Who really is Shafie and why does he oppose that MoU? – P. Gunasegaram

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ARE those the values in our lives, Warisan chief Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apdal questioned.

The root cause was instability, he said a moment earlier. We are playing with numbers for human life, he went on.

Shafie was speaking in Parliament recently criticising Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the government for reforms, which include lowering the voting age to 18, limiting the prime minister to two terms, introducing anti-party-hopping laws, and plans to control Covid-19 and revive the economy.

While he went on to talk about unrelated things, he did not make it clear why he was opposed to the MoU. Opposition leaders have repeatedly pointed out the MoU does not take the right away from opposition members to take a position against the government, but works with them where it is beneficial for the country.

His opposition to the MoU seems based solely on an objection to working with people who stole the mandate from the PH coalition, including Warisan, which backed the coalition post-2018 elections.

Shafie is now making this MoU a major issue to push ahead with his agenda of making himself a potential future leader, saying anti-party-hopping laws are unnecessary if politicians have values.

But it is precisely because politicians, including the likes of Shafie, do not have values that such laws are necessary. What are Shafie’s values with respect to some of these?


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