Party and Government are not the Same
The foreign press recently drew flak from Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin. Their offense? The dreadful crime of paying attention to the opposition parties.
Zainuddin's eminent reasoning? Because Barisan Nasional has been elected to form the government, it has been democratically chosen by the voters, and thus is the only party worthy of any attention from the press.
Now, Zainuddin, I don't know if you forgot this, but I've got news for you: there are three opposition parties with elected members of Parliament. Why should their voices not be heard?
Is a democracy a tyranny of the majority? The point of a democracy is to create room for dissent, not to stifle it under the sledgehammer of the majority.
The people of constituencies like Ipoh Timur and Seputeh have their elected representatives in Parliament. Should these people not be heard, be relegated to total ignorance by the press, simply because they happen to be part of the opposition?
In the first place, is this not the very antithesis of democracy? By ignoring elected opposition parties, Zam, you are effectively saying their votes don't count! Their voices don't matter! You can run roughshod over them, democracy be damned!
Of course, this attitude is nothing new. Zam is just the latest in a long line of Information Ministers who have decided to quell dissenting voices. After all, in the 1999 general election, the long-running tradition of allowing opposition parties to broadcast their manifestoes on the radio was ended.
Why? Because the radio belongs to the government, and thus should only support the government. That was the eminent reasoning of the Information Minister then — a person so inconsequential I can't be bothered to find out who he is.
Well, I've got news for all you politicians out there: the government belongs to the people, not to the party. The radio (at least, the government-owned stations) is owned by the people, not the party. The radio should broadcast information to help the people decide who to vote in next, not broadcast propaganda to manipulate the people.
Of course, the BN politicians will all ignore this good sense. After all, they don't believe in democracy. They believe in subjugating the Malaysian people to their tyrannical will. After all, Malaysia belongs to the government, not the people. Semuanya ok!
(Infernal Ramblings is a Malaysian website focusing on current events and sociopolitical issues. Its articles run the gamut from economics to society to education.
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johnleemk
Infernally Rambling Thoughtless Mind Head Administrator Posts: 948 IP Logged | Posted at 12:59:21 pm Oct 12, 2005
Yup, that's right. In today's New Straits Times, the editorial (available here) stated that "If the new 'department' and its management and staff do their jobs well, the rakyat would have even more of a right to expect their MPs to do theirs by turning up for Dewan sessions, preserving that quaint tradition of the quorum, on behalf of their constituencies." (The editorial was poking fun at opposition leader Lim Kit Siang's strong protest against the new department of Parliament, claiming it was another attack on the separation of powers.) Well, what does "quaint" mean anyhow? Dictionary.com states that it means "Charmingly odd, especially in an old-fashioned way" or "Unfamiliar or unusual in character". Well, the concept of a quorum (see Wikipedia for its definition) is hardly unusual; practically every parliament or congress in the world practices it. So we must take the meaning of "quaint" in this context to mean charmingly odd in an old-fashioned way. Now, the NST is published by the NSTP, which is in turn owned by UMNO, the largest political party in the country and the leader of the current government. Is this an implicit message from those guys up on top that the quorum is no longer necessary for business in parliament? After all, at the height of the AP controversy, not even three times the minimum quorum in the Dewan Rakyat was reached in one day. (Despite the number of MPs present actually dropping beneath the quorum at one point, business went on as usual.) Is this going to be yet another feature of idiosyncratic Malaysian politics? It seems to fit the bill. After all, this is Bolehland, where anything is possible, and the national hobby is setting a new world record in something. Perhaps Malaysia will have the world's first deliberative body to operate without a quorum. That ought to show those d*** Singaporeans, with their concept of Non-Constituency Members of Parliament and Nominated Members of Parliament. Heck, it'll even blow their pseudo-democratic Group Representative Constituencies concept out of the water! Best of all, this is even more conducive to the opposition than NCMPs are in Singapore. Imagine Lim Kit Siang and his toughies blowing into Parliament and then passing amendments to the constitution like nobody's business! Why, if this isn't a great step forward for democracy, I don't know what it is. Malaysia Boleh! |
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