PAC U-turn shows us dictatorship is no longer in fashion

COMMENT | How can one not be sceptical of a government that is led by an individual who used to rule the country for 22 years under the authoritarian party that was just recently voted out of power? As much as we wanted a change, we have to admit that we were all very wary despite the jubilation.

The best case to illustrate this is the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) issue. The PAC is a group of parliamentarians who are tasked with conducting inquiries into issues that are questionable. For the most part, many Malaysians have never heard of the PAC.

The PAC really came into the limelight when a certain DAP politician who goes by the name of Tony Pua became a member and started tirelessly questioning issues surrounding 1MDB. Suddenly, the PAC started making headlines in the news all around the country. Before that, you could even say that the PAC was like Asean - a lame duck.

When Pakatan Harapan became the government, one of their promises was to make sure that the chairman of the PAC would be from the opposition. This makes sense democratically because it would be a conflict of interest is the chairman was from the ruling party. The committee is, after all, suppose to question the ruling party’s actions. ...