Hari ini saya telah mengadakan sidang media seperti yang dijanjikan seusai mesyuarat bersama Ahli-ahli Parlimen, Menteri-menteri Besar serta pimpinan negeri-negeri KEADILAN. Di dalam sidang media tersebut, kami mengulangi komitmen serta tekad untuk membawa perubahan dalam negara kita.
Kami juga mengakui wujudnya sistem serta amalan bobrok yang bertentangan dengan prinsip demokrasi dan prinsip-prinsip luhur seperti yang dijanjikan Perlembagaan, dan ini akan terus dicabar dan disanggah. Kami tidak berganjak meski diugut dan ditawar dengan pelbagai habuan bagi memberi dukungan pada pemerintah yang paling lemah dalam sejarah Malaysia.
Saya turut berkongsi pengalaman disuntik vaksin pagi ini, dan layanan serta pengurusan barisan hadapan yang cukup baik termasuk petugas pembersihan. Azizah turut menerima vaksin pagi ini. Pemerintah juga harus cepat mengenalpasti masalah sekitar pemberian vaksin, dan kempen itu mesti dipergiat sambil mendepani masalah-masalah yang mungkin akan melambatkan proses ini.
Saya turut memberi sedikit komen terkait kemungkinan ada kerjasama dengan mana-mana pihak termasuk UMNO yang mesti dipasak pada prinsip tatakelola yang baik, menolak keras rasuah serta kebejatan, dan menyelesai masalah kemiskinan yang semakin parah. Saya ucap terima kasih kepada para pengamal media yang hadir hari ini membuat liputan meski diberi notis yang singkat. - Anwar Ibrahim
Tak perlulah bekerja sama dengan Umno sudahlah kena tipu , biar rakyat yg tentukan pru 15 nanti kalau rezeki memang jadi PM takkan kemana tapi jangan gadai maruah diri jadi bahan ketawa hanya kerana keinginan yg sebenarnya tidak boleh menjadi kenyataan bersama dgn Umno hanya mengundang padah kepada parti PKR dan juga rakan parti dlm pembangkang. - Ruds D. Bondion
'Bunch of traitors and pirates'
– ghosts of videos past haunt Xavier...
Videos of former PKR vice-president Dr Xavier Jayakumar are making the rounds following his decision to support the Perikatan Nasional government as an independent lawmaker. In one of the videos, the Kuala Langat MP fired a scathing salvo at the government and the decision to hold a single-day Parliament session in May last year amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Dressed in his official Parliament attire, Xavier dismissed it as a charade orchestrated by a “bunch of traitors and pirates.” “Today after six months, I am stepping into Parliament. All of you elected us to go to Parliament, we are the voice for check and balance to the government.
“But this government, this Parliament would be rubbish. This Parliament sitting is worthless. We are going to be there for one hour just to hear Yang di-Pertuan Agong's speech... “All this under the pretext of Covid-19. But the actual story, ladies and gentlemen, is that these people are afraid.
“The present government is afraid to face us. The present government is afraid there would be a vote of no confidence by Langkawi MP Dr Mahathir Mohamad,” he added.
Xavier then noted that the Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin-led government was not elected and had manoeuvred itself into power through a political coup.
“It is just to safeguard their own interests, safeguard their own skins... and these people should not be allowed to get away with it. “But this is democracy in Malaysia today,” he added. Continuing the diatribe, Xavier said the present government was under siege and lacked confidence.
Another video in circulation is his condemnation of party-hopping, which he called “unethical and immoral”, during an interview with The Vibes.
“A mechanism has to be put in place. Party-hopping after an election should not be allowed. “You are taking away the people’s voice and support by doing this. You were voted in on one ticket, and, suddenly, you change to another. How do you expect people to react?” he asked.
Xavier, who has been a member of the Anwar Ibrahim-led PKR since its inception in 1998, claimed that he chose to leave because he had grown "extremely frustrated” over the events that transpired last year.
However, speculations were rife that it could be related to an investigation by MACC, which led to the arrest of Xavier's close associate and Perak PKR deputy chief MA Tinagaran. MACC had seized RM1.2 million in cash and froze RM77 million in bank accounts. Several luxury vehicles were impounded.
