(Penang, Thursday): The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad said yesterday that members of the Opposition are not privileged citizens and will be punished if found guilty of violating the law.
He said they would be treated like any other Malaysians and that even Cabinet ministers, Government employees and members of the royalty were not above the law and whoever violated it would be dealt with accordingly.
The Prime Minister is indulging in his favourite past-time of what I had once said in Parliament in his presence - Mahathirish perverse illogic.
In the first place, opposition members do not claim "privileged citizen" status but want equality before the law as guaranteed in the Malaysian Constitution and an end to selective prosecutions and selective justice.
Opposition members are not so presumptuous as to claim that they are above the law, but they are fully entitled to demand the restoration of the fundamental right entrenched in Article 8 of the Malaysian Constitution on "equality before the law".
The constitutional right to equality of law has been violated when there is selective prosecution and selective justice arising from blatant discrimination against citizens on grounds of political beliefs - when there is one law for the Opposition members and another law for the members of the ruling coalition.
Although Mahathir claimed that Cabinet Ministers are not above the law, these are empty words as he would not be able give a single instance in his two decades as Prime Minister when a Minister had been arrested and prosecuted for criminal offences, whether for corruption, abuse of power or any other breaches of the law - not that there had been no police reports or even strong cases resulting in decisions taken by the Prosecution Division of the Attorney-General’s Chambers for prosecution of Cabinet members.
Former Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, had lodged four police reports on corruption and abuses of power in the highest levels of government naming Cabinet Ministers and backed up with documentary evidence, but no attempt has been made either by the Attorney General or the Prime Minister to demonstrate that the government is bound by the constitutional principle of "equality before the law" to allow the Ministers concerned to establish their innocence in the courts of justice. In fact, there was not a single Minister who had to temporarily resign while the subject of investigation whether by the Anti-Corruption Agency or the Police - highlighting the futility of such investigations.
The arrests of Parti Keadilan Nasional youth chief Ezam Mohd Noor and Keadilan Hulu Klang State Assemblyman Azmin Ali on the eve of Hari Raya Aidilfitri on their return from Mecca after performing Umrah is not only in very poor taste and insensitive of Malaysia’s multi-religious heritage, but, together with seven other arrests in connection with the Barisan Nasional defeat in the Lunas by-election, most vindictive, vengeful and undemocratic.
If the Barisan Nasional had won the Lunas by-election as a result of phantom votes, it is unlikely that anyone would be charged in court.
It is most regrettable that in his numerous public comments about the Lunas by-election, the Prime Minister had never said a word about the long-standing Barisan Nasional abuse of the electoral system through the widespread malpractice of phantom voters to steal elections from the genuine and legitimate voters - showing his utter disinterest and indifference to the need for "clean, free and fair" elections in Malaysia.
Examples of the Barisan Nasional government’s double standards in upholding law and justice are legion, but the following two would suffice for the moment:
(28/12/2000)