What Emergency Mr Pm

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IT'S alarming listening and reading news about the possibility that prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin might resort to the emergency rule at the height of Covid-19, which automatically will lead to a prorogued Parliament.
Is the pandemic situation in Malaysia so 'horrific' that prompted him to do so? Not in the Peninsular, of course. Sabah is but the Health Ministry is doing its best to contain it by locking up few areas. The fact that 90 per cent of the cases involved inmates and immigrants depots, we can always conclude that the situation is under control.
The gravity is still very, very mild. The Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO) is adequate in containing the pandemic, and to me no emergency declaration is needed. In fact, it never crosses our mind, isn't it? And I don't think the Yang Dipertuan Agong will submit to the PM's request.
Who will gain and lose should emergency is imposed? Of course the Perikatan Nasional government will gain and secured (at least a year more). Muhyiddin's tenureship as the prime minister will be secure, so are the rest of the Cabinet members. When the rakyat is blase with politics, notably the weakness of the government in attending to their eroding livelihood, the PM may find emergency rule as the savior to his reign.
We would like to question his motive. A political emergency, is that is? The Parliament will be on a prorogue situation, no seating and no nothing. Any motion by the Opposition (and even by the components) to push for a non-confident vote against him will end up in despair. So, he is safe.
The rakyat will be at the losing end. With the CMCO is already taken much of their easy living, any emergency rule will only send the country and the people deeper into problems and mismanaged living. Job lost, limited economic activity, rising crime index, increasing jobless rate, spiraling cost of daily items and so on will push them further into difficulty.
The country may land in chaos. Politics will be unstable and security too will fail and force some people to flout the law to make ends meet.
But there is something particularly sinister about using a health issue, perhaps the biggest of our times, for political gain and power advantage. It depicts how leaders would sacrifice their own people for just a little more leverage.
The problem with combatting COVID-19 is the use of lockdowns, travel restrictions, orders to stay at home, and emergency powers that can be used to control the flow of information – the same tools enjoyed by authoritarian states and leaders who rule with impunity.
The United Nations said, Phnom Penh now has an excellent state security apparatus, which has steadily improved ever since the ruling Cambodian People’s Party came close to losing elections in 2013.
The same can be said for military-inspired and backed governments in Thailand and Myanmar while in the Philippines the “war on drugs” has enabled President Rodrigo Duterte to marshal his own warlords from within the police and military.
Thus, in Cambodia a journalist is arrested for quoting Hun Sen accurately on COVID-19 – remarks the prime minister later thought were best left out of the press – and charged under a virus-inspired “emergency bill” described by Human Rights Watch as a recipe for dictatorship.
Dozens of people have been accused and arrested of spreading “fake news” about the virus on social media, including a 14-year-old girl who was later released. It’s the same in Thailand where fresh powers under the COVID-19 mandate will enable the government not only to censor but also to shut down the media — an odd response given public participation is required now more than ever.
Arrests in Thailand includes one man who posted online that he had gone through Bangkok Airport where there were no COVID-19 screenings or health advice from officials. The man was charged under the computer crimes act. Authorities then started arresting homeless people for violating COVID-19 curfews.
In the Philippines, Duterte is living up to expectations and recently ordered his men to “shoot them dead,” referring to anyone who defies the lockdown laws. Then last week seven activists distributing food aid – an essential service by any definition – were arrested and charged with violating the COVID-19 laws.
In Myanmar hundreds of websites have been blocked and many arrested, including street artists who painted murals of the disease and its impact on society on a wall.
Does it really need to be said that ordinary people, along with doctors and their medical staff, must be free and able to talk express themselves openly and honestly about how to treat a disease?
So, are we ready for an emergency rule? To some, they are but to others, the prorogued Parliament will be a political manifest which contains self-vested interest for a large number of politicians in Perikatan Nasional.

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