Isnin, 15 April 2013

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

0 ulasan
Klik GAMBAR Dibawah Untuk Lebih Info
Sumber Asal Berita :-

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News


I love it when I can say, “I told you so”

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 06:02 PM PDT

I think two submarines failing to prevent 100 illegal immigrants from entering Sabah is a pretty good track record considering that the US has 71 nuclear-class submarines and they still can't stop 11 million illegal immigrants from entering the country.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Bishop Paul Tan said that despite the government knowing that Sunday is a holy day where Christians must go to Church and worship God, EC has fixed May 5th for polling. "This disrespect of the government of the Christian rights is to be denounced. It just proves that the government is not sincere in its 1Malaysia slogan."

*****************************************

"That is not democracy, that is communism," said Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat. "If you want to vote, go vote. But don't force people into choosing a party."

*****************************************

"Even I never worked that hard. But I must admit that the support (for BN) was very obvious (when I was PM). That's why I won five elections, each one with a two-thirds majority (in Parliament)," said former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

*****************************************

So far it has been, as a friend remarked the other day, "a very American election". With its mobilising and symbolic focus on PM Datuk Seri Najib Razak, the GE13 "pre-campaign" has been nothing if not "presidential". When an election is focused, through one key initiative, upon the fate of the national leader who is uniquely identified with that measure, we may well characterise the campaign as presidential. -- Clive Kessler.

*****************************************

As I write this, 87 comments have been posted in my article Should Tun Dr Mahathir be put to death? The comments would have been more than 100 had I not deleted about 20 or 30 comments that were so out of topic.

Those 20 or 30 comments I deleted talked about the reason and manner that Tun Dr Mahathir should be killed. Others debated Christianity and the New and Old Testaments and so on.

If you are a student of English literature and if you had read George Orwell's Animal Farm then you will know that the book is not about animals or farms. It is about Communism. Can you imagine Malaysia Today's readers reading that book and then debating as to why pork is haram in Islam (and Judaism) and therefore pigs should not be elected the leader of the animals?

Nevertheless, that would be exactly what Malaysia Today's readers would do. One reader said that I should go to Oxford and take an English language course so that I can learn how to write properly and, therefore, people can better understand what I am saying in my articles.

Sivarasa Rasiah, the 'caretaker' Member of Parliament for Subang, gave a talk in Kota Damansara two nights ago (with Bersih Chairperson Ambiga Sreenevasan in tow) and he commented that Malaysia wasted so much money buying two submarines and yet they could not stop the Filipinos from sneaking into Sabah. The United States has 71 submarines and yet they too can't seem to stop the 11 million illegal immigrants from entering the country.

I think two submarines failing to prevent 100 illegal immigrants from entering Sabah is a pretty good track record considering that the US has 71 nuclear-class submarines and they still can't stop 11 million illegal immigrants from entering the country.

Anyway, why is Ambiga escorting Sivarasa to a PKR ceramah when she said she is not campaigning for PKR? As they say in the legal fraternity (and Sivarasa and Ambiga are both lawyers): justice must not only be done but must also be seen to be done. Hence, being impartial is not good enough. Should you not also be seen to be impartial?

Bishop Paul Tan is angry that the government has fixed Polling Day on a Sunday. This, he appears to believe, is disrespectful to the Christians. In some Malaysian states, people have to work on a Sunday -- while the day off is Friday. And this has been going on since long before Merdeka in August 1957.

Should now all the states in Malaysia fix Sunday as the day off while Friday be declared a working day? And will the Pakatan Rakyat run states make these necessary changes to show more respect to the Christians seeing that this is very important to the Christians?

Anyway, polling is from 8.00am to 6.00pm. Do Christians sit in church for 12 hours from 7.00am to 7.00pm? Would there not be at least 30 minutes free time in between church on Sunday when Christian voters can run out to cast their vote?

And what about when the elections and by-elections are held on a Saturday (which has happened before)? Is this not disrespectful to the Jews (and there are some Jews in Malaysia)? Would fixing elections on a Saturday be considered anti-Semitism?

Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat has classified those who force people into choosing a party as Communists. That is very interesting. That would mean many of you who post comments in Malaysia Today forcing others to support Pakatan Rakyat are Communists. And, as many of you said, Nik Aziz would never lie. Hence you people are definitely Communists and not Democrats as you pretend to be.

An even more interesting comment was the one by former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. "I won five elections, each one with a two-thirds majority," said Dr Mahathir.

So, if 50% of the Malays voted opposition (PAS and Semangat 46 at that time) and yet Barisan Nasional won all the elections with a two-thirds majority, is it the Malays who are the culprits? I love it when I can say, "I told you so".

Finally, Clive Kessler said that the 13th General Election has been transformed into a US Presidential election. That is what I said last month and now Clive Kessler is saying the same thing.

I love it when I can say, "I told you so".

 
Kredit: www.malaysia-today.net

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

0 ulasan
Klik GAMBAR Dibawah Untuk Lebih Info
Sumber Asal Berita :-

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News


Party elections versus general elections

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 08:31 PM PDT

And that is why Azmin Ali refuses to give Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and Nurul Izzah Anwar state seats in Selangor. Dr Wan Azizah is barred from contesting a Parliament seat while Nurul Izzah is contesting an unsafe seat, Lembah Pantai.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

A total of 727 seats -- 222 Parliament seats and 505 state seats -- are going to be contested on 5th May 2013. This excludes the 71 Sarawak state seats or else there would be 798 seats in all (Sarawak already had its state election two years ago in April 2011).

Those who have been politically active -- meaning 'on the ground' -- for some time would know that the party elections are always seen as more important and more hotly contested than the general elections. More money is spent on the party elections than in the general elections.

It would appear that these 3,000 (or more) Malaysians are offering to serve the 28 million rakyat (citizens) as their wakil rakyat (people's representative). And it would also appear that these 3,000 (or more) Malaysians are selfless people who only wish to serve and do good deeds for the rakyat.

Actually, they will be paid a lot of money to do the job that requires no education or qualifications. They only need to know how to talk and how to apple-polish their party bosses and those who decide who gets to contest the elections.

Ultimately, this is cronyism and nepotism at its best. Those who get chosen to contest would be those who are loyal and can serve the interest of the party bosses. Those considered a threat to these party leaders would definitely be sidelined and would not get chosen to contest.

The general elections are crucial to politicians who wish to climb the party ladder or who wish hold on to their position in the party. If they are not wakil rakyat then their political future is bleak and they would not be able to climb the party ladder or hold on to their position in the party.

Hence becoming a wakil rakyat is the first step to bigger things. And if you cannot clear this first hurdle of becoming a wakil rakyat then forget about your political career in the party.

And this is why there is a lot of jostling for seats in every general election. Failing to get a seat means that the party and the party leaders do not have confidence in you, do not trust you, do not consider you one of the gang, do not wish for you to rise up the party ladder, and so on.

The general election is basically the trial run. If you get chosen as a candidate and you make it, then that means you are going to go places in the party. If you do not get chosen or you lose the election, your future in politics is not so bright.

And that was why many of those who were not chosen to contest in 1999, or lost the election in 1999, soon faded away and were never seen again. The same thing happened in 2004 and 2008. And that is why many who were not chosen to contest left the party and/or crossed over to another party and/or contested as independent candidates and/or sabotaged the candidate who was chosen over them.

And this is the greatest fear that Umno and Barisan Nasional faces -- that those who are not chosen will merajuk (sulk) and damage their own party out of spite and vengeance. (Note the many statements by Umno hinting to this over the last few weeks).

Let me put it this way. If their real interest is merely to serve the rakyat, then what does it matter who gets chosen to contest the election and what does it matter if they are not chosen? Why must it be them and only them? After all, anyone can serve the rakyat, not only them.

Well, that is because it is not about the rakyat but about their personal political career and future. And if they do not get to contest the election, no doubt the rakyat loses nothing, but they who do not get chosen will lose everything.

Now do you know why it is so important that you get chosen to contest the election if you wish to go places?

On the other hand, those who make the decision in choosing these candidates need to consider how these successful calun (candidates) can serve them and whether they will be loyal and not bite the hand that feeds them. And if certain people are seen as a threat, those decision makers need to make sure that these threats are eliminated -- meaning they do not get chosen to contest the election.

And that is why Azmin Ali refuses to give Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and Nurul Izzah Anwar state seats in Selangor. Dr Wan Azizah is barred from contesting a Parliament seat while Nurul Izzah is contesting an unsafe seat, Lembah Pantai.

Now, if Dr Wan Azizah and Nurul Izzah are given state seats in Selangor, and if they are given safe seats on top of that, then the mother and daughter will most likely win the election. And this would mean that their political careers are secure.

However, since Dr Wan Azizah is no longer going to be a wakil rakyat and Nurul Izzah will most likely lose the Lembah Pantai seat, they can more or less kiss their political careers good-bye.

So who will rise up the party ladder instead? Well, the plan is, Azmin Ali will go for President, Zuraida Kamaruddin for Deputy President, and Rafizi Ramli for one of the Vice Presidents.

Hence 'Team Azmin' will emerge victorious while 'Team Azizah' is dead and buried.

And that is the only reason why Malaysia holds a general election every four or five years. It is for the party to weed out 'threats' to the party leadership. And this is what Umno does each and every time, as do all the other parties within Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat.

And this is what is happening to Dr Wan Azizah and Nurul Izzah as well. They are being weeded out because they are a threat to Azmin Ali.

 

Politicians make strange bedfellows (UPDATED with Chinese Translation)

Posted: 13 Apr 2013 07:45 PM PDT

Some view Mustafa Ali as a threat to Pakatan Rakyat solidarity. They view him as an Umno mole who may sway many in PAS to agree that their party go to bed with Umno in the event that Umno or Barisan Nasional does not win enough seats and DAP ends up getting the most number of seats compared to PAS and PKR.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Whoever thought that my party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LibDem) of the UK, would go to bed with the Conservative Party after saying that in the event of a hung parliament they would go to bed with the Labour Party. "Why the 'U-turn'?" as what Malaysia Today readers are fond of saying.

This is not about doing a U-turn. After all, politics is all about U-turns. Even the most famous Prime Minister in UK history and the most famous Prime Minister in Malaysian history (meaning the Tunku) changed parties. This is about political expediency and who can offer a better deal.

What LibDem wanted was reforms, the same thing that Malaysians have been clamouring for since 1998 but did not almost see until ten years later in 2008. However, while Labour offered only electoral reforms, Conservative offered a bigger and more complete package, political reforms -- part of that package being, of course, electoral reforms.

