COMMENT The five PKR assemblypersons who abstained from voting on an Umno tabled motion land reclamation in the Penang state assembly on Nov 20 cannot have the luxury of justifying an act that was wrong in the first place.

Yesterday, PKR's party whip in Selangor, Johari Abdul, said the party allowed members to vote according to their conscience on matters of public interest.

Similarly, Johari said, the DAP members could also vote in the Selangor state assembly according to their conscience, if the matter warrants.

Was Umno's motion in the Penang state assembly a motion that warranted vote across party lines? Was it of such public importance that one DAP assemblyperson voted in favour and five PKR representatives abstained to show that they simply cannot support it or oppose it?

Umno's motion, as I have said earlier, was clearly case of an entrapment, but unfortunately both the DAP assemblyperson and the five from PKR failed to see it.

Were these elected representatives so blind as not to see the ulterior intentions of Umno in pushing this motion? Surely, five of them cannot be that naive to know that what was asked by Umno was already a requirement under the federal environmental legislations on reclamation!

Knowing this, the Umno elected representatives tried to hoodwink the august House as though they were terribly concerned about the environment in general and reclamation in particular in the state of Penang.

Let me reiterate once again, contrary to what was commented by Johari Abdul, the DAP man's vote for it and the five abstentions from PKR had nothing with conscience.

Conscience was invoked after the fact, to defend their indefensible stand last Friday in the state assembly.

Beyond this, it was argued in defence of the PKR men's stand that division between the executive and legislative is allowed for some measure of independence and checks and balances.

Actually, this argument does not hold water in what happened last Friday in the assembly. Again all these axioms are invoked to "whitewash" the deeds of the five PKR persons.

How come this argument of checks and balances and to balance the executive was never an issue in the past in Penang?

It is indeed ironic to know that it took Umno’s proposal to rekindle the conscience of PKR members and as though those who voted against the motion had no conscience.

This bizarre argument of using "conscience" to defend their act cannot be sustained when motions in the state assembly (following the parliamentary model) require a collective and united response to prevent the opposition from making a mockery of the government in power.

Umno list, but felt vindicated

How come the three PKR members of the Penang state government's executive council voted against the motion? Does this indicate that all is not well with PKR in Penang?

How come the three exco members did not vote according to their "conscience"? In other words, were the abstentions directed more at the PKR state exco members rather than the DAP? If this was so, then PKR must do some soul searching to ascertain if there are serious divisions exists within the party particularly in Penang.

The sad part of the whole episode was the fact that one DAP representative and the five from PKR took this stand of “conscience” in the debate on the motion presented by Umno.

Although Umno lost in its bid, it nonetheless, felt that the party was vindicated when there occurred a split within the ranks of Pakatan Harapan.

This was Umno’s ultimate objective of ridiculing the contributions and all the hard work of Pakatan Harapan for the past eight years.

The damage has been done. Now let us focus what needs to done in Penang and how we can move forward on a variety of developmental issues.

Let us not allow Umno, the prime cause of misery of this nation, dictate and set agendas for us to quarrel and fight over issues.

Umno, despite all these years of corruption and developmental mess, refuses to acknowledge that the problem “is not in the stars” but in itself.

P RAMASAMY is Deputy Chief Minister II of Penang and the state assemblyperson for Perai.