FORGET about visiting clogged drains in their constituencies with the media in tow. Or marathon kenduri rounds on weekends with voters. Even drafting speeches for legislative debates is passé.

Malaysian politicians’ actual favourite pastime is blaming political conspiracies. Economy is slow? Blame it on the Jewish conspirators. Caught with your pants down, literally? Pin it on your political enemies. 

Over the weekend, Perak exco member Abdul Yunus Jamhari was accused by his former aide of soliciting kickbacks from two firms seeking 93 acres of land in the state. 

According to the police report lodged by the ex-aide Beh Yong Kean, Yunus allegedly leaked minutes of an executive council meeting to Beh and ordered him to start negotiations with the companies.  

In no time, Yunus pinned the blame on a political conspiracy to topple him, supposedly for being strongly aligned to Minister of Economics Affairs, Azmin Ali, who himself is embroiled in a sex video scandal.

Whether by chance or design, Azmin too had played the “political conspiracy” card when the gay sex video first emerged, which was followed a confession by Haziq Abdullah Abdul Aziz. Alluding that it could be the work of PKR insiders, Azmin wondered how the “conspirators” could have access to the contact details of grassroots members to circulate the videos. 

But this propensity to blame “political conspiracies” is not confined to PKR. Yunus’ colleague in the Perak exco, Paul Yong, accused of raping his maid, found a defender in DAP’s Kepong MP, Lim Lip Eng.

Lim, in not so many words, alluded to a political conspiracy given the police’s haste in arresting Yong even before investigations were completed. 

And, oh wait, even DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang all but overtly blamed “political conspiracies” over the court’s recent decision to enhance the punishment against independent preacher Wan Ji Wan Hussin for sedition. 

He issued a statement over the weekend asking all deputy public prosecutors to read Pakatan Harapan’s manifesto to learn about the government’s positions.Whatever happened to taking personal responsibility? It is much easier to blame others. For good measure, throw in a healthy dollop of racial-religious element like Zionism, or play the victim card to stir emotions.

It is time Malaysians see through such charades. We need to start rejecting politicians who are fond of blaming others, regardless of which side he or she is on.

 Let’s make “rejecting-political-conspiracy-crying-politicians” our favourite pastime instead. – July 14, 2019.

* Tee Kim Hoe of Butterworth, Penang, reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.