Press Statement

by Lim Guan Eng

(Petaling Jaya, Wednesday): The lack of local government elections has allowed local BN politicians to defy the rule of law and behave like dictators without any legal limits and restrictions. Further the failure by the local government councils to fulfill their primary duty of enforcement equally without fear or favour has resulted in discrimination and selective prosecution where laws are applicable only to the ordinary citizenry.

The exposes in The Sun of BN component parties like UMNO Bandar Bukit Puchong branch, Puchong MIC service centre or Puchong State Assemblyman Datuk Satim Diman setting up containers illegally and occupying illegally government land without any prior approval in Subang Jaya Municipal Council area are only symptoms of the disease of lack of democracy, accountability and transparency. These are unelected little Napoleons who are not ashamed to openly admit breaking the law.

The BN does not want to restore grassroots democracy and local government elections precisely because they know that BN would lose with such wrongdoers and authoritarian leaders breaking the law for their own benefit. Without elections and a guaranteed appointment as local councilors has only proven how "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely". So long as the people have no power to throw out lawmakers who abuse the law or openly break the laws they have taken an oath to uphold and defend, then these local councilors will only change from little "Napoleons" to big "Napoleons".

Failure by the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to take action against such illegal acts and abuses of power will forever be an indelibe stain on his administration that makes a mockery of justice, the Constitution guarantees that no one is above the law and Badawi's moral standards of right and wrong. So frequent and often are these abuses of power, that the people no longer feel any shock or disappointment.

Instead there is only a numbed sense of disappointment at all the false promises made by Abdullah that he will not allow wrongdoers to hold positions of power. Clearly Abdullah can only be impressed upon to fulfill his promises not by supporting BN, as the voters did in giving Abdullah a record Parliamentary mandate in the previous general elections, but by withholding support for him in the next one.