KARPAL SINGH & ROYAL PREROGATIVES

Karpal Singh’s controversy over the prerogatives of Sultans and Rajas is reminiscent of Lee Kuan Yew challenging Ketuanan Melayu and advising Malay leaders not to give fish but to teach them to fish.

What Karpal has done could be interpreted as advice to the constitutional Royalties on the right approach in a country of diverse races and religions. However what has escalating into are accusations that Karpal is questioning royal prerogatives.

No non-Malays had admonished Lee Kuan Yew then, but now we have DAP’s central exectutive member and Selangor Speaker Teng Chang Khim saying that what Karpal has done is politically unwise. However in the same breath, he said Karpal may be right in law.

In any issue, there are political, legal, economic and social aspect of it. If it is look at purely on its political repercussion, then one must as well keep one’s month shut, otherwise the law of the jungle would prevail.

Teng’s boss Lim Kit Siang is fond of saying “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” On Teng’s part, it is apparent that now that Teng is tasting power, he is seeing things in different perspective (such as songkok is alright, don’t bring up politically sensitive issues, etc). From his behaviour, it is not difficult to guess why MCA and MIC behaving the way they did in BN.