Is KJ the young and the restless ‘Prince of Darkness’?

DEWAN DISPATCHES: Is KJ the young and the restless ‘Prince of Darkness’?

By : Azmi Anshar
DEWAN RAKYAT, Mon:
12 May, 2008

At the prime age of 32, Khairy Jamaludin has somewhat effortlessly elevated himself as perhaps the most maligned political operative-turned-elected representative in the Malaysian political orbit, more so in its riotous blogosphere, next to the dominating presence of a certain ex-Prime Minister and a certain ex-Deputy Prime Minister. Placing his name in the same stratosphere as Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim for this dispatch is also certain to attract a dense level of malignancy.

No matter. Khairy is always a good news item, even if the news adds a little more notoriety for him. He is finger-licking good copy for political commentaries, star character in the sensationalistic stories of Raja Petra Kamarudin’s ‘Khairy Chronicles’ for a mix of hair-raising parables and seeming truth, fodder for gossip at all levels of society, punching bag for the Pakatan Rakyat in their crowd-pleasing ceramahs and more recently, zesty prey for opposition MPs to grind razor-sharp axes for the chop in their Dewan Rakyat debates and rejoinders.

Endlessly battered and scapegoated, he’s still a bothersome presence for many of his critics and he is, amazingly, still in one piece, more energised than before. His ascendancy to MP for Rembau is not long and not arduous, though he weathered a national onslaught that befell the sturdiest of Barisan stalwarts in the March 8 polls. He also scored huge political merit points when Malaysiakini apologised to him for misreporting that there was a recount against him during counting for the Rembau parliamentary seat on polling night.

Khairy is a dream “babe magnet” for all forms of political discourse and the man seems to be absorbing the fire arrows with a singular, “come-and-get-me” youthful temerity. He is blamed – fairly or unfairly, rightfully or wrongfully – for all that is wrong with this country, from cronyism, interference in the conception and running of Government policies due to his filial proximity to the PM, blanket dominance of major mega Government contracts.

But if the pejoratives are believable, is Khairy the new “Prince of Darkness”, the boy who may soon be king? Not if the raucous crowd of political bloodhounds dogged in their collective efforts to bring him down, or at least, cut him down a notch or two, can help it. Yet, he is not without charm, persuasive powers and sophistication (not to mention a dapper in a stylish suit), a slick marketer capable of presenting a well-structured sales pitch and a self-advertiser of his own untrammelled talent for timing and opportunity. Within meteoric parameters, he rose to power as Umno Youth deputy chief and won a deputy presidency in the Football Association of Malaysia in October last year, all within four years.
The timing and opportunity to unleash his aspirations, vision and ambition arrived when he stood up to deliver his maiden Dewan Rakyat speech in support of the royal address. And what an explosive, not-safe-at-any-altitude speech it was – cogent, forceful and constructive on pressing social, economic and political issues of the day, when he was not rudely interjected by rival MPs. And yet, he was mockingly and derisively contemptuous of rival MPs, Karpal Singh (DAP-Bukit Gelugor) in particular, and scathing in his attacks against Anwar Ibrahim and Pakatan Rakyat. In a sense, Khairy was releasing months, if not years, of frustration of being unable to freely respond to all attacks for fear of political reprisals.

Khairy, while supporting the PM’s move to set up the Judiciary Appointments Commission which he believed would not erode the Prime Minister’s prerogative or the monarchy’s sanctity to give consent to new judges, called for commission representatives to be also filled by ex-judges and legal intellects of “knowledge, experience and integrity.” But his more urgent call was for the commission to have indictment powers, more so to release the burden of backlog piling up at the Attorney-General’s chambers.

He supported withdrawal of red tape conundrum to license the print media but his proposal that bloggers be given the same professional training as mainstream media journalists would likely raise heckles among the more boisterous bloggers while suggesting that if the media can agree to emulate a neutral Media Complaints Commission to check slander and defamation, and agree to self-imposed ethics, fairness and responsibility, the tough printing presses act can go the way of the dodo. By this time, he also deflected three interjections, refusing to give way to rival MPs to seek clarification.

Excitement and incitement brewed after Khairy articulated the need to reform national subsidies for a truer target and while he was elaborating on the oil/petrol price crises, he launched the first of his well-prepared attacks against Anwar Ibrahim, accusing the ex-Finance Minister of conveniently forgetting that during his eight-year Cabinet tenure of zero petrol price hike, oil was a lowly US$16-26 a barrel, unlike the current prices that have surpassed US$120 a barrel.

“What was so difficult about his era? Oil prices were extremely low,” Khairy thundered. “Don’t be self-congratulatory when you are actually fooling the people…the Government’s handling of the oil prices now to be the lowest among Asean nations is far more praiseworthy. This is not even opening the story of the PKR adviser’s absolute failure to check the 1997 financial crisis!”

