When I read the Malaysian Insider report “Palanivel offered senatorship, likely deputy minister’s post” in return for not being fielded as Barisan Nasional candidate in Hulu Selangor parliamentary by-election, I immediately stood up in Parliament to protest at the political abuse and corruption signified by such a deal.
Parliament had just completed the division on the vote on the Foreign Ministry estimates during the committee stage of the debate on the 2010 supplementary estimates, and was starting debate on the Ministry of Agriculture and Agro-based Industries.
I said that if there could be such blatant and cynical abuse of public trust and offices like Senatorship and Deputy Ministerships, what public confidence is there that there won’t be gross abuse of budget allocations approved by Parliament whether for the Ministry of Agriculture and Agro-based Industries or other ministries.
I called on the Hulu Selangor voters to teach the Barisan Nasional and MIC leaderships a severe lesson by voting against the Barisan Nasional candidate in the by-election to protest against such breach of trust and flagrant disregard of the most rudimentary notions of ethical and honest political standards.
This brought the House down and pandemonium ensued. When the BN MP for Sri Gading Datuk Mohd Aziz stood up to object, I challenged him to protest and denounce the cheap and dirty politics of buy-and-sell of political offices as illustrated by the offer of Senatorship and Deputy Ministership to Palanivel for not be fielded as BN candidate for Hulu Selangor by-election, he was stumped and said nothing.
When I asked those who supported me in condemning the blatant “market trading” of political offices in the case of Palanivel to stand up in the House, all Pakatan Rakyat MPs from PKR, PAS and DAP stood up – except for BN MPs!
The issue is now in the hands of the Hulu Selangor voters on April 25, 2010.