When Hannah played badminton in Parliament

From Ibrahim M Ahmad

Badminton players and fans in Malaysia are no doubt familiar with the term “bola tanggung”.

It describes a shot hit too high above the net or to halfcourt and invites the opponent to unleash a smash, or a series of smashes, aimed at killing a rally to grab a point.

These smashes draw the loudest cheers, but fairly often end up in the net or go wide or long, to the embarrassment of the smasher, and the dismay of fans.

Two DAP lawmakers appeared to play a friendly badminton match twice in Parliament over the past two weeks.

On March 13, Kampar MP Chong Zhemin hit three shots high to the midcourt for party colleague, youth and sports minister Hannah Yeoh, to smash.

But an over-confident Hannah bungled big-time.

In his first “bola tanggung” on March 13, Chong had asked for the minister’s comments on a plan to host the 2026 Commonwealth Games after it was dumped by Victoria, Australia on account of being prohibitively costly.

Prior to that, Hannah had on March 9 announced that her ministry was preparing a cabinet paper on the subject. Two days later, Olympic Council of Malaysia president Norza Zakaria expressed his support, saying it would incur minimal spending on the government’s part.

But the plan was panned by sports commissioner Suhardi Alias the very next day, March 12. Word around town suggests that Suhardi was subjected to an integrity inquiry the following day for speaking out of turn. To us on the outside, however, he was simply speaking truth to power.

In any case, Suhardi had in his comments claimed that the Badminton Association of Malaysia (BAM), which Norza also leads, had “turned down an offer” to host the 2026 Thomas and Uber Cups. In an immediate response, BAM denied that there was any “official offer” for Malaysia to host the tournaments.

Asked by Chong for confirmation, Hannah told the Dewan Rakyat that BAM “did not bid” for hosting rights to the two badminton competitions. So, which was it – did not bid or was not offered?

Hannah also said the Commonwealth Games hosting issue was going to be discussed in Cabinet, and that she did not wish to comment in advance of that.

Soon, the idea of hosting a “scaled down” Games, and even one in a collaboration with Singapore, emerged.

Then, on March 21, Hannah told the Dewan Rakyat the government would not host the Games if taxpayer money was involved.

That, to any reader, suggested that the minister was already backtracking, knowing that the Cabinet was going to shoot down her proposal the following day, which it did.

But what the public really want to know is this: did she table a proposal to the Cabinet, and if so what did it involve? Forget everything else, how much in taxpayers’ funds was she seeking?

Surely, she was unable to budget the job within the promised grant from the Commonwealth Games Federation of £100 million (roughly RM600 million) or anything remotely close to it. Otherwise, she would make a strong candidate for finance minister.

In October last year, Hannah herself described the Madani Budget 2024 as “sports friendly”. No exact details are available, but that phrase suggests it must have been a sizeable quantum.

The question now arises as to whether this minister is capable of handling that allocation properly and with accountability.

There are also other more fundamental questions as to whether she is the right person to manage sports in the first place.

Then, there is also her handling of the Formula E fiasco, another “bola tanggung” hit by Chong on March 13, and for which FMT’s Frankie D’Cruz took Hannah to task in his column last Friday.

Suffice it to say any minister would have been embarrassed by what transpired.

Instead of the Motorsports Association of Malaysia (MAM) “correcting (FMT’s) facts”, as promised by Hannah in the Dewan, the association sportingly conceded to not knowing the full facts and admitted that it “stood corrected” on the matter.

But Hannah was not done. Set up again by a question from her sparring partner from Kampar, the minister nonchalantly said she was going to meet Formula E’s local partner, Sports Tech Holdings, to discuss hosting next year’s race. No longer hearsay, Hannah?

That was not all. Hannah went on to say: “They admitted not meeting with us (the ministry), but had gone to the Prime Minister’s Office.”

Just how tone deaf are you, minister?

Hannah’s conduct has been appalling. She has misled Parliament and embarrassed Anwar Ibrahim’s administration.

She also appears to be at odds with the sports commissioner,  unnecessarily put MAM (an important stakeholder in motorsports) in an awkward situation, and may have jeopardised Sports Tech’s and the country’s chances of staging a potentially lucrative event.

She has also engaged in unnecessary sabre-rattling with the media over these matters, which, if nothing else, have exposed her own shortcomings and unsuitability for the job.

The Madani government appears to be fumbling on multiple fronts recently. It cannot afford to make enemies with the media, especially the ones Malaysians actually read.

So what will the prime minister and her party boss, Mr Loke, do? - FMT

Ibrahim M Ahmad is an FMT reader.

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