Demonstrations: A fundamental right of citizens

by Tunku Aziz

It would be an untruth if I said I was ever a fan of Datuk Seri Najib Razak. Be that as it may, I am sorry about his coming into office, unlike all his predecessors, weighed down by the heaviest baggage imaginable, stuffed up to the neck with allegations of impropriety that I’d rather not bore you with.

I will not enumerate them either as they are too many. Also it would be pointless to waste our time dwelling upon unproven allegations that should have been nipped in the bud before they got out of hand, but for some unexplained reason, Najib had allowed them to fester like tropical sores on his credibility and honour.

I, like many other Malaysians, want very much to keep an open mind. We earnestly hope that he will give serious consideration to confronting, in a court of law, those who have defamed and reviled him.

His studied indifference might be considered by some to be an appropriate response, but he is not helping his own cause. He is pandering to the insatiable appetite of the noisy rumour mongering, chattering classes.

People are not giving Najib the benefit of the doubt that he craves for. His moral legitimacy to govern is being seriously challenged because of his cavalier attitude to these extremely damning allegations.

I am not about to dispute his legitimacy to govern based on the mandate given to the Barisan Nasional by the people as part of the electoral process, but that, without an underpinning of high ethical standards of behaviour, renders a leader morally deficient.

Conventional wisdom has it that in the sticky situation he has found himself, the only recourse is for Najib to take those who have maligned him to court and clear his name, once and for all. People are asking “Why is he fighting shy of seeking justice in a court of law unless he has something to hide?” They have a point there.

For the sake of what is left of the country’s already battered reputation, and his own, he should clear his name sooner rather than later. Najib’s 1 Malaysia requires of him that he put the interest of the nation above his own.

We cannot have a prime minister who is not prepared to answer these serious allegations about his involvement in some seedy criminal activities, or those bordering on the criminal, and yet who expects us to embrace his yet hazy and unclear 1 Malaysia and to shower him with our trust and affection.

I know all these allegations may have no basis in fact and, therefore, all the more reason for Najib to let the criminal justice system be the arbiter of truth. Perceptions may not have any basis in fact, but they are real.

Najib wants so desperately to be loved, and to be well thought of. I see nothing wrong with that. It is just a silly bit of misplaced, self-serving egoism, a very human weakness most of us suffer from, but it is a harmless desire. However, there is everything wrong, if as rumours have it, public funds are being used to pay international and local spin doctors to bolster up his position.

Mahathir, when he was prime minister, so we are told, used public funds to have a meeting with President Bush arranged to boost his flagging international reputation. We expected this of Mahathir, a man of many contradictions with few scruples, but I should like to think that Najib is made of stronger and finer moral fibre, but then I could be wrong.

I am ecstatic, more than any one can imagine, by Najib’s strong rhetoric against corruption. I use the word “rhetoric” advisedly because while we have heard many populist pronouncements rolling off his smooth silvery tongue on a variety of issues, we are still waiting to see the colour of his money. Will he deliver as promised?

For someone who has been on the receiving end of countless allegations of perceived unethical public conduct relating to purchases of military assets during his watch as defence minister, he is right to want to distance himself from any further insinuation of impropriety.

Defence contracts are notoriously susceptible to corrupt practices the world over and because of this, people simply will not believe that a defence minister can be clean and pure as the driven snow, or be like Caesar’s wife, completely above suspicion especially when the procurement process is shrouded in secrecy and mystery, as ours is and has been for years.

For this, if not for any other reason, if I may be so bold as to advise Najib, he should order a complete review of the defence ministry’s procurement rules and procedures at once and bring them in line with best international public procurement practice.

The purpose of any procurement systems review is to ensure the highest degree of transparency. Without transparency, there is no accountability. Najib has a lot on his plate, and as they say, he has his work cut out for him, lucky him.

Minutes before writing this article, I had just finished reading, for the second time after a lapse of some years, F.W. De Klerk’s “The Last Trek – A New Beginning.” He was, of course the President of South Africa who dismantled apartheid and gave the people of that troubled nation a new democratic constitution which saw the once proscribed African National Congress in the seat of power after winning the general elections in 1994.

I mention all this because in spite of the fact that the Republic of South Africa had been under a state of emergency and under siege, De Klerk, in 1989, a few months before his inauguration as President, made a conscious political decision to legalise protest demonstrations that had been made illegal until then, much to the consternation of his security advisers. They thought it was madness on his part given the circumstances prevailing at the time. Why did he do what he did? Let him tell us in his own words:

“We were faced with the fact that it would be impossible to avoid the gathering of thousands of people committed to the march. The choice, therefore, was between breaking up an illegal march with all the attendant risks of violence and negative publicity, or of allowing the march to continue, subject to the conditions that could help to avoid violence and ensure good order. These were important considerations, but none of them was conclusive. The most important factor, which tipped the scale, was my conviction that the prohibition of powerful protests and demonstrations could not continue. Such an approach would be irreconcilable with the democratic transformation process that I was determined to launch and the principles of a state based on the rule of law, which I wanted to establish.”(Italics mine.)

In terms of the security and public order situation then obtaining in South Africa, and the situation in Malaysia today, where peaceful demonstrations are illegal, the two situations do not bear the remotest resemblance.

The justification trotted out with regular monotony by the government is so outrageously dishonest as to insult our intelligence. A government that sees a need to continue to impose an undemocratic law has no place in a parliamentary democracy. For F.W De Klerk, the man who worked himself out of a job, it was nothing more than “restoring what was regarded throughout the world as a basic democratic right.” (Emphasis mine)

Perhaps De Klerk’s most inspiring statement in defence of democratic principles is “…..no vision of the future can justify any government to ignore the basic human rights of the human beings involved. No cause is so great that we should allow it to dilute our sense of justice and humanity.” (Emphasis mine)

On that note, as our legal friends would say, I rest my case. Now over to our self-proclaimed reformist prime minister.