Xavier has denied that his decision was linked to this case but the Pakatan Harapan presidential council accused the government of using enforcement agencies to intimidate opposition lawmakers into defecting. - mk
PKR Is Infected With
Corruption and Trojan Horse...
Democratic Action Party (DAP) won 42 seats in the Parliament in the May 2018 General Election. Today, those seats remain unchanged. National Trust Party (Amanah) captured 11 seats and it too still maintains its MPs. The People’s Justice Party (PKR), on the other hand, had grabbed the lion’s share – 47 seats. However, today, PKR president Anwar Ibrahim has only 34 seats, thanks to defections.
What does that tell you about PKR (Pakatan Keadilan Rakyat)? People who mocked Amanah as the weakest link had made a mistake. The weakest link is actually PKR, a time bomb that would explode every now and then. When PKR deputy president Azmin Ali betrayed the party and defected, along with 10 PKR MPs, it was just the beginning.
It’s one thing to have Trojan horse. It’s another thing to have corrupt MPs. And it appears PKR has both, a recipe for disaster for PM-in-waiting Anwar. Up until last month, MPs like Jugah Muyang, Steven Choong and Larry Sng had quit the PKR under laughable excuses to support the ruling Perikatan Nasional coalition. Over the weekend, Dr Xavier Jayakumar joined the bandwagon.
Xavier’s stunning decision to quit and join the fragile backdoor government has raised eyebrows largely due to his status as the PKR vice president. In an attempt to minimize voters’ anger who had voted him in 2018, Xavier, like Steven Choong and Larry Sng, said he would become an Independent MP while declaring his support to Muhyiddin leadership.
Did Dr Xavier Jayakumar really think voters would forgive him in the next 15th General Election, if he is lucky enough to be fielded by the prime minister? With the exception of Sabah, the only state where frogs or party hoppers are acceptable, no MPs who had jumped ship has ever been nominated by their new political master to contest again for a simple reason – voters will punish them.
So, Peninsula Malaysia MPs like Steven Choong and Xavier Jayakumar can kiss their parliamentary seats goodbye in the next election. The standard operating procedure (SOP) is – traitors must be slaughtered like a pig. This is one of the primary reasons why PKR leaders aligned to Azmin have decided to stay in the party, instead of following him en bloc during the coup in March 2020.
Larry Sng, Muhyiddin and Steven Choong
Azmin was believed to have at least 15 MP loyalists in PKR, which means Xavier is not the last lawmaker to switch sides. But the betrayal of Xavier, a strong ally of Azmin even before last year’s coup, has more to do with corruption rather than being a Trojan horse. When Perak PKR deputy chairman, MA Tinagaran, was arrested last month, RM1.2 million cash was seized from him.
Tinagaran reportedly was a special aide of Xavier, a former water, land and natural resources minister. However, the former minister has denied Tinagaran was his aide, but just a “close family friend”. Regardless, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) had also frozen RM77 million in accounts belonging to a company as well as the arrest of two directors.
The corruption investigation was linked to the award of sand mining projects, which was under Xavier’s jurisdiction. Interestingly, after he resigned and pledged his support for the government, PKR’s secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution claimed Xavier was threatened by a senior minister with serious consequences if he did not support Perikatan Nasional.
However, Xavier said he had grown “extremely frustrated” following the events that had unfolded in the past year. He said – “While there are parties discussing the possibility of elections, this is not necessary or viable this point in time. Our current priority should be to support the government in containing the Covid-19 pandemic, to create jobs and to secure funds to rebuild the economy.”
His reason, or rather excuse, went haywire when he desperately defended his decision to resign from the party which he joined since 1998. He argued – “It will take at least 18 months just to complete the vaccination programme and more than two years for the economy to fully recover. This needs bipartisan support to make sure the efforts of the government are fulfilled.”
The reasons offered by Xavier were a truckload of bullshit. That’s because Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme is expected to be completed before the end of this year. The genius Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz has assured that the economy will be booming this year.
