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Are Our Wakil Rakyat Less Honourable Compared to US Congressmen?
By Mihar Dias
(C) Copyright March 2022
There is obviously a big difference between our Right Honorable (YB) Wakil Rakyat and a US Congressional House Representative. In the US or UK or even Japan when convicted any representative will immediately resign from his position. Even if they were awaiting appeals for their cases to be heard in a higher court. They would do the “right” thing first and leave rather than smear the good name of the institution.
For instance take the most recent case of a Republican U.S. House Representative, Jeff Fortenberry from faraway Nebraska. He had resigned effective from March 31, after a jury convicted him of lying to federal authorities about an illegal campaign contribution from a Nigerian billionaire funnelled through three strawmen at a 2016 fundraiser in Los Angeles.
The news report said he was indicted in October 2021 when caught lying to FBI agents about his knowledge of a $30,000 campaign contribution from the billionaire that went into an election fund.
In a letter to the House of Representatives, he said it had been an honour to serve in the United States House of Representatives and due to his difficulties he could “no longer effectively serve” and therefore had to resign from office.
However, in Malaysia, a convicted felon still refused to resign but instead roamed the countryside drumming up support for his own party without shame or remorse found guilty of millions that he pocketed for himself.
Compare that to Fortenberry’s meagre 30,000 that was meant for a political campaign fund. He did not take millions for himself but only lied about his knowledge of the contribution that went to the campaign fund through strawmen.
I am not condoning that lying to authorities was right but the crime he committed was minor compared to millions of corruption money that went into the account of our local MP in question.
Nevertheless, he resigned from an office he had held since 2005. Both House Speaker Pelosi and House Minority Leader, McCarthy from the Republican party reportedly urged Jeff Fortenberry to resign.
I am sure they were partly prompted by protocol but more so by the norm that they could not have a convicted felon amongst them within the hallowed chambers of the House of Representatives.
Again compare that to the attitudes of our Wakil Rakyat from both sides of the divide. Did they make any move to strongly urge a convicted felon amongst them to vacate his position in the chamber? The answer is of course a big no.
How I wished there was more honour amongst our own Right Honourables or Yang Berhormat (many whom I refused to address as such) in our Parliament!
How could they allow themselves and the hallowed chambers of the Houses of Parliament to be continuously smeared by the presence of a convicted felon in their midst?
Mihar Dias is a content writer under Headliner by Newswav, a programme where content creators get to tell their unique stories through articles and at the same time monetize their content within the Newswav app.
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