Malaysi’s Final Week of Infamy in 2021 – Peter Anthony becomes a “frog” and forms a new political party with another “frog”

Malaysia is having its Final Week of Infamy in 2021.

On Saturday, 25th December, 2021, Prime Minister Ismail Sabri ignores the annual Christmas high tea of the Christian Federation of Malaysia, which had been attended by the Prime Minister or his representative every year since 1999, signalling that Ismail Sabri’s “Keluarga Malaysia” is not for unity in diversity of Malaysia’s multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-religious and multi-cultural population and no unifying policy at all.

A Christian in Malaysia believes that Malaysia has now a Prime Minister who has no Christmas message to Christians, as no major printed media and the electronic media has published such a Christmas message.

Is this going to the new policy in Malaysia!

On Sunday, 26th December 2021, we have Cabinet Ministers launching their Ops Damage Control for their disastrous mismanagement of the massive floods especially in Selangor and Pahang, which were mere PR stunts of no benefit to any flood victim.

Rina Harun started the Operation, and although not in her high-heels or a grand hotel dinner, used a water jet to wash an apparently clean patch of pavement while surrounded by cameramen.

The Social Welfare Department (JKM) later clarified that Rina was cleaning up birds and lizard dropping stains that were difficult to get rid of before, making Rina Harun the highest paid bird and lizard droppings cleaner in the world.

Rina’s exploits reminded Malaysians of another video of the Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz and his entourage in a National Disaster Management Agency (NADMA) boat on a sight-seeing tour when the boat could have been used for more urgent matters.

After Rina’s “water jet” gaffe, there was Prime Minister Ismail Sabri’s “shovel gate” where he posed in front of press cameras with a shovel which he used to scoop and toss some dirt once before the shovel was handed back to a person in a Fire Department uniform.

Ismail also created world history where an ambulance had to wait at a junction to give way to the Prime Minister’s convoy to allow Ismail to perform his one-scoop PR act.

The latest farce in Ops Damage Control by the Cabinet Ministers is the Deputy Minister for Women, Family and Community Development posing for photograph driving a lorry as her contribution to the efforts in the flood situation, but she forgot to put the key in the ignition lock.

When did Malaysian tax-payers pay the Prime Minister and his Cabinet Ministers and Deputy Ministers to be joke fodders?

On Monday, 27th December, 2021, a convicted criminal opened an international conference in Malaysia.

We have not only “kleptocracy at its worst” in Malaysia, we have the Court of Appeal declaring a former Prime Minister as a “national embarrassment” for the 1MDB scandal in his premiership and the abysmal inability to differentiate what is right and what is wrong that a convicted criminal could be apotheosised as “Bossku”.

It is not what the convicted criminal said at the opening of the international conference, some of which are right and proper, but the fact that a convicted criminal could be invited to open an international conference – bringing unprecedented infamy to the country, which should have been avoided by both the convicted criminal and the international conference if either of them have an iota of decency, love and concern for the country.

On Tuesday, 28th December 2021, academician Edmund Terence Gomez resigned from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC)’s Consultation and Corruption Prevention Panel, highlighting that something is very rotten with the anti-corruption efforts in Malaysia.

Gomez resigned in protest against the Panel’s inaction against MACC chief commissioner Azam Baki’s alleged ownership of close to two million shares in a public listed company.

Despite the claim that the MACC is modelled after the top anti-corruption agencies like the Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC) of Hong Kong, no top anti-corruption agency would have ignored serious allegations concerning integrity about the head of the anti-corruption agency for two long months.

There are five independent bodies that monitor the MACC to ensure its integrity and to protect citizen's rights. These bodies are managed separately from other government offices in order to provide an independent perspective. The five bodies are: the Anti-Corruption Advisory Board, the Special Committee on Corruption, the Complaints Committee, the Operations Review Panel, and the Corruption Consultation and Prevention Panel.

All these five bodies to ensure the MACC integrity and protect the citizenship rights should resign en masse to protest the failure of MACC and the Cabinet to act on the allegations against the MACC Chief Commissioner, Azam Baki which appeared on Oct. 26, 2021.

Ismail Sabri’s silence and failure to act on the allegations against Azam is completely unacceptable and untenable if his “Keluarga Malaysia” is to be equated with the Rukun Negara, particularly on the principles “rule of law” and “courtesy and morality”.

The Chairman of the MACC Consultation and Corruption Prevention Panel has contended that Gomez had not raised the alleged misconduct by the MACC Chief Commissioner prior to his resignation as a member of the panel.

This is a very lame excuse. I am not privy to Gomez’s communication with the Panel, but this reason cannot hold water as the allegations against the MACC chief were made publicly as far back as Oct. 26.

The MACC has deteriorated and degenerated to such an extent that it even ignored the Auditor-General Report in 2019 Series 2 involving six flood retention ponds for possible abuse, as highlighted the DAP Segambut MP Hannah Yeoh.

This is the greatest blow to the image and integrity of the anti-corruption in Malaysian history since 1967, whether as Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) or Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA).

On Wednesday, 29th December 2021, Malaysians have to wrestle with the announcement that former Sabah minister, Peter Anthony, had quit Warisan to form a new political party which will co-operate with GRS-led Sabah State Government – an increase of the “political frog” population in Malaysia.

Anthony said he made the decision to quit Warisan after finding that the party had gone far astray in its struggle for the rights and wellbeing of the people of Sabah when it spread its wings to the peninsula.

Anthony will be joined by another “political frog”, Limbahau state assemblyperson Juil Nuatim both of whom announced leaving Warisan to form a new political party which supported the GRS-led state administration.

Pakatan Harapan signed the confidence-supply-reform (CSR) Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Prime Minister Ismail Sabri on Sept. 13 , 2021 for two main reasons;

• Firstly prioritise, for the next 10 to 18 months until the 15th General Election, the invisible war against the Covid-19 pandemic which constitutes an existential threat to Malaysia as it has piled up two million cases and killed some 21,000 people; and
• Secondly, reset institutional and parliamentary reforms so that the country can embark on economic, social and national recovery to save lives and livelihoods.

One of the objectives of the MOU was to stop “political frog-jumping”, which has cheapened politics to the market-place for the highest bidder.

Since the signing of the MoU, critical differences between Pakatan Hapran and the government parties have emerged - on the Rukun Negara, the rule of law, good governance, war against corruption and abuses of power, respect for human rights and freedom of speech and expression, the economic, social and educational inequalities in the country, Malaysia as a world-class great nation and how to forge Malaysian unity out of diverse races, religions, regions and cultures in Malaysia.

If Ismail Sabri fails to keep to his bargain in the CSR MoU, Pakatan Harapan will have to decide whether there is any purpose in continuing with the CSR MoU.

One of the terms of the MoU is to enact legislation to ban “political frogs” in the country by the first meeting of the fifth session of Parliament in early 2022.

If such a law is not passed at the first meeting of Parliament in its fifth session from 28th Feb. to 24th March, 2022, Ismail Sabri is reneging on his commitment under the CSR MOU and passing a death sentence on its continuance.

There are two days left to 2022.

Are there going to be two more infamies, one day each, for the last two days of 2021 to constitute the Final Week of Infamy for the Year 2021?