MP SPEAKS | Yesterday, the senate followed the Dewan Rakyat and passed a motion compelling members to declare their assets, with 34 senators in support and 23 senators voting against it.

It was yet another display of the opportunistic, irresponsible and unprincipled politics of klepto-theocracy against the realisation of a New Malaysia of unity, excellence, justice, freedom and integrity pledged by the Pakatan Harapan government.

The advocates of klepto-theocracy want the nation to return to the past trajectory of a failed, rogue and kleptocratic state, and they are doing their utmost to achieve this objective by breeding suspicion, distrust and hatred, instead of building tolerance, trust and confidence among the diverse people in Malaysia.

All the Umno, PAS, MCA and MIC senators acted as a bloc to vote against the motion in senate yesterday.

Malaysians were given another opportunity to see the extent the proponents of klepto-theocracy are prepared to go to ensure that the country does not take the path to become clean and incorruptible with zero tolerance for corruption.

I would have thought that after more than 14 months after being surprisingly rejected by Malaysian voters in the 14th general election, these elements would be doing their utmost be dissociate themselves from the kleptocratic past, and demonstrate that they are for a clean and incorrupt government.

But the reverse seems to be true. They have not only shown any remorse or contrition for their past support, whether by acts of commission or omission, for the past kleptocratic government. 

They seem to be gloating about their past leading to their disgraceful rejection of the asset declaration motion yesterday.

Back in September 2018, the proponents of klepto-theocracy in the senate tasted its first fruits of victory, when it voted out the repeal of the Anti-Fake News Act 2018, which had earlier been enacted by the kleptocratic administration of Najib Abdul Razak to stifle criticism and dissent.

Until BN was thrown out of Putrajaya on May 9 last year, 1MDB was called “fake news” by the previous administration although it consistently made international headlines over the past few years.

In January 2017, I typed '1MDB' into Google, and I received 255,000 search results in 0.42 seconds. Now, I just typed '1MDB' into the Google search engine, and I saw 6.62 million results in 0.34 seconds.

That is 'fake news' for the advocates of klepto-theocracy!

How long are these advocates of klepto-theocracy going to hold out in the senate to block the forces for change and integrity?

They were hoping that the Harapan government will crumble and collapse in a matter of a few months, as then the forces of klepto-theocracy could hold onto their positions.

But some of them have awakened up from their illusion and are accepting that the Harapan government in Putrajaya will not only serve its full term. but could win the 15th general election in 2022 or 2023.

The numbers of the proponents of klepto-theocracy in the senate can only diminish over time, and it will not be long when they become an irrelevant minority.

LIM KIT SIANG is the MP for Iskandar Puteri.

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