I refer to the Malaysiakini report Live bullet sent to Karpal .

Nineteen reports made against Karpal Singh? I believe this is the highest number of police reports made so far, but why is Karpal Singh always in the limelight giving the impression that what he did in Perak was worse than Terengganu ?

What happened in Terengganu constituted a much bigger injury to the royalty as a whole than Karpal’s comments. By labeling the sultan with names that went well beyond the precincts of sedition, the culprits and their leaders had brought the Terengganu royalty into ill repute.

The media had successfully used numbers as a measure of seriousness which they had done in the case of Perak. They have portrayed Karpal Singh as an ‘insolent’ and ‘mean’ MP and the menteri besar as a puppet of DAP. But in Terengganu, they remain mute. There is no investigative reporting at all. Nobody knows how many reports were made and the number of people involved. Why? Apparently, the media is inherently pro-Umno and it’s their job is to downplay the issue in Terengganu for it allegedly involves Umno.

Umno has a long history of meddling into the affairs of the sultans. There was one almost identical case that happened in Kelantan in 1988 at the height of the constitutional crisis. According to Far Eastern Economic Review report:

‘In March 1988, the sultan openly showed his displeasure with (Barisan Nasional) Menteri Besar Tan Sri Mohamed Yaacob, refusing to allow him to lead the traditional pledge of allegiance before him. In December, palace and government fought a proxy duel over the annual transfer of state government officers – Mohamed wanting one list and the officers’ commission, an independent body set up by the sultan, wanting another. It ended in a compromise.’

In Perak, the case is not as serious as in Kelantan but when the sacking of a state senior officer appeared in the papers, it became a political issue. The Sultan is above politics. The sacking of the officer without any consultation, reasons or warnings gave a picture of arrogance on the part the MB. Thus, any sacking must not be done openly in the media, it is not proper. In any government’s protocol, official matters must go through proper channel i.e., melalui saluran yang tertentu .

How does the sultan feel if he only knew of the sacking through the papers? Thus, rightly, the officer was reinstated by the sultan, as the sacking was done in such an impolite and reckless manner. This is to the sultan’s displeasure. Menteri Besar Mohammad Nizar Jamaludin should and must apologise to His Royal Highness to end this issue. It must be done quick or his apologies would be irrelevant through the passage of time.

Being new, Mohammad Nizar Jamaludin is inexperienced in running a government and it is not fair to portray him as arrogant. Just like Tajol Rosli, the former MB is inexperienced in his role as an opposition leader.

Karpal Singh, if had I not known him during the days when I worked for the late P Patto, as his political secretary, I would have said. ‘he shoots from the mouth rather than from the hip and without aiming’. But this is the Umno’s media ‘portrayal’ ( gambaran ). It is powerful and even top and middle-ranking DAP leaders get influenced by this gambaran ’.

Another example is Lim Kit Siang. He is not spared by the powerful Umno media’s gambaran , he is seen as a bigot by the majority of the Malays and he could not do anything about it. During the 1990 general elections, posters of Kit Siang holding an M-16 rifle were put up in many Malay kampung .

I wish to end this letter with a warning to all opposition politicians - practice safe politics because news on the opposition is elastic and when it gets to the table of the Umno media editor, it gets s-t-r-e -t-c-h-e-d ! So be forewarned.