COMMENT The ‘great debate' in Parliament yesterday turned out to be a dud.

In the process the government furnished voters in Hulu Selangor who go to the polls on Sunday with the best reason to choose the PKR candidate for Parliament: he ought to come in handy at chipping away at BN's arrogance.

NONE Yesterday's debate showcased the BN's use of its majority to brutal ends.

The debate was supposed to be about whether Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim had misled the House on March 17 when he suggested that the ‘1Malaysia' policy was a carbon copy of the ‘One Israel' policy of former prime minister of Israel, Ehud Barak.

Anwar followed up by supplying grist for his assertion.

Armed with documentary supports, the opposition leader sketched before Parliament a compelling picture of the reach and tentacles of Apco Worldwide, the government's strategic communications consultant.

Anwar's presentation made the contention that he had misled the House on the probable antecedents of the ‘1Malaysia' concept hard to sustain.

azlan However, the government's chief whip, Nazri Abdul Aziz, was unfazed. He moved to have Anwar referred to Parliament's privileges committee.

Perhaps he had substantive reasons for doing so.

Yesterday's debate was the occasion for the government bench to tender those reasons.

No rebuttal

Not only did they not, the motion to refer Anwar encroached on an area that properly falls under the privileges' panel purview: it insinuated that Anwar be punished.

Bad enough there was no rebuttal by the government bench of Anwar's presentation; to them mere assertion that it was false was sufficient.

To that insult to parliamentary democratic parlance was added the injury of an overweening motion; it sent the message it wanted an affirmative finding.

The House speaker allowed the motion despite this manifest defect.

It's bad enough the country's parliamentary practices are warped by the brute majority of the BN; things are made worse when you have a clod for the role of impartial referee.

In these straits, the recourse is of course to the electorate, that final arbiter of a democratic polity's distempers.

One segment has a chance at remedial action this Sunday.

Would that they not scant this opportunity for restoration.

 

TERENCE NETTO has been a journalist for close on four decades. He likes the occupation because it puts him in contact with the eminent without being under the necessity to admire them.