Kit Siang : The New Haunting Image Is The 'May 7'

After the March 8 “political tsunami” last year, Malaysians have put the 40-year spectre of “May 13” behind them as the new haunting image is the “May 7” Day of Infamy of the Perak Speaker V. Sivakumar physically dragged out of the Assembly.

This is an image which has instilled such fear in the Barisan Nasional that it has banned television stations from playing video footages of the “May 7” Day of Infamy in the Perak State Assembly – which will be as effective as the book-burning orgies of tyrants of olden ages.

Barisan Nasional leaders do not seem to realize that while they can ban television stations and mainstream media from reproducing the horrifying images of the Perak Speaker being physically dragged out of the Assembly, in Speaker robes and Speaker chair, there is no way to wipe out the pictures from the minds of Malaysians, for the pictures and video footages can be played in every home and in fact are already viewed and disseminated worldwide through the Internet.

The spectre of May 13, recycled in every general election in the past 40 years to intimidate and blackmail voters to cast their votes for the Barisan Nasional, had been used to stunt the healthy growth of Malaysian nation building and demoracy.

As a result, Malaysia is taking on the contours of a failed state like Zimbabwe, Sudan and Somali in Africa, particularly after the May 6 Day of Infamy, when the police and goons violated the sanctity of the Perak State Assembly to bodily drag out the lawful and legitimate Perak Speaker V. Sivakumar from the Assembly.

Despite Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s new slogan of “1Malaysia”, it is the Pakatan Rakyat comprising DAP, PKR and PAS which is more Malaysian and legitimate than the Barisan Nasional, which is why the Barisan Nasional is mortally afraid to do what is right to resolve the Perak crisis – dissolution of the Perak State Assembly to return the mandate to Perakians to elect the state government of their choice.

Malaysians were never so hopeful for decades about the judiciary than on Monday, 11th May, when the Kuala Lumpur High Court produced a new star in the judicial firmament with the landmark judgment by Justice Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahim to uphold the law and the constitution declaring that Datuk Seri Mohd Nizar Jamaluddin is the lawful Mentri Besar of Perak.These hopes were cruelly crushed in less than 21 hours when Zambry’s appeal and application for a “stay of execution” was fasttracked and granted by a single-judge Court of Appeal the next morning.However, when Nizar applied to discharge Zambry’s “stay” today, the hearing fixed is Monday, 18th May 2009.There is not only the question of the “stay” granted by the single-judge Court of Appeal, but also how Zambry could operate as Perak Mentri Besar.

Let the spectre of May 13 haunting and stunting the growth of Malaysia and democracy be put firmly behind all Malaysians, so that we can unite our strength and energies to exorcise the spectre of May 7 which is preventing the birth of a New Democracy and a New Malaysia.

-LIM KIT SIANG-