‘Shahidan should be minister for N Korea’

PKR MP N Surendran takes a swipe at Shahidan Kassim for saying the Malaysian parliament gives plenty of space to the opposition.

KUALA LUMPUR: Padang Serai MP N Surendran took a swipe at Minister in Prime Minister’s Department, Shahidan Kassim, for saying the Malaysian parliament gives plenty of space to the opposition to air their views.

Reiterating his call for parliamentary reforms, Surendran dismissed Shahidan’s statement that parliament was fair as it allows “one supplementary question from (opposition) Pakatan (Rakyat),

followed by one from BN during the Q&A session”.

“Shahidan is fit to be a minister for the North Korean parliament,” he told FMT in a recent interview.

Surendran claimed that unlike “proper parliaments”, the local opposition cannot move motions and initiate debates and thus “has got no voice in parliament”.

“Right now, parliament does not function the way a democratic parliament in the Commonwealth ought to,” he said.

“The opposition cannot move motions, there is no time given to private members’ bills, and no ability or room for the opposition to initiate and conduct debates in public interest,” he added.

“These are all controlled by the government of Malaysia. It is stark contrast to the UK where opposition and backbenchers are given days to initiate bills,” he lamented.

Surendran accused parliament of cheating the people and being a mouthpiece for the ruling coalition.

“The public is funding parliament, they cannot be the mouthpiece for BN and a rubber stamp for BN legislation.

“It is cheating the people and wasting the people’s money because Opposition leaders can’t even open the mouths,” he said.

‘Ejected from parliament for the people’

Responding to his ejection from the Dewan Rakyat on Tuesday for bringing up an emergency motion on the demolition of part of the 102-year-old Sri Muneswarar Kaliyamman temple, Surendran said he was thrown out “for fighting for people’s rights”.

“It was not my choice to leave. I was ordered out of the Dewan,” he said, acknowledging concerns over his second ejection from the Dewan in two months.

Today, he was suspended from Parliament for six months for insulting the speaker.

Surendran was first ejected from the parliament when he attempted to table a petition involving the death in detention case of P Karuna Nithi in September.

Surendran is also the first MP to be booted out of the Parliament in this session.

“I could’ve chosen to stay quiet but I chose to fight. Voters who choose the opposition want leaders to criticise the actions of the government, which was what I did,” he added.

On Sunday, an estimated 300 DBKL enforcement officers and police personnel demolished the temple without proper notice.

The temple had been issued an eviction notice on June 13, ordering it to vacate the premises before June 26. The eviction order was issued so that a developer could build a multi-storey building.

However, political leaders from both BN and Pakatan along with temple devotees staged several protests to stop the demolition.

The notice was put on hold after the matter was brought to the Prime Minister’s attention and it was then decided in a cabinet meeting not to demolish the temple until a proper solution was found.