This is not about what LibDem wants for itself or about what is good for LibDem. This is about what is good for the people and the country. And political reforms are by far better than electoral reforms.

Of course, whether they can deliver these reforms or whether they will keep to their promise is another thing altogether. Time will tell. But we must at least start off by promising first. If you won't even promise that, then for sure you will never deliver it.

Malaysian politics is no different. Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat are both coalitions, just like the Conservative-LibDem coalition in the UK -- and many other coalitions all over the world that will not be able to form the government on their own unless they enter into a coalition because no one party won enough seats to form the government.

So Malaysians had better get used to this new political culture. All over the world very few political parties can win enough seats to form a government on its own. Governments need to be formed via coalitions. And coalition partners are political parties, most times parties that are at odds with one another. And coalition partners can and do change from one election to another.

In 1957, Umno could have never gained Independence or Merdeka for Malaya on its own. So it was forced (by the British) to go into a coalition with MCA and MIC, which they called the Alliance Party.

Just 12 years down the road and the Alliance Party (or coalition) could no longer sustain itself. So they needed to form yet another coalition called Barisan Nasional and the opposition parties were invited to join this new ruling coalition. DAP was the only party that did not join Barisan Nasional.

Umno says DAP refused to join while DAP says it was not invited. I suppose this debate would go on forever -- just like the debate about whether Singapore was kicked out of Malaysia or Singapore left Malaysia.

Nevertheless, PAS stayed in the Barisan Nasional coalition for just three years. In 1977, PAS left Barisan Nasional to join DAP in the opposition ranks.

But not everyone was happy for PAS to leave Barisan Nasional. Once such person was (or is) Mustafa Ali who was a Deputy Minister (and for less than one year on top of that). But Mustafa Ali and the rest of the 'Umno-friendly' PAS leaders had no choice. They were members/leaders of the party and the Cabinet post 'belonged' to the party. Hence if PAS left Barisan Nasional then they too had to leave, like it or not.

There are still leaders in PAS who have no objections to a 'unity government' with Umno or Barisan Nasional in the event that Umno or Barisan Nasional does not win enough seats to form the federal government or state governments.

If you can remember, soon after the 2008 General Election, I wrote about the secret negotiations going on between some leaders in PAS and some leaders in Umno to form unity governments in Perak and Selangor -- two states that fell to the opposition Pakatan Rakyat.

At first, and as usual, they denied this and called me a liar. Later, it was revealed that the secret negotiations did, in fact, take place. However, not all the PAS leaders were excited about going to bed with Umno. Only a few of the 'Umno-friendly' PAS leaders wanted it to happen. Those such as Kelantan Menteri Besar Nik Aziz Nik Mat, who has never forgotten and forgiven Umno's 'betrayal' of 1977, would not go to bed with Umno ever again even if their political life depended on it.

Hence, without a clear consensus, the secret negotiations failed. And later some of the PAS leaders came out to confess that the secret negotiations did take place. They also confirmed that one of the carrots that Umno dangled in front of them was that PAS would become the Menteris Besar of both Perak and Selangor.

And hence, also, Raja Petra Kamarudin did not lie after all, as they had originally alleged.

And the man who would become the Menteri Besar of Selangor would be Hasan Ali, one of those who together with Nasharudin Mat Isa were involved in the secret negotiations -- and who have both since left PAS (or got kicked out) and are now 'independent cum Umno-friendly' ex-PAS leaders.

In fact, as far back as 1999, Hasan Ali already indicated that he wanted to become the Menteri Besar of Selangor and this was the reason why he and Azmin Ali could not see eye-to-eye -- because Azmin too wanted to become the Menteri Besar of Selangor. (Now you know why Khalid Ibrahim got the job instead -- to keep both these sons of Ali from tearing into each other).

You will have noticed that many of those PAS leaders involved in the unity government secret negotiations have since drifted away from PAS. But there is one man still in PAS and who is considered very influential and who could play an important role in bringing PAS and Umno together in the event Umno or Barisan Nasional does not win enough seats to form the government on 5th May 2013.

And this man is Mustafa Ali. And Mustafa Ali does not want to state in very clear terms that in the event Pakatan Rakyat gets to form the federal government then Anwar Ibrahim is without a doubt going to be the Prime Minister.

Some view Mustafa Ali as a threat to Pakatan Rakyat solidarity. They view him as an Umno mole who may sway many in PAS to agree that their party go to bed with Umno in the event that Umno or Barisan Nasional does not win enough seats and DAP ends up getting the most number of seats compared to PAS and PKR.

You must remember, most of the top PAS leaders are ulama' (religious scholars). Mustafa Ali is not and that is why they call him Cikgu Pah and not Ustaz Pah. Mustafa Ali is more a Malay nationalist than an Islamist. Hence Mustafa Ali would have no problems if PAS went to bed with Umno, a Malay nationalist party.

So who killed off Mustafa Ali (and I can only assume that with the latest Mustafa Ali sex video going viral on the internet we can consider him dead)? Is it Umno? Why would Umno want to kill the best friend they have in PAS? Or are the people behind the video those who view Mustafa Ali as a threat to Pakatan Rakyat as well as a threat to Anwar Ibrahim's ambition to become Prime Minister?

Honestly I do not know. But if I had to hazard a guess I would guess that Umno would be the last one who would want to see Mustafa Ali killed off.

I have always said, in politics you need to keep your friends close and your enemies even closer. And has this not been proven so many times?

 ***************************

從政者:一群很奇怪的同枕人

有些人把Mustafa Ali看成民聯團結的絆腳石。他們把他看成巫統派來的内鬼,而儅伊黨和巫統贏不了多數席且行動黨贏得多於伊黨和公正黨的席位時,他的首要任務就是把伊黨和巫統'睡在同一張床上'。 

原文:Raja Petra Kamarudin

譯文:方宙

很多人會以爲我在英國的自由民主黨(Liberal Democratic Party ,LibDem)在國會懸吊的情況下會如他們之前所說的跟工黨聯盟,但事實上他們是跟保守黨聯盟的。"爲什麽要U轉呢?"這是MT讀者們很喜歡問的。

這並不是U轉,因爲政治本來就是U轉的。就連英國最出名的首相和我們最出名的首相(即國父)也曾經換黨。很多時候政治是要看便利性和哪方會開出更好的條件的。

LibDem要的是改革,正如很多大馬人從1998年就開始想要的, 當然要到了2008年大馬人才真正開始看到改革。無論如何,工黨提供的只有選舉改革,但保守黨提供的是一個更全面的政治改革配套,當中當然包括選舉改革。

在這裡我們並不看重LibDem 要的是什麽,或對LibDem有利的是什麽;我們著重的是對人民和國家有利的到底是什麽。而政治改革在這方面相比選舉改革要好得多。

當然,他們能不能實行這些改革和他們能不能堅持他們的承諾是另一回事。時間將會證明一切,但我們必須先從他們的諾言開始。如果你連承諾都給不了,那你肯定會做不了那些東西。

大馬政治其實沒有太大差別。囯陣和民聯都是政治聯盟,正如英國LibDem-保守黨聯盟般。世界各國也有很多的政治聯盟,因爲很多時候單一政黨並沒有足夠的席位來組織政府。

所以大馬人最好要能熟悉這個新的政治文化。全世界只有區區那幾個國家擁有單一執政黨,所以有很多政府都是靠聯盟組建的。很多時候這些聯盟的成員黨的信念是相互不合的,而且還會時不時地替換成員。

就講我們好了,在1957年巫統根本不可能獨自取得馬來亞獨立,所以它被(英國)強迫和馬華和印度囯大黨聯盟,通稱Alliance Party聯盟黨。

僅僅12年内聯盟黨就支撐不住了,所以他們開始邀請反對黨來組織新的聯盟,這次稱爲囯陣。行動黨當時是唯一一個沒有加盟的政黨。

巫統聲稱是行動黨自己不想加入,但行動黨則聲稱他們根本沒有受到邀請。我想這件事情會辯得永遠也沒有答案----就正如新加坡是自己要退出馬來亞或是被迫退出馬來亞這個問題。

無論如何,伊斯蘭黨只加入了囯陣3年,在1997年伊黨就離開了進而和行動黨組成反對黨。但並不是伊黨的所有人都對此擧感到開心的。Mustafa Ali 就是其中一個,他當時當了1年的副部長。但是Mustafa Ali 和其他親巫統的領袖們沒有得選擇,因爲内閣部長的職位只是公開給囯陣聯盟成員而已,他們得跟伊黨一起退出囯陣。

至今爲止,伊黨還是有人很願意和巫統組成聯合政府,尤其是儅巫統沒有足夠的席位來組織中央/州政府時。

如果你還記得的話,在08年大選后,我寫了一篇文章,内容是伊黨某些領袖和巫統領袖進行秘密談判來商量在霹靂和雪蘭莪組織聯合州政府----霹靂和雪蘭莪當時都是民聯的州屬。

一開始他們如往常般跳出來否認和指責我講騙話,但後來事實證明那個秘密談判確實是存在的。無論如何,不是所有伊黨領袖都想和巫統'同床'的。吉蘭丹州務大臣聂阿芝就是其中一個。他從未忘記巫統在1977年所作出的背叛行爲,他永遠也不會想要和巫統'同床',即使他的政治生涯會因此結束。

之後,那個秘密談判在未有清楚的共識下宣告破裂。有些伊黨領袖後來有站出來承認那個談判的存在。他們也確認巫統當時開給他們的條件是霹靂和雪蘭莪的州務大臣一職歸伊黨所管。

這也證明了我,Raja Petra Kamarudin,並沒有像他們指控般的説謊。

當時雪蘭莪州務大臣的内定人選為Hasan Ali,他當時和Nasharudin Mat Isa一樣參加了那個秘密談判。他們兩人之後退出了(或被踢出了)伊黨而成爲了'獨立但親巫統'的前伊黨領袖。

事實上,早在1999年Hasan Ali 就表示他要成爲雪蘭莪州務大臣,而這也是爲什麽他和阿芝敏Azmin Ali 互相看不順眼的原因-----阿芝敏本身也想成爲雪蘭莪州務大臣。(你現在知道爲什麽卡立會被命名為大臣了吧,那是爲了防止這兩個阿里互相把對方撕爛)

你也應該看到了很多出席那場秘密談判的成員日後與伊黨漸行漸遠。但還有一個人到今天爲止還留在伊黨,而他還擁有很大的影響力。如果5月5號伊黨和巫統都贏不了多數席位的話,那他很可能能把雙方拉在一起組成聯合政府。那個人就是Mustafa Ali。Mustafa Ali至今爲止都不願闡明如果民聯真的贏得政權的話那安華是否會成爲首相。

有些人把Mustafa Ali看成民聯團結的絆腳石。他們把他看成巫統派來的内鬼,而儅伊黨和巫統贏不了多數席且行動黨贏得多於伊黨和公正黨的席位時,他的首要任務就是把伊黨和巫統'睡在同一張床上'。 

你必須記得,多數的伊黨領導都是宗教師'ulama'。Mustafa Ali他本身並不是,所以人們都把他稱爲Cikgu Pah而不是Ustaz Pah。他本身更像的是個馬來民族主義而不是穆斯林主義者。所以說要Mustafa Ali和巫統這個馬來民族主義政黨同枕的話,他絕對沒問題。

所以到底是誰'謀殺'了Mustafa Ali呢?(我在這裡會這樣講,是因爲網上瘋傳的性愛片足夠要他性命了)是巫統嗎?爲什麽巫統要把他們在伊黨的好朋友給幹掉呢?還是幕後操手其實是在擔心民聯的前途和安華要成爲首相的野心而下此對策?

