April fooling, Umno style

As I sit at the keyboard typing this, the clock on my monitor has just clicked over to March 31. Yet those Umno/BN buffoons are already busy playing the April fool. Or, should I say, playing the Malaysian people for fools as they do every day of the year.

But they always give an extra-special performance at the Umno general assembly, and this year’s meeting, just days before April 1, was no exception.

Admittedly we innocent bystanders didn’t get much of a chuckle out of the unopposed election of Najib Abdul Razak as party president and PM-apparent.

But the Youth wing’s astonishing choice of the comical Khairy Jamaluddin as its new head had most of us in absolute stitches.

But former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad - or, as I like to think of him, Madhathir - apparently couldn’t appreciate the joke. Whether because his son Mukhriz was one of the losing candidates, or whether he really doesn’t see the funny side of Umno-style ‘money politics’ now he’s no longer comedian-in-chief, nobody can know for sure.

But he sure as hell wasn’t in his trademark mock-humourous mood when he accused Umno Youth of “openly and directly endorsing corruption”.

“They chose a leader found guilty of using money and inducements in his bid to become Youth chief,” he wrote in his blog. “Whether he was allowed to contest or not, it does not negate the fact that he is corrupt.

“The punishment meted on this person is inadequate and unfair because others found guilty of a similar offence were barred from contesting.”

What he forgot to mention in his fit of indignation was that the other party found guilty of the offence for which Jamaluddin received only a “stern warning” was Mohd Ali Rustam. And the joke in Rustam’s case is that, while he was barred from contesting for deputy presidency of Umno, he has been allowed to retain his post as chief minister of Malacca.

Outgoing Umno president and premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi wasn’t about to let small matters like hypocrisy and corruption spoil his farewell performance, however.

He told reporters that his son-in-law Khairy deserved to win, saying: "He came back late at night because of campaign and I think he deserves it after working so hard for it."

And if that wasn’t enough fooling to be going on with less than a week before April 1, Abdullah then went on to deliver some hilariously hopeful remarks on the prospects of Umno’s incoming black-comedy team, Najib and Muhyiddin Yassin.

“I hope that they will be able to fulfil all the promises made to ensure Umno remains relevant, to ensure that the rakyat have confidence in the party and to ensure that Umno becomes the party of choice,” he said.

Mockery of justice

The next day, Muhyuddin followed-up these risible remarks with the ridiculous suggestion that people should not turn the April 7 by-elections in Bukit Gantang, Bukit Selambau and Batang Ali into a referendum on Najib’s leadership.

He reportedly told Malaysia’s derisory national news agency, Bernama, that voters should consider the future and efforts being taken to improve policies aimed at developing the country without neglecting any race.

He then shifted into total April-fool mode, declaring that the 13 independent candidates and PKR nominee in Bukit Selambau are running for personal gain and not pursuing the interests of the people.

This was a jolly jape indeed, coming from a member of a party and a minister in a coalition that has turned sheer greed for personal gain into a gruesome national joke.

And just as ridiculous was the news the same day that the local version of the Keystone Kops, that corrupt, inept and outright farcical organisation posing as a serious police force, had arrested the DAP Tebing Tinggi assemblyperson Ong Boon Piow for distributing a DVD of proceedings leading up to the 'Democracy Tree' incident in Perak.

In this latest mockery of justice, it was alleged that Ong had violated the Film Censorship Act 2002, which prohibits the manufacture, circulation, distribution and display of movies without a B certificate from the Film Censorship Board. If charged and convicted, Ong could be fined between RM5,000 and RM50,000 and/or jailed for up to three years.

That would be no laughing matter if it weren’t for the fact that pirate pornographic videos, clearly bereft of B certificates, are on sale more or less blatantly at every pasar malam I’ve ever visited in Malaysia, with the obvious knowledge of the enforcement authorities including the police.

Although I have to confess I haven’t seen the allegedly offending ‘Democracy Tree’ DVD, I somehow doubt it contains any scenes of the kind of obscenitree, harlotree and bestialitree from which the Film Censorship Act 2002 is designed to protect Malaysia’s sensitive citizenry.

So Ong’s arrest is clearly just another in the series of slapstick antics that Umno/BN and their cronies in the police force get up to whenever they feel like a bit of a titter at the people’s expense.

But as popular as such dim-witted tricks may have been way back when, they’re not going over so well with today’s audience. DAP MP Loke Siew Fook may well be in the majority in finding Ong’s arrest utterly unfunny.

"Such exercise and use of the police force to further the hegemonic practices of the BN is to be condemned in the strongest terms by all freedom-loving citizens and members of civil polity," Malaysiakini quoted him as saying.

And DAP father-figure Lim Kit Siang, also far from amused, reportedly mused that this was the latest example of the increasing intolerance towards fundamental liberties in this country, and yet another in a series of “ominous signs of increasing repression in Malaysia under incoming prime minister Najib”.

From what I read in the blogs, some Malaysians are still clinging to the hope that the proposed hand-over of the premiership to Najib is too ludicrous to be true - they say Abdullah will avert it by performing one of his famous flip-flops, or the King will refuse to act as Umno’s puppet.

But to me the fact that they’re carefully avoiding April 1 as the day of the change-over reveals that it’s not just another April Fool-style prank.

Or rather, it is just another April Fool-style prank, but like all the others that Umno/BN have played on the people over the years, it’s deadly serious whatever day it happens to be, and marks yet another dismal date with Malaysia’s destiny.