“Anticipatory obedience is a political tragedy.”― Timothy Snyder

COMMENT | Former premier Muhyiddin Yassin's justification for his bogus emergency is the kind of autocratic play that weak leaders all over the world attempt to remain in power.

Now safely ensconced in the warm belly of the political beast, architects of the Sheraton Move continue to ponder further moves in this never-ending charade of a democracy.

So badly did the former prime minister want an “emergency”, it would have been comical observing the antics of the mainstream political establishment if the rakyat were not suffering from the political and social effects of this pandemic.

Leading up to the “emergency”, the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government attempted to soothe the frayed nerves of the public by claiming that this was not really an emergency but rather something else that was like but not really an emergency.

Syahredzan Johan astutely pointed out that even the royal institution was concerned about the possible abuse of political power in the first attempt at an emergency:

“The word 'membatasi' was the only one to be highlighted in red in the statement. The other words were printed in black. This statement is significant as...