老實講我真的不知道。但如果你要我粗略的猜測的話,我會說巫統會是最後一個想把Mustafa Ali 給幹掉的。

我已經說過很多次了,在政治世界裏,你必須親近你的朋友,但你更要親近你的敵人(keep your friends close but your enemies closer)。這不是已經上演很多次了嗎? 

Position paper 1: On car prices (UPDATED with Chinese Translation)

Posted: 12 Apr 2013 09:32 PM PDT

The local councils should operate free shuttles from your homes to the train and bus stations, as well as within the city -- where you can get from one place to another free by just jumping onto the shuttle. And there should be only five-minute intervals between shuttles at peak time and ten or 15 minutes off-peak.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

On the one hand, while I agree that car prices in Malaysia are ridiculously expensive, on the other hand I do not agree that cars should be cheap in Malaysia.

I know this sounds contradictory so allow me to explain what I mean.

In the UK, I can buy a brand new BMW that will cost roughly ONE year of my gross salary -- assuming I am earning £22,000-24,000 a year, say, as a chef in a restaurant.

In Malaysia, doing that same job, the same BMW would cost me about twelve years of my salary. That means in, Malaysia, it costs 12 times what it costs in the UK.

So I do not convert the Pound to the Ringgit and worry about the actual cost of the car in Ringgit. I compare my earning capacity to the number of years it would cost to own that car based on that earning level.

Cars should cost about one to two years of your earning capacity and houses about ten years. That would mean you have quality of life.

Now, while cars should be affordable to own, they should be heavily taxed when you drive them. Currently, they are heavily taxed even if you don't use them and they sit idle in your garage or driveway.

Hence we should implement congestion zones where you pay heavily to drive in these congestion zones but not when you drive on the highways and country roads. And you also pay heavy parking fees when you park in the cities and towns.

Hence, also, cars would be cheap to own but expensive to operate. And the more you drive and park, the more you pay. So it is better you 'abandon' your car and use public transport to get where you want to get to.

The local councils should operate free shuttles from your homes to the train and bus stations, as well as within the city -- where you can get from one place to another free by just jumping onto the shuttle. And there should be only five-minute intervals between shuttles at peak time and ten or 15 minutes off-peak.

We must also be very careful about reducing car prices overnight. If you have just spent RM120,000 to buy a new car, you would not want that same car being sold for RM80,000 the following year. That means your RM120,000 car would suddenly become RM50,000 in value. You would expect your (second-hand) car value to be at least RM80,000 but how can it be RM80,000 when you can now buy a brand new one for that same price?

Pakatan Rakyat has made promises about reducing car prices without looking at the implications of that move. Firstly, many Malaysians would see their asset value depreciating drastically. Secondly, we will see many more cars on the road. What we want to see is lesser cars on the road, not more cars. The traffic jams and pollution in Malaysia is so bad that we should discourage rather than encourage Malaysians to drive.

Of course, for all this to happen, we need a more efficient public transport system. And herein lies the problem -- Malaysia's public transport system sucks.

And am I glad I will not be in the government that needs to worry about all this.

Anyway, the local councils and town planners need to look into this. And this is why we need local council elections. Then we can kick out those councillors who are not doing their job. Currently, local council positions are used as a reward for loyal party supporters.

And herein lies the other problem -- our local councils suck.

****************************************

立場表明文(一):論車价

地方政府(即市政府)應該提供免費的公交,讓你免費地往來你的住家和公交站。而儅你要到市内的任何一個地方時,你也應該可以乘搭免費的公交到達目的地。再者,繁忙時段的公交等候時間最長應該只是5分鐘,非繁忙時段則10-15分鐘。


原文:Raja Petra Kamarudin
譯文:方宙

一方面我認同馬來西亞車价貴的離譜,但另一方面我不贊同大馬應該把車价降低。

我知道這聼起來很矛盾,所以請讓我進一步解釋。

假設我在英國是一名廚師,那一輛剷新寳馬的價格大約是我一年的薪水,即22千-24千英鎊。

但在馬來西亞,如果我做的是同樣的職業,我則需要用我12年的薪水來購買同一輛寳馬。換句話說,大馬的寳馬比英國的貴了12倍。

在這邊我講的並不是那輛寳馬真正的馬幣價格,我對比是在這兩個不同的國家裏我應該用多少年的年薪來購買同一輛車。

一般上,想要擁有好的生活質量,你的車子應該是你年薪的1-2倍,你的房子則應該是大約10倍。

現在,雖然說車子應該是負擔得起的,但在你駕駛時你應該被抽重稅。但是在馬來西亞即時你只是買了車子而沒有經常駕駛,你還是被抽了重稅。

我們應該規劃出該付費的繁忙地段;而儅你駕在高速公路或鄉間馬路時你則不必付費。同樣的,如果你在市内泊車時你也應該付較貴的泊車費。

所以說,買車應該是便宜的,但用車則應該是昂貴的。儅你駕得更多時你也要付得更多,所以你自然而然地就會'放棄'你的車子而應用公交系統。

地方政府(即市政府)應該提供免費的公交,讓你免費地往來你的住家和公交站。而儅你要到市内的任何一個地方時,你也應該可以乘搭免費的公交到達目的地。再者,繁忙時段的公交等候時間最長應該只是5分鐘,非繁忙時段則10-15分鐘。

儅我們談及降低車价時我們得格外小心。如果你剛花12万購買一輛新車的話,你不會想看到同一輛車在明年就以8万售出;那將會代表你那12万的車明年只值5万。你當初預算在1年后你那12万的車會值8万,但現在新車都已經是8万了,你的(二手)車賣8万還會有人買嗎?

民聯當初作出承諾時根本就沒想清楚後果。其一,很多人將會看到他們的資產一夜間貶值。其二,我們會看到很多車子在馬路上奔跑。我們真正需要的是較少的車子而不是更多的車子。馬來西亞的塞車與污染程度已經很糟糕了,我們不應該再鼓勵人們駕車。

當然,我們必須首先擁有一個有效的公交系統。而這正是問題的癥結----我國的公交系統真他媽的沒用。

而我真的很慶幸我沒有為政府工作,因爲我不必爲上述的事情操心。

無論如何,地方政府與城市策劃應該認真地看待這個問題。這就是爲什麽我們要舉行地方選舉的原因:我們可以把沒做工的的市議員們踢出局。如今,市政侷的崗位只是執政黨用來安頓他們自己黨員的而已。

而這正是問題的另一個癥結----我們的地方政府/市政府真他媽的窩囊。

 

Weekend jottings

Posted: 12 Apr 2013 06:44 PM PDT

Yes, on stage, in front of a crowd of tens of thousands, I warned Umno to not try anything. I also told the non-Malays to stay home in case race riots do happen. I told the non-Malays that the Malays from the opposition would handle Umno. And I warned Umno that there are more Malays in the opposition than in Umno. I cautioned Umno that the Malays in the opposition are fighters and unless Umno is prepared to see blood on the streets then don't even try to start anything.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Actually, today I am not really in much of a mood to write because of the various 'good tidings' I am enjoying. First of all, my essay has been returned with an 'excellent' comment and my Oxford tutor informed me he will be recommending me for full credits.

For someone who refused to study beyond college because I believed in the doctrine that studying causes permanent brain damage, I am, of course, elated that I have passed with full credits three courses over two years. I suppose this is all about self-esteem and personal satisfaction. I have proven to myself that I did not go to university back in 1970 not because I am stupid but because I thought I do not need a university degree to get through life.

Anyway, forgive me for bragging. This is just like a new grandfather boring everyone in the pub with photographs of his newly born grandchild. Only to the grandfather does the baby look cute. The other pub goers would rather ogle the barmaid's boobs and butt.

The second good tiding is that my wife, Marina, and I will be celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary tomorrow, 14th April 2013. I mean 40 years of marriage is longer than many of you reading this have been alive. And even after 40 years Marina still has to push me off and ask me to take a shower to cool down, if you know what I mean.

We were hoping to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary together with the grand opening of our kopitiam, Gossip on Broadway. Unfortunately that is no longer possible and we may instead have to open after the 13th General Election of 5th May 2013 -- yet another good tiding.

The place, an old 1800s building, needed more extensive renovations than we originally thought (some parts of the building had rotted away and was threatening to collapse). Hence the two months delay. And my budget has inflated from RM250,000 to RM600,000…sigh…not so good tiding.

Anyway, we are ready to roll and by the first to second week of May 2013 we should be open for business. I hope to also apply for a live music licence so that those of you who want to jam on Saturday night can do so. Once the licence is approved I may have to spend a bit more money on a keyboard. I already have the electronic drum set and it works just great.

While on the subject of music, I also managed to get two tickets to The Rolling Stones concert in Hyde Park on 13th July 2013. And that is my fourth good tiding. The tickets for the first concert on 7th July 2013 were sold out within mere minutes so they decided to hold a second concert on 13th July for those who were not able to get tickets to the first concert.

The tickets were on sale from 9.00am on 12th April and I managed to get my tickets after waiting 20 minutes for the website to be 'free'. That shows how many people wanted tickets. The website was so jammed that we were put on hold. The tickets, which cost 100-300 quid, are now selling for as high as 12,000 quid on the black market. Crazy!

