MORE PARLIAMENT UPDATES AND THE POTENTIAL IMPACTS OF THE IRAN WAR

I will start by clarifying where we left off in my last article; the constitutional votes in Parliament. As stated in my last article for March, I had no issue with the proposed good bill on the 10 years limit for PM and that I objected to the poor drafting on the AG-PP separation bill.

As most of you have read, the PM term limit bill did not pass and was short of two votes.

While many excuses have been forwarded to explain the bill’s defeat, most of which are pure hogwash, the truth of the matter is the bill was defeated by an administrative failure of the Madani Government.

Someone failed to count how many government MPs were present in the hall before formally asking the Speaker to conduct the formal vote.

It is so sad that an important and good bill was defeated because somebody did not organise the pre-counting exercise. Who is accountable for this? We all know but nobody has volunteered to admit this big mistake.

What should have transpired was after finding that the Madani Government was short of two votes at the pre-counting stage, the minister should have proposed a motion for a recess for an hour or so to get two more MPs to come in or even ask for the vote to be a done the following day.

As for the controversial AG-PP bill, it is very ironic to note that none of the nine MPs, including myself who formally complained about the bill via a public press conference have been excluded into the special committee to re-study the bill. In addition, can this new special committee do its job without conflict of interests in that the committee will be chaired by the minister? We already have a Special Select Committee on Institutional Reforms, so why was this committee bypassed by another new committee. Either way, I will continue to monitor the progress of this bill from the outside and will continue to assess the same without fear or favour.

Now, to other matters; in particular the ongoing Iran war. As chair of the International Relations and International Trade Committee in Parliament, tracking and commenting on matters related to the Iran war are under my scope of work. Last week, I issued a statement asking clarification from the Madani Government on why we allowed American warships to dock in Penang. These warships are engaged at the ongoing Iran war and that action is in direct contradiction to our somewhat neutral stance on the war.

Contrast this the principled position of Spain; despite being a direct American ally, Spain declined to allow their airbases to be used by the Americans in support of the Iran war.

I also commented on the issue of the company Lynas, which announced a few days earlier, that the rare earth processed at their plant, will be delivered to the Pentagon for the purposes of making weapons.

I urged the Madani Government to relook our FDI policy to discourage factories that create arms and weapons. How can we, on the one hand, condemn the Gaza genocide and at the same time host companies that intend to supply weapons grade rare earth. While we welcome a variety of investments in Malaysia, there should be limitations too; such as taking a zero-tolerance stance to the manufacture of arms and weapons in Malaysia.

Allow me to now focus a bit on the economic impact of the Iran war.  Our ASEAN neighbours, in particular the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam are in the process of rolling out fuel rationing programs. The impact on transport and logistics in those countries is expected to be severe. If there is inadequate fuel, how do they move food and goods, how do they travel for work? There will also be severe challenges to any power plant that depend on natural gas from the Middle East too.

In Malaysia, half of our petrol fuel imports are disrupted by the Iran war. Luckily all of our gas power plants are powered by our own natural gas. While we are an oil producer, our Tapis oil is of a higher quality destined for exports. In theory, we could reduce exports and use more of our own Tapis to tie us over the crisis. But at what cost and the biggest question is for how long? The best estimates suggest three to six months of holding power. So in comparison to our neighbours we are in a better position, but not by much.

Moreover, in computing economic models, we need to also consider the imports from countries who are currently under fuel crisis. Consider this simple question; can we get our supply of Thai rice if this war prolongs?

We are nowhere near self-sufficiency. Global trade is highly interconnected. Prices on most goods are therefore set to rise. Some initial rationing may be a good idea if this Iran war continues for another month.

As such, we must work harder for peace and being pro-peace means we should not oblige warships to dock in Malaysia.

Increasingly, we find ourselves in a world of doublespeak. The Madani Government says that it is against corruption but until today, refuses to do an RCI on allegations against Azam Baki and the Corporate Mafia. My job as your MP, is to hold my own government to a higher standard of transparency and accountability, and in the process cut through the doublespeak.