Clear audio, dodgy video, in flagrante delicto - a true Malaysian political imbroglio

Over in the middle east, the best efforts of Trump and Iran means World War Three is still brewing if currently in abeyance.

For royalty watchers – the House of Windsor family feud is frothing in merry 'ol England with the tabloids baying for the blood of Meghan and Harry.

Over in Lebanon – once the Paris of the East, Carlos 'Ghosn-with-the-wind' is holding court, freely lambasting the Japanese legal system for what he describes as xenophobic maltreatment.

Amid such regal hubris and 'fingers-poised-on-the-nuclear-button' situation, Malaysia had to have its own 'audio-visual' diversion.

Aren’t we glad that our very own salacious tittle tattle served so publicly failed to command wall to wall coverage on CNN nor CNA (we keep our fingers crossed that they are on edge contemplating an imminent general election).

Spared of the blushes and international scrutiny, we can jolly well go to town and be totally unforgiving in our own bout of Shia-style self-flagellating chest beating.

Malaysia’s top graft buster picked the very day Iran launched 'tens of dozens of missiles' at United States targets in Iraq following Trump’s assassination of Qasem Soleimani to really set the crafty cats amongst the proverbial skittish pigeons.

Newsrooms all over the country – what’s left after the editorial bloodletting involving former behemoths Utusan Melayu and Media Prima – were scrambling to re-allocate skimpy resources to cover both events LIVE.

In the end, nothing could be more staggeringly stunning than the 45-minute 'listening party' organised by the Malaysian Anti-corruption Commission (MACC).

The transcript has been so widely shared that there is not any need to reproduce it here. If anything, it only goes to prove true what many have known all along – behind every man, is one strong woman, and I choose not to go further than that for fear of being sexist, or something worse.

The rights and wrongs of the act of bugging a telephone conversation in the era of this new Malaysia, then airing it for all and sundry, as well as the legal repercussions that will most probably not be forthcoming, is not the remit of this column.

What stands out was the apparent 'open' and 'shut' nature of the revelation with no fear that its authenticity – legality notwithstanding – will be challenged.

Compare that with the Attorney General’s decision to put to bed – sorry, I could not resist the obvious connection – any notion of prosecution involving a minister of the realm for starring in the now notorious sex video shot during a by-election in Sabah (and there was not many).

And the reason given? Apparently, the video is too blurry. Try as they might, the combined might of the Malaysian sleuthing community failed to positively ID the image of the actor in question.

Tell that to Kak Lat – the nom de guerre awarded to Latheefa Koya, both out of huge respect for her 'bloody-mindedness' by her proponents on the one hand, as well as a mark of derision by her foes.

Notwithstanding the bouquets and brickbats that Latheefa Koya has attracted in equal measure for her bold move, at least it shines the spotlight on the once blurry line between the Malaysian chief executive, a less-than-independent judiciary and a supine rubber-stamp of a legislature.

At the very least, no future undeservedly-elevated DPP will be so nauseatingly obsequious when caught in the act of in flagrante audio delicto.

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* Razak Chik is Astro AWANI's Executive Editor.