Then, on 18th July 2013, I will be going to the Santana concert in Manchester -- my fifth good tiding. That, as far as I am concerned, is the ultimate in concerts so you can understand why I am so elated.

Well, there you have it -- five good tidings in a row. So what more can a person want? So you can understand why going back to Malaysia is not at the top of my priority list. There is just so much going on here that I do not see myself returning to Malaysia any time soon.

Anyway, just to change the subject, one reader posted a comment today lamenting that we are quite unfair in whacking all Chinese for the racist comments of a mere handful of people.

I agree, maybe less than 100 of our 700,000 or so readers post racist comments so not all Chinese should be painted with the same brush. But maybe you can read the statement below by pastor Martin Niemöller.

You see, when Malays make racist statements, other Malays whack them. I am sure you have read what Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said yesterday regarding what would happen (meaning race riots) if Pakatan Rakyat takes over Johor. And I am sure you also read PAS leader Datuk Mahfuz Omar's response to that here: http://www.malaysia-today.net/mtcolumns/newscommentaries/55878-pas-will-shield-all-from-race-clash-veep-vows

Those of you who have been following my columns/articles since back in the Reformasi days can remember when in 1999 I said that PAS gives the non-Malays a guarantee that in the event of a May 13 Version 2 happening the Malays are going to come out in full force to defend the non-Malays (I quoted Dr Hatta Ramli).

Those of you who attended the 2008 election rallies and ceramahs would also remember me openly and publicly giving a warning to Umno to not threaten the non-Malays and that in the event of a May 13 Version 2 happening it is no longer going to be Malays killing Chinese but Malays killing Malays.

Yes, on stage, in front of a crowd of tens of thousands, I warned Umno to not try anything. I also told the non-Malays to stay home in case race riots do happen. I told the non-Malays that the Malays from the opposition would handle Umno. And I warned Umno that there are more Malays in the opposition than in Umno. I cautioned Umno that the Malays in the opposition are fighters and unless Umno is prepared to see blood on the streets then don't even try to start anything.

So you see, when Malays threaten the non-Malays, the Malays -- such as I and those in PAS -- come forward and openly declare our non-racist stand. We openly declare that we shall protect the non-Malays. But when the non-Malays make racist statements, the other non-Malays either keep very silent and not whack their fellow Chinese and Indians or they add more fuel to the fire.

So, yes, maybe just a handful of Chinese and Indians make racist statements and it is not fair to whack all non-Malays for what just a handful of people do. But silence is consent. Even if you do not add fuel to the fire by joining the anti-Malay (or anti-Islam) chorus, even if you just keep quiet, that is still bad, as pastor Martin Niemöller demonstrated.

Islam teaches Muslims amar makruf, nahi munkar. This means do good and oppose bad. Hence 'doing good' is just not good enough. You must also oppose bad. And when someone does or says something bad, even if they are people of your same race and religion, you must do something about it. Saying that I did not say it but someone else said it -- but you keep silent while they say it -- is not good enough. By keeping quiet that means you agree with what was said.

And that is why when a handful of non-Malays say and do something racist, I whack all the non-Malays. And I will continue whacking all the non-Malays until they come out to condemn the acts of their fellow non-Malays. If I can stand up on stage in front of tens of thousands to warn Umno not to threaten the non-Malays and warn Umno that we Malays will come out to face them in defense of the non-Malays, the least you non-Malays can do is to condemn your fellow racists.

 

Malaysia’s first buy-election (UPDATED with Chinese Translation)

Posted: 10 Apr 2013 07:07 PM PDT

And this was when the Pakatan Rakyat people said I was opposed to a change in government. I never said do not change the government, as what I was accused of saying. What I said was just changing the government would not see change unless we can accept the entire concept and full package of change. Changing the government without a revolutionary paradigm shift is merely old wine in a new bottle.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Free fishing nets for fishermen and annual good service incentive for taxi drivers are part of the Penang Pakatan manifesto.

(Free Malaysia Today) - Pakatan Rakyat will give away two free fishing nets annually, one worth RM400 to RM500, to each onshore fisherman in Penang if it gains another mandate to rule the state. In a similar move, Pakatan is also throwing goodies to taxi drivers as well by giving them RM600 annually as a good service incentive.

All these promises will feature in the state Pakatan manifesto scheduled to be launched at Hotel Vistana in Bayan Baru on April 15. Pakatan and PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim is scheduled to grace the event as the guest-of-honour.

In announcing this today, DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng said between 5,000 and 6,000 fishermen and registered taxi drivers in the state would benefit from the programme. "These are 'peek' information on our manifesto," he told a press conference at Wisma DAP. Among Pakatan state leaders present were DAP chief Chow Kon Yeow and PKR vice-chairman Abdul Halim Hussain.

All this while, Lim said successive state governments, including his Pakatan administration, have not carried out any welfare programmes to benefit these groups because those economic sectors were under the federal purview. He said Pakatan planned to give away the gifts because it did not want these groups to be marginalised and sidelined from state welfare benefits any longer.

He believes Pakatan's gestures if implemented would be an incentive booster for both the fishery and tourism sectors. He clarified that taxi drivers would be all those who come under the universal understanding of taxis, which would include hired cars and airport limousines as well.

If re-elected, he said, Pakatan would disburse the goodies correctly to only registered taxi drivers and active fishermen. Under Lim's administration, cash gifts were given out to senior citizens, single mothers, disabled persons and even for death.

*************************************

It depends on how you want to look at it. Malaysia's 13th General Election is either the first Presidential Election between Najib Tun Razak and Anwar Ibrahim or it is the first buy-election where both sides are buying votes.

In the past, the buying was very one-sided. It would normally be the government or Barisan Nasional buying the votes. Today, both sides are doing it. In that sense, Malaysia has finally achieved a two-party system.

In fact, this is quite true -- that we are seeing the emergence of a two-party system. For the first time in history, Pakatan Rakyat has a real and genuine chance of forming the new federal government. This has never happened in the past. Today, even the top bosses in Barisan Nasional admit that there is a clear and present danger that the ruling party may actually lose power.

The bad thing about this is that the top bosses in Pakatan Rakyat know this. In fact, even the taxi drivers and vegetable sellers in the market know this. And because of this Pakatan Rakyat and its supporters have turned arrogant and over-confident while those from Barisan Nasional have become very worried and extremely cautious.

Arrogance and over-confidence is bad. It causes you to make mistakes. Very worried and extremely cautious is good. You never take things for granted.

If I were asked how I would rate the chances, I would say that Pakatan Rakyat has a chance of winning 95-100 Parliament seats. It also has a chance of retaining Kelantan and Penang but with a slightly reduced majority in both federal and state seats.

Barisan Nasional can win 80-82 Parliament seats in West Malaysia and 30-35 in East Malaysia. The 'non-aligned' parties from East Malaysia can sweep about 12-15 seats with about 10-12 going to DAP (from the current two).

For all intents and purposes, we are going to see a hung-parliament of sorts with the 'third force', if I may be permitted to call it that, deciding who gets to form the federal government.

Selangor, Perak, Sabah and Negeri Sembilan are, at this point of time, a 50:50 situation (as are the 13 Wilayah Persekutuan Parliament seats where it is 7:6 in Pakatan Rakyat's favour from currently 10:3). These four states can go either way and there are just too many 'internal factors' from both sides that will determine the outcome (selection of candidates being one main factor).

And that is why I say Malaysia, at last, is seeing a two-party system emerging with the third force being the kingmaker.

Is that good?

Well, it depends on your Christmas wish. If you wish to see Barisan Nasional retain power with a two-thirds (or close to two-thirds) majority then it is not good. If you wish to see Pakatan Rakyat take over then it is also not good. But if you want to see a balance of power with no one political grouping having absolute power then it will definitely be good.

If you can remember what I wrote soon after the 2008 General Election regarding a two-party system and a unity government (which the majority of you profusely opposed) then you can see that the last scenario would be very palatable to me.

If you can remember why I mooted the idea of the Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement (MCLM) in 2010 and why we launched the 'Independent Candidates Initiative' (targeted at a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 30 candidates), and which also many of you profusely opposed, you will also see that the last scenario would be very palatable to me.   

Unfortunately, the two-party system, the unity government, the Independent Candidates Initiative, etc., all did not go down well with the majority of you. In fact, the top leadership of Pakatan Rakyat made it very clear that they would not support all these ideas. To add insult to injury, they even said that Barisan Nasional was behind MCLM and that the objective was to trigger three-corner fights to help Barisan Nasional win the election.

I could see that not many could accept new ideas when they feel that Barisan Nasional is finished and that Pakatan Rakyat is poised to take over. Why the need for new ideas when you have practically won the fight? Only if you do not win do you need new ideas on how to win.

No doubt, everyone is talking about change. However, to most people, change merely means changing the government. I do not disagree with changing the government. Hell, even here in the UK I became a member of the opposition party and voted opposition so that we could see a change in government. But what I was trying to impress upon Malaysians was that change means more than just changing the government. Change needs to come in a bigger package than just changing the government.

And this was when the Pakatan Rakyat people said I was opposed to a change in government. I never said do not change the government, as what I was accused of saying. What I said was just changing the government would not see change unless we can accept the entire concept and full package of change. Changing the government without a revolutionary paradigm shift is merely old wine in a new bottle.

But that argument was lost on most people. Hence what I needed to do was to sit back and allow the 13th General Election to play itself out. One of the issues I raised that needed addressing to avoid three-corner fights, inter-party bickering, intra-party bickering, internal sabotage, and so on, was by deciding on the seat allocation and choice of candidates early and not at the eleventh hour.

Today, we are seeing the logic in that appeal we made to Pakatan Rakyat and I really need say no more about the matter.

If the 13th General Election is going to be decided by who can promise the voters more and better gifts and handouts, then we are still a long way away from change. The 'future' that we are talking about and fighting for is all about how much money we are going to receive. How long would that money last? Even if it is RM10,000 per voter or per Malaysian is that going to guarantee us a good future?

I am 62. Most of you who are nearing that age will know that at that age we are concerned about our health. Can I be assured of a good healthcare system to look after me until I reach the age of 77 or 82 (if I get to live that long)?

I am a grandfather of five grandchildren and maybe by the time I die I will have 10 or more grandchildren. Will my grandchildren receive the best education to help them survive in a borderless and globalised world?

Malaysia is badly divided racially with a serious problem of religious intolerance. Is Malaysia's political culture conducive to improving this ethnic and religious divide or does it, in fact, make the problem worse?

