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Posted: 15 May 2013 01:41 PM PDT

Why would Umno want to rid itself of a leader who won an unwinnable election for Barisan Nasional?

Almost two million Chinese voted for Pakatan – largely for DAP really. They voted for DAP in the hope that Pakatan will form government, and that DAP will have effective control of that government. This is NOT what you or I think but this is what a vast majority of the Malays think. It is irrelevant whether it was Umno that put that thought in their mind or whether they worked it out for themselves.

CT Ali, FMT

If Pakatan Rakyat expects Najib Tun Razak to accept defeat at the polls graciously, why don't they graciously accept his victory at the very same polls?

The 13th general election is a done deal. A 44 seat margin win is emphatic! The loss or gain of a few marginal seats would not have made a difference to the final outcome of this 13th general election.

This is not an election where the popular vote of the people determine who should form government. When Pakatan submitted itself to the electoral process, it must do so in its entirety.

This means accepting that the party with a simple majority will form government – an anomaly that would have applied equally to Barisan Nasional or Pakatan Rakyat.

That it favoured Barisan Nasional is moot. This is a separate issue of rampant gerrymandering to be addressed later.

There are also concerns about voting irregularities and we know that Pakatan faced significant restrictions on access to the media but there is a process to resolve those vexing issues of voting irregularities and that process, however tainted, should start now while BN goes on with the business of government.

The allegations that the Election Commission conducted itself with dishonor by doing the bidding of its political master is an issue to be addressed at a more opportune time – not now!

In the final analysis there are enough people who believe that BN has done a satisfactory job and deserve another term in government.

Will Pakatan and Anwar Ibrahim be magnanimous in defeat and proceed with the next business at hand – that of assisting the authorities to investigate any irregularities in the 13th general election, and start its onerous duties as the Opposition to a weakened and bloodied BN government?

In the end there is no gain for BN as they lost eight seats to Pakatan, but give Najib credit for taking BN through a harrowing 13th general election.

Why would Umno want to rid itself of a leader who won an unwinnable election for Barisan Nasional? It was an election that was Pakatan's to lose. And lose it they did!

The race card

The elephant in the room that Pakatan refused to acknowledge was the race factor. This is not about whether you or I are mature enough to NOT make race a factor.

We have already established the fact that we do not want race and religion to be a factor in determining the manner in which each and every one of us will be treated by our government.

Meritocracy should rule the day. Unfortunately the reality is that a critical mass within the Malaysian population will make race and religion their criteria in deciding who should govern Malaysia.

Almost two million Chinese voted for Pakatan – largely for DAP really. They voted for DAP in the hope that Pakatan will form government, and that DAP will have effective control of that government.

This is NOT what you or I think but this is what a vast majority of the Malays think. It is irrelevant whether it was Umno that put that thought in their mind or whether they worked it out for themselves.

That is what the critical mass within the Malay community thought would happen if Pakatan won the election – and guess what they did to counter that possibility? They voted for Umno.

Yes Lim Kit Siang won the battle in Gelang Patah but Pakatan did not win the war against BN.

Kit Siang going into Gelang Patah was exactly what Umno needed to get the Malays on side – and they had the DAP to thank for it. DAP spooked the Malays into voting for Umno.

The big losers

The biggest loser of the 13th general election was MCA and PAS.

Najib had nothing to do with MCA being rejected by the Chinese. MCA leaders did it all by themselves without any help from anybody.

READ MORE HERE

Another May 13 in the offing?

Posted: 15 May 2013 01:36 PM PDT

For the sake of this country, the writer hopes his entire analysis is rubbish, and that he will be proven absolutely wrong and a pessimistic idiot.

Before moving on let me just clarify that this analysis is not meant to monger fear or accuse the government of anything. It is a hypothesis based on my historical analysis of post-election trends in Malaysia, and as with all hypotheses, is unproven and certainly not set in stone.

By Ong Kar Jin, FMT

May 13 has arrived and passed with no major incidents. For many Malaysians who sit uneasily with the date, there is a culpable sense of relief. However, is the threat of a nationwide disturbance over?

Is it possible still in this day and age for something on the scale of the May 13 riots to reoccur?

This article seeks to analyse and answer two main questions:

How possible is it to have some sort of disturbance that will spark unrest?

What form might it take?

Through a careful examination of past incidences of civil unrest in Malaysia, three incidents in particular stand out for their scale, their impact on the political narrative of Malaysia, and their nature.

The three incidents I speak of are the May 13, 1969 riots, the 1987-1988 Operation Lalang and judicial crisis, and the 1998 sacking of Anwar Ibrahim and the subsequent Reformasi movement.

