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SNAP may see a change of guard
‘Pak Lah’s sister-in-law arranged aircraft deal’
The haze and the malaise
Historical reconstruction again?
Malaysia's parallel judicial systems come up against legal challenge

Posted: 08 Sep 2011 06:08 PM PDT

Following an embarrassing defeat in the April 16 state election, SNAP may overhaul its leadership in preparation for the 13th general election.

(Free Malaysia Today) - Sarawak National Party (SNAP), which dropped out of the political radar screen following its embarrassing performance in April 16 state election, may see changes in its leadership ahead of the 13th general election.

The party is scheduled to have its triennial general assembly and elections on Sept 24 and 25.

Already word is that the presidency is being contested.

Beleagured SNAP president Edwin Dundang, who was blamed for the party's poor performance during the polls, had in June indicated that he would step down to give way to "fresh young blood".

"We have many capable young leaders who can take SNAP back to its former glory," he had told FMT.

But few took Dundang's words seriously.

Yesterday, party secretary-general Stanley Jugol confirmed that Dundang had reiterated his stand.

"It is most likely that the party will have a new president…

"The president (Dundang) has said that he wants young blood to take over," Jugol said, adding that three contenders had already picked up the nomination forms.

Nomination for the president's post closes on Sept 17.

When asked if he was one of the contenders, Jugol said: "Many (party members) have asked me to vie for the post…"

Polls performance

Meanwhile, the general assembly is expected to be a heated affair.

The SNAP leaders have a lot of explaining to do in relation to the state election and its credibility following various allegations.

In the April 16 polls, SNAP contested in 26 constituencies and lost all its deposits except one.

In the runup to the polls, SNAP was deeply embroiled in a seat tussle with Pakatan Rakyat coalition partner PKR.

It also had to contend with allegations that it was a Barisan Nasional stooge.

SNAP has, however, denied allegations that it was a BN ally and accused Umno spinmasters of destroying the party's credibility.

Many observers, however, felt that it was a wrong move for the party to have even considered contesting in the April 16 polls especially since it had been in political slumber since November 2002.

That year SNAP was de-registered after it failed to resolve a protracted leadership crisis.

However in June last year, the party finally succeeded in getting the Court of Appeal to set aside its de-registration.

Any plans for a slow comeback, however, was thwarted when speculations of a possible state election began surfacing and SNAP, with its impressive pedigree, became a target for an ambitious Pakatan Rakyat.

Posted: 08 Sep 2011 06:01 PM PDT

A leaked 2006 US cable noted that Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's sister-in-law was involved in the procurement of a US$400 million aircraft deal.

In citing another example, the cable said that the sellers – local politicians, agents, civil servants and military personnel – all received a 30% commission from the procurement of T91 Polish tanks and SU-30 Russian aircraft.

K Kabilan, Free Malaysia Today

A confidential US diplomatic cable from 2006 has claimed that then prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's sister-in-law was allegedly involved in the procurement of a US$400 million aircraft deal.

According to the cable, Abdullah's brother had also suggested that the deal was done in return for a commission, ostensibly for the sister-in-law.

The cable stated that Abdullah made the announcement for the purchase of the cargo aircraft from European makers Airbus after his trip to France.

"Prime Minister Abdullah's sister-in-law arranged a US$400 million contract to purchase military cargo aircraft from Airbus.

"There had been no indication that the Malaysian military were in the market for a new cargo aircraft prior to this announcement," said the cable. It did not name the sister-in-law.

The cable quoted a source who said he was informed by Abdullah's brother that the aircraft was "done for political or other reasons, such as commission".

This particular deal was pointed out by the US diplomats in their cable to highlight the weakenesses in the Malaysian procurement process.

They said that Malaysia's procurement process, which plays a large role in the nation's economy, fell short in three key areas: lack of transparency, outright corruption, and Bumiputera requirements and preferences.

'30% commission'

The cable, sent from the US embassy here to the State Department in Washington, outlined corruption as a significant problem, particularly for larger contracts, and gave examples of the alleged involvement of the then prime minister, his deputy and the ruling party Umno.

The US diplomats also said that their source – an executive at a US aerospace firm – was allegedly approached by someone purporting to work for (the then) Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Najib (Tun Razak) about a deal, suggesting, "you will get a part of it". The source declined this offer, added the cable.

Other sources had also similarly informed the US diplomats of corruption in the Malaysian procurement process.

