Day of reckoning for Putrajaya: All eyes on terms of reference for Project M RCI

The proposed Royal Commission of Inquiry on MyKad issuance in Sabah is Putrajaya’s Achilles Heel. The Parliamentary Select Committee on Electoral Reform, under the Borneo Evangelical Mission Preacher Maximus Johnity Ongkili, could not have been oblivious to this “genetic disorder of a situation” when it stressed on the RCI suggestion before the media in Kota Kinabalu in recent days.

Even more worrisome for Umno is the latent reality that any genuine RCI’s Terms of Reference (ToR) will be, to put it mildly, its Day of Reckoning. If the RCI is instituted in exactly the form, structure and substance that it should rightly be done, the Federal Government’s past on MyKad issuance in Sabah will catch up with it in its Fixed Deposit present to haunt its future in a Hung Parliament.

Be careful, it's a whitewash

So, the question that arises from all this is a simple one: Why on Earth should the Umno Government in Putrajaya ever agree with Maximus to set up the RCI for any reason except to whitewash its sins in Sabah since Malaysia Day on 16 Sept 1963?

We need to consider carefully what’s happening here on this political hot potato of an issue lest we see not the forest for the trees. One moment Joseph Pairin Kitingan, the toothless old Lion King of the Jungle in Borneo, is breathing fire and fury on the RCI. He reminded Putrajaya in recent days, indeed even warned it in no uncertain terms, that the RCI must be set up by 2012 or else . . .

For a moment, it looked like Pairin had accidentally picked up a script written for Jeffrey, his younger brother, in the politics of working across the divide and outdid him for once. This is not the first time that Pairin had, uncharacteristically, trotted out the 2012 deadline. He has done it at least twice before and each time chose the annual year-end General Assembly for his Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS).

This year was no different but there’s a certain urgency in the air since the 13th General Election looms. Pairin has to show something substantial to the people and not expect them to slavishly back him in politics just because he’s the Huguansiou (Paramount Chief) of the Dusuns – including the Kadazans or urban Dusuns – and the Muruts.

Evil plot to trick the Sabah people

The consensus of public opinion is that Pairin and Maximus, the former’s deputy in PBS, are part of an “evil” plot hatched in Putrajaya by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak. Najib needed to give Pairin a boost in his public standing and at the same time position his nephew Maximus, already a Federal Minister, as his successor. The opposition’s cry for electoral reform before polls was a heaven sent-opportunity.

Enter Maximus as the PSC chairman with a mandate as well to include the RCI proposal among his recommendations, but the implementation was to be determined in a manner which suits Najib and Umno.

One can bluff some of the people some of the time, but not all the people all the time. Sabahans as a whole, even the local Muslims being increasingly the most disenfranchised and marginalized by the continuing influx of illegal immigrants, are deeply suspicious and cynical of Putrajaya as they watch the Federal Government swear by policies of internal colonization in the state.

A case in point is the United Kingdom-based Human Rights Foundation (HRFM) which, at this writing, is working on its version of the proposed ToR for the proposed RCI as part of the ad hoc NGO’s pre-emptive strike strategy. It’s believed that the United Borneo Front (UBF), under Jeffrey, is another ad hoc NGO also working overtime to draft a proposed ToR for the proposed RCI.

HRFM Advisor Daniel John Jambun is being tight-lipped for the moment on his proposed ToR for the proposed RCI.

Even so, there are no prizes for working out what the proposed ToR for the proposed RCI in Sabah should investigate, determine and recommend by way of punitive measures against wrong-doers.

Chief ministers in cahoots with Federal Government

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the rot in the electoral rolls in Sabah began long before the watershed 1994 state elections.

Before the state elections of 1985, when PBS stormed into power, successive Chief Ministers in Kota Kinabalu were apparently in cahoots with Federal Government, the National Registration Department (NRD) in Putrajaya and the Elections Commission to pad the electoral rolls with illegal immigrants. This was also called the notorious Project M, which stood for Mahathir Mohamad, the then prime minister who has been accused of dreaming up the idea to grab power for his Umno party in Sabah.

The pace was stepped up from 1991 when Umno came to Sabah and had the local United Sabah National Organisation (Usno) deregistered.

This has been openly confirmed by ex-Internal Security Act (ISA) detainee, Orang Kaya Kaya Hassnar Ebrahim, who disclosed that he had unwittingly been part of a secret Putrajaya plan to issue MyKads to illegal immigrants and have them registered as voters. Hassnar admitted that he himself has been personally responsible for placing 15,000 illegal immigrants on the electoral rolls. Hassnar revealed all during his testimony in Court for the 1999 Likas election petition.

Hassnar, now the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) Batu Sapi division chief, knows of other operatives who placed some 135,000 illegal immigrants on the electoral rolls from before 1994 and over a period of five years or more.

1994

The watershed in Sabah is 1994, the year that the PBS Government fell on the back of massive defections and/or party split, ironically after winning an unprecedented fourth term in office.

In 1994, PBS won 25 seats in the 48-seat State Assembly against the 23 picked up by the Sabah Progressive Party (3) and Umno (20).

Today the number of Dusun/Chinese state seats still remains at 28 while the number of Muslim seats has gone up from 20 to 32.

The additional 12 Muslim seats, all tiny ones along the eastern seaboard, comprise substantial numbers of illegal immigrants placed on the electoral rolls.

The 12 “phantom” seats are where the RCI should focus most of its attention and this factor should be reflected in the ToR.

Likewise, the number of Dusun/Parliamentary seats today remains at 12 as before 1994. Meanwhile, the number of Muslim seats has gone up from 8 to 13 i.e. including another five seats where illegal immigrants predominate.

More than 50 per cent of the battle to clean up the electoral rolls in Sabah would be won if the RCI concentrated on the 12 state seats and the five Parliamentary seats.

The RCI should not only focus on cleaning up the electoral rolls in Sabah.

It should also ensure that those who obtained MyKads fraudulently are stripped of the document and there should be no amnesty or offer of permanent resident. The Federal Constitution is clear on this.

Treason

Finally, the RCI should recommend that criminal charges be brought against NRD Putrajaya, and Elections Commission officials who participated in the heinous crime of issuing MyKads to illegal immigrants and padding the electoral rolls with their names.

The charge can be one of sedition and treason and not something relatively minor like the falsification of official documents followed by the proverbial slap on the wrist.

Malaysia Chronicle