Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia:
After a random survey among Malaysians for the past two days, finally the Information Ministry agreed to continue the live telecast of the question and answer session from our Parliament.
Ahmad Shabery Cheek, the Information Minister has threatened to stop the telecast if the members of parliament did not behave themselves. His warnings came amidst concern voiced by viewers after the first trial live telecast last week.
Malaysians who are well-informed of what happened in the Parliament were amused when they first heard the idea. They were familiar with the name calling, shouts and threats usually thrown around by members of the Opposition in the chamber.
It seemed that the sanctity of the Parliament which provided them with immunity was often abused by our voted representatives. However, they have not yet reached the point where they punched each other.
The usual [stereotype] scene in the Malaysian Parliament would be for our Ministers to answer questions from members of the floor. Besides asking questions our elected representatives would press the so-said Minister with more questions which are often unrelated to the discussed subject.
It was these antics that brought forth ire among the Minister’s colleagues. Members of the ruling party then joined in and the name calling started. Words such as ‘monkeys’ and ‘bitch’ ‘frog’ and even derogatory words like ‘Bengali’ were machine-gunned to the opposite bench.
The Speaker, of course, tried to calm the situation. Many times even he [the Speaker] was drowned in the melee.
Come to think of it, our MP’s are well-educated. Most of them were Lawyers. One always come to wonder whether words like monkeys, bitch, whores and softie were found in their Legal tomes.
The idea to telecast Live the Parliamentary Question and Answer sessions were mooted as one of the issues during the last General Election was the lack of transparency in the government.
Changes were instituted in fast, as soon as the new government were sworn in. among them is this Live Telecast. The people now can judge for themselves.