Khairy told to emulate father-in-law
Malaysiakini.com
Dec 18, 2006

Umno Youth deputy chief Khairy Jamaluddin’s warning that there were limits to freedom has been ticked off by a prominent think-tank.

When opening the People’s Progressive Party Youth wing convention on Saturday, Khairy had argued that government could revert to greater authoritarianism if certain people chose to abuse the current climate of freedom.

"This openness is good for today’s political climate but we have to approach it ethically and wisely. We cannot push it too far, too soon, as we are still a maturing democracy,” said Khairy, who is Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s son-in-law.

"Racial sensitivities still exist and we should respect these boundaries," he added.

However, the Centre for Public Policy Studies (CPPS) - which was recently embroiled in a controversy over the issue of bumiputera equity - today expressed its regrets and disagreements over Khairy’s ominous warning.

“On the contrary, the CPPS maintains that the government should continue to increase openness, and encourage more public discussion on government policies as Malaysia has certainly matured in its democratic development in the last 50 years since Merdeka,” said the think-tank’s chairman Ramon Navaratnam.

“Any reversal of this growing freedom of speech will be a retrograde move and will only stifle the further maturing of our Malaysian democracy.”

Further liberalisation

Ramon called on the government to further liberalise democratic debate, which was promoted by Prime Minister Abdullah.

“All who wish to suppress the freedom of speech and legitimate democratic debate on vital policy issues should be constantly reminded of, and urged to, adhere to our prime minister’s noble statement.”

The think-tank chief, who is a former top Finance Ministry civil servant, said that in the Internet era it was “impractical and unwise to control genuine democratic debate and discussion that can be conveyed worldwide in real time.”

“What we need in our country now is for all parties concerned to observe the same ethical rules of democratic discourse and not be selective in the application of controls, according to political expediencies.”

Khairy was himself at the centre of a controversy recently when he warned that the minority Chinese community would exploit a weak and divided Umno.

A key CPPS economist, Dr Lim Teck Ghee, tendered his resignation after the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute - which CPPS is part of - disavowed a research findings that the bumiputera corporate equity may have reached 45 percent, as opposed to the government’s figure of 18.9 percent.

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