Harakahdaily  

KUALA LUMPUR, April 2: PAS women leaders have lashed out at BN Deputy Speaker Ronald Kiandee for throwing Bukit Mertajam MP Chong Eng out of the House and slapping on a one-day suspension for insisting that he take action against his BN colleague for misleading Parliament.


“We are extremely disappointed with the unfair stance taken by the Deputy Speaker. This is not the first time that he has allowed the Kinabatangan MP Bung Mokhtar Radin to pass disrespectful and even sexist remarks against the opposition,” Dr Siti Mariah Mahmud, MP for Kota Raja, told Harakahdaily.

Indeed Kiandee, along with the other Speakers Pandikar Amin and Wan Junaidi Jaafar, have come under the spotlight for overtly favoring their own coalition colleagues at the expense of fair play and justice in the august House.

Right even when he is wrong, wrong even when she is right

On Thursday afternoon, Chong Eng accused Bung of lying to the House when he praised the federal government for granting women 90 days maternity leave although they had only asked for 60 days.

Bung’s comment was factually wrong as the official number of days is only 60. When the veteran DAP woman leader pointed this out to Kiandee and asked him to censure Bung, Kiandee refused.

Emboldened, Bung called Chong Eng a “manipulator’, setting off a ruckus in the House, especially among the women lawmakers.

Despite Bung’s questionable behavior, Kiandee still refused to act. Instead he lost his temper when Chong Eng dared to repeat her demand and ordered her out of the House.

“It is a sad day when you see this sort of bad behavior at a place like Parliament and from so-called mature men like Kiandee and Bung. They are supposed to be leaders but they are such a bad example to our youth,” Dr Siti said.

(Edited by Wong Choon Mei)