Malaysians live in gated communities with security guards patrolling the neighbourhood and iron bars on their doors and windows. They also face the risk of their handbags being snatched as they drive on the highways or walk on the streets. Are you happy with Malaysia's security situation?

Malaysia's election fraud plus election violence is beginning to make the country look like one of the tin-pot regimes. How many of you are going to leave town or are going to lock yourselves in your homes on Polling Day on 5th May in case we see another 'May 13'?

Those are the issues close to my heart alongside good governance, transparency, accountability, eradicating corruption and abuse of power, and so on. And RM10,000 to vote for any particular party is not going to see these issues resolved.

And while we can certainly blame Barisan Nasional and Umno's 56 years rule for all these problems, Pakatan Rakyat needs to convince us that a change of government is definitely going to see these problems get resolved.

Our worry should not be about winning the election. Our worry should be about what would we do if we do win the election. That is when the work really begins. To most of you, however, winning the election is not when the work begins but when the problems end.

And that is what concerns me because once we make our bed we will have to lie in it.

*******************************************

大馬史上第一個'買賣選舉'

就此事上,民聯支持者說我反對換政府。這是絕對的誣賴,我從來沒說過我反對換政府,我說的是,只是換政府是做不到真正的改變的。如果我們只是換政府而不是做出革命性的典範轉移那這一切只是新瓶裝舊酒。


原文:Raja Petra Kamarudin
譯文:方宙

免費漁網與年度計程車司機良好服務獎勵是檳城民聯大選宣言内的項目

(Free Malaysia Today) – 民聯宣佈,如果他們保住檳州政權,他們將會每年發放兩個價值400-500馬幣的漁網給州内漁民和600馬幣服務獎勵給州内的計程車司機。

(下文省略)

*************************************
視乎你的個人詮釋,此次大選可以是納吉和安華的首相之爭,也可以是大馬史上第一個'買賣選舉',因爲雙方都使盡全力來買票。

在過去,買票是政府/囯陣一方的作爲,但如今這已是雙方的。所以某個層面上,馬來西亞可以説是達成了兩綫制。

這是蠻正確的;我們現在看到的是兩黨制的崛起。現今,反對黨有史以來第一次真正地有出綫的機會。連囯陣上層的頭目們都承認他們面對的是很真實的危機,是有可能讓他們倒臺的危機。

不好的是,民聯的領導人也知道這一點(其實就連巴刹的賣菜阿姨們都知道),而這恰巧會讓民聯和他們的支持者變得目中無人和過於自信。相對的,囯陣就變得很擔憂而步步爲營。

目中無人和過於自信是不好的,因爲你會因此而犯錯。而擔憂而步步爲營是好的,因爲你不會指望不勞而獲。

如果你問我民聯的贏面,我會說他們有機會贏得95-100 個囯席。他們也會保住吉蘭丹和檳城,但總體的支持率會稍微下降。囯陣則會贏得80-82西馬囯席和30-35東馬囯席;東馬的12-15席會落入獨立黨派手裏,而剩下的10-12席則會由行動黨勝出(行動黨現在只贏得2席)。

若上述屬實,我們將會看到一個懸吊的國會,而那個'第三勢力'(請容許我這麽稱呼)將會決定哪個黨會成爲執政黨。

雪蘭莪,霹靂,沙巴和森美蘭現階段還是處於50-50的狀態(聯邦直轄區也將由以往的民聯10:3囯陣變成現在的民聯7:6囯陣)。其他的四個州屬都有可能落入任何一方,因爲雙方都有太多的内在因數左右這四個州屬的選票去向(候選人為其中一個因數)。

這就是爲什麽我講説馬來西亞終于迎來了兩綫制,而第三勢力終于擡頭成爲造王者。

這是好事壞事呢?

這要看你到底要的是什麽。如果你要的是囯陣取囘2/3的多數權,或民聯入位得權,那對你來講不是件好事。但如果你要的是一個平衡的政治,沒有一方專權,那這絕對是件好事。

如果你還記得我在08年大選后寫的"兩綫制和聯合政府"的文章(你們很多人都吐嘈這個理念),那你應該知道后者才是我的杯中茶。

如果你還記得我在2010年提出的建立 'Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement (MCLM,此譯馬來西亞國民自由運動) '和'獨立人選倡議' (提倡至少有10-30名獨立候選人上陣),那你也一定更清楚后者才是我的杯中茶。

很無奈的,兩綫制、聯合政府、 獨立人選倡議都不是你們要的東西。民聯還表明得很清楚他們絕對不會支持我的提議。他們甚至還往我的傷口上灑鹽,散播囯陣是 MCLM的幕後老闆,且MCLM嘗試在大選中提倡三角戰來使囯陣獲勝。

我看得出來,沒有很多人願意接受這個新的理念,尤其是儅他們認爲囯陣已'玩完'而民聯接手在即,那我又何必再提出一個新的理念呢?一個人只有在要失敗時才會提出新理念。

很多人是會談到改變,但他們眼中的改變只是改變政府,而這是我所不贊成的。雖然說在英國這邊我爲了要換政府而加入英國反對黨,但我真正要給馬來西亞人民的思想是改變不止是換政府這麽狹隘的,而是比換政府還要重大得多的。

就此事上,民聯支持者說我反對換政府。這是絕對的誣賴,我從來沒說過我反對換政府,我說的是,只是換政府是做不到真正的改變的。如果我們只是換政府而不是做出革命性的典范转移那這一切只是新瓶裝舊酒。

很不幸的,很多人都聼不明白我的論點。所以我現在只能靜觀這屆大選的結果。但我還是想強調,只有趁早圈定上陣區與候選人,(民聯)才可以避免三角戰、黨内紛爭、跨黨紛爭、自相扯後腿等問題。

我希望今天你們可以看到我對民聯的呼籲的邏輯,而我真的無需再重復了。

如果說第13屆大選的輸贏是看誰能夠答應給更多禮物與糖果的話,那我們離改變還有很長的一段路。我們所謂的'未來'是取決於我們會收到多少錢,但那筆錢會持續多久呢?請問在發放給每位選民1万塊錢后,我們的未來是否會更好呢?

我今年62嵗,如果你和我差不多的話你會很關注你的健康問題。我現在是否有自信,儅我77或82嵗時(如果我有如此長命的話)我國將會擁有良好的醫療系統來照顧我呢?

我現在是5個孫子的爺爺,而有可能我死的時候我會是10個孫子的爺爺。我關心的是,我的孫子孫女們會不會得到最好的教育以便能在現今這無國界的世界裏生存呢?

大馬是個種族間隔很濶的國家,也是個宗教相容很差的國家。請問,大馬的政治文化將會改善這些情況還是會把它們弄得越來越糟呢?

許多大馬人都住在有保衛亭保護的住宅區,他們都依靠警衛巡邏和都裝上鐵窗。無論他們是駕駛在高速公路上還是走在人行道上他們都面臨著被搶奪包包的危險。你是否對大馬治安感到滿意?

馬來西亞的大選舞弊與選舉暴力使大馬逐漸邁向獨裁囯,你們當中有誰因害怕這個5月5號會成爲另一個'513事件'而決定離開居住地/鎖緊大門呢?

還有很多其他課題,如管理,透明,貪污,濫權等,這些都不會因我們爲了那1万塊錢而投而就會解決的。

在我們責備囯陣在56年掌權期間令國家問題叢生時,民聯應該説服我們,令我們相信在換政府以後他們會根治這些問題。

我們的憂慮不是贏得大選,而是贏了大選以後我們應該怎樣做。贏了大選以後才是我們做功課的開端,但對你們很多人來説贏了大選不是開始工作的開端,而是問題的結束。

一旦我們安好床位以後,我們就得睡在那張床上,這就是最令我最爲擔心的。

 

Yes, but the question is how? (UPDATED with Chinese Translation)

Posted: 07 Apr 2013 06:54 PM PDT

Let us discuss the salient points in these two Election Manifestos, though not in order of priority or importance (since each person will have different priorities on what they expect from life). And the first item would be the issue of abuse of power, corruption, cronyism, nepotism, mismanagement of the country's wealth, and so on.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

I have been observing with interest without much comment since the announcement of the dissolution of Parliament and thought that maybe today I would write something as food-for-thought for Malaysia Today's readers.

You may have noticed that I like to write controversial pieces and would usually take the opposing side in a debate or argument just so that, as I always say, I can throw the cat amongst the pigeons. For example, when people take a stand opposing the Islamic Sharia law of Hudud, I take a stand supporting its implementation and when people take a stand propagating that law I take a stand opposing it.

People ask me why I do that. Well, I suppose it is in my genes. It is what I do. More importantly, however, it teaches people to think and if they disagree with my stand then they would be forced to argue their case in defense of their stand. No doubt this does not always work as planned. In some instances, when people do not have the ability to debate with decorum and civility, they resort to name-calling, swearing and cursing.

I suppose we can only blame these people's parents who did not bring them up the right way. I remember my teenage days when I visited the homes of my Chinese school-friends. The whole family would be playing mahjong and the children would scream tiu niamah in front of their parents whenever they got a weak 'card'.

Hence, when children scream tiu niamah over the mahjong table in front of their own parents you can imagine why they are so coarse and rude when they comment in Malaysia Today. It is the way they were brought up by their parents.

Anyway, that is not the point of what I want to say today. What I do want to talk about is the promises made in the run-up to the coming general election, which some call Election Manifesto and some call Akujanji (I promise).

There appears to be some confusion or misunderstanding about the meaning and implication of an Election Manifesto. In the past, the Bahasa Malaysia translation of Election Manifesto was Manifesto Pilihanraya. Now that it is being called Akujanji makes it even more confusing, especially since Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim, the Selangor Menteri Besar, said that an Election Manifesto is not a promise.

The voters need to be told whether this is a firm commitment or merely an aspiration. And they also need to be told that there is a difference. For example, I aspire to become rich but since I am unemployed and am surviving on welfare that aspiration will remain unrealised. However, if I borrow a million dollars from the bank and I invest this million together with another million of my own money into a business that can turn water into oil, then definitely that aspiration will become reality.

The thing is, I may aspire, but the question is how do I plan to meet that aspiration? That is what appears missing in these election promises being made by both sides of the political divide.

Hindraf says that Pakatan Rakyat stole their Manifesto while Pakatan Rakyat says that Barisan Nasional stole theirs. In that case I need not address the Pakatan Rakyat and Barisan Nasional Election Manifestos separately since both are duplicates of each other.

