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The 11th Parliament should start off with a bang with an ambitious parliamentary reform programme to underline Abdullah’s commitment to deliver his pledge of a clean, incorruptible, trustworthy, efficient and people-oriented administration fully respecting parliamentary democracy and the separation of powers between the executive, legislature and the judiciary Media Conference Statement - after the courtesy call on Parliament Speaker, Tun Mohd Zahir Ismail, by a delegation of  DAP MPs in Parliament House by Lim Kit Siang (Kuala Lumpur,  Wednesday): I have come, together with other DAP MPs, to pay a courtesy call on the Parliament Speaker, Tun Mohd Zahir Ismail, as this is likely to be his last few weeks as Parliament Speaker after five terms in the  high office spanning 22 years  from 1982 – 2004.    We have had our differences in four of his  five terms as Speaker from 1982 – 1999  when I was Parliamentary Opposition Leader and crossed swords but we have been able to maintain the highest mutual respect and regard for each other and our respective roles  in the system of parliamentary democracy.  In the recent general election, the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi won a  mandate which no other Prime Minister had ever achieved in the 46-year history of the nation  – over 90 per cent of the 219 parliamentary seats, which is not just two-thirds but a staggering nine-tenth parliamentary majority.  Although Abdullah’s unprecedented landslide victory was blotted  by many flaws and defects in the conduct of the 2004 general election, his place in Malaysian history will be decided by his trusteeship of such overwhelming parliamentary  majority – which are normally only to be found in elections held by authoritarian states, like in the former communist countries.  A historic choice faces Abdullah and the nation – whether the fifth Prime Minister will use his unprecedented parliamentary majority and overwhelming mandate to begin to honour his pledge of a clean, incorruptible, trustworthy, efficient and people-oriented administration fully respecting parliamentary democracy and the separation of powers between the executive, legislature and the judiciary or whether he would allow such dizzying power of a nine-tenth parliamentary majority to get into the heads of his Ministers to forget about his pledge and to provide the latest example of the truth of the axiom of the British historian Lord Acton – “Power tends to corrupt and absolute tends to corrupt absolutely”. DAP calls on Abdullah to be mindful of the even greater  national responsibilities on his shoulders as a result of the unprecedented BN  nine-tenth parliamentary majority, and this is why the newly-elected 11th Parliament should start off with a bang with an ambitious parliamentary reform programme to underline Abdullah’s commitment to deliver his pledge of a clean, incorruptible, trustworthy, efficient and people-oriented administration fully respecting parliamentary democracy and the separation of powers between the executive, legislature and the judiciary.  DAP is prepared to fully co-operate with Abdullah and the Barisan Nasional in an ambitious reform programme to make the 11th Parliament the most exciting and historic Parliament in the nation’s history to end the Malaysian malaise of a “First World Infrastructure, Third World Mentality” (as pointed out by Abdullah in his  diagnosis of what is terribly wrong with development in Malaysia) – starting with a “First World Infrastructure, First World Parliament” before moving on  to infuse the whole spectrum of national life with  the vision and spirit of “First World Infrastructure, First World Mentality”.  Such an ambitious “First World Infrastructure, First World Mentality” reform programme should see the new Parliament fully grappling  with the following issues in its very first meeting: 1. Wide-ranging Parliamentary reforms to restore meaningful parliamentary democracy, such as: live telecast of parliamentary proceedings; daily two-hour question time; An Opposition MP heading the Public Accounts Committee (PAC); some 30 specialist Parliamentary Select Committees with a Select Committee to monitor each  Ministry; about ten general Parliamentary Select Committees to produce annual reports on progress, trends and recommendations on IT, human rights, women’s agenda, environment, mass media, corruption, etc; allocation of certain days a week  specifically to deal with Opposition business; and research and constituency staffing for MPs. 2. Judicial reforms to fully restore public, national and international, confidence in a truly independent judiciary and a just rule of law; 3. Embrace the concepts of open government and good governance, entrenched by right to information laws and a free and responsible press, whether printed or electronic; and 4. An all-out war against corruption.   (7/4/2004) * Lim Kit Siang, DAP National Chairman & Member of Parliament for Ipoh Timor