You can sense the blood boiling at the PKR end of the House and still Khairy won’t budge from his refusal to allow a single clarification to his attacks. Emboldened by the momentum of his speech, Khairy kicked in the booster rockets. As he outlined efforts to contain the food crisis and offered some pointers on reducing the burden of production, he pointed out that chicken and pork were the only food production that were a 100 per cent self-sufficient, so much so that a certain State Government had made pig rearing a priority project that he handily coined as “Projek Khinzir Raksasa” (Mammoth Pig Project), alluding to the PKR acronym and the fact that the word ’khinzir’ to replace ‘babi’ was Anwar’s doing when he was DPM. Here’s the irony: for his entire rebuke against Anwar, Khairy reminded veterans in the august hall of a 1970s Anwar Ibrahim at the peak of his fire breathing grandiloquence, doused somewhat when he joined the Government in 1982.

The ruckus that followed was predictable but the intensity wasn’t. A dozen indignant PKR, DAP and Pas Mps sprang up like multiple jack-in-the-boxes, demanding clarification but only Zulkifli Noordin (PKR-Kulim Bandar Baru) was given the floor for his point of order, demanding that Khairy withdraw the acronym under Standing Orders 36 (4) as words that were improperly uttered.

Khairy steadfastly defended his ground while under the virulent attacks of rival backbenchers, refusing to give way when a slew of DAP, PKR and Pas MPs demanded clarification on his attacks. Sensing that Khairy was never giving way, other rival MPs used an alternative tact to deter Khairy by invoking various point of orders: that Khairy was reading (BN backbenchers shouted back that even the Opposition leader read while debating), MPs had the right to seek clarification (the Speaker stated that KJ had the right not to give way), uttering words that cause pain (it wasn’t clear what the Speaker ruled but this triggered titters from Barisan backbenchers who shouted back that Lim Kit Siang (DAP-Ipoh Timur) uttered far more worse improper words).

Lim took the liberty of elaborating his point of order by an off-tangent demonstration – a newspaper report that Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik had spoken improperly and misbehaved. You should have heard the pure cacophony of clashing human voices that erupted – Khairy and BN backbenchers shouting at Lim to stand down while the DAP adviser continued droning while opposition backbenchers launched collective shouts and screams, including a high-pitch vent by Fong Po Kuan (DAP-Batu Gajah) that summarised the verbal orgy.

While the verbal free-for-all hurtled towards a free fall, Khairy literally played to the gallery: he turned to the public gallery directly behind him filled with secondary school students of the Malacca High School, smirking at the confusion and mockingly pointed with his hand to the rival MPs side as if he was saying: “See…this is the kind of MPs you have for the Opposition.”

In between the vocal vents, verbal wrestling and trash talk, out came this epithet from N. Gobalakrishnan (PKR-Padang Serai): “Babi negara!” and in unison, Khairy and a dozen BN backbenchers jumped, shouting: “Who is babi negara? Say it! Say it!”

When the Speaker managed to douse the fire breathers who threatened to inflamed proceedings, Khairy found a little bit of peace to continue with his speech, slamming Lim Kit Siang’s personal attacks he endured last week (“richest unemployed man in the world”), lambasting Pas’ fear of DAP, fear of raising the Islamic state struggle and fear of chiding Karpal when the latter questioned the powers of the Sultan of Perak in the state’s state religious director’s transfer fiasco, inferring that the Pakatan Rakyat acronym of PR actually stood for “public relations” where policy-making by opposition parties were PR stunts.

But KJ hit sonic boom when he lashed out the following: “Although you sleep in one bed, one mattress, one pillow but you dream differently! There are some who dream of flying carpets, some who dream of flying rockets and some who dream of flying pigs!” Eight indignant opposition MPs stood up like marionettes strung up by a puppeteer but Khairy insisted that no one gets a chance to seek clarification. “Get your clarification on your own time. My time is precious,” he barked back.

With time running out and sensing that the agitated rival MPs will not allow him a landmine-free passage to conclude his seven-page speech, Khairy abruptly ended his speech one page less by debunking Pakatan Rakyat’s boast that they were better administrators than the previous Barisan State Governments, especially belittling the Selangor Government’s exclusive allocation of RM500,000 only to PR assemblymen after demanding that the Federal Government spread allocation justly to all elected reps.

“Is that fair? You don’t walk the talk,” Khairy contended. “This is just two months of ruling and you have cleverly lied and manipulated. If the Kuala Krai MP claim that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, the Pakatan Rakyat’s action proves that even a little power corrupts very quickly….”