Dr.Xavier Jayakumar and Tinagaran
Obviously, Xavier Jayakumar was talking nonsense with his half-baked justifications of quitting the party that he had fought together for more than 20 years. Even if it’s true that the MACC was being used by the Muhyiddin regime to threaten and intimidate him, Xavier is a coward at best. The so-called “Reformasi” fighter surrendered even “before” the authorities started questioning him.
DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng went to jail twice – first in 1998 for defending an underaged Malay girl who was raped by former Melaka chief minister Rahim Tamby Chik, and again during a political crackdown in October 1987 under the infamous “Operation Lalang”. Today, he has been slapped with charges linked to the controversial Penang Undersea Tunnel project.
To break the Lim family, the backdoor government of Muhyiddin has even targeted the former finance minister’s wife with charges over the 2015 purchase of a bungalow. Yet, Mr Lim has chosen to fight the tyrants – again – instead of switching sides like Dr Xavier. If Xavier was really innocent and clean, he would not have quit so easily and fights to clear his name instead.
Anwar Ibrahim is another example, who fought the previous Barisan Nasional regime, despite charged with sodomy – twice. Xavier should realize that it would take years of trials before the court could send him to prison, even if the corrupt regime uses the Kangaroo Court to forcefully convict him. Besides, Xavier should not lose sleep over Tinagaran’s corruption, who was just a “close family friend”.
For the former PKR vice president to throw a towel into the ring before the game could even start means he is as guilty as hell. And if he was involved in bribery during the 22 months of previous Pakatan Harapan administration, chances are other PKR top guns – those who had betrayed the party like Azmin Ali or those who are still in the party – had enriched themselves too.
Therefore, to solely blame the ruling government of using MACC to threaten and intimidate Opposition MP to switch allegiance is hard to accept. Such dirty tactics may easily break new birds, but to a veteran politician like Dr Xavier Jayakumar, it simply did not make sense. Of all the MPs in PKR, DAP and Amanah, why did the authorities specifically target him?
Sivarasa Rasiah
Hence, the argument used by another PKR MP – Sivarasa Rasiah – that his colleague would not have resigned if not for the MACC investigation is laughable. Based on his logic, does that mean all the remaining 87 MPs of Pakatan Harapan coalition will suddenly swing their support to the government if the anti-corruption agency opens 87 files against every single one of them?
In the same breath, PKR should prepare in the eventuality Sivarasa follows Xavier’s footstep. Another Azmin loyalist and lieutenant, Mr Sivarasa had fiercely defended Azmin over his “gay sex” performance at Four Points Sheraton Hotel in Sandakan, Sabah. Sivarasa, a former vice president of PKR, was made Deputy Minister of Rural Development thanks to Azmin.
Together with Zuraida Kamaruddin, Ali Biju, Willy Mongin, Edmund Santhara Kumar, Steven Choong, Jonathan Yasin, Saifuddin Abdullah, Mansor Othman, Rashid Hasnon and of course, Xavier Jayakumar, all of whom had defected, Sivarasa was one of Azmin’s strongest defenders. Another possible Trojan horse waiting for an instruction to defect could be Maria Chin Abdullah.
PKR Supporters
But based on the overwhelming public uproar and criticism after Xavier’s betrayal, Sivarasa may have to hold his horse until such time PM Muhyiddin desperately needs his vote to boost the backdoor government’s simple majority again. Xavier’s support has increased the Perikatan Nasional coalition support to 112 in the 222-seat Parliament, providing a brief relief to the regime.
The recent defections have delivered a blow to Anwar’s ambition to become the next prime minister, which keeps slipping away. Unlike the cunning Azmin who worked quietly to strengthen his position, narcissist Anwar talked too much and delivered too little. It was not yesterday that Azmin built his tentacles in the party. Anwar knew Azmin was power hungry from the beginning.
Even during his era as the Selangor chief minister, Azmin had demonstrated his lust for power by working with PAS Islamist party to fight fellow Dr Wan Azizah, wife of Anwar Ibrahim. But de-facto leader Anwar did nothing except fantasizing. What Azmin needed to do was to sing songs of praise, creating a false illusion that the path to the throne was being prepared for Anwar. - FT
cheers.
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