COMMENT Last week, an earnest seeming deputy minister of finance Dr Awang Adek Hussin virtually pleaded at a public forum in Penang that Malaysians should give the Najib administration a chance.

Responding to criticisms hurled by the opposition at the economic and other measures taken by the Najib administration, a flustered Awang Adek resorted to such pleas as “Be fair” and “Give us a chance” when he had apparently reached the end of his ratiocinative tether while holding forth on the 10th Malaysia Plan at the Universiti Sains Malaysia on July 28.

The deputy minister had earlier made a valiant attempt to explain the Plan and aspects of the New Economic Model, both of which he touted would be central to the Government Transformation Programme (GTP), of Najib’s minting.

penang isa vigil 010810 ocpd pc Something about the earnestness of Awang Adek’s demeanor would have prompted fair-minded listeners to give the deputy minister the benefit of the doubt, especially after the week concluded with the arraignment of former MCA president and transport minister Dr Ling Liong Sik for cheating over the Port Klang Free Zone affair.

Here was evidence, albeit miniscule, that perhaps the Najib administration was beginning to mean business about the GTP.

Few were prepared, though, to hazard the guess that the charging in court of a former minister of Ling’s stature presaged a determined government crackdown on corruption – especially after the pattern of recent years where high profile cases eventuated in acquittals.

But at least a single step in that laudable direction was taken in a journey no one pretends is not lengthy and arduous. Score one for the GTP.

Ham-fisted reaction

The trouble with a single sortie over arduous terrain is that it helps to be solicitous about collateral details.

penang isa vigil 010810 ong jing cheng arrested A little more than 48 hours after the GTP received a shot of adrenalin in the preferment of cheating charges against Ling, the Malaysian police, who can be counted on for knee-jerk reactions as predictably as the Burmese junta, dealt the GTP a kick in its shins by cracking down on anti-ISA activists in the Klang Valley, Ipoh and Penang, arresting 36 demonstrators pulled from crowds that had gathered to call for the law’s repeal on the 50th anniversary of its promulgation.

The arrests were a ham-fisted reaction. An administration serious about its transformation would not have wasted this opportunity to demonstrate its liberalising bona fides.

The ISA is an abomination. Its continued existence in the statue books, 21 years after the evanescence of militant communism’s threat to national security - ostensible grounds for promulgation - can no longer be justified.

Furthermore, its misuse and manipulation by powers that be to detain democratic opposition is the kind of offence that cries out for reparations.

Awang Adek’s melancholy plea of “Give us a chance” would be better aimed at the Malaysian police, one of the more reactionary actors in the national political landscape.

A GTP that expeditiously does not include reform to standard police reactions to peaceful public expressions of free speech would be like shooting itself in the foot every time a progressive initiative is undertaken or announced.

Reformist forays are forlorn when accompanied by crassness on the part of the Force.

 

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.