COMMENT United States President Barack Obama’s recent visit to Malaysia has been largely disappointing to Malaysians at large.

I share the views expressed by Maria Chin, the chairperson of the Bersih 2.0 steering committee, who apparently sounded disappointed after the NGOs’ dialogue with Obama.

The US president, who pledges to protect modern democracy and freedom of speech, has done nothing much to secure the release of former opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, other than paying lip service to the US government’s position on Sodomy II.

Everyone knows that Anwar is a prisoner of conscience, and even former Umno Batu Kawan’s Khairuddin Abu Hassan acknowledges that. I wonder how long before the world realises what is done to Anwar is a form of injustice that mankind is capable of doing to a fellow human being.

It appears to me that the US, under Obama, no longer cares to uphold the cause of justice, but rather choose to ‘play safe’ in every situation. While Obama’s soft stance may work out for the good of the Americans in the short term, the White House has nonetheless moved away from the strong American values of upholding the tenets of a modern democracy.

Obama’s lack of follow-up actions after his meeting with Najib is appalling, as he has apparently not done enough to live up to people’s expectations of the American president. If he has followed up on the matter, the people deserve to know about it, too.

In Malaysia, the people had hoped that Obama could picked up a more serious discussion with Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak over the scandals that surround him, and the circumstances around the Sodomy II trial which led to Anwar’s jailing.

The young people who stood up to petition for Obama’s help to raise the people’s concerns with Najib represents the voices of the Malaysian people. Yet, Obama was seemingly too meek to follow up on the concerns with Najib.

It clearly shows that Obama, like most other politicians, cannot be trusted, as they have their political agenda. As a result of his hypocrisy, the plight of the country’s former opposition leader will simply be ignored. Although a royal pardon is a possibility in this country, Anwar has not been given a fair hearing.

This is a big contrast compared to the world’s concerns over the other prisoners of conscience such as the late Nelson Mandela and Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi. With the on-going support of the rest of the world, Mandela was able to fight apartheid and Suu Kyi finally won big in the recent elections.

Huge response

When former US ambassador John Malott set up his signature campaign, the people of this country had put in their hearts and souls, and with one mind, to appeal to the US president to pressure through diplomatic channels to intervene into Anwar’s jailing.

If the US agrees that Anwar is, in fact, a prisoner of conscience, why is the White House still dragging its feet? Over 100,000 had signed the ‘Free Anwar’ appeal on the White House’s website and within a short time, it had become the 16th most popular petition.

By 6.52am on March 11, it had garnered 106,016 signatures, and by 10.43am, it registered a total of 108,291, short of only 2,000 signatures to overtake another online petition to repatriate one Dr Aafia Siddiqui, who had been imprisoned for more than 11 years.

A counter-petition website had initially overtaken the Free Anwar petition by 3,000, but Obama should know that on March 9, the White House office in charge of the petition had cleaned up the signatories from a whopping 70,000 signatures to a mere 12,070 at 10.05am.

It clearly shows the sentiments of the Malaysian people especially during the last leg where there was a sudden jump of more than 30,000 signatures before the deadline. What is Obama doing about this?

If Obama’s office had no intentions of following up on these petitions, they should not have set up the petition online in the first place or raise the people’s expectations. It makes the president look more like a lame duck when he could merely quack, and not do anything beyond that.

Danger point

There is a lot of concern in the air now about the passing of the National Security Council (NSC) Bill, which even former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad had claimed that Najib is usurping the power of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.

This is a very serious allegation by a former Umno president himself. In other words, the concept of the constitutional monarchy as enshrined in the federal constitution no longer means anything with the passing of the bill.

In the past, we have always been taught that the Agong is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. According to constitutional expert Tommy Thomas, only the Agong can declare a state of Emergency. That was said on July 8, 2011, a day before the Bersih 2.0 rally when there were speculations that the federal government would deploy the armed forces to control demonstrators.

But, within less than a day four years later, the scenario has changed. The power is now vested on the sitting prime minister. How is it that we can allow this new bill to be passed without being properly debated or with no due respect to our founding fathers or the federal constitution?

Malaysia is a democratic nation with a constitutional monarchy. It has never been a republic.

In a previous article, I highlighted what happened to Zimbabwe after its current president Robert Mugabe was given the power to hold three key roles. He was “head of state, head of government, and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, with powers to dissolve parliament and declare martial law”. Although we are not yet there, there is a danger that we may be moving in that direction as a nation, if things are not being checked.

The powers vested upon the Agong have to be respected at all times as this is enshrined in the federal constitution. I am surprised that the Conference of Malay Rulers has not called an emergency meeting to discuss this new bill, and how it would impact on the position of the Agong and his powers.

I am also surprised that Obama is seemingly unaware of the delicate situation that Malaysia is getting into now? If situation does not improve, or the powers provided for by the NSC are (and can be easily) abused, then, this could lead to instability to the region as well.

This would, of course, not be in the interest of the American people; but by then, Obama would have retired after his second term. Is this what Obama hopes to achieve - a happy retirement while the rest of the world suffers?

STEPHEN NG is an ordinary citizen with an avid interest in following political developments in the country since 2008.