.jpg)
By Mihar Dias August 2025. (In the Peanut Gallery)
It’s been another week in Parliament, where serious national problems were tackled with the urgency of a cat deciding whether to nap on the sofa or the bed.
This time, it wasn’t the latest budget figures or the price of rice that set the place abuzz — it was a pantun. Yes, a honest to goodness pantun.
For those of you unfamiliar with this treasured Malay form, a pantun is like poetry with manners. It rhymes, it dances, and it usually talks about flowers, rivers, or how much you miss someone. It is not usually used to tell someone to pack up their things and go.
But Hadi Awang, bless his literary soul, decided the government needed a little culture before lunch. So he delivered this one:
From Kuala Lumpur we sail to Sabah,
Turn back again and head for Kelantan,
Don’t wallow in mud till you stumble and crash,
It’s better instead to tender resignation. https://www.malaysiakini.com/news/752139
(Dari Kuala Lumpur pergi ke Sabah, berpatah balik menuju Kelantan, jangan berlumpur tersungkur rebah, lebih baik letak jawatan). https://newswav.com/A2508_m49kAW?s=A_4cih694&language=en
Cue the gasps, the shuffling of papers, and the distinct sound of several ministers wishing they’d skipped today’s sitting to inspect durian farms.
The imagery was vivid. Kuala Lumpur to Sabah to Kelantan — a grand Malaysian road trip. Except instead of sightseeing, the traveller ends up face-first in the mud.
Of course, when you’re face-first in the mud, there are only two options: (1) Pretend it’s a spa treatment, or (2) admit defeat and resign. Hadi was strongly suggesting Option Two.
The government bench did not appreciate the spa reference.
Now, in fairness, “don’t wallow in mud” is good advice for anyone — especially for politicians, because the mud is rarely metaphorical.
But hearing it in rhyming couplets in front of the nation was a bit like being dumped by your girlfriend via karaoke song: everyone’s humming along, but you know it’s about you.
If this keeps up, I’m suggesting Parliament switch to full-time poetry sessions. Instead of Question Time, we’ll have Rhyme Time. Who knows? Maybe the country will finally get the answers it’s been waiting for — in iambic pentameter.
Until then, remember: when you’re knee-deep in political mud, the safest way out might just be to take Hadi’s poetic advice… and step down before you slip again.
Mihar Dias (mihardias@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
The User Content (as defined on Newswav Terms of Use) above including the views expressed and media (pictures, videos, citations etc) were submitted & posted by the author. Newswav is solely an aggregation platform that hosts the User Content. If you have any questions about the content, copyright or other issues of the work, please contact creator@newswav.com.