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Candidate vs party: How to choose?
If I were Chua Soi Lek
Waytha, Najib gambling on the odds in high-stakes poker game!
Deregistration ‘threat’ that wasn’t

Posted: 20 Apr 2013 05:12 PM PDT

Eventually one of them turned to me and asked which party I would support. "Depends on who the candidate is, I suppose — if he is a good person or not," I said. They laughed and did not take my comments seriously. One even joked that "he meant it depends on who pays more."

Kharie Hisyam Aliman, TMI

I remember a time in my early teens when I sat near a group of adults discussing the pros and cons of BN and the opposition at a local kenduri.

I felt slighted, of course, but I said nothing and walked away. To me, individual merits should have as much importance as which political ideology the candidate subscribes to.

In light of the confirmation that DAP's candidates can contest GE13 with the party's rocket symbol, we are now left to wonder how people would have voted if DAP's candidates had been forced to contest under the logos of PAS and PKR respectively.

It would have presented interesting questions that should be considered even if the RoS–DAP episode never occurred. Would you vote based on which party the candidate represents or the individual merits of the candidate themselves? Which factor do you give more weight to?

Some, like former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, urged voters to cross BN's logo regardless of who is contesting. "We should come out in full force to vote for BN, don't care who the candidates are, don't look at their faces, and just cross the balance scale. The voters should remember that it is the party that forms the government, not the candidates," Tun Dr Mahathir was quoted as saying.

But then again, the party that forms the government comprises the candidates. These are the people who will be considering each Bill and proposed policy change which in turn will affect our lives and our country's progress.

They will be debating and arguing in Parliament on our behalf. Their personal leanings, what issues they feel strongly about (and don't) would affect what things they would fight for and against the hardest, and vice versa — would your representative reflect what you actually want?

So what sort of people we want to represent us in Parliament should matter as much as which party they belong to. Indeed, many grassroots leaders from both sides of the political divide appear to be well meaning, honest folks who genuinely care for the local community.

We like them because they help us with our grievances, issues, problems, and they are also accessible. The only obvious difference between them is which political party they belong to.

But as pointed out by a friend: "That in itself is a big difference ... what policies they support and champion."

READ MORE HERE

If I were Chua Soi Lek

Posted: 20 Apr 2013 01:43 PM PDT

I WOULD hate to be Chua Soi Lek at this point in time. With the general election looming, and Chinese Malaysian support for Barisan Nasional (BN) at an all-time low, it seems like the MCA is in for the toughest fight of its political life. So what can Chua do in the face of the seemingly insurmountable task to perform well in the elections? Here are some ideas that I would try, or would have tried, if I were him.

Chan Kheng Hoe, The Nut Graph

Nominate Ong Tee Keat for Gelang Patah

For sure, no politician would like to take on Lim Kit Siang in a Chinese-majority seat if they could help it. This means it would have been an excellent strategy to place Ong Tee Keat there, although the opportunity is now gone since the MCA has a nominated candidates' list sans Tee Keat. If Ong had been fielded and won, it would have been a major boost for the MCA and the BN. And if Ong had lost, then good riddance to him. Either way, it would have been a win for Chua.

Praise the DAP's Chinese credentials sky-high

The Chinese Malaysian vote seems to be lost anyway. So, this election is really about winning over fence-sitting Malay Malaysians. If these Malays sway to the BN, then it is all well and good. Otherwise, the BN itself would be at risk. So why not go after these fence-sitting Malays by promoting the DAP's Chinese credentials? Tell everyone how great the DAP is to the Chinese. Publicise how the DAP favours the Chinese over everyone else. Explain in detail how a "Malaysian Malaysia" would ultimately be good for the Chinese over every other race. By this, Chua would be driving fence-sitting Malays to the BN, which includes the MCA, of course.

Waytha, Najib gambling on the odds in high-stakes poker game!

Posted: 20 Apr 2013 12:49 PM PDT

Waytha is after just 20 per cent of the Indian votes, all from the underclass, to help make a difference. He assumes that Najib will be able to at least maintain the status quo as the last time. If not, it does not matter to him anyway and not because PR has pissed him off. He has his MOU, again an unprecedented feat in Malaysian political history. He can use it to whack any Government in Putrajaya.

Joe Fernandez

More brickbats than bouquets are pouring in thick and fast, albeit mostly from the opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) supporters, on the heels of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed Thurs evening, 18 April, 2013, in Kuala Lumpur at a Tamil school between the Persatuan Hindraf Malaysia (PHM) or Hindraf Association of Malaysia (HAM) and the outgoing Barisan Nasional (BN).

Hindraf Makkal Sakthi and PHM/HAM chairman P. Waythamoorthy signed on behalf of the latter organization.

BN Secretary-General Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor signed on behalf of the out-going ruling coalition.

Questions abound but more on that later.

Waytha himself has not made things any easier by issuing a statement Fri afternoon in which he declared: "It did not matter if the country was ruled by Ravana or Rama (the demon and the god respectively in Hindu mythology)."

