Zul's sacking - better late than never
Terence NettoPublished: Mar 6, 2010 11:51 AM | Updated: Mar 6, 2010 11:54 AM
One of the longest running acts of political effrontery in Malaysian public life ended today when Zulkifli Noordin, PKR MP for Kulim Bandar Baru, was booted out of the party by its supreme council.
One of the longest running acts of political effrontery in Malaysian public life ended today when Zulkifli Noordin, PKR MP for Kulim Bandar Baru, was booted out of the party by its supreme council.
There must have been a huge sigh of relief among PKR members though the action brought to 27 the number of PKR MPs in Parliament, down from the opposition party’s table-topping figure of 31.
DAP now has the largest tally of opposition MPs at 28 and by dint of that should enjoy the right to fill the role of parliamentary opposition leader, held since his return to Parliament in September 2008 by PKR supremo Anwar Ibrahim.
Both DAP and PAS, the latter with the third largest number of seats at 23, have indicated that they want no change to Anwar’s status, spoiling the Umno-led BN’s chance to pit one opposition party against the other.
Zul’s brazen taunting
While it lasted, the BN must have enjoyed the spectacle of Zulkifli’s brazen taunting of PKR to take action against him, and when it hesitated to do so, the harm that that did to its public image as a party of moderation and consensual wisdom on matters religious.
Until today, a constipated PKR appeared to find it next to impossible to give this affront to its principles and premises the sack after Zulkifli had first invited it to do so by the impudence of his disruptive behaviour at a Bar Council forum to discuss religious conversions in 2008.
At each demonstration of PKR’s hesitation to act, Zulkifli added another frisson to his insouciance until his demand that the disciplinary panel sitting in overall judgment of him be entirely composed of Muslims when adjudicating his stand on the ‘Allah’ issue placed him beyond the beyond.
Sometimes the brazen seek proof of their freedom to disport by exercising a license to go too far, and as fear grows among enforcers, they double and redouble the stakes on the wheel of their impudence. In this way, they make their destruction inevitable.
PKR would have self-destructed if they had allowed Zulkifli’s strange ride to continue unabated.
In the event, their decision to expel him in the teeth of their loss of opposition primacy in Parliament has transformed a potential catastrophe into a disaster.
There must have been a huge sigh of relief among PKR members though the action brought to 27 the number of PKR MPs in Parliament, down from the opposition party’s table-topping figure of 31.
DAP now has the largest tally of opposition MPs at 28 and by dint of that should enjoy the right to fill the role of parliamentary opposition leader, held since his return to Parliament in September 2008 by PKR supremo Anwar Ibrahim. Both DAP and PAS, the latter with the third largest number of seats at 23, have indicated that they want no change to Anwar’s status, spoiling the Umno-led BN’s chance to pit one opposition party against the other.
Zul’s brazen taunting
While it lasted, the BN must have enjoyed the spectacle of Zulkifli’s brazen taunting of PKR to take action against him, and when it hesitated to do so, the harm that that did to its public image as a party of moderation and consensual wisdom on matters religious.
Until today, a constipated PKR appeared to find it next to impossible to give this affront to its principles and premises the sack after Zulkifli had first invited it to do so by the impudence of his disruptive behaviour at a Bar Council forum to discuss religious conversions in 2008.
At each demonstration of PKR’s hesitation to act, Zulkifli added another frisson to his insouciance until his demand that the disciplinary panel sitting in overall judgment of him be entirely composed of Muslims when adjudicating his stand on the ‘Allah’ issue placed him beyond the beyond.
Sometimes the brazen seek proof of their freedom to disport by exercising a license to go too far, and as fear grows among enforcers, they double and redouble the stakes on the wheel of their impudence. In this way, they make their destruction inevitable.
PKR would have self-destructed if they had allowed Zulkifli’s strange ride to continue unabated.
In the event, their decision to expel him in the teeth of their loss of opposition primacy in Parliament has transformed a potential catastrophe into a disaster.
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