COMMENT There are many columnists who write about politics and politicians. The worst of the lot is Nathaniel Tan. Last week he wrote a lengthy article in Malaysiakini about politicians and political activists who, according to him, have no integrity and credibility.

He named Ibrahim Ali, S Nallakaruppan and me as the undesirable ones. His yardstick or measure is simple: if a politician has changed political party more than once, then he is unprincipled and unreliable.

So this professor of integrity has now introduced a new prescription for political integrity: if a politician stays loyal to his party despite having to accommodate and accept many things that are against his beliefs and principles, then he is good and has integrity. Such a person has a larger picture, according to Nathaniel, and is therefore desirable.

In Nathaniel’s simple world, if a politician changes party once, he is still acceptable; but more than once and he is a frog. Why does it depend on the number of times he changes party?

Dr Mahathir Mohamad left Umno because of his hatred of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. He then rejoined the party after Pak Lah retired. This is a good principle for Nathaniel, whereas in my case my actions were unprincipled - but he forgets that Umno sacked me. Does this count as one “jump”?

In Nathaniel’s view it was my fault regardless. I did not have a bigger picture. Perhaps I was too critical. Leaving PKR (two moves now) was also undesirable because I should have stayed on even if it meant that I had to condone electoral cheating and power manipulation.

In Nathaniel’s calculus, one has to be blindly loyal at the cost of one’s own principles to qualify as having integrity.

There must be many Nazis that Nathaniel is proud of, seeing as they stood by Hitler to the bitter end. On the other hand, Sir Winston S Churchill must be a spineless party-hopper since he crossed from the Conservatives to the Liberals then back again. Churchill had many qualities - some good, others bad - but lacking principle or integrity is not one of them.

Who is this pompous writer to go around with his own constructed “integrity-barometer” castigating others for lack of principle? If he wants to test his mettle and is willing to let others measure the level of integrity in his system, then I bid him welcome to the world of politics.

Choices one has to make are never easy

Giving one’s opinion about other people is the easiest thing to do. Unless you are also in a political party, you will never understand the travails and difficulties one faces. Politics is a difficult discipline and the choices one has to make are never easy.

It would be better if effete snobs like Nathaniel were less judgmental and harsh about politicians unless they would like to join the club, too. Taking cheap shots from the gallery does little more than display the lack of backbone he would like to accuse others of.    

 

ZAID IBRAHIM, the president of Parti Kita, is a prominent Malaysian lawyer turned politician and is a former Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of legal affairs and judicial reform.