All the newspapers reported on the front pages that Anwar Ibrahim would be sworn in as MP for Permatang Pauh today and that the swearing-in will be telecast live over RTM, which airs the first 30 minutes of the daily parliamentary sittings from 10 am.
It will be no exaggeration to say that since the introduction of the 30-minute parliamentary live telecast by RTM since April, there has never been such greater national interest in the RTM live telecast as this morning to witness the historic return of Anwar to Parliament after a decade-long enforced absence because of political persecution and victimisation.
I did not realise that there was no RTM live telecast of Anwar’s taking his oath as MP until I was asked about it by the press when I came out of the Chamber about an hour later and I received angry reactions by Malaysians who felt “cheated” of the live RTM telecast.
How petty can you be, Information Minister, Datuk Shabry Cheek that you should indulge in such puerile tactics as to veto RTM from proceeding with its live telecast of Anwar’s swearing-in?
Why are the Barisan Nasional Ministers and leaders so afraid of one man that there should be a ministerial directive to veto the live telecast of Anwar taking his oath of office – after the live RTM telecast had been announced and reported in all the newspapers today?
Shabery should offer the nation a personal apology for such petty and puerile behaviour.
Or did the directive to veto the RTM’s planned live telecast of Anwar’s swearing-in come from the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi himself or through his Putrajaya Fourth Storey mafia?
Abdullah should explain what role he played in RTM’s last-minute cancellation of its live telecast of Anwar’s swearing-in, and he should discipline Shabery including his dismissal as Information Minister if the veto had not come from him or the Putrajaya Fourth Storey.
It is also most deplorable that there was such low attendance of Barisan Nasional Ministers (only three Ministers were present) in the House when Anwar took his oath as MP – to the extent that there are those who described it as a sort of “boycott” by BN Ministers and MPs!
This reflected most adversely on the BN Ministers and MPs and not on Anwar. Shame on them!
The above is the video clips of Anwar’s swearing-in, the empty BN Ministerial and parliamentary benches and the “BN Government the present-day Titanic” episode.