The cable stated that political parties, including the ruling Umno, relied on money politics for much of their operating funds.

"Projects or tenders often are awarded as political patronage, with a cut of the funds circulating back to the party through different channels," stated that cable dated June 6, 2006.

The confidential cable was leaked by whistleblower site WikiLeaks to the Malaysia Today blog run by Raja Petra Kamarudin who posted it today.

READ MORE HERE

The haze and the malaise

Posted: 08 Sep 2011 03:04 PM PDT

By Banyan

Ethnic politics makes Malaysia's transition to a contested democracy fraught and ugly.

SKYSCRAPERS and lampposts in Kuala Lumpur are still festooned with flags left over from independence day festivities at the end of August. Fittingly, this week they were shrouded in the annual "haze" of smog from forest fires on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Malaysia's politicians are not in the mood to celebrate nationhood and unity. Rather, with an election in the offing, everything is a chance for political point-scoring.

That includes independence itself. One huge banner in the centre of the capital shows the country's six prime ministers since the British left in 1957, with the incumbent, Najib Razak, in the foreground, gazing into a visionary future. All six hailed from the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), which has led the "Barisan Nasional" (BN) coalition government ever since 1957. Some opposition politicians now complain that the official narrative of Malaysia's history ignores the role of non-UMNO freedom fighters. Since the most recent general election, in March 2008, the opposition has had a real chance of winning power. For the first time since independence in 1957, the BN lost its two-thirds majority in Parliament that allowed it to amend the constitution on its own. No longer a one-coalition state, the opposition argues, Malaysia has to rethink its own history.

The next election is not due until 2013. But, out of tradition and political calculation, Mr Najib is expected to call it earlier—and to win it. Some think it could come this year, after a generous government budget in October. A crowded calendar of regional summitry makes that awkward, and Mr Najib has other reasons for delay. Since he took over in 2009, he has launched a plethora of initiatives to improve Malaysians' lives and a "Performance and Delivery Unit" to implement them. Results take time.

Three factors, however, argue for a hasty dash to the polls. The first is that Mr Najib, who took over UMNO and the prime ministership after the BN's unprecedentedly poor showing in 2008, still had an approval rating of 59% in a recent survey. That is well below his initial popularity, however, and he will not want to mimic Britain's Gordon Brown in delaying too long before seeking his own mandate. Second, economic storm clouds are gathering in the West. Malaysia's economy is still growing at over 4% a year, but is vulnerable to a downturn in external demand.

Third, the opposition coalition is in some disarray. Its figurehead, Anwar Ibrahim, is on trial for sodomy, illegal in Malaysia, and many expect him to go back to jail soon, as he did (for the same alleged offence) in 1998. He is a divisive figure. But without him, there is no obvious opposition candidate for prime minister. The president of his party is his wife, and its most impressive politician is his 30-year-old daughter, Nurul Izzah. The other components of the coalition are the Democratic Action Party, which draws its support from the Chinese minority, and an Islamic party known as PAS, whose religious conservatism alienates many liberal Malays. So there is even talk of a revival of the prime ministerial ambitions of Razaleigh Hamzah, a veteran UMNO rebel, as an opposition rallying point.

The government helpfully provided another rallying point with its cack-handed crackdown on an NGO-led protest in Kuala Lumpur in July calling for electoral reform. Mr Najib has since agreed to a parliamentary committee to look into the demands, which are mostly unexceptionable: to clean up voters' lists, allegedly swollen with "phantoms"; to extend the election-campaign period, at present just seven to nine days; to tighten up the postal-vote system; and so on. But he has not agreed to postpone an election until after the committee has ruled.

Whatever technical reforms are made before the next election, it will still be dominated by the original sin of ethnic discrimination set out in the country's 1957 constitution. This was designed to allay the fears of the majority ethnic-Malay population of being marginalised by Chinese and Indian minorities, which now make up respectively 23% and 7% of the population of 28m. Perks, much extended after race riots in 1969 (still often referred to in Malaysia as if they happened yesterday), gave Malays privileged access to public-sector jobs, university places, stockmarket flotations and government contracts.

Both government and opposition talk of dismantling these privileges, which have contributed to corruption and large-scale emigration. Mr Najib has indeed started tinkering with Malay privileges, much to the outrage of the UMNO right and a vocal Malay-rights ginger group known as Perkasa. Ibrahim Ali, Perkasa's front man, argues that, with the Malay vote split, the minorities have disproportionate electoral power, to which the mainstream parties pander.

