Rarely is a move to remove a sitting government through concerted effort to put a new one in its place, via lobbying, use of the media, working with others, and other imaginative machinations - a plot in other words - illegal.
Most times, it’s part of the checks and balances within a parliamentary democracy to enable the removal of a non-performing government which loses the support of its people, as demonstrated by a loss of confidence by the members representing the people in Parliament.
Post the 2018 epochal election, which saw BN defeated for the first time in national polls, we have seen changes in government through the MPs changing their support for the prime minister, resulting in the fall of governments. It heralded changing parliamentary support to, yes, topple governments.
Thus, when reports are made that certain people are plotting against the government and investigations are being launched, they must be treated with healthy scepticism, as many of the things that the accused are alleged to be engaged in may not be unlawful.
Let’s take the report about a prominent family (everyone now knows the family is that of the late, powerful former finance minister and staunch Dr Mahathir Mohamad ally, Daim Zainuddin), where investigations appear to have been launched on the strength of a single police report by an unnamed individual, over which there is now much speculation.
Rejecting ‘toppling govt’ allegation
Daim’s wife, Na’imah Abdul Khalid, has strongly denied the allegations.
She said in a statement: “The claim that I am trying to destabilise or topple the government is laughable and brings to mind past accusations faced by the prime minister himself, when he used to declare having the ‘formidable numbers’ to seize power.
“Unlike him, at no time did I engage in, contemplate, or support any effort to destabilise or topple an elected government.
“While I am flattered by the claim that I was behind the investigative report by Bloomberg, I do not wish to take credit away from those who truly put their journalistic skills and talents to work to uncover the shocking allegations surrounding the MACC chief.”
Na’imah was responding to Inspector-General of Police Khalid Ismail’s statement in which he announced that authorities were investigating the wife of a former cabinet minister over an alleged attempt to topple the government following a police report.
That report caused the police to open an investigation under the wide-ranging Section 124B of the Penal Code, which has been heavily criticised by the Bar Council in the past.
The Najib playbook
Section 124B states that: “Whoever, by any means, directly or indirectly, commits an activity detrimental to parliamentary democracy shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 20 years”.
That is an extremely vague, non-specific law which does not identify instances which have to be proven to show what action can actually be classified as committing an act detrimental to parliamentary democracy.
Here’s what the Bar Council had to say about it in a press release dated Aug 28, 2015: “When Section 124B was tabled in Parliament in 2012 as an amendment to the Penal Code, the government declared that it would be used to deal with violent offences such as the assassination of a head of state, a coup d’état, an armed insurgency, or guerrilla warfare, and breaches of constitutional provisions.”
Remember, these were the bad old days of 2015 when 1MDB was being exposed relentlessly in the non-mainstream media, and then-prime minister Najib Abdul Razak was increasingly finding himself with his back against the wall.
This is eerily reminiscent of recent events involving MACC chief commissioner Azam Baki and the current Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, heavily defending him.
The Bar Council at that time was talking about how Section 124B was being used to detain some 17 people involved in a peaceful sit-in demonstration under the act. It boggles the mind to make that leap to consider the sit-in as an act detrimental to parliamentary democracy.
And it boggles the mind that this clearly obnoxious Act, which seems to have been deliberately enacted in 2012 by Najib’s government to grant excessive investigative powers, is being linked to the Bloomberg investigative report on Azam. How is that report detrimental to parliamentary democracy?
A bit more of what the Bar Council said is to recognise fully how insidious this act is: “In any event, the constitutional validity of Section 124B is questionable.
“Malaysia is a constitutional democracy, where the Federal Constitution is the supreme law of the land. The concept of parliamentary democracy is only applicable in countries where the Parliament is supreme, such as the United Kingdom.
“Thus, Section 124B purports to cover a subject matter - parliamentary supremacy - that is unknown to our constitutional scheme. It further offends two cardinal principles: criminal law must be clear and precise, and the subject matter of criminal sanction must be known. The uncertainty in Section 124B is exacerbated by the oppressive penal sentence for the offence, which is imprisonment for a term that could extend to 20 years.”
Foreign interference narrative
So why is the Madani administration using an extremely oppressive section so against “reformasi” to curtail free, valid expression and sow fear among those who are writing fair reports about this?
The only explanation I can think of is that old excuse of foreign interference in local affairs, in the hope that enough people will buy this as the reason why Bloomberg is writing a report on MACC and Azam. Of course, we think that there are valid reasons to probe Azam.
And then there were reports that the police were looking for Daim’s children, which were hotly denied by the children.
Their lawyers said: “There was neither any refusal to cooperate, nor was there any evasion. In fact, notices were only served on our clients (through their solicitors) on Feb 25 for them to attend an interview on March 11.
“Despite this, MACC has deemed it fit to jump the gun and issue this press release a mere two days after the notices were served.”
Is there no realisation that Malaysians have clearly shown a long time ago that they cannot be deceived by such allegations, which have little or no basis in law? Looks like we have a deja vu situation here - the return of desperate times with desperate reactions. - Mkini
P GUNASEGARAM says desperate moves worsen delicate situations instead of alleviating them.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.
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