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DEWAN DISPATCHES: Anything & everything has symbiosis with Permatang Pauh hustings

by: Azmi Anshar
DEWAN RAKYAT Aug 20, 2008:

The House, as is the country affixed with political junkies, is locked in a trance over Permatang Pauh. Anything and everything, no matter how remote or specious, no matter how trivial or trifle, has been conspired, imagined or articulated as having a symbiotic link to the mean dogfight hovering over that austere parliamentary constituency. What would you give to be part of an electorate where politicians coddle you as if you were clones of the overhyped Liu Xiang?

Tian Chua (PKR-Batu), the Parti Keadilan Rakyat information chief, won’t be the last to tenuously link Permatang Pauh to a development little to do with the campaign skirmish – the Anti-Corruption Agency arrest of two PKR Perak Exco members over the alleged crime of graft. Such conspiratorial tendencies have become the beast that throttles the Malaysian political psyche and Tian Chua merely serves as the accelerant that inflames easily-distracted attentions.

Tian Chua questioned the “timing” of the arrests, alleging that it raised questions coinciding with the Permatang Pauh by-election. "I believe this incident is going to be used against us in Permatang Pauh to mar our image," he ranted at Parliament House today.

Is he right? Not if Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz is the arbiter of tenuous arguments. The ACA, he barked, was free to investigate without Federal Government interference and his response to Tian Chua's allegations was in his standard dismissive retort: "What is new? They have been saying that all the time."

Away from the House, Lim Guan Eng (DAP-Bagan) is doing his bit to ensure that the Anwar Ibrahim campaign in Permatang Pauh is tightly clawed into the constituency with an artful understanding of the value of a public relations coup. When he was just a DAP rebel rouser getting into the thick of his campaign rounds to check the Barisan Nasional’s pork barrel politicking, all he could do was blast voluminous rhetoric with the hope that it was enough to blindside voters. But now, as Penang Chief Minister “with power”, he could indulge in some pseudo-pork barrelling himself.

If the Federal Government could capitalise on Lee Chong Wei’s Olympics silver medal feat with the conferment of the RM300,000 cash award and RM3,000 lifetime monthly pension, the Penang Government was of the attitude that what you can do, we can do just as well. Since there’s no horde of cash to give, Lim strategise a reward that was within his pay grade: what an apt way to neutralise the Feds’ gift than to honour the shuttler with a Datukship.

Winning a rare Olympics medal may have been an out-of-this-world feat for Lee Chong Wei but he also inadvertently consummated another rare exploit: he became election fodder for TWO warring sides in his home state where there is an alternative state government and “Prime Minister-in-waiting.” Just what are the odds for this rarefied confluence?

On a more sober level, the House debate today veered towards the Permatang Pauh hustings on the usual shouting match that revolved around the loaded question of national integration. When Deputy Unity, Culture, Arts and Heritage Minister Datuk Teng Boon Soon told Datuk Mohd Jidin Shafee (BN-Setiu) that the national integration programme had been successful, Lim Kit Siang (DAP-Ipoh Timur) must have felt that his stars were straying into unalignment again. Steadfastly, he stood up to pose a supplementary question and disputed Teng’s declaration and suggested that 11 days before Merdeka, the "festive atmosphere" was missing.

Inserting the fracas at the Bar Council’s forum on conversion and Islam on Aug 9, Lim asseverated that national integration was elusive as parties were too busy talking about Malay supremacy and rights, and that was when he blended the Permatang Pauh by-election.

“There were buntings promoting racial sentiment,” Lim decried, retrieving a claim he posited the other day that during the Permatang Pauh nomination, Umno Youth members carried a banner that read 'Melayu ditindas, mana keadilan?' (Malays oppressed, where is justice?), which he argued as racist in intent. "Isn't this a failure of efforts to promote national integration? What is the ministry doing to stop racial claims like this?" he vented.

Teng’s bland riposte – the importance of promoting solidarity and cooperation from all politicians – compelled the dissatisfied Kit to raise another point but by this time, the fusillade had been discharged and what ensued was a rollicking ill-mannered banter.

Datuk Tajuddin Abdul Rahman (BN-Pasir Salak) and Datuk Lilah Yassin (BN-Jempol) hurtled at Kit epithets that would have choked integrationists while the Speaker, Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia, worked overtime to defuse the sniping by ordering Nga Kor Ming (DAP-Taiping) to ask his question, which was: what could the Government do to promote and achieve national integration while its policies were discriminative and divisive?

Backbenchers jumped out of their chairs to deride Nga’s assertion but Nazri played down the foul mood with the insistence that the Government had been fair to all Malaysians. “This is proven…it has always been peace and harmony with the implementation of various policies made based on the Federal Constitution," he averred.