Police probe SDs under microscope of public distrust & Anwar Ibrahim’s casus belli

2008/07/07

DEWAN DISPATCHES: Police probe SDs under microscope of public distrust & Anwar Ibrahim’s casus belli

By : Azmi Anshar
DEWAN RAKYAT, July 7, 2008:

The turbulent tribulations kung-fuing its way out of the RPK and Bala Statutory Declarations, and that police report of a sodomy charge, have now been nail-gunned brutishly into the Malaysian political psyche. The psychologically-muddled chicanery supposedly caused and committed by key characters in these yet unsubstantiated sworn statements, depending on who spews it, are grim speculation or fantastical parables in the same breath as Lebai Malang, Mat Jenin and Si Luncai, only more bodacious and salacious.

The rhetorical bunkum and claptrap in these SDs and sodomy charge had, in all its fetal lifespan, combusted into a titanic fusillade between Anwar Ibrahim and the DPM, Anwar Ibrahim and the Abdullah Administration and Anwar Ibrahim and two senior law enforcement chieftains. Oh yes, Anwar Ibrahim and certain bloggers, who were cringed into croaking that the vainglory lust of the SDs were so terrible that they had to launch a “strike” by retreating into their shell, blobbed in abject disgust. Other bloggers with tougher dispositions ate up the altercation with the zest of baboons wildly feasting on an unguarded banquet.

Let it be said that unlike these bloggers, most Malaysians are unperturbed by, even relishing, the screwy political shenanigans because their constitution for the sleazy, funky and kinky is durably battle-hardened by decades of unmitigated conflicts, and also from being passers-by of Machiavellian manipulation, Napoleonic tactical deployment, J. R. Ewing scheming & the so-called Malaysian political inscrutability.

Inevitably, Anwar Ibrahim plays a mega-starring role in the national political disputation, putting up his family in key supporting roles in the manner that American politics just had to be about Billary Clinton. As it had been stated before on several occasions, there is no escaping Anwar Ibrahim and his wanderlust politics, from support from the US, medical aid in Germany, travails in the Turkish Embassy to the expansive rapport in the Philippines and Indonesia.

Now, the SDs and its connective sodomy charge against Anwar, which for now framed a bunch of national leaders and their relatives/associates into committing a spate of crime most foul or most delectable, has to be illuminatingly investigated by a much-maligned police force under the microscope of Malaysian society scepticism, disdain and distrust. It can’t get any more cramping for police or voluble for the locals than this. Nevertheless, the police must have had a field day collecting reams of outlandish statements and insightful details that may enlighten their case, or further burden their ability to collect evidence untainted by public outcry and detestation.

Today, the House put the weight of their evincible influence into giving police all the leeway they need to untangle the mess left behind by a certain private investigator named P. Balasubramaniam.

Razali Ibrahim (BN-Muar), the man who stoked his reputation to refer Gobind Deo Singh to the Rights and Privileges Committee for contempt to the Chair last week, is also grinding on the Bala SD that Gobind might want to take notice carefully – first, Razali swung attention to the rule of law under the Constitution that guards police and judiciary’s independence to uphold the law and second, the two law enforcers’ impartiality should not be questioned while investigating the SDs’ incriminations.

"It is irrational for the opposition to question the integrity of police investigations when they are willing to believe the contents of a SD based on hearsay," he contended in debating the 9MP Mid-Term Review, willed along by the Chair who would have halted other MPs had they raised this non-MTR issue. The moment Razali juxtaposed “statutory declarations”, “constitution” and “law enforcers”, it sharply piqued the interest of MPs from all political divides out of their reverie who heard the Muar rep stressing the importance of “respecting and upholding the Constitution” to prevent Malaysia from “descending into chaos” due to actions of "irresponsible parties". "We must remember that even if there is a change of government, the system will be the same," he ventilated.

But the interjecting Ismail Mohamed Said (BN-Kuala Krai) denounced the Bala SD’s contents as “untrue” until proven in a court of law while Datuk Bung Moktar Radin (BN-Kinabatangan) fumed that the filing and retraction of the SDs was “ill-intentioned and damaging to the reputation of those implicated.”

On both contentions, Razali concurred while unreeling a chunk of delicious bait for the Opposition, accusing them of using the SDs to discredit the Government in Parliament. "If you want to go out in public and play politics, that is fine but this is Parliament, the highest law-making body in the country. This is not the place for such rhetoric," he asseverated.

To recap: Bala ceremoniously unveiled his first SD on Thursday over the hawk-like gazes of the PKR elite and their lawyers in a sensational media conference, alleging that Datuk Seri Najib Razak indeed had private ties with murdered Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu but in a stunning, unceremonious reversal 24 hours later, issued a new SD that rebuked his first SD, erasing the DPM of any presence. You can imagine the political pandemonium that reverberated out of Bala’s consequential flip-flop.

Incidentally, Bala and his family seemed to have “vanished”, no doubt to get away from public glare (some conspiratorial mobs out there suspect that they have been abducted) and evade the desperation of some parties who would probably insist that he produce a third SD to denounce the second and reaffirm the first. It will get murkier and zanier after this.

Replying to interjections, shout-outs and snipes from BN backbenchers and a section of the PR bloc, Razali alluded to Anwar Ibrahim’s wanderlust politics of running to his “foreign masters” whenever the ex-DPM was in a spot of bother he can’t undo himself. “The people must reject any attempt to allow international interference in Malaysian affairs,” he intoned. “The nation's sovereignty will only be compromised if foreign powers such as the US are allowed to interfere with domestic cases. We must make our stand to develop Malaysia on our own terms,”

MPs who reacted to Razali’s goading hung on to a common anti-US theme – they can’t see how an ill-reputed United States can question Malaysia's ability to carry out investigations into Anwar’s sodomy charge when their international credibility had been debased by the Guantanamo Bay fiasco.

Also jumping into Anwar Ibrahim’s cosmopolitan indulgences was Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir (BN-Jerlun), wedged in a unique position within the political demagoguery. He might consider himself an expert on Anwar’s follies: telescoping on Anwar’s tendency to always turn to the US whenever the Government was into him for propelling serious blights in the political landscape while blasting away as a strident critic of the Abdullah Administration, usually bellowing hand-in-hand with what dad would espouse in his “Che Det” blog.

The concerted and, in some ways, anxious manner in which BN backbenchers form a tornado of anti-Anwar bombast suggest that they still fear Anwar Ibrahim’s proclivity for launching or hijacking a series of casus belli that could coalesce into the toppling of the current BN Government and the unprecedented formation of a Pakatan Rakyat Federal Government.

The SDs of his orchestration, his fallback on international buddies or proxies and his hoary expediency in going for the jugular when things are not favouring his master plan are rocking the national psyche but it plays into his motives. For the moment, the populace, like the BN backbenchers, has no real counter-reactive means not to get sucked into the whirlpool of Anwar Ibrahim’s casus belli of organizing events and political occurrences that have brandished many declarations of war against his enemies.