Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Nazri: Rally work of 'pondan'

New Straits Times, 13 Nov 2007
 

The illegal rally in Kuala Lumpur last Saturday took centre stage in Parliament yesterday as Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Mohd Nazri Aziz and opposition leader Lim Kit Siang traded barbs.

At the height of the exchange, Nazri declared that the organisers had lost their marbles or kepala wayar putus, and that the gathering was the work of pondan (cowards).

COMMENT: I will be quite amazed if there should ever be a day when Nazri actually speaks like a diplomat rather than a clueless prick.

"To use a term popular with youngsters these days, they are all suffering from kepala wayar putus (all their cables have snapped)," he said.

Nazri said there was no other way to describe the rally organised by Bersih (a non-governmental coalition asking for free and fair election) and opposition political parties.

"How can we say that there is no fairness? I can understand if (Datuk Seri) Anwar Ibrahim (Parti Keadilan Rakyat adviser) loses in an election and says afterwards it is not fair. In this case, he (Lim) has won and yet he says it is not fair," he said when replying to Che Azmi Abdul Rahman (BN-Kuala Nerus) during question hour.

Nazri said the gathering was a ploy by the opposition to create excuses for their imminent defeat at the next polls.

"They are going to lose, and they are going to lose badly. When this happens, they can blame the Election Commission for not being fair (in holding the elections)... this is the work of pondan."

Lim's rejoinder was to remind Nazri and the government to take the issue seriously.

"The gathering was in regard to the shortcomings of the electoral lists and the postal votes which is unfair," he argued.

Lim said the government's position on the gathering was peculiar considering its stand on similar issues on democracy in the region.

"We can be sympathetic to the protest by Buddhist monks in Myanmar. Why is the Barisan Nasional afraid when it comes to justice in this country? Is it because they are hypocrites?" Lim asked.

Nazri shot back that it was not right to compare Malaysia with Myanmar.

He said the Buddhist monks were demonstrating for the restoration of democracy in a country where its people were being oppressed.

"Here there is democracy. It is practised through elections," Nazri said.