How do you get past the endless betrayals, Tony Pua?

 

From Rahim Zainuddin

At the outset, let me say that I was not at all surprised by that shameful proposal of a bipartisan government put forward by Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin on Friday evening.

It is something we have come to expect from a man who assumed the post via the backdoor and has since used all sorts of tactics to stay in power.

Friday was clearly the last throw of the dice for the prime minister who for some reason or other cannot accept the fact that he is staring down the jaws of an unceremonious eviction from office within the next month.

Clutching at straws, his last proposal has been mocked by all and sundry. Time on his tenure is about to be called. “Abah and out,” it would seem!

Yet, for some reason or other, it seems like some of his biggest detractors are trying to prop him up. Step forward, DAP’s Tony Pua, whose own party was made the scapegoat in our prime minister’s unexpected rise to power.

The main question which I have for Pua is simply this: How do you get past the endless betrayals which this administration has practised on the rakyat, your party and its coalition partners?

In his rise to power, our unloved (not beloved) PM and those loyal to him, betrayed the will of the rakyat by casting aside the Pakatan Harapan alliance, which was put into power to wrest control of Putrajaya.

They did this in February last year, at a time when the pandemic was looming and, as a result, threw the country into chaos, depriving it of proper preparation to meet the first wave of infections that befell us.

Three months later, just as we were coming out of that wave, their lust for political power saw them cross the South China Sea in droves to ensure victory for their loyalists in the Sabah state elections, even as the pandemic was raging there. Lo and behold, they came back bringing the virus to the peninsula, and with that the second wave.

Fast forward to today, and a combination of a blatant disregard by this administration of its own SOPs (per minister Khairy Jamaluddin, July 15) and incompetence (per DAP’s Hannah Yeoh, Aug 11) has left the rakyat contracting the virus at a rate above 20,000 per day, facing daily three-digit death figures, locked down indefinitely with the economy in shambles, already unemployed or in danger every day of losing their jobs, and staring poverty in the face.

And yet, Pua has the cheek to suggest that there may be “benefits” in this cowardly “scheme of things”. Perhaps, I should call them “Tonyfits”.

Let’s list out these Tonyfits:

• We’ll do a deal now and kick them out next July.
• We’ll get the PN government to institute priceless reforms.
• We’ll block the return of kleptocrats.
• We’ll prevent a general election in the middle of the pandemic.

Tonyfit #1: We’ll do a deal now and kick them out next July:

Does our honourable MP Pua really believe that he can strike a deal with the other side while effectively calling them the devil in the same breath?

Or let me put it another way. By calling them the devil, Pua himself clearly believes that this administration is untrustworthy.

Does he also think that we, the rakyat, are so gullible that we believe this sitting government, which has betrayed its former allies and the rakyat to take over and stay in power, will suddenly honour promises made to its political foes?

Tonyfit #2: We’ll get the PN government to institute priceless reforms:

My question to Pua is this. Can you trust those who have desecrated every institution in this country to reform those very institutions?

Lest you forget, let me remind you.

This is the administration of a man whom your colleagues and you have accused of:

• Betraying the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.
• Using the pandemic to suspend Parliament via a made-up Emergency.
• Using the Speaker’s chair to stifle proper parliamentary processes, including debating and voting.
• Using the courts and the office of the attorney-general to selectively charge the opposition while releasing PN supporters.
• Using the police force to unlawfully stifle dissent.
• Using the executive to reward those who are politically affiliated to it.

Tonyfit #3: We block the return of kleptocrats:

The kleptocrats Pua refers to are the ones brought down by the rakyat at the last general election. He is clearly insinuating that “Melayu mudah lupa” (Malays forget easily) and that we will return power to thieves. With one swoosh, he has branded all Malay leaders “thieves” and the rest of us “friends of thieves”.

Let me say this clearly for the benefit of Pua: We do not forget those who betray and steal from us and do not wish any of them to continue to rule us, in whatever shape or form.

Curiously, it seems that Pua himself suddenly wants to befriend some of them. I cannot understand why.

Tonyfit #4: We prevent a general election in the middle of the pandemic:

There are other ways to achieve this. It is your job as our elected representative to help find them.

If that means identifying and courting honourable individuals (even if they are from tainted political parties) to form a clean and trustworthy interim administration, then that is what the job entails.

If you or any of your colleagues are unable to contribute in that direction, please step aside. - FMT

Rahim Zainuddin is an FMT reader.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.