In considering the events leading up to, during and following the events, three key traits stand out.

Internal Umno struggle

Firstly and perhaps most importantly, all three incidences have taken place in the foreground of internal Umno struggles.

In Dr Kua Kia Soong's thesis of May 13, he posits that the riots were in fact a coup d'état initiated by the ascendant Malay capitalist class under Razak to replace the Malay aristocratic class lead by Tunku Abdul Rahman.

The validity of Kua's statement is subject to debate, but the swift and stunning reversal of fortunes that Tunku Abdul Rahman suffered cannot be discounted as coincidence. Even if the riots were not facilitated by the top leadership of the right wing of Umno, Razak certainly made full use of the opportunity to grab the reins of government.

Recently, Gerakan veteran Dr Goh Cheng Teik and ex-Umno strongman Mohd Tamrin Abdul Ghafar came out to clarify that May 13 was indeed an internal coup orchestrated by irate Umno members against Rahman.

The 1987-1988 Operation Lalang also had similar internal rumblings. In fact, the judicial crisis roots lay in the dismissal of Umno as an illegal organisation due to complaints from Tengku Razaleigh's Umno Team B.

The same goes for the mass arrests that followed the Reformasi movement. Again, it was an inside Umno fight between then deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim and Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Time and time again, Umno leaders especially those from the right wing have shown that they are more than willing to externalize internal struggles to distract people from the real issues and to eliminate opposition.

Come this October, Umno internal elections will be held, and it will be a titanic clash between the reformers under Najib Tun Razak and the Mahathirists under Muhyiddin Yassin's tutelage.

The first shots have already been fired by Mahathir, calling Najib's performance a "disappointment" and openly stating before elections that given a slim victory Najib should give way to deputy Muhyiddin.

Need for consolidation of power

The second trait is a need for constitutional/ law changing. As we all know, the last time Umno was in government with a minority of the popular vote was in 1969. Post-1969, constitutional amendments made the EC beholden to Barisan Nasional and various laws such as the Sedition Act were strengthened.

Similarly, in 1988 the threat from the Semangat 46' coalition formed posed enough of a threat to the Umno hegemony of power that the Mahathir felt was necessary to cripple the judiciary and rob it of its independence.

These changes in law to consolidate Umno dominance have however often been met with significant opposition. It is because of the backlash that comes with these changes in the institutions and dilution of the rule of law that such exercises have needed to be preceded by mass arrests/ unrest preventing any coordinated response.

The Reformasi movement of 1998 was rife with similar arrests, but with a firm 76.56% of seats, BN could comfortably continue its gerrymandering, mal-apportionment exercises.

One must also bear in mind that due to 1998 being led by Anwaristas, it took on a different nature.

At the end of this year, there will be a re-delineation exercise that threatens to entrench BN firmly in power, no matter what the popular vote turns out to be in GE14. Civil society, opposition politicians and proactive citizens have already begun raising awareness of the exercise.

The rakyat, especially urban folk, are acutely aware of their rights and attendance at rallies such as the May 8 Kelana Jaya rally have shown that from here on escalation of civil action can be only grow.

It would require a major distraction on an unprecedented scale to divert attention away from the re-delineation exercise.

Incitement of racial sentiments

The third trait that has preceded such incidents is the exacerbation (or in some cases manufacturing) of racial sentiments.

This has largely been the domain of the government-controlled mainstream media. In 1969, the mainstream media reported Labour Party processions as shouting "Malai-si!" and provoking the Malays.

However, such accounts are doubted and are contradictory to the foreign press accounts that reported the procession as a show of "discipline" and "genuine restraint".

In 1988, Utusan Malaysia blew the issue of Chinese educationists out of proportion. What followed were the mass arrests of not just prominent members of Dong Zong but also of activists and opposition politicians.

In 1999, BN blew up fears of Islamisation, loss of non-Malay rights etc to secure a win despite losing the popular vote of Malays to the Barisan Alternatif.

Now the racist rhetoric has reached an all-time high. From Utusan Malaysia's "Apa Lagi Cina Mahu" (What More Do The Chinese Want?) , an ex-judge's warning of backlash against the Chinese, to PM Najib's "Chinese Tsunami", all Umno media seems to be blasting out racism at every avenue.

READ MORE HERE

Finally, KJ

Posted: 15 May 2013 12:09 PM PDT

Khairy has weathered the storm. Even his political foes and detractors acknowledge that he deserved a ministerial post, citing his loyalty to Umno when he was being sidelined and the number of times he responded in the name of the party in facing off the opposition and NGOs in debates and what not.

