Lim Kit Siang : Perak & Malaysia Becoming Like Zimbabwe, Somalia & Congo

At a media conference in Alor Setar on Saturday, I said that the time had come for the Prime Minister, DatukSeri Najib Razak to meet with Pakatan Rakyat leaders to resolve the three-month-long Perak constitutional and political impasse so that Malaysians in Perak and the country can focus single-mindedly on tiding the nation through the world’s worst economic crisis in a century.

This had become imperative after the May 7 Day of Infamy which brought unprecedented international shame to Malaysia as a modern and developed country not only by the trampling of human rights and the rule of law in the gross abuse of police powers in the completely unjustifiable lock-down of Ipoh but also in the flagrant violation of the doctrine of separation of powers highlighted by the photographs and video clips flashed around the world of the Perak Speaker, V. Sivakumar in Speaker robes and in Speaker Chair being bodily dragged out of the Legislative Assembly.

The image that the May 7 Day of Infamy projected to the world is that Perak and Malaysia are degenerating into failed states like Zimbabwe, Somalia and Congo in Africa rather than a nation aspiring to first-world developed-nation status.

This was why my first reaction to the scandalous spectacle not only of two Mentris Besar but also two Speakers and two Assemblies in Perak, and the physical removal of the Speaker – the most shameful episode in the history of parliamentary democracy, not only in Perak, Malaysia but also the world - was to point out that the biggest casualty of all was Najib’s “1Malaysia” slogan, which had been “shredded into smithereens” by the May 7 Day of Infamy.

The maltreatment of the Perak Speaker is all the more unacceptable as it happened at a time when Malaysia is Chairman of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association – with Malaysia reduced to a laughing-stock in world parliaments when we should be at the acme of international parliamentary reputation.I do not know whether Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal is going to resign in shame as Chairman of the worldwide Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.

Nobody is talking about the formation of a coalition government between Barisan Nasional and Pakatan. But a solution must be found, based on fully respecting the sovereign rights of the voters of Perak to elect the government of their choice – to end the haemorrhage of the credibility and confidence in governance in Perak and Malaysia.