Malay power

That is nonsense. As elections loom, it is the Malay voter whose opinion matters, and he is assumed to resent any effort to curtail his privileges. And that means that both coalitions have to resort to defending the indefensible: a system in which families that have lived in Malaysia for generations are told to tolerate discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, to bolster allegedly fragile racial harmony. Malays and minorities alike lament that the races are living increasingly separate lives—studying in different schools, eating different foods and going to different parties. The divide is further widened as more Malays, who, constitutionally, are all Muslims, become religiously conservative.

The Malaysian malaise stems from the congruence of two seemingly conflicting trends. One is the healthy development of pluralist competition in a system that had seemed stuck for ever in an UMNO-dominated quasi-democracy. The other is the sharpening of ethnic and religious dividing lines. It is alarming that, instead of seeing competitive politics as a way of bridging the ethnic divide, too many Malaysian politicians see the ethnic divide as a way of winning the political competition.

Historical reconstruction again?

Posted: 05 Sep 2011 03:55 PM PDT

By Farish Noor, Harakah Daily

And so, for reasons that are both complex and irritating, the past is being dragged into the present yet again; while we Malaysians bury our heads in the sand and neglect the future.

By now most of us will be familiar with yet another controversy-in-a-teacup that has grabbed the headlines: namely the question of whether the events that took place during the attack on the police outpost in Bukit Kepong ought to be remembered as a historic event in the Malayan struggle for independence.

Unfortunately for all parties concerned it seems that the issue has been hijacked by politics and politicians yet again, as is wont to happen in Malaysia on a daily basis almost. More worrying still is how the manifold aspects of this event have been taken up selectively by different parties and actors to further their own arguments, while neglecting to look at the wider context against which the event took place. It is almost impossible to be truly objective when it comes to the writing and reading of history, and perhaps we can do away with that pretense. But for now perhaps some marginal notes on the matter might come in useful to clear the air a bit.

A. Was PAS pro-Communist?

One of the outcomes of this debate has been the resurrection of the old question of whether PAS (The Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party) was pro-Communist at that point in its history. This seems an odd question to ask in the first place, as it seems incongruous for an Islamic party to harbour any real sympathy for Communism, which has always been seen as the bugbear to the Islamist cause.

But it has to be remembered that when the Malayan Islamic party was first formed in November 1951, many of its founder-leaders were anti-colonial nationalists who were keen to see the end of British rule in Malaya. Some of them were former members of the Parti Kebangsaan Melayu Malaya (PKMM) and also the first Islamic party in the country, the Hizbul Muslimin (that was formed, and almost immediately banned, in 1948)

PAS's left-leaning days were at their peak during the presidency of Dr Burhanuddin al-Helmy (1956-1969), who did not hide his opposition to British rule and who refused to negotiate a settlement with the British then. Dr. Burhanuddin was sympathetic to the Malayan Communist Party (MCP), whose anti-British sentiments he shared; but this does not mean he supported Communism as an ideology.

PAS's stand towards the MCP then (in the 1950s and 1960s) was thus a pragmatic one that was based on the same goal of rejecting British colonial rule. However, it has to be noted that PAS was equally wary of Beijing's influence in the region, and there is nothing to suggest that the leaders of PAS would have ever accepted Malaya coming under Communist rule, albeit directly or indirectly, from Beijing.

B. Was the MCP a tool of Communist China?

That the MCP and its guerilla wing were against any and all forms of British colonial rule is simple enough to verify, and their record of anti-colonial struggle is there for anyone to investigate.

The more difficult question to answer however is this: How independent was the MCP, and was it - as the British alleged - working to further China's communist influence in the region then?
The British were somewhat ham-fisted when dealing with the MCP, and it ought to be noted that the invention of the image of the MCP as a 'Chinese threat' was the work of the British colonial propaganda agencies then.

Here, however, a broader perspective on the matter might come in handy. Think of Malaya in the 1950s and envisage the region as a whole, as the Cold War was heating up. In Vietnam, Burma and Indonesia the Communists were gaining strength in numbers; and perhaps the biggest worry to Britain then (as to the departing French and Dutch colonial powers) was the possibility that all of southeast asia might turn Communist.

