Getting rid of tyranny of power
Corruption, bribery and arrogance are badges politicians wear as part and parcel of their entitlement while in office.
COMMENT
I am prepared to place a wager
that any government initiative taken to ensure the security of our nation is
suspect. Any government institution established to rid our nation of corruption
will fail.
I will go so far as to assert that
any effort by this government to set in place checks and balances to assure
good governance will come short of their intended targets.
They are all designed to fail
because vulture politics is at its purest – the government has a fail safe “do
not destruct this BN government” button built into anything that they perceive
to be a threat to them losing political power at the state and federal levels.
That fail safe button overrides
all moral and ethical consideration, it dismisses the interest of our nation
and our people and most debilitating of all, it allows for the wholesale
pillaging and plundering of our nation’s coffer by those in power for personal
gain.
We see this in the most essential
of our nation’s needs – to protect our sovereignty.
Over the past two or three
decades, our borders have been porous to the ‘invasion’ of millions and
millions of pendatangs – legal and illegal, to such an extent that their
presence has forever changed our ethnic and electoral landscape to favour the
ruling Umno-led Barisan Nasional.
In Sabah these pendatangs have
been given citizenship and they now number exclusively amongst the increase of
half a million Umno Muslim members, and are now posing a threat to the native
Kadazans and the Muruts.
We have seen in early 2013 the
‘invasion’ of Sabah by about 200 intruders of the Royal Army of the Sultanate
of Sulu which would have been comical when we see the ease with which they
slipped past our defence forces had it not resulted in the death of 15
Malaysian and 56 from the Sulu Sultanate.
Under the watch of Esscom (Eastern
Sabah Security Command) Sabah is as safe as a bunch of bananas being guarded by
monkeys.
Today tourist is seized by
kidnap-for-ransom groups from Southern Philippines to the extent that the
Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in Kuching saw the need to
issue a safety alert for Chinese tourists visiting Sabah.
Our immigration has failed to
detect Al-Qaeda members meeting in Kuala Lumpur to plan attacks on the USS Cole
and the New York Twin Towers. They have failed to record Mongolians coming in
and out of Malaysia, and the recent MH370 incident told the world that our
Immigration Department again failed to detect false passports when the
technology for doing so is available.
The situation is so bad that
ladies of ill reputes and those travellers with dubious purposes to travel
dismiss the ability of the Immigration Department to apprehend them and dub
that department as the “have money will travel” department.
And we now know that the Esscom is
a failure because it has done nothing to secure Sabah’s maritime security.
Condoning
corruption
We also see it in the inability of
this government to stop corruption.
There is that grand design that
says that corruption is the key focus of the Government Transformation Program
(GTP), and the linchpin of it all is the MACC as the body that manages the
nation’s anti-corruption efforts – and what has the MACC achieved so far?
I am not addressing the Malaysian
Association of Chinese Comedians here…seriously I am not! I am addressing the
Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission. But when you talk about either of them,
it gets laughs.
This country also fails to put in
place an independent and responsible judiciary. Our judiciary is impossibly
mired in the dark recesses of our government’s attempt to use it to achieve its
selfish political conclusion. The judiciary seems to be dancing to the tune
that BN plays.
The judiciary somehow lurches from
one tainted case to another because the government is adept at covering up its
abuse of judges under their control.
What all these shows us is that
the power in Malaysia does not reside in the legislature or the judiciary. We
also know power no longer resides in our King, the Sultans or the Governors.
Nor does power reside in the Armed Forces, the police or the religious
authority.
The power that resides within
these institutions are delegated power.
The real power resides in
politicians – the Menteris Besar, the Chief Minister, ministers and real power
ultimately lies with the Prime Minister.
This has resulted in our country
being under the tyranny of politicians who care not about the rules and the
laws that define our constitution, our rights and our freedom.
Corruption, bribery and arrogance
are badges they all wear as part and parcel of their entitlement while in
office.
The tyranny of power used to beget
personal wealth is part and parcel of why many are now in Umno and in Barisan
Nasional. This will not change for the foreseeable future –at least not until
political power is lost.
I must say that the tyranny of
power may be too deeply ingrained within the psyche of our politicians for it
to be banished to the realms of the “never, never”.
It is only with our insistent and
constant demand that it be banished forever from our midst by the promise of
withholding our votes for those who demur. Only then will good governance
replace the tyranny of power.
Only we the rakyat, not the
politicians, can do this.
CT Ali is a reformist who
believes in Pakatan Rakyat’s ideologies. He is a FMT columnist
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