S Ambiga and Mohamad AzizIn Malaysia you often hear of complaints about unprofessional conducts especially by people in civil service and customer service. When it comes to the blaming game, fingers would always be pointed at those at the top. After all, it’s the leaders who call the shots and the rest takes his or her orders. In other words, if the boss is lousy so will be the rest of the organization.
We don’t have to look too far. Just look at the very place where our national leaders gather – the Parliament. Even the Dewan Rakyat deputy speaker Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar had criticized the unbecoming conducts of some of our members of parliament, saying that they’ve turned the sitting into shambles where MPs have resorted to name-calling and shouting in the House. Wan Junaidi also expressed disappointment over MPs from both sides of the political divide for not adhering to proper Parliamentary decorum and turning the place into a political arena.
“You don’t agree with every MP in the Dewan Rakyat. Including the (BN) backbenchers, they’re not supposed to say yes all the time!
“They (MPs) are supposed to tell the government what is not right and correct,” he said as quoted by Free Malaysia Today.
Bad Behaviors by People Who Should Know Better
The latest imbroglio in Parliament was the statement by Sri Gading MP Mohamad Aziz who on Tuesday called for Bersih co-chairperson Ambiga Sreenevasan to be “hanged” for the “treasonous” act of organizing the April 28 Bersih rally for free and fair elections. In his tirade against Ambiga, Mohamad compared the former Bar Council president to the leaders of the Al-Ma’unah militants who tried to overthrow the government in 2000 and were eventually sentenced to death by hanging for “waging war against the King”.
Mohamad’s statement against Ambiga not only made frontpage, it prompted DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng to announce that he would direct all elected representatives from his party to lodge simultaneous reports against Mohamad for the latter’s “samseng-like”, “seditious”, “racist”, “repulsive”, “repugnant” and “derogatory” remarks against Ambiga.
“Clearly these remarks are inflammatory, designed to stir disaffection, extremism and racism... it was directed against her because she’s a woman, Hindu and Indian,” said Lim.
“This is the first time in history that a lawmaker is demanding for the murder of someone,” he added.
Meanwhile Mohamad’s Barisan Nasional (BN) colleagues have distanced themselves from him with BN secretary-general Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor saying that his (Mohamad’s) views were entirely his own and not of the BN.
"Let me stress that BN upholds the Federal Constitution and the principle of the rule of law on Bersih, which is still being investigated by the authorities," Tengku Adnan said in a statement yesterday.
Mohamad has said sorry to the Dewan Rakyat today for his remark against Ambiga.
"For the good of my fellow MPs from Barisan Nasional and for all Malaysian, I therefore apologize for my remark against Datuk Ambiga Sreneevasan," he said in response the Wan Junaidi's request for him to apologize to the Dewan Rakyat.
It must be said that Mohamad, who is known for his overzealous and long-winded speeches in Parliament, is no stranger to controversy. In 2009, he called for his BN colleagues then MCA president Ong Tee Keat and Gerakan president Koh Tsu Koon to resign from their party post and ministerial post respectively. Mohamed claimed that Ong has lost the confidence his party while Koh had failed to perform as the minister in the prime minister’s department. In fact, Mohamad was among the three MPs (including Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad and Kinabatangan MP Bung Mokhtar Radin) whom Wan Junaidi had complained about.
Angry Tweets
The parliament is not the only place where leaders have committed damaging faux pas. The cyberspace has been a relatively new tool for leaders to communicate to the public though some have used it to publicly vent out anger and frustration.
On Monday, a director of Pemandu blasted Pakatan Rakyat for sniping and criticizing the federal government. The communications director for the Government Transformation Programme (GTP), Alex Iskandar Liew said on Twitter: “it’s always easier 2 snipe & criticise wot’s being done & delivered BUT seriously wtf hv u done to improve the states u hv governed PR?”
“All oppos do is snipe & critic wot is being done but not focused on improving their states! Wot hv they done??” he added on his public account this morning, in a tweet copied to @barisannasional and @NRC11, a fan club dedicated to Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
Liew insisted Pemandu was impartial and that the tweets were his personal view when contacted by The Malaysian Insider yesterday.
“I was griping about the lack of lights on bike lanes in Selangor. It’s my right to air my personal opinion as a Selangor citizen,” he said, adding that the situation has caused bicyclists to lose their lives.
“Why do you have to dig around my Twitter space to look for a story? You should ask Datuk Seri Idris Jala if Pemandu is impartial, not me. Are you impartial?” he replied, referring to the Pemandu chief executive when asked if the unit was impartial.
According to the news portal, he had also said in a separate tweet that “Today @zaidshaari & I met 2 Penangites who’re Nat Geo producers. They say the current Penang govt is not all they make themselves out to be!”
He added that his tweets were not an attack on the opposition but his personal views “based on what I read in your esteemed publication.”
“What happened to freedom of speech and expression? This is my personal account,” he said, and tweeted after speaking to The Malaysian Insider that “apparently I now can’t gripe on my personal twitter space about anything related to the opposition!”
Liew’s tweets were public and can be viewed by anyone. And bear in mind that Liew is the ‘communications’ director for the unit under the Prime Minister’s Department.
Meanwhile, not too long ago, former Perak Mentri Besar Nizar Jamaluddin also got himself in trouble over the remarks he made on the Johor Sultan’s record RM520,000 purchase of the ‘WWW 1’ car license plate.
Kick*ss Lawyer
Apparently, the parliament and cyberspace are not the only avenue to ‘let off steam’ as one unfortunate house buyer discovered. The poor guy had to endure verbal and physical attacks from lawyer Tan Hui Chuan, who was a Selayang municipal councilor until recently. You can see the video clip of the house buyer being pushed and kicked by Tan when the latter was on the job. Tan said he did it in self-defence after being provoked. I’ll let you judge for yourself from the video below.
It seems like respect and responsibility for one’s job and one another is at an all-time low. Perhaps some of us need to go through an etiquette training course to get our acts together.