Mohsin Abdullah, fz.com

I'M SORRY I can't resist but to begin this piece like this. Who is KJ? The answer depends on who you ask and where you ask the question.

In PAS, KJ is Datuk Kamaruddin Jaafar, MP for Tumpat. In PKR, its Khalid Jaafar, who lost in Hulu Selangor in the recent general election. But the KJ of the hour must surely be Khairy Jamaluddin, Umno Youth chief and MP for Rembau.

So finally Khairy has made it into the Malaysian cabinet. Expected of course, as many believed Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak simply can't ignore the young Umno leader anymore.

As we know, he missed the boat or rather was overlooked when Najib named his cabinet upon taking over from Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in 2009. This is despite Khairy winning the Rembau seat in 2008 and the Umno Youth top post.

If that wasn't bad enough, his deputy in Umno Youth Datuk Razali Ibrahim and also the man he had beaten in the Youth polls Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir leapfrogged him – apparently earning the trust of the PM as deputy ministers in the Najib administration.

And we all know the tirade and onslaught launched by former PM Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. And of course, the many allegations and controversies.

To cut a long story, Khairy has weathered the storm. Even his political foes and detractors acknowledge that he deserved a ministerial post, citing his loyalty to Umno when he was being sidelined and the number of times he responded in the name of the party in facing off the opposition and NGOs in debates and what not.

So now he's a minister. Of course the hows and whys are a plenty. But all that is for another day. The story now is the cabinet that Khairy is in.

Minutes after Najib named his cabinet – live on national TV – I asked several analysts, political observers and commentators for their views. All of them mentioned Khairy first. As if to suggest that's the only bight spark in an otherwise "not exciting" cabinet line-up. I'm being polite here in using "not exciting".

"The cabinet is a recycled cabinet although there are new faces. To me, the inclusion of KJ is the only thing worth talking about," said a long-time observer who had served the government years ago.

He went on to say: "And seen from an Umno political perspective, the PM finally acknowledged the need to have the Ketua Pemuda in the cabinet. And now that Khairy has position (as a minister), his footing in Umno is entrenched and his political base strengthened," he added, casting an eye on the Umno party polls in November.

In short, pretenders to the Umno Youth crowd (should Khairy want to defend it, chances are he will and won't go for higher posts, at least for now) would think twice before mounting a challenge.

Read more at: http://fz.com/content/finally-kj

What if only taxpayers were allowed to vote?

Posted: 15 May 2013 12:06 PM PDT

We cannot ignore the obvious: vote buying is rampant in all our elections because there is no shortage of vote sellers. Anyone who sells his or her vote clearly does not understand or appreciate the democratic institutions that so many Filipinos have fought so hard to attain.

Manila Times

This is one of those proposals that crops up every so often, but which never goes anywhere because too many sectors slam it as anti-poor, anti-democratic, and anti-populist.

It may be all of the above, but it is also a sensible proposition when you get right down to it.

Who, after all, has a bigger stake on the future of the country than the working men and women who fund the government's day-to-day operations with their taxes?

And what of the millions of poor Filipinos who cannot pay taxes? opponents to the proposal will ask.

This is precisely the point. All they have to do is to work their way up to taxpayer status, and voila! They can become active participants in all the electoral exercises. They don't even have to be among the top taxpayers either. Anyone who pays a minimum amount of taxes— say P1,000 a year in basic income tax—can qualify to become a voter.

We cannot ignore the obvious: vote buying is rampant in all our elections because there is no shortage of vote sellers. Anyone who sells his or her vote clearly does not understand or appreciate the democratic institutions that so many Filipinos have fought so hard to attain.

Call them the masa if you wish. They are the ones who keep dynasties in power because they refuse to fight for a better quality of elected leadership. They are the ones who elect con men to public office on the premise that they would do the same things if they were given the chance to become mayors, senators, governors, congressmen and yes, presidents.

Another impossible condition
Add to this requirement another one that will have human rights groups up in arms —only those who can read and write should have the right to vote.

This, too, is another sound proposal that deserves serious consideration once the emotional arguments are set aside.

This can be implemented not in the next elections, but somewhere down the road. Those who say that it is an anti-poor proposal should be reminded that poverty cannot be used as an excuse to get an elementary education. The government's conditional cash transfer (CCT) program sees to it that the poorest of the poor may not use their economic state as an excuse to deprive their kids of an education.

For one, education is free nationwide. And secondly, they receive cash from the government on the condition that their kids of school age be enrolled.

Kredit: www.malaysia-today.net

Khamis, 16 Mei 2013

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

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