From Charles Santiago
The Selangor menteri besar’s claim that accepting developer Melati Ehsan’s offer is a “win-win” solution in the Kampung Jalan Papan issue in Pandamaran, Klang, insults the intelligence of everyone who has followed this case.
There is nothing “win-win” about rewriting history after the fact. There is an agreement, repeatedly reinforced, that clearly required the developer to deliver double-storey homes (20×70) for RM99,000 to the residents.
That commitment wasn’t symbolic — Melati Ehasan agreed to the terms stipulated by the state.
For five days, we watched an eviction exercise descend into chaos: aggressive police conduct, residents shoved and intimidated, community members arrested, and entire lives bulldozed with bureaucratic indifference.
The state cannot now pretend that these events unfolded in a vacuum. It cannot behave as though it has suddenly discovered an ambiguity in its own commitments. The paper trail is there and it is damning.
What is even more disturbing is this sudden amnesia. The state government knows the terms it set for Melati Ehsan. It knows the cost, the structure, the obligation, the housing type, the entire scaffold of the arrangement because it designed that scaffold.
And Melati Ehsan was never in the dark. The developer had already prepared a full blueprint for the promised double-storey homes before executing a blatant U-turn and hauling the residents to court.
Furthermore, it’s important to understand that Melati Ehsan took the residents to court, contrary to what the state is saying.
And so, for menteri besar Amirudin Shari to now claim that the state government is merely a “middleman” is pure rubbish.
The state was the architect of this deal, the enforcer of its conditions and knew the explicit obligations attached.
Let’s be clear: offering 2.8ha of land for apartments is not a humanitarian gesture. It is a diversion.
It reframes a binding agreement as a charitable concession, as though the residents should be grateful for less than what they were promised.
A “win-win” narrative only works if people forget the original deal. But the residents haven’t forgotten. The documents haven’t disappeared. And the public won’t be gaslit into thinking this is a generous compromise.
Selangor must stop hiding behind procedural language and developer spin.
This crisis is not a planning issue but a credibility issue. If the state cannot uphold its own agreements, if it cannot protect long-time residents from corporate bulldozers, if it cannot ensure justice after a week of violence and intimidation, then it must answer for that failure.
Anything less is not governance. It is abdication.
Charles Santiago is the former MP for Klang.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.
