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Posted: 21 May 2013 02:08 PM PDT

Many political analysts predicted that the 2008 general election was the worst case and the BN would be able to rise from the bottom. The MCA believed in the prediction and thus, passed the motion of not joining the Cabinet if the party performed worse than the previous election. Umno, MCA, Gerakan and other BN component parties must now adjust their mentality and face up to the new political situation, particularly the thorny political fanaticism.

Lim Sue Goan, Sin Chew Daily

The election result is a wake-up call. The BN's response and reform will affect the future political development.

To reconcile the political tsunami effects brought by the 2008 general election, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak introduced the 1Malaysia concept, the Government Transformation Plan (GTP) and Economic Transformation Programme (ETP), and implemented legislative reforms since he took over the office in April 2009. However, it did not work as expected and a greater tsunami was set off in the recent general election. Najib must adjust his transformation plans to cope with the rising public opinion and face the stronger Pakatan Rakyat.

The recent remarks made by several new ministers have reflected the tests faced by Najib's administration.

Education and Higher Learning Minister II Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh stressed that although there is no MCA representative in the Cabinet, the government guarantees fair treatments for schools of various mediums, including Chinese schools.

One of the demands of urban voters is fair governance and thus, regardless of whether there is a MCA representative in the Cabinet or not, the BN must fairly treat all racial groups to highlight the 1Malaysia spirit. Whether they can correct the racial mindset of officials or not would be the first test of the new Cabinet.

In terms of anti-corruption, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Paul Low Seng Kuan said that time will tell whether he is a lame duck minister.

The anti-corruption work cannot just rely on a minister, but a sound mechanism. The BN must come up with anti-corruption performances before the next general election or Low's commitments would end up as a satire, and time will prove nothing.

As for the repeatedly postponed goods and services tax (GST), Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Idris Jala has proposed that the tax rate should be set at 7%. It might imply that the implementation of the GST is imperative.

However, they should not rely only on taxation to reduce the fiscal deficit and repay national debt. Instead, expenses must be reduced, corruption must be curbed, waste must be avoided and new sources of revenue must be opened up. They could restore the support of urban voters only if they have a proper financial management mechanism and stop the populist-style money distribution.

On April 19, 2012, the government deferred the second reading of the Goods and Services Tax Bill 2009 to another date and would it has the courage today to carry out a tax structure reform?

In terms of education issues, Idris said that the ministry would not rush to develop a new educational programme while Education and Higher Learning Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said that the 2013-2015 National Education Blueprint has achieved some results 100 days after its implementation.

Education is the basis of national strength and prosperity. Therefore, we should move towards high-quality education. However, political interference and frequent policy changes in recent years have led to the decline of education standard. Therefore, education policy should be amended to recognise the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) and retain talents.

How about the Lynas rare-earth refinery issue? International Trade and Industry Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed said Najib has reminded him that it is still an issue and the ministry will actively approach all involved parties to ensure that the issue is properly addressed.

Voters of that constituency have made a resolution on the rare-earth refinery issue with their votes and the government should respect the public opinion.

In short, reform should not be done superficially, but thoroughly. Whether the BN will advance or retreat, we might have to wait until after the Umno party election to get the answer.

Reflecting on Malaysia’s Election

Posted: 21 May 2013 01:51 PM PDT

Toppling him now for his deputy, Muhyiddin Yassin, could lead to very costly rifts in the UMNO, which the party might not be able to afford. Any change in the current leadership would probably signal that the UMNO will veer to the conservative right, counterintuitive to what the electorate might be saying. Recall that it was UMNO moderates such as Khairy Jamaluddin and Shahrir Samad who profited the most in the election.

Murray Hunter, Geopolitical Monitor

It is extremely difficult to find any real winners in the results that came out of Malaysia's Electoral Commission; although, somewhat surprisingly, one could be Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, who ran ahead of his party and who managed to preserve a majority in Negeri Sembilan, Terengganu and Pahang against an opposition onslaught, and to win back Kedah through the clever tactic of sending Mukhriz Mahathir, the son of the long-serving Prime Minister into the fray.

The United Malays National Organization, the biggest ethic party in the Barisan, needs reform and there is no one in sight who can drive it. Failing to reform will lead UMNO to extinction within two general elections. And the biggest problem of all is that the party may not want to reform itself. It is evident that Najib hasn't been able to steer UMNO where he wanted to go over the past few years, and his agenda has been hijacked by the likes of the Malay nationalist NGO Perkasa, resulting in great damage, enough damage perhaps that he shouldn't inherit all of the blame.

In this light, Najib could be saved from a sudden political death, as there is really nobody within close range to the current leadership who has the necessary charisma, innovation and goodwill to make the necessary reforms. Going against the word of all the pundits, Najib may survive. Toppling him now for his deputy, Muhyiddin Yassin, could lead to very costly rifts in the UMNO, which the party might not be able to afford. Any change in the current leadership would probably signal that the UMNO will veer to the conservative right, counterintuitive to what the electorate might be saying. Recall that it was UMNO moderates such as Khairy Jamaluddin and Shahrir Samad who profited the most in the election.

Federally, the opposition gained a net six seats, with the new Parliament comprising of 134 Barisan Nasional to 88 Pakatan Rakyat seats. However, at the same time Pakatan lost ground, losing federal seats in the northern state of Kedah, as well as the state government.