Let us discuss the salient points in these two Election Manifestos, though not in order of priority or importance (since each person will have different priorities on what they expect from life). And the first item would be the issue of abuse of power, corruption, cronyism, nepotism, mismanagement of the country's wealth, and so on.

Now, while everyone claims that reducing or eliminating corruption is going to be one area of priority, can we be told how this is going to be done? The aspiration of attacking corruption is commendable. How we are going to achieve that is more important.

For example, are we going to send convicted corrupt government officials and politicians to the firing squad like they do in China? Or are we going to execute them by chopping off their heads like in Saudi Arabia? Or maybe cut of their hands like in Afghanistan?

You see: corrupt people do not fear God. In fact, they may not even believe in God. Hence it is pointless to try to put the fear of God in them. We need a stronger fear factor. And a bullet in their head or their head chopped off or their limbs severed may be a stronger deterrent to corruption.

And how do we gain a conviction? Most times, just from their lavish lifestyle, we know these people are corrupt. But to prove it in court is another thing. Less than 1% of corrupt people actually get sent to jail. Can we, therefore, do what they do in Iran (or used to do back in the days of the Revolution of 1979)? In Iran, they torture (or tortured) suspects to gain a confession and after they confess to these crimes these people are executed.

So you see, we need to know the modus operandi that is going to be applied. Having an aspiration to reduce or eliminate corruption is one thing. Being able to achieve it is another thing altogether. So we need to know how this is going to be achieved. And that is missing from the election promises.

The next thing is about the people's welfare. This, of course, would involve a few things such as education, health, safety, quality of life, and so on. We will need details on how the people's welfare is going to be taken care of. And if we talk about change then we need to be brave (plus honest) and talk about a paradigm shift. And if we are not brave enough in committing ourselves to this 'revolutionary change' then nothing much is going to change.

I have written about all these issues more than once in the past so I do not think I need to repeat myself here. Nevertheless, at the risk of boring you with the 'same old story', allow me to summarise the issues as briefly as I can (and being brief is not something within my nature, as you may well be aware).

Will all Malaysian citizens irrespective of race, religion and gender be guaranteed a place in school, college and university?

Will all Malaysian citizens irrespective of race, religion and gender be guaranteed financial assistance to attend school, college and university if they deserve and require financial assistance?

Will the poverty level be reset at a more realistic level -- say RM2,000 for the big towns and cities and RM1,500 for the rural areas -- and will all those families living below this poverty level be guaranteed financial assistance to attend school, college and university if they deserve and require financial assistance?

Will a National Health Trust be set up so that all Malaysian citizens can receive good and free healthcare even in private hospitals, the cost to be borne by the National Health Trust?

Now, these are just some of the issues and certainly not the only ones. However, to me, education, health and the safety and welfare of our citizens take priority over all other issues. Hence we need a strong welfare, education and healthcare system to achieve this. And of course someone has to pay for this 'welfare state', if that is what you would like to call it.

Petronas brings in billions in revenue. The states receive only 5% of this while 95% goes to the federal government. Say the states' share is increased to 20%, as what Pakatan Rakyat promises. Can, say, 5% be paid to a National Health and Education Trust so that all Malaysian citizens living below the poverty level can receive free education and healthcare without exception?

A law can be passed in Parliament, say called the National Trust Act, where Petronas, by Act of Parliament, pays 5% of its oil revenue to this Trust. This National Trust then pays for the cost of education and healthcare to those registered with the Welfare Department. They are then given a National Trust Registration Number where with this they can qualify for free education and healthcare.

Of course, we need to fine-tune the mechanics to weed out those who do not qualify or who no longer qualify because their income has already exceeded the poverty level. Whatever it may be, the system must be colour-blind. If you deserve it you get it, never mind what race, religion and gender you may be. And that would automatically make the New Economic Policy irrelevant without even needing to officially abolish it.

Note that the points above are just examples of some of the issues and in no way make the list complete. If I want to cover every issue then this piece needs to run into 20 pages. Nevertheless, I trust this demonstrates the point I am trying to make in that the aspirations in the Election Manifesto is only the skeleton and what we now need to see is some meat on that skeleton.

*****************************************************

是的,但問題是,我們應該怎麽做?

現在,讓我們來談談這兩份宣言的重要事項。請記住,我的論點是不按重要性來分先後的(因爲重要性的先後是人人不同,很客觀的。而我要談的第一點是和濫權相關的(如貪污、裙带关系、不當管理財政等。

原文:Raja Petra Kamarudin

译文:方宙

自從國會解散后,網絡上出現了很多有意思的爭論,而今天我想就這些爭論上提出看法,希望我的看法能夠成爲MT讀者們的'思想糧食'。

你們可能注意到,我會常寫些具爭議性的文章,且我經常會為反方站臺。如,儅人們反對落實回教法時我會提出贊同的言論。別人問我為何會那麽做,我想這可能是我的基因吧,這就是我的作風。但更重要的,我希望人們會動腦筋思考。如果他們想反駁我的話,他們必須提出論據。然而並不是每一次他們都會這樣的,有些人詞窮時會用罵髒話、詛咒等來回應。

我想可能是他們父母沒把他們教好吧。我記得我年輕時去拜訪我一個華人同學,當時他們家人正在打麻將。那些小孩在摸到一手坏牌時會儅他們長輩面前大罵'屌你老媽'!所以你在此可以想象爲何他們可以如此粗魯的在網絡上發言了;他們的父母是如是教養的。

話説回來,這不是我今天的重點。我今天要講的是大選宣言(或有些人會稱爲 Akujaji)内的承諾。

很多人誤解了大選宣言的目的。之前大選宣言的馬來文翻譯是Manifesto Pilihanraya,但現在的Akujanji 這個翻譯把它的意思搞得更加亂(尤其是在雪蘭莪大臣Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim表明大選宣言並不是承諾后)。

選民們有必要被告知那些宣言到底是個承諾還是個心願,他們也必須被告知這兩者的不同。打個比方,我現在失業,很窮,但我有要成爲有錢人的心願。如果我靠福利金苟且度日的話,那我的心願就不會實現。反過來,如果我從銀行借了1百萬來做生意而賺取了另一個1百萬,那我的心願就會實現。

我可以有心願,但問題是我要怎麽實踐呢?這就是雙方大選宣言裏邊沒有提到的。

Hindraf 已説明了,民聯的宣言是抄他們的,而民聯則說囯陣的宣言是抄民聯的。因此,我並不需要個別説明,因爲無論是民聯或囯陣,他們的宣言都是一樣的。

現在,讓我們來談談這兩份宣言的重要事項。請記住,我的論點是不按重要性來分先後的(因爲重要性的先後是人人不同,很客觀的)。而我要談的第一點是和濫權相關的(如貪污、裙带关系、不當管理財政等)。

所有人都宣稱打擊貪污是他們的首要任務,那他們能否告訴我們要怎樣來實踐呢?打擊貪污這個理念是很可取的,但如何達到目的才是更爲重要。

我們是否應該像中國一樣,把貪官污吏捉去槍斃?還是仿效沙特判他們斬首示衆?還是像阿富汗剁他們的手?

你應該明瞭,那些貪贜枉法的人是不怕上帝的。事實上,他們可能根本都不信有上帝這囘事,所以你根本不能用上帝這個名號來嚇阻他們。我們需要一個更有效的嚇阻方法。在他們頭顱上打一槍或讓他們斷手斷腳可能會有效。

我們又能怎樣更有效的制裁他們呢?大多時候我們是從他們那奢侈的生活方式來斷定他們是有貪污的,但要在法庭内將他們定罪又是另一回事。目前只有少過1%的貪污人士被送進監牢裏。那麽我們又能否仿效伊朗般呢?在伊朗他們會折磨嫌犯,讓他們屈打成招,然後再將他們處決。

所以你看,我們必須知道及擁有一個執行方式。擁有一個心願是一回事,實踐又是另一回事。我們必須知道實踐的方法,而這正是那些大選承諾裏所沒談及的。

我要講的下一個課題是福利(牽涉到的計有教育、醫療、治安、生活素質等)。我們必須知道人民的福利會怎樣地被照顧。如果我們所談到的是改變,那我們就應該勇敢的(和誠實的)談及典範轉移。如果我們不能夠很徹底地做出革命性的更改,那很多事情就只會維持原貌。

我之前已經提及很多次了,其實我並不需要重復。但在此容我再重復一遍,給你一個很簡短的總結(其實簡短並不是我的作風,你們應該是很了解的)。

所有馬來西亞人,無論種族、宗教、性別,是否能有保障性地進入學校,學院和大學求學?

所有馬來西亞人,無論種族、宗教、性別,在符合條件下,是否能有保障性地得到財務資助進入學校,學院和大學求學?

贫困线會否被調整至一個合理的底綫----即大城市的2000馬幣和鄉村地區的1500馬幣----而那些窮困學生是否能有保障性地得到財務資助進入學校,學院和大學求學?

'國家醫療基金'會否被成立以幫助所有大馬人得到免費而有素質的醫療服務(甚至涵蓋私人醫院的醫療費用)?

這只是所有問題裏的冰山一角,但對我而言,教育、醫療、治安、和人民福利就現在而言是最爲緊要的。所以現今我們需要的是一個很好的福利、教育、與醫療系統。當然背後必須得有人為這個'福利社會'買單。

囯油每年進帳上億,產油州只抽取那其中的5%,而95%則進入中央政府的口袋。就如民聯應承般,讓20%的盈餘給州政府好了,那就是否能抽取5%放進'國家醫療及教育基金'中來幫助窮苦人士得到教育與醫療服務呢?

