So if Mahathir said 'jump into the Klang River' - would Anthony Loke, Wan Azizah & Mat Sabu rush to obey?
KUALA LUMPUR (politicsnowmy.blogspot.com) - It always hurts when one's heroes turn out to have feet of clay.
And the latest comment by DAP secretary-general Anthony Loke may well be the last straw that broke the camel's back. According to Anthony, he and other members of the Cabinet that included Anwar's wife Wan Azizah, then the deputy prime minister no less, and Mat Sabu the defense minister, had merely followed Mahathir Mohamad’s decision on Batu Puteh during a Cabinet meeting in 2018 as many of them were new to the government.
"They have made laughing stocks of themselves and serve them right. If Mahathir committed treason against the nation, they committed treason to their supporters and all the citizens who voted for them in all the past elections," a pundit told PoliticsNow Malaysia, referring to Anthony, PKR's Wan Azizah and Amanah's Mat Sabu.
"I believe what the people want to know most of all now is not Batu Puteh, but until when does the Anwar administration want to play up all these political dramas and vendettas? Why not focus on the economy, the RM1 trillion over national debt, the rot in the education system and the lack of social justice in the country? Or is team Anwar afraid that without the incessant dramas, they have nothing at all to show to the people," asked the pundit.
'SIMPLY FOLLOW' MENTALITY - DOES NOT MALAYSIA DESERVE BETTER LEADERS?
The trio head the three key parties that form the Pakatan Harapan coalition now led by Anwar. In 2018, while Anwar was still in jail serving out his second sodomy conviction, it was Mahathir, who along with elders from the past including the late ex-finance minister Daim Zainuddin and former senior minister Rafidah Aziz had inspired the country to throw out the 60-year-old corrupt and hegemonic rule of Malay-centric Umno and give the multiracial Pakatan a chance to govern.
As prime minister for the second time from 2018 to 2020, Mahathir had decided to drop two legal applications regarding Batu Puteh, a tiny rocky outcrop nearby to the eastern-most point of neighbouring Singapore island.
For years, despite having little economic value, Malay politicians have seized on Batu Puteh to rally Malay sentiment against the Chinese whenever it suited their political motives. Little did Mahathir, himself often accused of being an 'arch racist', know that his nemesis Anwar would follow suit and seize on Batu Puteh to accuse him of treachery, triggering police reports and potential criminal prosecution against the 99-year-old. .
According to Anthony, he and other Pakatan ministers 'simply followed' Mahathir’s decision, which Anthony insists had been made beforehand.
“We went along with it because it was our first Cabinet meeting. Many of us didn’t even know what a Cabinet memorandum looked like," Anthony was reported as saying by news portal Free Malaysia Today..
“The prime minister raised the matter verbally, and we thought the decision was already made. It was just an endorsement of his earlier decision. Only later on did we know that Cabinet decisions needed to be made based on Cabinet memorandums… Looking back, this was not the case (for the Batu Puteh decision),” Anthony told reporters on the sidelines of the Malaysia-China Summit 2024 here.
BACKFIRING BADLY ON ANWAR
Anthony, Azizah and Mat Sabu have come under tremendous fire for not speaking up after finding out their mistake. Indeed, if Anwar had not chosen to play up the findings of a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the matter, the trio would have stayed silent.
Now that Mahathir has upped the ante on them, saying the minutes of the Cabinet meeting would show that they were lying, the trio have raised one explanation after another but are still unable to convince the court of public opinion as to why they had kept mum all these years.
Instead the minutes of a 2018 Cabinet meeting attended by 13 ministers and chaired by Mahathir showed that they had agreed to drop Malaysia's appeal against the International Court of Justice decision to award Batu Puteh island to Singapore - contradicting the claims of the Pakatan trio that the decision was made unilaterally by Mahathir.
Excerpts from the minutes dated May 23, 2018 - the day that the then Pakatan government decided to drop Malaysia's application to review the decision - had been read out by opposition MP Takiyuddin Hassan to Parliament.
"The Cabinet agrees that Malaysia's application to the International Court of Justice for review and interpretation of the decision on 'Sovereignty over Pedra Branca, Middle Rocks and South Ledge' will not be pursued," Takiyuddin, who is the Pas MP for Kota Bharu, read out from the minutes which he said were sent to him anonymously.
