FEB 17 – Despite her brave words a day earlier about staying on and serving the people, Elizabeth Wong today tearfully quit all her political posts over a nude photographs and video controversy that rocked her party.
There were more calls for her to stay on than to step down. She was urged to remain by nearly 90 per cent of The Malaysian Insider readers in a snapshot of a poll at 1.10pm today.
But she decided to quit, knowing full well the impact of the controversy to the Pakatan Rakyat coalition and PKR as both battle twin by-elections after losing the Perak government and three lawmakers earlier this month.
In Malaysia, party comes above self and no one really survives a sex scandal, as the 37-year-old politician popularly known as Eli found out in the last 24 hours.
The PKR leadership met last night to discuss and end the issue before it weakens the party further, leaving the human rights activist finding it untenable to stay back and fight to defend her reputation.
Just as current MCA deputy president Datuk Seri Chua Soi Lek was forced to quit all posts last year under similar circumstances.
And 20 years ago, then MIC secretary-general D.P. Vijandran had his political hopes crushed by a stolen sex video that was in public circulation.
Former Melaka chief minister Tan Sri Rahim Thamby Chik, too, found his political career in tatters after allegations of impropriety that, ironically, sent current Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng to jail for publishing a false document.
Compare that to Tan Sri Muhammad Muhammad Taib, who pleaded “not understanding English” when caught carrying Australian $1.26 million in cash at Brisbane airport in 1996, losing his job as Selangor Menteri Besar but later rebounding to now being senator and rural development minister.
The fact is, morality in Malaysian life, and particularly in politics, is measured by the goings-on in the bedroom rather than the machinations in the boardroom.
Those caught with bulging pockets might still live to fight another day but those caught with their pants down lose everything.
It does not matter if the photographs or videos were taken without consent, as in the case of Elizabeth and Chua, or privately, as in the Vijandran scandal.
What matters is public perception and morality as defined by the few over the many.
It’s a perverse morality but one that is bound in so-called Eastern traditions that what happens in the bedroom should be private and never see the light in any visible form. Any such recordings, even unwittingly, cast aspersions on a person’s character and morals.
(Oddly, oral or aural accounts – so-and-so sleeps with so-and-so – seem survivable since they’re not proof, just rumours, unlike pictures that are deemed incapable of lying.)
But bribery, graft, money politics and corruption is forgivable and, after some time in the political sin bin and wilderness, one can always make a comeback.
Double standards? But that’s the reality that Elizabeth found herself up against over the past 24 hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment