However gloomy it is tempting to feel in the face of the doom of democracy in Malaysia, I must say that I agree with Zunar’s insistence that you have to have a giggle at the zany antics of this ever-goonish and cartoonish alleged government.

As cathartic and even therapeutic for us would-be jokers as ridiculing Umno/BN can be, however, thus far there is no sign that we’re getting any closer to our goal of laughing this ridiculous regime out of office.

In fact, looking back on some of my own punny attempts attempts to be funny at the expense of these criminals and incompetents, I am sobered if not outright depressed to see that, far from striking me as amusing any more, my punch-lines have had a woeful way of coming true.

For example, way back in 2007, in a column entitled ‘Democracy with a difference’ , I had a great time playing around with the proposition that Umno/BN was making a total mockery of democracy as to have achieved nothing short of demockracy.

Demockracy in various forms including eternal domination by one political faction, or democracy, and preferential supremacy for people of one race over others, or dermocracy, by a process of keeping the people as stupid as possible, or in other words in thrall to dimocracy or dumbocracy.

And the result of all this, as I proposed, was what I stupidly saw at the time as an unthinkably impossible idea - the absolute death of even any semblance of democracy, or, in a word, doomocracy.

If only I’d realised back then that what I thought was a far-fetched fancy would come true, as it has done just this week care of the kleptocratic current Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and his accursed National Security - or, as I prefer to think of the thing - Sickurity Council Bill.

A piece of legislation so pernicious as to be even more potentially repressive than the Internal Security Act that former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad so effectively employed to sustain the Umno/BN demockracy/dermocracy/dermocracy during the 22 years of his dismal doctatorship.

Complete with the added dimension of a guarantee of legal immunity and impunity for Najib and his accomplices in this latest effort to spell the doom of democracy in Malaysia once and for all.

Of course Najib has made a great many other contributions to Malaysian doomocracy, most notably his massive employment of public funds to buy the continued support of social and state institutions already rendered moribund by Mahathir.

By hook, by crook and by alleged massive thievery of funds he has allegedly bought sufficient support in every imaginable sphere including the police, judiciary, mainstream media and electoral commission, and with the collusion of the latter enough votes to keep himself and his accomplices in power.

And, while posing on the international stage as the leader of a ‘moderate Muslim democracy’, at home he has systematically signalled his mockery of democracy and contempt for the Malaysian people by installing a grotesquely Umno/BN biased speaker in parliament and hardly ever bothering to turn up there.

Mysterious appearance, and disappearance

Instead jetting around the world on golfing and shopping sprees, or holed-up in the imperial splendor of his official residence and sending spokespersons out to tell packs of lies denying his looting of 1MDB and ‘explaining’ the RM2.6 billion ‘donation’ that mysteriously appeared in, and just as mysteriously disappeared from, one of his personal bank accounts.

Speaking of lies, of course deception is Najib’s principle personal weapon in his campaign to doom democracy, so it is difficult if not utterly impossible to accept his second-hand story of a ‘donation’ from an anonymous benefactor in the Middle East. Many believe that it was part of the loot from the 1MDB scam. Some even suspect that it was a quid pro quo from China for Malaysia’s playing along with the ‘loss’ of MH370 and its allegedly dodgy cargo.

But whatever, Najib himself is clearly hell-bent on destroying any last vestige of democracy that may have survived his own and Mahathir’s ministrations rather than even contemplate that his career may be doomed.

Witness the hilariously empty speech he deigned to make to the populace just yesterday, urging Malaysians to “cease engaging in bickering and slandering ”.

“Such actions,” he reportedly rambled on, “only serve to distract from efforts to make Malaysia a developed nation. The goal is clear. And as prime minister, every day I focus my energy and efforts to move Malaysia towards this objective.”

Oh? And pathological lying, rampant corruption, massive theft of public money, countless unsolved murders by the police and Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and the fomenting of public fear by means of the Sedition Act and now the National Sickurity Council Bill are somehow supposed to help in attaining this alleged objective?

What a comedian this man is. What a laughable rabble his Umno/BN accomplices, supporters and parasitical cronies are. And how stupid would Malaysians be to kid themselves that they can afford to wait for the next rigged or in other words doomocratic general election to get rid of the whole ludicrous lot of them.

DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he coaches and mentors writers and authors and practises as a writing therapist. Published books of his columns for Malaysiakini include ‘Mad about Malaysia', ‘Even Madder about Malaysia', ‘Missing Malaysia', ‘1Malaysia.con’ and ‘Malaysia Mania’.