Notably Parti Islam se-Malaysia Vice President Mohamad Sabu, considered to be a modernizer for PAS, lost the Pendang parliamentary seat in Kedah. Pakatan Rakyat also failed to make any gains in neighboring Perlis, even though it believed it had a chance of doing so. The opposition coalition narrowly failed to regain the Perak state government which it lost through defections in 2009, with the Barisan winning 31 to Pakatan 28 seats. In addition the opposition just failed to win the state government in Terengganu where many commentators believed that Pakatan would have to win if it had any chance of winning the federal government. Pakatan Rakyat also failed to wrest Negri Sembilan from the BN, with PAS losing all of the 10 seats it contested.

The Barisan had a number of casualties. DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang trounced Johor Chief Minister Abdul Ghani Othman in Johor, and the Melaka Chief Minister Mohd Ali Rustam, trying to move to the federal parliament was defeated. Federal Territories Minister Raja Nong Chik Zainal Abidin failed in his bid to win the urban seat of Lembah Pantai in Kuala Lumpur from the PKR incumbent Nurual Izzah Anwar. A cabinet minister in Sabah Bernard Dompok, and VK Liew in Sandakan both lost. Yong Koon Seng in Sarawak also lost his seat of Stampin. This has given Pakatan Rakyata a new front in East Malaysia where they now hold three parliamentary seats and 11 state seats in Sabah, and picked up six parliamentary seats in Sarawak.

The Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) went from 15 seats to 6 federally, and to only 10 state seats, although they contested 37 parliamentary and 90 state seats. Gerakan now only has one seat in the parliament. The Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) won only four out the nine seats it contested. The Barisan is effectively a bumiputera government with little Chinese or Indian representation.

The two ultra Malay Perkasa candidates, Ibrahim Ali in Pasir Mas Kelantan and Zulkifli Noordin in Shah Alam, Selangor both lost to Pakatan Rakyat candidates, indicating that the electorate is not in favor of extreme politics.

The Democratic Action Party (DAP) is probably the exception. It has made massive gains both state and federally, making great inroads and winning many seats in the urban areas of Penang, Ipoh, Kuala Lumpur, Seremban, Melaka and in Johor. It has consolidated its position in holding Penang, and is now the biggest party in the opposition with 38 seats. This is in contrast to both PAS and PKR, which both lost federal seats.

From the Pakatan perspective, winning government from the 2008 base was probably too ambitious. Rarely can any opposition in a Westminster system make such gains in one election, and it is easy to forget the dissatisfactions back in 2008 with the Barisan that led to that result. Therefore making further electoral gains was not going to be easy, except perhaps in areas like Johor, Sabah, and Sarawak, which hadn't been focused on before.

From this reasoning perhaps Pakatan lost the election back in 2008 by not choosing to consolidate what it had won, and to pursue gaining government so vigorously. Where Pakatan ran effective and efficient governments, they gained; in Kedah, where internal problems were perceived, the state was lost, just as Pakatan lost Terengganu back in 1999.

Did two million rural voters decide for Malaysia?

Posted: 21 May 2013 01:44 PM PDT

"This point shows the inherent unfairness of the electoral system in Malaysia," he stated. "You would not find such a case in other mature democracies using FPTP."

Stephanie Sta Maria, fz.com

Among the election "literature" distributed prior to the 13th general election (GE13) was Tindak Malaysia's analysis of Malaysia's electoral outlook.

By virtue of Tindak Malaysia's position as a non-partisan community movement that conducted voter education and election agent training, the analysis was widely circulated via social media.

The analysis examined the 2008 political landscape and drew conclusions as to the probable results of the GE13.

Tindak Malaysia's main political premise was that BN would never lose a general election because its re-delineation strategy ensured that it won most of the smaller rural parliamentary seats while Pakatan Rakyat took most of the larger but lesser urban seats.

The movement ranked the 222 parliamentary constituencies according to the size of their voters based on 2008 data. Most of the rural areas, aside from Putrajaya, made up the first 112 seats.

To further illustrate its point, Tindak Malaysia compared the smallest parliamentary seat of Putrajaya to the largest seat of Kapar. Putrajaya's 6,608 voters when compared to Kapar's 112,224 voters resulted in a ratio of 1:17. This means one vote in Putrajaya is worth 17 in Kapar.

Today, Putrajaya and Kapar have 15,791 and 144,159 registered voters respectively.

According to Tindak Malaysia founder, Wong Piang Yow, BN only needed to win a simple majority of 51% in 112 of the smaller parliamentary seats to stay on as the ruling government also by a simple majority.

And based on his calculations, BN had easily won 112 seats within the first 139 seats (according to voters' size) in the 2008 general election with a total of 2.08 million votes.

"Do you agree that two million can decide for 28 million?" he asked in the analysis.

The official GE13 figures have yet to be gazetted but Wong has estimated that 2.26 million voters had decided for Malaysia on May 5.

Tindak Malaysia's analysis also emphasised that the bulk of the 112 seats were in Malay-majority rural areas and had a total voter count of less than 45,000 each.

"For a simple majority rule, the rural bumiputeras decide," Tindak Malaysia stated. "Only for two-thirds majority do the non-bumiputeras have a say."

"Is it a coincidence that the poorest groups with the worst infrastructure, education and healthcare facilities are the kingmakers?"

Kredit: www.malaysia-today.net

Rabu, 22 Mei 2013

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

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