Remember that this was the time when the region was called 'the Second Front in the war against Communism'; and when the Western bloc was keen to ensure that Indonesia - being the biggest country in the region - would not come under the rule of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).

Posted: 05 Sep 2011 03:11 PM PDT

By Jennifer Pak, BBC News

As a Buddhist, Tan Cheow Hong didn't expect to run up against Malaysia's Islamic laws.

Then last November, his estranged wife showed up at their child's school with a court order from a Sharia judge, who had granted her temporary custody of their 7-year-old.

The wife took their daughter away with the help of Islamic officials and police.

"If I had tried to stop them they would have arrested me," says Mr Tan.

He says he had no idea his wife had become a Muslim. The next day his wife converted their daughter to Islam without Mr Tan's consent. That means both mother and child are now subject to Islamic law, which does not apply to non-Muslims like Mr Tan.

He is now filing for child custody through the civil court while his wife is fighting for the case to be heard in the country's Sharia court.

Blurred lines

The case highlights a growing problem with Malaysia's separate judicial systems and those caught in between. Muslims are bound by Sharia law on personal matters like marriage and custody rights, while members of other faiths follow civil law.

Yet the lines become blurred when cases involve both Muslims and non-Muslims. Analysts say some disgruntled spouses are exploiting the parallel judicial system.

The most high profile case involved an ethnic Indian couple who were married in a Hindu ceremony. The couple separated and the father became a Muslim. Then he secretly converted his two children to Islam and obtained custody through the Sharia court.

The Hindu mother was also granted guardianship, but through the civil courts. After several years the case is still in the courts to determine which court has jurisdiction to hear the matter.

In a desperate bid to escape the Sharia court order, the mother took the two children and fled the country.

Cases such as these have sowed a feeling of distrust among some non-Muslims who feel that the 'quick conversions' of children with the consent of only one parent are being allowed by religious authorities because of a rising tide of Islamisation in the country.

Courts defended

Mr Tan's estranged wife, Fatimah Fong Abdullah, refused to comment on her case to the BBC, but her lawyers confirmed that the child was converted after she returned to her mother. They are fighting to have the case heard in Sharia court.

The Muslim Lawyers Association argues that non-Muslims can submit themselves to the Sharia court jurisdiction.

"It is a fallacy that the Sharia court is religious," vice president Abdul Rahim Sinwan said in a statement to the BBC.

"The court is another system which can be alternative or in fact complement the present civil system."

There is a misguided perception that non-Muslims cannot get justice in the Sharia court but there are plenty of Sharia lawyers willing to give them fair representation, said Mr Rahim.

Law experts say the issue stems back to 1988, when the Constitution was amended to state that civil courts cannot hear matters that fall within the jurisdiction of Sharia courts.

This was meant to prevent Muslims unhappy with a Sharia judge's order from running to civil courts to challenge it, but in practice many claim it has also allowed Sharia courts to expand their remit.

Although government officials have said they will address the problems between Sharia and civil courts, nothing has been translated into law yet.

Alternative representation

In the absence of a remedy, a Christian lawyer is now fighting to practice in Sharia courts to give non-Muslims fairer representation.

Victoria Jayaseele Martin says she is qualified because she holds a diploma in Sharia law from the prestigious International Islamic University Malaysia.

But the religious council in charge of Kuala Lumpur says she cannot practice in Sharia court because she is not a Muslim. Ms Martin is currently appealing against the decision.

Since non-Muslims are being asked to take cases involving Islam to the Sharia court, Ms Martin says they need effective counsel, especially in conversion cases.

Legal limbo

But even with effective counsel in the Sharia court, non-Muslim Mr Tan says he will not subject himself to Islamic law.

Mr Tan is asking the civil court to decide whether one parent can convert the religion of a child without the consent of the other. He also wants the judge to declare that the Sharia court had overstepped its boundary when it granted his wife custody of the child, who was a non-Muslim when the order was issued.

The case is still stuck in the court process. For now he lives in limbo. Every two weeks he takes a five hour bus journey to Kuala Lumpur to see his daughter. It is part of the temporary custody settlement by the civil court.

"If my wife is in a good mood, then she'll allow me to see our daughter. If not, then she won't," he says.

Mr Tan is prepared to push his case up to the country's highest court.

But he feels the law is helpless.

"This type of case is very difficult to resolve in Malaysia because Islam is supreme."

Kredit: www.malaysia-today.net

Jumaat, 9 September 2011

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

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