By Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Wednesday, November 20, 1991:
Wan Najib and Nordin Salleh are acting in most immoral, unprincipled and opportunistic manner in wanting to be reinstated as Assemblymen for Limbongan and Sungai Pinang after having been decisively rejected by the voters in by-elections on August 24.
Haji Wan Najib Wan Mohamad and haji Nordin Salleh are acting in most immoral, unprincipled and opportunistic manner in wanting to be reinstated as Assemblymen for Limbongan and Sungai Pinang in Kelantan after having been decisively rejected by the same voters in by-elections on August 24.
Wan Najib and Nordin Salleh had challenged the constitutionality of the Kelantan State Constitution amendment in April disqualifying any assemblyman who left the party on which he was elected.
If Wan Najib and Nordin Salleh are men of principle, the they should stand on their principle and boycott the two by-elections when they were held in August on the ground that they are ultras vires and therefore unconstitutional, fighting the issue in the courts to vindicate their position.
If the courts uphold their challenge and riled that the two by-elections were illegal and therefore null and void, then they can honourably take their places in the Kelantan State Assembly when they are reinstated.
But having taken part in the two by-elections on August 24 contesting as UMNO candidates for Limbongan and Sungai Pinang, and been decisively defeated and rejected by the voters in the two constituencies, Wan Najib and Nordin Salleh have forfeited the moral right to reclaim the two state seats – regardless of the outcome of the Supreme Court decision on the appeal of the Kelantan State Assembly against the judgement of Mr. Justice Datuk Mohamad Ensuff Chin at the Kuala Lumpur High Court.
The situation would have been very different if the Limbongan and Sungai Pinang by-elections on August 24 had been contested by other UMNO candidates apart from Wan Najib and Nordin Salleh.
This is because the defeat of other UMNO candidates is completely different from the personal defeat of Wan Najib and Nordin Salleh in the two by-elections by their own voters.
How can Wan Najib and Nordin Salleh claim to have the moral right to be reinstated as Assemblymen when the overwhelming majority of their voters had decisively rejected them on August 24?
We are not discussing the question of legality or constitutionality of the Kelantan State Constitution amendment, which must await the supreme Courts decision.
The question at issue in political morality and the principle of the sovereignty of the people in a democracy. The people of Limbongan and Sungai Pinang have made it very clear in the two by-elections that although they elected Wan Najib and Nordin Salleh as their Assemblymen in the October 1990 general elections, they have changed their minds ten months later in August 1991 because the defection of Wan Najib and Nordin Salleh from Semangat 46 have demonstrated that they are morally or politically unfit to be their Assemblymen.
If both of them are reinstated as Assemblymen this would mean that the voters of Limbongan and Sungai Pinang would be forced to accept as their elected representative those whom they had clearly and unmistakably rejected in the by-elections on August 24.
This would make a mockery of the people’s verdict and the principle of the sovereignty of the people in a democracy!
Having fought and lost last by-elections. Wan Najib and Nordin Salleh should accept the verdict of the voters of Limbongan and Sungai Pinang. They should have the grace and humility to accept defeat in the by-elections and accept two things: Firstly, that they have no moral right whatsoever to demand that they be reinstated as Assemblymen after having decisively rejected by the same voters in the by-elections and secondly, that they are not wanted by the people of Limbongan and Sungai Pinang.
If Wan Najib and Nordin Salleh can go back to be Assemblymen for Limbongan and Sungai Pinang after the voters have made it very clear that they do not want them to be their elected representative, then political morality and principle will suffer a great blow.
It will then be a most shameful day for those who are talking about instilling moral and even spiritual values in Malaysian life – in particular in Malaysia politics, and yet could support such immoral, unprincipled and opportunistic actions by Wan Najib and Nordin Salleh.