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Saturday, October 18, 2014

Nancy, think hard first before you speak in parliament

From left: Ibrahim and NancyFrancis Paul Siah
I will be fair to Nancy Shukri. I don’t know her personally. Neither am I familiar with her constituency of Batang Sadong.
Nancy was an unknown until she contested in the 2008 general election, several years after I had quit active politics in Sarawak. I must apologise to my fellow Sarawakian because I have to search Wikipedia for information on her even though she is already a public figure and a minister. That’s how little I know of her.
A sentence of interest from the search and worth penning here for the record is that “before entering parliament, Nancy was the chairperson of the Sarawak Federation of Women’s Institutes and she is married with three children”.
So I can surmise that Nancy was noticed due to her work among women. This is well and good and I do appreciate and recognise the important role of women in voluntary social work.
It takes much more effort and diligence to be an effective social worker for working mothers and Nancy is one of them.
However, social workers do not necessarily make good politicians nor leaders. And I was really surprised that Nancy was appointed a minister in the Prime Minister’s Department and tasked with the senior portfolio of de facto law minister.
Nancy was among four PBB leaders from Sarawak who were appointed full ministers by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak after the general election in March last year. This was clearly a reward for PBB as the party delivered all the seats it contested to the BN.
But is greenhorn Nancy Shukri ready for the job, many must have wondered then.
Now, it’s quite clear that Nancy is not experienced enough to handle the onerous tasks as de facto law minister. Her recent reply in parliament in explaining why Perkasa’s Datuk Ibrahim Ali would not be charged for threatening to burn the Bible is a case in point.
She was heavily chided and criticised for that parliamentary reply and that had really hurt her.
“I have been badly under attack. Honestly, I am at the lowest ebb of my life. However, as long as Sarawakians understand who I am and what is going on, I will remain strong and continue to serve them without fear or favour,” the Borneo Post quoted her as saying today.
She also explained at length that she never supported Ibrahim Ali and his religious views.
“Growing up in a multi-racial family with relatives of different races and religions, race and religions had never been an issue to me. In Sarawak, where there is no issue with race and religion, I never dreamt that one day I would be branded as someone who is anti-Christian or a supporter of those calling for Bible burning,” she said.
Then, Nancy also explained what everybody knew all along – that she was just a minister reading out a ministerial reply in parliament.
“As a minister or one of the leaders of the nation, I have to support the rule of the law, but it does not mean I agree with Dato Ibrahim’s extreme views,” the Batang Sadong MP told The Borneo Post.
Now, here’s the problem with inexperience, Nancy.
If Umno bigwig Datuk Mohamad Nazri (Nancy’s predecessor) is still de facto law minister, surely we would not see him reading out any reply which he does not agree with personally.
Nazri would have wriggled his way out of a sticky situation by requesting that the reply be rephrased in such a long-winded way that at the end of it all, it tells you nothing. This is what some ministers’ aides are good at doing in order to protect the minister from public backlash.
It’s obvious Nancy does not have the clout of an Umno minister with the Attorney-General’s Office or with other departments under her purview.
This is where she, and other ministers from Sarawak, is at a disadvantage as a federal minister. In Putrajaya, civil servants kowtow to Umno ministers. They know that those from Sarawak or Sabah are only there to make up the numbers.
So please know how to play smart Nancy. The next time they ask you to read a reply in parliament, think hard first. If you don’t like it, find a way to get yourself out of it. Do not act like the idiot that you were when you read out the reply on Ibrahim Ali last week.
My final advice. If you want to survive as a federal minister in Malaya, think and act like an Umno minister. Push your way and throw your weight around those civil servants in Putrajaya. That’s what all those Umno ministers do.
If you cannot do that, I suggest you resign. Go back to Sarawak, serve your constituents in Batang Sadong well. Enjoy the peace and tranquility of our home state. Scr*w Ibrahim Ali, scr*w the AG’s Office, scr*w Putrajaya!

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