或者福利部可以通過審查來登記那些有需要且符合資格的窮苦人士,然後國會可以通過'國家信托法'勒令囯油把5%的盈餘用在此信托中以支付那些窮苦人群的教育與醫療費用。

當然,我們必須要有一個很好的檢查方式來排除掉那些沒資格或那些之前有資格但現在已經脫離贫困线的人。底綫是這個系統必須是色盲的。無論你的種族、宗教、性別是什麽,只要你符合條件,你就有資格得到援助。若這個計劃能夠落實,那NEP將會自動地失去用處,我們根本就不必特意地去廢除它。

以上的幾點只是一小撮的例子,要我現在把所有課題都列出來,那是不可能的;我可能需要20多頁才能擧列完畢。我希望在此你們能夠看見我所要表達的意思:大選宣言裏的理念其實只是骨头架子而已,而我們現在要看到的是骨頭上的肌肉。

 
Kredit: www.malaysia-today.net

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News

1 ulasan
Klik GAMBAR Dibawah Untuk Lebih Info
Sumber Asal Berita :-

Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News


GE13: Zulkifli Noordin to contest Shah Alam on BN ticket

Posted: 15 Apr 2013 12:56 PM PDT

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVz0GT3Oe6MODl8FMUZZkQ8ArWUVxhyphenhyphenG0Oaa2iU1g7ilc0lebJZVR9xFiaZxbCrFhWeK_EN4moqiHzDZA_zxDcf4YGFL4A3yLP1RWVNUTFJ0jiCwRDNkr0AFxaBnM2Q2tHZQVP9feXqGXt/s1600/zul+noordin.jpg 

(fz.com) - Outspoken politician Datuk Zulkifli Noordin has been picked to contest the Shah Alam parliamentary seat under the Barisan Nasional ticket, coalition chairman Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced today.

Zulkifli, who won the Kulim Bandar Baharu parliamentary seat as a PKR candidate in 2008, became a BN-friendly independent in 2010 after he was sacked from the party for criticising Pakatan Rakyat leaders.

He will stand as a BN direct candidate against incumbent Shah Alam MP Khalid Abdul Samad of PAS, with whom he had a much publicised feud over the use of the word 'Allah' by non-Muslims.

He most recently had to apologise to the Indian community for hurting their feelings after a video clip of him belittling Hinduism appeared on YouTube and sparked widespread protests, including from the MIC.

Several police reports were lodged against the lawyer, with some parties calling for him to be charged for sedition. Zulkifli had claimed the video was taken years ago, when he was still a member of PAS.

Najib, in announcing the candidates for Selangor, said 80% of the candidates contesting for the coalition will be new faces.

He said BN does not only want Selangor to return under its rule but a strong government to fulfil the aspirations of the rakyat.

Najib added Umno would contest in 9 parliamentary seats and 35 state seats.

One major surprise was the announcement that Perkasa vice president Datuk Zulkifli Noordin will contest under the BN ticket in Shah Alam.

Read more at: http://fz.com/content/zulkifli-noordin-contest-shah-alam-bn-ticket 

 

Video Seks Nik Aziz Pula Tersebar

Posted: 15 Apr 2013 11:42 AM PDT

http://malaysianreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/video-seks-nik-aziz-625x625.jpg 

(Malaysian Review) - Skandal Sex Nik Aziz di Kota Mekah pula tersebar?

Rasanya video ini tersebar sejak beberapa bulan lepas dan kini dibangkit semula oleh blogger Pron BN UMNO. Sehingga ke Mekkah pun mereka reka cerita skandal keji. Politik melayu memang kelakar…gila

Sejak dari tahun 1998 lagi umNO sudah tiada isu lain, Nak cakap parti ini bela rakyat, merompak duit rakyat lagi ada lah. Tak cukup lagi dengan merompak, parti ini juga telah banyak kali menyalahgunakan kuasa yang mereka ada! Mereka telah menyalahgunakan kuasa yang ada pada mereka demi kepentingan peribadi dan politik mereka dan kroni.
Isu Kapal Selam Scorpene, Perwaja Steel dan NFC adalah salah satu dari bukti penyalahgunaan kuasa mereka! Itu belum lagi termasuk kes-kes yang telah ditutup seperti PERWAJA dan PKFZ yang ditutup atas sebab-sebab tertentu!

Apakah cara mereka untuk menutup dan mengalihkan kesalahan-kesalahan mereka dari pengetahuan umum? Inilah antaranya dengan mereka-reka video & gambar parti lawan mereka! Ini terbukti dengan keluarnya video-video lucah & fitnah yang dilakonkan oleh pelakon-pelakon yang dibayar oleh unit-unit media umNO!

Mereka juga cukup hebat dalam merekacipta sesuatu fitnah yang kononnya berpunca dari pihak lawan mereka seperti peristiwa di Lahad Dato yang dikatakan berpunca dari Anwar Ibrahim sedangkan yang terbukti memberi ic@kad pengenalan biru kepada pengganas-pengganas ini adalah puak umNO termasuklah bekas Mantan Presiden umNO sendiri.

Selain dijanjikan kerakyatan, pengganas ini dijanjikan tanah dan kerja yang tetap oleh pemimpin-pemimpin umNO ini! Tetapi yang menjadi masalah apabila janji untuk diberi tanah telah dimungkiri dan akibatnya pengganas ini memberontak!

Inilah kisah sebenar disebalik insiden di Lahad Dato ini yang telah mengorbankan sebilangan anggota polis dan tentera! Akhirnya insiden ini telah dijadikan satu helah dan alasan untuk umNO dan Be ENd menanggung-nangguhkan Pilihanraya Umum ke 13! Selain untuk mengaburi mata rakyat dari isu-isu penyelewengan pemimpin-pemimpin umNO ia juga telah dijadikan senjata untuk merosakkan imej pemimpin-pemimpin pembangkang!

Bila tembelang-tembelang mereka ini mula pecah, mereka kini terpaksa merekacipta isu-isu lain dan memulakan fitnah baru! Antara fitnah-fitnah mereka yang dikesan adalah salah laku pemimpin utama Pakatan Rakyat seperti +Anwar Ibrahim, Nurul Izzah, Azmin Ali, dan yang terkini adalah ulama tersohor dunia, Menteri Besar Kelantan, Tuan Guru Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat.
Astaghfirullahal azim! Memang benarlah umNO sudah terdesak & tersepit. Hanya dengan cara inilah bagi umNO untuk mengekalkan kuasa dan seterusnya menyelamatkan diri mereka dari dihukum selepas PRU13 kelak

Ingatlah, undi kita ada pahala dan dosa, Inilah yang akan terjadi jika kita mengundi parti Umno-BN yang membuat fitnah lucah sebegini, seolah-olah kita turut menyokong perbuatan mereka. Mahukah anda berkongsi dosa yang anda tidak lakukan?

Inikah parti yang memperjuangkan agama bangsa dan negara? Tak cukup dengan memaki, mengutuk, mencaci & menghina! Ulama pun mereka sanggup fitnah! Nauzubillah Hingga Video Seks Nik Aziz pun ada dan direka.

Sumber Warta Jingga dan Ek Eleh Blog Video Seks Nik Aziz 2013 direka sebelum video seks Mustafa Ali serta Video Seks Nurul Izzah.

video nik aziz

 

Who is the Leader, Who the Follower?

Posted: 15 Apr 2013 11:29 AM PDT

http://sin.stb.s-msn.com/i/7D/94AA934930EB9485CB013F71DD5.jpg 

Even as early as last year, political observers had noted that the BN-led government was carrying out reforms that Pakatan had originally proposed
 
Kee Thuan Chye
 
Who has the better manifesto – the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) or Pakatan Rakyat?
 
As the build-up to election day on May 5 continues, some voters might want to consider this before they go to the polls while some will not bother because they have already made up their minds anyway.
 
The main topic of conversation surrounding BN's manifesto has been its promise of more cash handouts. Critics have been running it down as blatant vote-buying while simple-minded people may be swayed by the offer of more BR1M (Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia) with higher cash values and yearly payout frequency.
 
To be sure, giving free handouts annually is a negative sign. It is an admission that BN has not been managing the country's economy well from Independence till now to ensure that a huge proportion of Malaysians are earning enough to be self-sufficient.
 
It is also sending out a negative message to the people, telling them that they can get money without working for it. This reinforces the culture of dependence emerging from the implementation of the New Economic Policy (NEP).
 
If voters fall for the promise of more BR1M, it will show they are willing bribe-takers, that they are people who are prone to being dependent.
 
To woo Indian voters, BN pledges RM500 million in seed funding towards raising the equity of the Indian community to at least 3 per cent. Pakatan, however, does not pander to any ethnic community, preferring to take a broad multi-racial approach in its plans for the country's future without favouring any particular race. This augurs well for a better Malaysia and shows up once again BN's attempt at blatant vote-buying.
 
On the whole, the BN manifesto is nothing new. As a veteran economist who has served in the civil service notes, it is structurally the same BN manifesto that has been used in past general elections for decades. It is superficial and short-term, particularly in its focus on cash handouts. He would have wanted BN to tackle the key issues of improving education, for instance, and removing the fixation on the NEP and the accompanying idea of Ketuanan Melayu. Both of these are comprehensively addressed in the Pakatan manifesto.
 
Moreover, BN's promise of a 20 to 30 per cent gradual reduction in car prices is lifted, ironically enough, from Pakatan's manifesto. And the increase in taxi permits being granted to individuals is another Pakatan-inspired promise. The difference is, Pakatan offers a better deal – it will abolish the current system of granting permits to selected companies and give these permits directly to all taxi drivers.
 
There are other ideas borrowed from Pakatan, including the uniformisation of the prices of essential items so that Sabahans and Sarawakians don't have to pay more for them, and the giving of discounts to PTPTN (National Higher Education Fund Corporation) borrowers in response to Pakatan's promise of totally writing off the loans. This goes to show that Pakatan is the one that is much more the mover while BN is the follower.
 
BN may say that it came up with these ideas on its own, but the fact that Pakatan unveiled its manifesto a few weeks earlier gives the impression that BN copied from the latter. More important to note is the other well-known fact that this is not the first time BN has adopted Pakatan's ideas.
 
Even as early as last year, political observers had noted that the BN-led government was carrying out reforms that Pakatan had originally proposed, like the repeal of the Internal Security Act (ISA) and the Sedition Act; the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on the issue of illegal immigrants in Sabah; and the review of oil royalties.
 

 

GE13: Overseas votes on April 28

Posted: 15 Apr 2013 11:27 AM PDT

http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-prn1/s160x160/68853_158136297559749_5194888_a.jpg 

(The Star) - Voters overseas may cast their ballot papers at the respective Malaysian missions on April 28, said the Election Commission (EC).

EC secretary Datuk Kamaruddin Mohamed Bariasaid those in Britain and Australia could collect and return their ballot papers at the Malaysian missions in London and Melbourne, respectively, between 9am and 8pm that day.

"Malaysians in other countries may do the same from 9am to 6pm at the respective missions abroad.

"The EC allowed the Malaysian missions in London and Melbourne to have an extra two hours compared to those in other countries because these places recorded over 1,000 postal voters," he said in a statement here yesterday.

The voters, he said, must be present at the Malaysian missions and produce their identity cards or passports when collecting the ballot papers.