This is not the first time that he has said this.

He has been chanting the same mantra during his enforced political asylum in England for four years until late last year.

PR should have been on the level with Hindraf from the beginning

In a telephone call on Fri morning, he said the MOU was a start and a historic one, the latter point one which can be conceded. He pointed out that BN accepted four – estate Indians, education, and business opportunities, stateless -- of Hindraf's six major demands and had PR accepted even one, he would have gladly supported the Opposition rather than the ruling party. Anwar did publicly declare that PR would resolve the problem of stateless people in Malaysia within the first 100 days of taking office.

The Opposition Alliance and Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim in particular, according to Waytha, continued to humiliate and insult Hindraf and made all sorts of derogatory statements against it including the claim that he was a racist and that he was heading an extremist outfit.

Two other keys points which he made during his telephone call was that PR denied the role played by Hindraf Makkal Sakthi in being the catalyst behind the 2008 political tsunami which saw the opposition sweeping into power in five states and taking Kuala Lumpur.

The other point is that PR maintained the fiction that Hindraf was a spent force and had splintered into many rival organisations against each other and "we don't know who the real Hindraf is and who to talk to".

"I am still around. Uthayakumar – his elder brother and a Hindraf co-founder -- is still around," said Waytha in the first indication that there was no split personally between him and his brother despite statements made by the latter's supporters. "That's why I mentioned that we will work to help return the two-thirds majority to BN."

Najib is all hot air as the Father of All Bullshitters, Muhyiddin plain dumb

Whether the MOU is legally binding or otherwise is beside the point, according to Waytha. "Other governments have signed MOUs with NGOs elsewhere in the world." He cited the Angola Government as a case in point. This is a political document, he stressed.

Waytha confirmed that he will be personally campaigning for the BN, but not MIC, come the 13th GE but had no specific details.

He pledged before signing off to take another call that "it will be War!" if the BN does not honour the MOU.

I think the most significant development on the MOU is that Najib apologized to the Indians for the wrongs committed against them by the Government over the last 56 years.

It's incriminating and legally significant. That covers the two points – deaths in police custody and institutionalized racism -- not in the MOU. It must be put on video and uploaded to the websites and You Tube. All Indians should applaud Najib for this in order to highlight the apology. I am going to ask Najib to apologise to Sabah and Sarawak for their 50 years of colonialism.

Obviously, Waytha and unelected caretaker Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak are gambling on the odds in a high-stakes poker game for the 13th General Election on May 5.

Waytha is more of a strategist than Najib will ever be. I won't be surprised if Waytha becomes Senior Advisor with Ministerial rank in the Prime Minister's Department if Najib survives the 13th GE. Waytha as Senior Advisor makes sense.

I am inclined more and more to the view that Najib is all hot air, as evident from his public image as the Father of All Bullshitters – wither the MOU! --, and Muhyiddin more than a little dumb upstairs. No wonder Mahathir is up the wall, if not around the bend.

Hindraf Makkal Sakthi remains a Hydra committed to human rights, equal rights

It remains to be seen whether Najib was a drowning man clutching at a straw – MOU -- or otherwise. If not, he took Waytha's advice on the MOU.

Dong Zong, the Chinese educationist group, must be chewing on their you know what. Najib took them for a ride on April 1, April Fool's Day, on Government recognition for the community-run Unified Examination Certificate (UEC), equivalent to the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) for High School graduates.

Hindraf activists linked to Uthaya are more than upset with Najib signing the Hindraf Blueprint with Waytha. They are wailing uncontrollably in FaceBook and elsewhere and beating their chests in unison that they were the ones who suffered in jail and under ISA but Waytha, according to them, has hijacked the movement for his self-glorification, whatever it means. This could turn out to be one of those Tamil melodramas from Tollywood.

The MOU is between Persatuan Hindraf Malaysia (PHM) and BN, according to Uthaya's people. In fact, they claim that the PHM was set up by Umno/BN just to sign the MOU. Persatuan Hindraf Malaysia (PHM) or Hindraf Association of Malaysia (HAM) is not Hindraf Makkal Sakthi, they say. PHM or HAM is a registered association. Hindraf Makkal Sakthi remains an ad hoc apolitical human rights NGO for all working across the political divide, according to Uthaya's people.

Waytha, in an email response to these claims, said: "What la J!"

Key elements missing from the Hindraf-BN Blueprint

I think it is okay for Indians to consider BN getting the biggest block of seats in Parliament but less than 112 seats -- purely on the grounds of giving them the benefit of the doubt for the MOU – but there are no guarantees the MOU will be implemented.

The racist civil service will sabotage it as in the case of the 3 per cent corporate equity plan for Indians, a 20 year old idea first raised by MIC and now recycled for the latest BN Manifesto.

Besides, it's a case of too little too late. The key element, the Ministry of Orang Asal and Minority Affairs, is missing from the MOU. Other issues like the anti-non-Malay administrative laws and deviations and distortions in the implementation of Article 153, NEP, and Article 3 are missing.

