Scepticism in the new Malaysia.

Regarding the breaking of lil' Ervin Devadasan's piggy bank for Lim GE's Tabung Harapan, Latheefa Koya has become a villain for calling Lim KS' promotion of such lil' boy type patriotism as a gimmick (Lim KS' gmmick, not the lil' boy's).

Furthermore, she became more villainous for her reminder of Lim KS that the legal maxim of 'Innocent until proven guilty' should not be politicised by the DAP senior leader until Malaysian law becomes more deformed.

Aneh Commander (ret) Thayaparan who writes for Malaysiakini said:

Latheefa Koya is right on both counts. Tabung Harapan - a fund which so far has no oversight except that it is controlled by a political coalition - is a politically-charged fund no matter its genesis.

A child who donates to the fund has been contextualised as someone who has reduced the national debt as opposed to the former prime minister, which says a lot about the narrative developed by Pakatan Harapan. In other words, his act has become politicised and because everyone hates Najib, it is easy to make such statements.

People either applaud or can’t be bothered to face the online opprobrium expected for dissenting against these types of tactics. [...]

Latheefa is right when she said the whole thing is exploitative but, of course, you wouldn’t get that from the expected online abuse she received.

Besides the usual allegations of having Umno DNA, a political operative from DAP sent me a sampling (which disgusted her) of abuse including comments that questioned if Lathheefa was menopausal, a bitter hag or part of an elaborate PKR plot to destabilise Harapan. All this from people who are supposed to be defending the noble actions of a kid. [...]

Honestly, I was amazed at how many qualifiers were in Latheefa’s statement. For instance, she made it clear that when she said that Harapan should get on with governing - she did not mean they were not. All she ventured was that this was a sideshow that the Harapan regime could do without. And it is.

Her rejoinder that this was a country of laws was also met with the same kind of online abuse. I get that Latheefa can be mercurial, but receiving text messages that she is some sort of sub-rosa agent out to destabilise Harapan? Or that she was attempting to divert from PKR’s own issues by sullying the good name of the DAP. Really? Another text read: "What has she ever done for this country, unlike this kid?”

So let me get this straight. Because PKR is perceived as the weak link in Harapan and its internal squabbles well-documented, PKR political operatives should just keep quiet and not say anything - especially if it goes against Harapan - because this demonstrates how they just want to destabilise the new government?

I have had a few public disagreements with what Latheefa has said but to claim that she is just some political operative who hasn’t done anything for the country is downright moronic.

Her work with stateless people and gender issues, not to mention public interest cases - that nobody seemed to be interested in - is evidence that she is just not some political operative looking for publicity.

Reminding Malaysians that there is a difference between public opinion and the rule of law is something we need from our political operatives. Reminding Malaysians that the former prime minister deserves due process like every other citizen in this country is important. And she was right again when she questioned how a politician could make such a statement encouraging otherwise.

Why did we vote for Harapan? I do not know about anyone else but I voted for them to bring change in the way how we do things in this country. I did not vote for Harapan so a lynch mob could go after the former prime minister. I did not write glowingly about attorney-general Tommy Thomas so he could play the old BN game and fix the political enemies of the Harapan state.

If a case is brought against Najib, I want it to be an airtight case which finally exposes the depths of the 1MDB scandal after years of allegations. I want Malaysians to understand exactly how corrupt the former Umno state was and how we could ensure that the Harapan regime does not have the same room to make such mistakes.

These kinds of Harapan narratives and strategies prove one thing. There is a great need for scepticism in this new Malaysia.