"This was a Cabinet decision. Several Cabinet members were present at the time. To me, this is the minutes of a Cabinet meeting on May 23, and until proven otherwise, this is a valid document of the minutes of the Cabinet meeting on that day," added Takiyuddin.
REVENGE - NOTHING BUT A GRAND CHARADE TO NAIL AN ADVERSARY
Former ambassador Dennis Ignatius too has given his opinion on the entire episode.
"Seizing upon the findings of the RCI on Pulau Batu Puteh, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is now accusing Tun Dr Mahathir of treason, one of the most heinous crimes anyone can commit against the nation. In a statement, he said that “treachery was committed because we should have fought till the end for every inch of land,” wrote Dennis in a social media post that also gave background and context to the Batu Puteh wrangle..
"First, some background. Having failed to resolve the question of ownership of Batu Puteh, Middle Rocks and South Ledge, Malaysia and Singapore agreed to refer the matter to the ICJ in 2003. In 2008, the ICJ ruled that Batu Puteh belonged to Singapore, Middle Rocks to Malaysia and South Ledge to the state in the territorial waters in which it is located.
"Nine years later, Malaysia applied to review the Batu Puteh decision claiming that it had uncovered new facts. The review was set for June 2018. Within days of coming to office in May 2018, however, Mahathir – apparently convinced that the appeal was unlikely to succeed – decided to discontinue it. He subsequently informed the cabinet of his decision. From what we know from media reports, cabinet simply took note of the decision."
"In January this year, the cabinet under prime minister Anwar Ibrahim decided to reopen the issue by setting up an RCI. The report of the RCI which was released a few days ago appeared to lay the blame for the loss of Batu Puteh at Mahathir’s feet. It found that he acted on his own, that he only informed the cabinet after the fact and that as a result of his actions, Malaysia lost whatever chance it had of regaining Batu Puteh. The RCI went on to recommend that criminal charges be filed against Mahathir."
"In hindsight, perhaps the decision to discontinue the appeal may have been an error of judgement but to accuse Mahathir of treachery is absolutely ludicrous. Remember, we are talking about a man who remains the ultimate Malay nationalist, a man who spent almost his entire career butting heads with Singapore. It is highly unlikely that he would have taken such a decision lightly."
"In any case, what law did Mahathir actually break when he made the decision to discontinue the appeal? Errors of judgement, acting hastily or not consulting his cabinet colleagues are not crimes in themselves; if they were, even the current prime minister could face criminal charges. The very fact that the best they could come up with was to recommend charging him for 'cheating' under the Penal Code suggests that they were really scrapping the bottom of the barrel looking for charges. Mahathir must surely be relishing the opportunity to face them in court.
"If Mahathir is guilty of treason, then his cabinet too stands condemned along with him. Why did they not fight “till the end for every inch of land” to quote PMX (a reference to Anwar as the country's 10th PM)? Why didn’t they demand that he retract his instructions to drop the appeal or even express their disapproval? Were they all too scared of Mahathir? Didn’t they care enough to speak out? If Mahathir is to be charged, his whole cabinet should be charged with cowardice and dereliction of duty as well."
"It’s also rich that the RCI against Mahathir was pushed by a cabinet that comprises not a few of those who ignored, covered up or excused one of the greatest frauds in history – the 1MDB scandal. If anything, there should have been an RCI to examine the role played by many in cabinet and in the government for being complicit in one of the biggest financial losses the country has ever experienced. And if you are looking for treachery, look no further than how many of those charged with criminal offenses are now being favoured with DNAAs".
"It would have been nice, of course, if we had won (as we did in the 2002 case involving Sipidan and Ligitan) but it’s not the kind of unmitigated national catastrophe it is now being made out to be. Rais Yatim, who was foreign minister at the time of the 2008 ICJ ruling, described the award as a “win-win” outcome for both countries.Today, Mahathir is accused of treacherously surrendering part of our sovereign territory to Singapore."
"It’s not hard to see that this is nothing more than politics, a grand charade to nail an adversary, an abuse of power. Mahathir may be guilty of many things, but this is not one of them," concluded the well-respected Dennis.
Written by Stan Lee, PoliticsNow Malaysia
https://politicsnowmy.blogspot.com/
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