Jahara to Rayer: Are you sincere?

Penang's opposition leader questions DAP rep's apparent change of heart on retracting 'celaka' remark.

GEORGE TOWN: Penang Opposition leader Jahara Hamid today questioned Seri Delima assemblyman RSN Rayer’s sincerity in indicating that he may decide to apologise for insulting Umno with his “celaka” remark.

“Is it because the DAP leadership realises that Rayer’s garrulous mouth and arrogance caused the defeat of the party’s candidate in Teluk Intan?” Jahara asked in a press release referring to a news report that appeared yesterday.

According to the report, Rayer dismissed calls for a public apology, saying that if he decided to retract the remark he would do so only during a state assembly session because the perceived offence was committed during such a session.

“This happened in the House, so it ends in the House,” he reportedly said. “If I am to retract it, it has to be done in the House. But now the sitting is over.

“If I do not retract the remark and people are still unhappy, they can have me referred to the Rights and Privileges Committee for disciplinary action to be taken.”

The Penang state assembly sits again in November.

Rayer said the DAP leadership had advised him to resolve the issue.

Jahara said the statement showed that he was “not remorseful, sincere and honest in his intention”.

“Why has Rayer suddenly issued such a statement two weeks after the assembly sitting was over and only after the Teluk Intan by-election?”

She recalled that he had adamantly refused to apologise during last month’s assembly sitting.

Referring to his claim of preparedness for disciplinary action, she pointed out that Umno’s motion to censure him was defeated on May 22 because of Pakatan Rakyat’s overwhelming majority in the House.

“Will a BN motion be supported if tabled again?” she asked.

Jahara called Rayer a hypocrite for claiming that he had not uttered “Celaka celaka Umno” outside the House. She alleged that he used the same words during a Bukit Gelugor by-election campaign rally in Air Itam on May 19.

She said he was a coward for hiding behind assembly immunity. As a lawyer, he should know that seditious comments made inside the House would not be protected by the immunity, she added.

Referring to Rayer’s allegation that Umno Youth’s hostile demonstration on May 21 was the result of news spinning by the mainstream press, she said he had apparently forgotten that Penang assembly sessions were nowadays broadcast live on the Internet.