Author: Tommy Thomas
ISBN: 9789670960081
Pages: 298
Year: 2016

Paradise Lost takes a critical look at Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s role in Malaysia’s political evolution and his ultimately destructive legacy of corruption, racism and religious extremism. He inherited a nation pregnant with promise and left it mired in division, uncertainty and instability, a grand kleptopia, a terrible kakistocracy. It also examines the role Mahathir played in Pakatan Harapan’s stunning 2018 electoral victory and his subsequent betrayal of the coalition he was entrusted to lead. The end result is a nation in deep crisis, adrift in a sea of uncertainty, unable to come to terms with its past, unwilling to make the compromises necessary for its future. Paradise Lost makes for sober reading. Intensely provocative, it challenges long-established shibboleths, spotlights the dangers now confronting the nation and argues that Malaysia’s only hope for redemption lies in embracing and harnessing its unique multicultural identity. This timely book will engender much needed public dialogue about the future of Malaysia.

Despite his or her title, the Speaker of the Dewan Rakyat is rarely heard.

Tan Sri Ariff Yusof reveals his side of the storey by dissecting the events and procedures of Parliament and providing an insider’s view of the unprecedented political developments that led to the fall of the Pakatan Harapan government in 2020 and his eventual removal in this brief recollection of his brief tenure as the Dewan Rakyat Speaker. Meanwhile, a global pandemic breaks out, prompting the government’s response to be shaky and Parliament to be suspended.

In the current state of affairs, can we expect any changes from the Parliament? Is there a political motivation to break new ground beyond race and religion? Is it possible for a single speaker to make a difference?

TABLE OF CONTENTS OF PARLIAMENT UNEXPECTED

PART 1: THE BEGINNING
Chapter 1: A Short History of Everything, Not Quite A Memoir
Chapter 2: Jumping Into The Fray
Chapter 3: An Unnecessary Show of Partisan Politics
Chapter 4: No. 3, Jalan Tunku, Bukit Tunku

PART 2: MANAGING THE DEWAN
Chapter 5: Taking Charge
Chapter 6: Speaker, You’re Our Boss!
Chapter 7: Point of Order!
Chapter 8: The Bad, The Crude, The Obscene and The Literary

PART 3: THE REFORMS
Chapter 9: Reforms and Changing Political Culture
Chapter 10: Merakyatkan Parlimen – Formulating A People’s Parliament
Chapter 11: Writing The Malaysian Erskine May
Chapter 12: Senate Issues: Money Bills and Anti-Fake News
Chapter 13: The Constitutional Amendments of Undi 18 and Malaysia Act 1963

PART 4: THE POLITICAL STORM
Chapter 14: The Gathering Dark Clouds
Chapter 15: The Sheraton Move and Its Effects on Parliament and The Speaker’s Office
Chapter 16: Parliament and The Pandemic
Chapter 17: Motion of No-confidence and The Half-Day Parliament
Chapter 18: The Truncated, Suspended Parliament
Chapter 19: Ouster!