Buzz Sociopolitics Malaysia: The Duos UMNO Affiliation tarnishes ECs Image

The Duos UMNO Affiliation tarnishes ECs Image

April 27, 2012

The Duo's UMNO Affiliation tarnishes EC's Image

by Terence Netto@www.malaysiakini.com

COMMENT: Referees contingency not usually act equally though contingency be seen to be so. Their bona fides as neutral interlocutors, favouring no side in enforcing a rules, contingency be beyond question. Otherwise their in front of as referee is untenable.

The old saw that probity contingency not usually be done though seen to be done relates to any role requiring a mediation of a chairman vested with a task of land a beam in in between competing interests in a balanced way.

In these roles, a coming of being satisfactory as well as doing what is satisfactory have been indivisible aspects of a same function, a one dovetailing easily with a alternative a seamless mantle with no folds.

By these standards, a benefaction chairman as well as secretary of a Election Commission (EC), Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof (left) as well as Wan Ahmad Wan Omar respectively, right away find their positions untenable.

The actuality they have been UMNO members straight line renders their occupation of a tip two posts in a physique charged with using as well as refereeing elections in Malaysia as impossible to clear upon drift of natural justice.

The satisfactory thing for both of them to do is to give up their positions but delay. Their deputy by people with strong credentials for satisfactory control contingency be effected before a subsequent general election.

Now that it is not denied Abdul Aziz as well as Wan Ahmad (right) have been UMNO members, nothing they say in compromise can pardon them of their being in a caught-out incident that is, they have been not neutral interlocutors, as well as cannot be construed as having a genius to be impartial.

In alternative words, their membership in a domestic celebration has encumbered them with a fatal smirch of partisanship.

The very actuality that both, having been caught-out in a non-neutral zone, have said things in mitigation of their in front of as UMNO members usually serves to prominence a defect in their genius for satisfactory dealing.

A proper source of that genius would have, by dint of their membership of a domestic party, prevented them from being authorised for appointment to their benefaction positions in a EC.

But an UMNO-dominated government, steeped in a half-century's robe of meditative its command is beyond question, has confused a lines of demarcation in in between state as well as celebration interests such that people like Abdul Aziz as well as Wan Ahmad don't know a difference in in between a two even when they have been appointed to positions that have it needed they do.

Thus when they have been caught out as they have been in this example when it is undeniable they have lacked an important credential non-partisanship for their benefaction position, they event in to an bacchanal of extenuation, retailing one forgive after another.

EC's partial conduct

Men of honour, when similarly caught-out, would apologise as well as proposal their resignation. Even if they have a plausible reason that would mitigate their offence, they will concede a relapse of time before they say something in extenuation.

Tun Hussein Onn's Nobility of Conduct

One of a improved examples of such nobility of control was displayed by former Prime Minister Hussein Onn in ! a mid-19 80s, some years after his early retirement from a tip post.

He tangled with a Dr Mahathir Mohamad administration over who was actually responsible for a Maminco Affair, a barbarous part in 1981 when a government tried to corner a general marketplace in tin upon a London exchange.

The event incurred outrageous losses as well as was deeply embarrassing to a government. Incidentally, cupboard records showed that a preference to corner a marketplace was done during a tail finish of Hussein's reign as Prime Minister.

Apparently, Hussein could not stop a episode. In extenuation, it contingency be said that he was recuperating from heart bypass operation during a time a cupboard preference was taken as well as when his administration was probably upon auto-pilot.

Yet, when a relevant cupboard assembly minutes were publicly unprotected as well as showed that he was in charge, he did not hesitate to suggest his apology for a memory lapse.

Many sympathised with him, intuiting his anguish during having to be saddled with shortcoming for an movement whose enormity could not be visualised during a indicate in time when it was done as well as about a matter whose initial contours were hazy during best as well as unthreatening during worst.

The ethos that UMNO has foisted upon a nation's politics, that has authorised someone to be Chief Justice who had progressing been a party's lead counsel, has turn so approving that Abdul Aziz as well as Wan Ahmad could be forgiven for meditative that their membership in UMNO did not invalidate them for a posts they hold in a EC.

UMNO luminaries have been appointed to a governorships of states but hereditary sultans, a in front of that used to be reserved for renowned educationists as well as alternative non-politically affiliated multitude notables.

If such permissiveness has turn a norm, how, then, could ordinary membership of a celebration be a disqualifier for vigilance posts in a EC?

The baffled reactions o! f Abdul Aziz as well as Wan Ahmad to a discovery they have been UMNO members have been demonstrative of how matters to do with what is perceived as satisfactory as well as just control have run-down upon UMNO's prolonged watch. That watch is no longer sustainable.