singular honour and his under-represented state solid credit.
To be sure, the speaker's role is a tightrope act: you are beholden to the ruling party for your appointment but you have to assay the umpire's task in a way that suggests a capacity to rise above purely partisan considerations.
Anwar suspended for six months
On the latter count, in two signal instances in the last 15 months, Pandikar has supplied cause for grief.
When opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was referred in 2010 to the Privileges Committee for allegedly misleading the House by claiming that international public relations consultants, Apco, were behind the formulation of Prime Minister Najib Razak's ‘1Malaysia' policy, Pandikar as committee chairman inexplicably reversed himself on a crucial decision allowing Anwar to call witnesses in his defence.
The reversal was a peremptory decision which was against the rules of natural justice, and was taken in a manner that suggested Pandikar was not acting of his own volition.
A
pco were requested to send a representative to explain their side of the matter to the Privileges Committee but instead chose to send a perfunctory letter that denied Anwar's claim in the House that the consultants were behind the ‘One Israel' policy of Minister Ehud Barak when he was prime minister of Israel in the late 1990s, a policy on which, Anwar had claimed, the ‘1Malaysia' project was sourced.
Pandikar brandished Apco's letter as the basis for foreclosing the deliberations of the Privileges Committee and moved the matter to the House for a vote without Anwar's defence being called, the kind of decision that gives the concept of the rule of law a bad name.
Opposition members walked out of the House in protest as Anwar was suspended for six months and a few MPs who displayed high dudgeon at the speaker's decision were also expelled for their pains.
Minority report not accepted
Yesterday, in another demonstration of arbitrariness, Pandikar ruled that the three opposition members of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Electoral Reform were not allowed to move an amendment to attach a minority report to the PSC's 22-page report.
To back his decision, Pandikar cited a precedent taken from the rules governing parliamentary proceedings in New Zealand.
In these days of immediate recourse to the Internet, opposition MPs rose to expose the shakiness of that precedent, citing examples of other parliaments in the Commonwealth, including Britain's, that accepted minority reports.
But Pandikar would not budge, triggering a fusillade of protests from opposition MPs, two of whom he promptly expelled from the House for unruly behaviour.
The speaker then compounded matters by disallowing a debate on the PSC report which was adopted amid much tumult from opposition and government benches. Again, a couple of opposition members were shown the door by the speaker.
Opposition leader Anwar, in dismay, then pronounced the speaker a "stooge of Umno." In the context of incidents past and present, the epithet would have little difficulty sticking.
This is a pity because in appointing a Sabahan to the prestigious post of speaker of Parliament, the expectation was Pandikar would punch above his weight and give his straggling state a nice sheen in national affairs.
Instead he has chosen to look a gift horse in the mouth.
pco were requested to send a representative to explain their side of the matter to the Privileges Committee but instead chose to send a perfunctory letter that denied Anwar's claim in the House that the consultants were behind the ‘One Israel' policy of Minister Ehud Barak when he was prime minister of Israel in the late 1990s, a policy on which, Anwar had claimed, the ‘1Malaysia' project was sourced.Pandikar brandished Apco's letter as the basis for foreclosing the deliberations of the Privileges Committee and moved the matter to the House for a vote without Anwar's defence being called, the kind of decision that gives the concept of the rule of law a bad name.
Opposition members walked out of the House in protest as Anwar was suspended for six months and a few MPs who displayed high dudgeon at the speaker's decision were also expelled for their pains.
Minority report not accepted
Yesterday, in another demonstration of arbitrariness, Pandikar ruled that the three opposition members of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Electoral Reform were not allowed to move an amendment to attach a minority report to the PSC's 22-page report.
To back his decision, Pandikar cited a precedent taken from the rules governing parliamentary proceedings in New Zealand.In these days of immediate recourse to the Internet, opposition MPs rose to expose the shakiness of that precedent, citing examples of other parliaments in the Commonwealth, including Britain's, that accepted minority reports.
But Pandikar would not budge, triggering a fusillade of protests from opposition MPs, two of whom he promptly expelled from the House for unruly behaviour.
The speaker then compounded matters by disallowing a debate on the PSC report which was adopted amid much tumult from opposition and government benches. Again, a couple of opposition members were shown the door by the speaker.
Opposition leader Anwar, in dismay, then pronounced the speaker a "stooge of Umno." In the context of incidents past and present, the epithet would have little difficulty sticking.
This is a pity because in appointing a Sabahan to the prestigious post of speaker of Parliament, the expectation was Pandikar would punch above his weight and give his straggling state a nice sheen in national affairs.
Instead he has chosen to look a gift horse in the mouth.
TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for close on four decades. He likes the occupation because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them. It is the ideal occupation for a temperament that finds power fascinating and its exercise abhorrent.
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