Is the Government still going to fiddle with public exam marks of students and call it "state secret" and continue to hand out free degrees to morons under the quota system including in critical disciplines?

Why did Najib wait until Parliament was dissolved to sign the MOU?

It's the Government – as in Angola -- which should sign the MOU, not the BN which may not form the Government after the GE.

No two-thirds majority for any ruling party in Putrajaya

One criticism leveled against the Hindraf-BN Blueprint is why Hindraf had to come out with such a Plan when the BN claims its Transformation Plans and Manifesto are inclusive and the Pakatan Rakyat claims that its Buku Jingga and Manifesto are needs-based. In fact, it's the work of the Government to come up with content like that in the Hindraf Blueprint. Indians shouldn't be begging for their rights. They should be accorded their rights automatically. If not for Hindraf, was the BN going to continue to ignore the Indians? The fact that BN signed the Hindraf Blueprint shows that Indians have been excluded from the so-called Transformation Plans.

If the MOU is implemented, Indians might be more comfortable with the idea of BN or any ruling party having a comfortable majority rather than the biggest block of seats in Parliament but less than 112 seats.

A two-third majority for Umno/BN is out of the question. Why does any ruling party or coalition need a two-thirds majority anyway? That's how the Indians and the other non-Malays got screwed in the first place especially since 13 May, 1969.

Waytha and Uthaya privately on the same page

The initial feedback, reflecting the Indian mood, is that the Tamil press is 100 per cent against the MOU on the grounds that it creates a dangerous precedent whereby the Government will ignore Indians and reduce them to begging for their rights and opportunities.

They are also suspicious that Hindraf got the MOU signed and not MIC. Why didn't the Government sign the MOU with the MIC? After all Hindraf is an association registered just last month. On what basis did BN sign the MOU with Hindraf?

Also, not being a political party, it looks odd for Hindraf to urge Indians to back Umno/BN when it was this very coalition which was responsible for the 56 years of internal colonization which the community suffered.

However, this does not mean that Waytha and I have parted company.

In fact, I am quite convinced that Uthaya is privately on the same page as well with Waytha. These two brothers have never once directly attacked each other below the belt. That should tell us all something.

If anyone plays out Waytha on the MOU, they will have to deal with Uthaya who has agreed to disagree with his younger brother for the moment and this writer.

Joe Fernandez is a graduate mature student of law and an educationist, among others, who loves to write especially Submissions for Clients wishing to Act in Person. He also tutors at local institutions. He feels compelled, as a semi-retired journalist, to put pen to paper -- or rather the fingers to the computer keyboard -- whenever something doesn't quite jell with his weltanschauung (worldview) or to give a Hearing to All. He shuttles between points in the Golden Heart of Borneo formed by the Sabah west coast, Labuan, Brunei, northern Sarawak and the watershed region in Borneo where three nations meet. He's half-way through a semi-autobiographical travelogue, A World with a View.

Deregistration ‘threat’ that wasn’t

Posted: 18 Apr 2013 01:34 PM PDT

Had the DAP immediately called an EGM to seek ratification of the results by the delegates or called for a new vote, the matter would have probably ended there.

Gobind Rudra, FMT

The Registrar of Societies couldn't have timed it better if he had deliberately sought to create public sympathy for the DAP and provide the party with an emotional stick with which to beat up the Barisan Nasional.

Sure enough, his letter to the DAP withholding recognition of the party's central executive committee provided the impetus for high drama, a crisis, and grandstanding by the DAP and Pakatan Rakyat, with accompanying news headlines heightening the siege mentality (well-founded in the past) by which the party has thrived for all these years.

Cast aside the emotion, and start at the beginning: the DAP dug a hole for itself when it announced a "spreadsheet error" in tabulating the Dec 15 party election results.

The central committee changed the order of votes, and announced a slightly different line-up from that reported at the party convention, allowing Zairil Khir Johari into the CEC, three weeks after the convention.

Had the DAP immediately called an extraordinary general meeting to seek ratification of the results by the delegates or called for a new vote, the matter would have probably ended there and not landed on the Registrar's desk.

Instead, the central leadership dealt with the problem internally, no doubt in a businesslike manner through audits, before submitting the amended results to the Registrar. By doing so, they provided him a reason to question the results.

If there is any doubt about the CEC election results, it follows that the same doubt applies to the status of the central committee, which came into existence as a result of that election.

The Registrar's letter to the party on Wednesday records that logic. When he said that he could not give recognition to the central committee, did the Registrar have any other option? A doubtful election means the CEC itself is also doubtful.

The Registrar has given the DAP 30 days to answer his queries about the election results and another matter of 700 or so members not being given proper notice of the party convention.

That keeps the DAP still in business: the Registrar has not declared the elections null and void, or the central committee null and void. Any decision about the legality of the elections would only come after the party has replied.

Stand by for some extra election eve drama, then. The latest date for the DAP to reply is May 17.

Kredit: www.malaysia-today.net

Ahad, 21 April 2013

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

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