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DEWAN DISPATCHES: Home Minister wears concentric circles to take flak on gridlock insanity

by: Azmi Anshar
DEWAN RAKYAT Jan 15, 2008

Yesterday’s maddening security road blocks that gridlocked approaches to Parliament House moved motorists to plead temporary insanity as they stabbed electronic abuses to traffic police who obliviously turned Parliament House into a “war zone”, to borrow the Pakatan Rakyat’s hyperbole. Today, the PR MPs, sensing a political capital opportunity here, jumped on the gridlock misery wagon which wasted tanks of petrol and lasered their outrage on Home Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar.

Syed Hamid appeared prepared to indict himself as the target man for yesterday’s traffic torment: first he submitted a rare apology for the traffic tribulation, on grounds that PKR had intended to organise an illegal mass rally outside Parliament House led by de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim that threatened national security. Then he charged DAP leaders Lim Kit Siang (DAP-Ipoh Timur), Lim Guan Eng (DAP-Bagan) and Dr Tan Seng Giaw (DAP-Kepong) of attending a meeting with PKR leaders on July 9 to mobilise members to morally support the motion of no confidence against the Prime Minister.

When the moment came to dispute Syed Hamid’s police intelligence during the Q&A session this morning, an infuriated Lim Guan Eng denied being present in such a meeting, chastised the Minister and demanded that he retract his incriminations. Unmoved by the fiery salvo, Syed Hamid played coy in his rejoinder: "The information was given to me. If it is inaccurate, I will retract it. The information (you want) is with me and I can read it (to you) but this will stray from the original question."

The Opposition bloc immediately hounded on the reply, which they saw as too disingenuous and none too pleasing, N. Gobalakrishnan (PKR-Padang Serai) in particular, who shouted that police’s highhanded tactic of stopping free vehicular movement brought hardship to the Kuala Lumpur highway community.

Syed Hamid still wasn’t moved by the impassioned accusation, retorting that that it was people like Gobalakrishnan which caused public disturbance. "It is you who caused hardship to the people," he lambasted, triggering the bartering of allegations of lies and slander. The pyrotechnics of cacophonic shouts, shrieks and screeches inside the acoustically bright House was deafening enough to cause tinnitus as backbenchers and Oppositionists stood on jeering mode.

Where was House Speaker Pandikar Amin when you needed some pedantry? Deputy Speaker Datuk Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar could not muster enough carbon dioxide to douse the fire breaking inside the House, so he let the heat traces simmer naturally before urging MPs to “stop using unparliamentary words against each other.” You won’t think the sentences coming out of him next were stern warnings if not for the diplomacy of its construction: “If you want to make a speech, please use polite words instead of using harsh words. If a matter is not true, say it is not true instead of saying that they are lies.”

After allowing himself to place concentric circles on his vest, Syed Hamid prolonged his contention that police intelligence over an alleged Monday rally planned by the PKR was correct and his statement alleging that DAP leaders attended the PR meeting on July 9 was “as far as I know, true.”

"As far as I'm told, the information we received is true, so I take it as true. The information was given to us by their own people but I cannot say who as this will compromise our security," he told reporters at Parliament lobby. However, the alibis provided by the three DAP leaders in question sounded off a different scenario: Kit claimed he was in Penang; Guan Eng was on duty as Penang chief minister in an audience with the Penang Yang di-Pertua while Dr Tan asserted that he was at another function.

Kit needled on against Syed Hamid, calling for a public inquiry on the security gridlock and Syed Hamid’s head on the platter of resignation if he failed to provide an explanation for traffic immobilisation. Guan Eng dismissed Syed Hamid’s police intel as "unrealiable" and for the misery to city dwellers, he demanded Syed Hamid apologise to Malaysians.

Syed Hamid has already the presence of mind to check out the three leaders’ alibis but as far as the apologies are concerned, he expects one forthcoming, but only if the DAP “speak properly" on the subject. "If they know how to speak properly, then I will apologise properly," he declared.

Returning to the police intel on the July 9 meeting, Syed Hamid avouched that Monday’s road blocks were not based on the potential mass rally alone but on many others as he had cited yesterday but he was unsurprised that the Opposition was upset over his rejoinder. “They always try to find flaws in the government just to make their stories reasonable,” was his final riposte.