Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin has described the commotion caused by the opposition during the tabling of the motion to suspend opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim at the Dewan Rakyat today as a black mark in the history of the Malaysian parliament.

He said it was an insult to the supreme law-making body in the country and that such an incident had never occurred before.

NONE In fact, he said, it appeared as though the incident had been planned to confuse the House and to gain public sympathy by claiming that they had not been given an opportunity to make a clarification.

"Anwar had been given a fair process to defend himself. We in the BN had been prepared to debate the motion on his suspension as well as that of another three members of parliament.

"I was the first to be called up by the speaker to debate the motion, but the opposition had created a commotion to the extent that we could not speak. We continued to debate the motion on the second suspension although the opposition was not present," he said when approached at the Parliament lobby today.

The commotion started when opposition MPs objected to the tabling of the motion by Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz on Anwar's suspension.

NONE The Dewan Rakyat today passed the motion to suspend Anwar from Parliament sitting for six months for misleading the House on the issue pertaining to the international consultancy firm, Apco Worldwide Bhd. Besides Anwar, three other opposition MPs who were suspended for six months were R Sivarasa (PKR-Subang), Karpal Singh (DAP-Bukit Gelugor) and Mohamed Azmin Ali (PKR-Gombak) for insulting the House.

Khairy, who is also the MP for Rembau, said the attitude of the opposition in deliberately delaying the debate to the extent of causing a commotion must be explained to the public so that it would not be confusing nor an influence on the thinking of the community.

He said he was convinced that the opposition would use the issue as a 'campaign weapon' to gain public sympathy for the next general election.

No respect

Meanwhile, MIC information chief P Kamalanathan criticised the attitude of the opposition who brought in Manila cards carrying various slogans into the Dewan Rakyat during the debate on the motion which clearly reflected that they had no respect at all for the supreme law-making body.

NONE "They (opposition) insulted the House, street demonstrations were being brought (into the House) and if we look at the commotion, it was certainly the strategy of the opposition to delay the debate on the suspension motion.

"If they say that they were not given a chance and that their motions had always been rejected, let us look at how many motions on pay cuts for ministers were brought up by the opposition and debated," he said.

Kota Belud MP Abdul Rahman Dahlan said that Anwar purposely created stories by claiming that he was not given a chance to make clarifications whereas enough opportunity had been given to him.

In fact, he said, Anwar was allowed to bring along his counsel at the meeting of the rights and privileges committee.

- Bernama

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