The revelation from the public statement released by both Lee Hsien Yang and Dr Lee Wei Ling vindicated what most opposition parties had tirelessly expounded over the last few years. Some had gone to jail or faced severe fines for having the guts to speak the truth to power.
There is something terribly wrong with our democracy when the ruling party abused the system to benefit and perpetuate their hold on power. Freedom of the press and election process are key essentials of democracy. Instead policies were driven to entrench their position advocating the virtue of one party rule and even ideas such as natural aristocracy became currency when it is clearly against the meritocratic principle we cherish as a nation. Transparency for a long while has gone down the drain of convenient excuses for safeguarding commercial interest when it is really about gross conflicts of interest. Cronyism and nepotism have taken over selections and appointments and not the best for the job based on merits, experience and integrity.
The sad truth is that, over the years with almost absolute control on power with overwhelming majority in parliament, no one can stop them anymore and they can make any changes to policies or even the constitution any way they want. Thus the people’s only hope is for an intervention that comes from within to break the absolute control on information. The last straw being the constitutional amendments to the Elected Presidency and the further changes to remove any powers to the Elected President into the hands of non-elected presidential advisory committee.
What just happened is the culmination of years of suppression that the government had full control of with no check and balance on them. Now the people must respond to this development by not ignoring and merely placing this as a family feud. That may have been the trigger but the statement raised much more profound and pertinent gross concerns on our democracy, abuse of power, conflicts of interest and undermining of public institutions.
The people must know the truth.
Source: Damanhuri Bin Abas