"The ballot papers will not be given to those who do not have identification documents with them. Relatives or representatives are also not allowed to collect them on the voters' behalf," said Kamaruddin.

He said the voters would be given an envelope containing the ballot paper.

"Marked ballot papers will then be dropped in the overseas postal voting bag. They will then be brought back to Malaysia on the same day to be handed over to the returning officers of the respective constituencies," he said.

Kamaruddin said that should the voters collect or return their ballots after the stipulated time on April 28, they would have to cover the cost of returning the papers to their respective returning officer.

Malaysians abroad may check if their postal voting application have been approved and other information by visiting the EC website atwww.spr.gov.my beginning this Friday. 

GE13: Mukhriz the next Kedah MB?

Posted: 15 Apr 2013 11:25 AM PDT

http://starstorage.blob.core.windows.net/archives/2013/4/16/nation/mukhriz-kedah-mb-ge13-n08.jpg 

(The Star) - Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir (pic) is tipped to be the next Mentri Besar if Barisan Nasional wins Kedah.

The guessing game of who will be Barisan's choice should end today when the coalition releases its candidate list.

Mukhriz, the Jerlun MP, will likely contest the Ayer Hitam state seat, fuelling speculation that he would be the likely MB.

Barisan Kedah coordinator Datuk Ahmad Bashah Md Hanipah will name the candidates at Dewan Anak Bukit today.

The likely new candidates are Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak's political secretary Datuk Sahlan Ismail (Pokok Sena), activist Dr Zaki Zamani Abdul Rashid (Kuala Kedah) and Mubarak Malaysia vice-president Datuk Othman Abdul (Pendang).

Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom, who is now a senator, will stand in Jerai while Datuk Suraya Yaacob will contest in Sg Tiang.

Long-serving Langkawi MP Datuk Abu Bakar Taib is the only MP to be dropped. Datuk Nawawi Ahmad will contest the Langkawi seat and Langkawi Umno youth chief Norsaidi Nayan will stand the Kuah seat.

Of the 15 parliamentary seats, Umno is contesting 13 and MCA two.

For state seats, Umno will have 28, followed by MCA (four), Gerakan (two) and MIC (two).

MCA is fielding new faces in Kota Darul Aman (Alor Setar division secretary Loh Gim Hooi), Bakar Arang (state deputy secretary Dr Lee Yean Wang) and Kulim (coordinator Chua Thiong Gee).

Dr Leong Yong Kong will be defending his seat in Gurun.

Gerakan would likely field Sungai Petani assistant secretary Bee Sieong Heng in Sidam while Dr Cheah Soon Hai will defend his Derga seat.

Kedah MIC chairman S. Ananthan would likely contest the Lunas state seat while vice-chairman M.L. Maran is expected to be fielded in Bukit Selambau. 

GE13: The changing tide of politics in Kelantan?

Posted: 15 Apr 2013 11:17 AM PDT

http://fz.com/sites/default/files/styles/1_landscape_slider_photo/public/DSC_0047_2.JPG 
 
Fakhrul Razi told fz.com why he thinks more and more Kelantanese are beginning to pay attention to Umno. "It would have been wrong if I had not entered politics. I decided to do so when PAS said that it is okay for non-Muslims to use the word 'Allah'"
 
A LONG line of Federal Reserve Unit trucks and a water cannon scream through the town towards the Kota Baru stadium. The police are bracing for fights that might erupt as the Kelantan football team would be meeting Vietnam that night.
 
"Kelantan Umno state chief Tok Pa (Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed) is expected to attend the match. It is not like he is much of a football fan but this time Kelantan Umno is going all out to get the state," explained the taxi driver.
 
Kelantanese are known to be football fanatics.
 
Right in front of the Umno Kelantan office, there is a big billboard of illegal state land clearing data. The office itself is a hive of activity, as Umno members gather in droves for last-minute briefings and to get certain CDs, "Keluargaku pengundi BN" (My family are BN voters) stickers and other pro-BN pamphlets which they are supposed to disseminate when they get home.
 
The CD is a compilation of alleged PAS follies while governing – mainly land-based issues – and a continuously-repeated clip of Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim singing Azizah tak datang (Azizah is not coming) as former PKR MP Zulkifli Nordin lists out what Pakatan will do during the run-up to the 13th general election.
 
(The PAS state government has come under fire for alleged clearing of about 1.7 million acres of state land and selling them to private companies, claimed to be crony companies of top PAS leaders.)
 
Right beside the Kelantan Umno office, is the Umno Kota Baru office, also very busy as hundreds of carefully gift-wrapped towels, instead of the traditional gift of batik sarongs, attached with Umno KB manifesto, are unloaded from Skuad Sayang vans belonging to Wanita Umno. These are to be handed out to supporters later during the campaign period.
 
Previous general elections have not seen this much activities on the Umno side. In Kelantan, BN is very much represented by Umno only – MCA and MIC are mere mentions in a state where Malays comprise of almost 94% of its population.
 
The secretary of Kota Baru Umno, Zulkifli Abd Ghani, said that he feels that this election will see more votes for Umno.
 
"Now, we feel that we have a chance. More people are attending our ceramah," said Zulkifli.
 
He said Kelantan politics is changing. Umno is attracting even ulama now, with some joining the party, unlike before when the norm is for ulama to join PAS.

Read more at: http://fz.com/content/ge13-changing-tide-politics-kelantan 

GE13 not a PM race, Anwar tells Perak

Posted: 15 Apr 2013 11:12 AM PDT

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/images/uploads/mugshots/anwaribrahim400px.jpg 

(TMI) - "Do not forget how the feeling of pain, do not forget what it feels like to be beaten, do not forget what it feels like to be poor, do not forget what it feels like to be insulted, to be victimised, so that when you rule, never for once allow any person in the community, whether Malay, Chinese, Indian, Dayak or Kadazan, to be victimised in the same way or be ignored" 

The looming May 5 polls is not a prime minister race or a contest of party insignias but a pursuit of moral change and equality, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said last night as he humbled himself to a massive crowd of urban Malay folk at the iconic Gugusan Manjoi here.

Anwar, his voice breaking as he preached his belief in justice for all races, said he was thankful to God that he had survived his six-year incarceration but was now anxious to ensure that no one else would be put through the same test.

"This election is not a question about replacing the prime minister, or replacing parties... I remind you my friends, even if we replace the PM, but he is just as conceited, land disappears in the same way, the people's incomes are stagnant — what good is there in that?

"People are voting for change. We, as Muslims, we believe in an administration that is founded on good morals," he said.

The veteran politician, whose theatrics was not lost on the Malay-dominated crowd of at least 2,000 people seated on a boggy field, repeatedly said he had long forgiven those who dragged him from his comfortable perch as deputy prime minister to prison more than a decade back but said the suffering he went through would not be forgotten.

He said PAS spiritual adviser Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat had urged him to forgive but never to forget his experiences so that should Pakatan Rakyat (PR) come to power, no Malaysian would have to suffer like he had.

Read more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/ge13-not-a-pm-race-anwar-tells-perak/ 

 

Three states may see new faces as CM, menteris besar

Posted: 15 Apr 2013 11:11 AM PDT

http://w1.nst.com.my/polopoly_fs/1.256531.1366050726!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_540/image.jpg 

SWITCH ON CARDS? 4 opposition ruled-states may see change, too

KUALA LUMPUR: TWO states are likely to get new menteris besar while another, a new chief minister, following the movement of Barisan Nasional candidates between parliamentary and state seats.

Although the full list of candidates contesting the 222 parliamentary seats and 505 state seats would only be known today, Perlis, Malacca and Johor are likely to see their top office bearers contesting for parliamentary seats.

Kedah, Selangor, Kelantan and Penang will also have new menteris besar and a chief minister should BN succeed in wresting these states away from Pakatan Rakyat.

Former Jerlun member of parliament Datuk Mukhriz Mahathir is largely said to be the choice menteri besar candidate in Kedah should BN string a victory in the northern state while Datuk Mustapa Mohamed, who is former Jeli MP, is hugely tipped for the same post in Kelantan.

Such speculations came to light yesterday after state and BN component leaders received their watiqah or appointment letters of the candidates sanctioned to contest in the coming general election from Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

The large movement of candidates between parliamentary and state seats is also bound to affect the rest of the state line-ups, especially in Perlis and Johor.

The line-up in Selangor, to be announced today, is also expected to surprise as sources said 70 per cent of those contesting this time would be new faces.

Speculation was rife yesterday that some big names, including former Pasir Gudang MP Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin, former Raub MP Datuk Seri Dr Ng Yen Yen, former Jelebu MP Datuk Seri Rais Yatim and former Tasik Gelugor MP Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop, have been dropped from contesting at the federal level.

This meant that they are unlikely to be in the next cabinet, unless appointed as senators.

Even former prime minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is said to be not in the list to contest at federal level. Abdullah is said to be making way for a new candidate for his Kepala Batas seat.

Former MCA president Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat is also making way for lawyer Gary Lim to contest for the Pandan seat.

In Johor, Khaled, whose name has cropped up as the next menteri besar by several quarters in Umno, may have been dropped from retaining the Pasir Gudang parliamentary seat to contest for a state seat.

The move will make him eligible to be appointed as menteri besar. Despite incessant rumours, Khaled has refused to comment on the matter, saying that talk of his replacing current Johor Menteri Besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman had been rife for quite sometime.

Ghani is widely tipped to not defend his Serom state seat and instead battle it out for the Gelang Patah parliamentary seat with DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang.

Ghani had, on several occasions, expressed his interest in going against Lim ever since the latter's candidacy was announced by opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.

The strategy in pitting a seasoned politician like Ghani against Lim is seen by political observers as necessary to counter Pakatan Rakyat excursions into the BN stronghold.

Ghani, 67, may also be called again to serve at federal level as a cabinet minister following his previous portfolios as Deputy Energy, Telecommunication and Post Minister (1987-1990), Deputy Finance Minister (1990-1993) and Youth and Sports Minister (1993-1995).

Up north in Perlis, Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Md Isa Sabu may not be recontesting the Bintong state seat to pave the way for Kangar Umno committee member Shaharuddin Ismail, who is also the Perlis Football Association manager.

Several names have cropped up to replace Isa as menteri besar, as he is expected to contest for the Kangar parliamentary seat to replace incumbent Datuk Seri Mohd Radzi Sheikh Ahmad who has opted to pull out from the race.

Isa, who had also contested and won in Kangar in 1995, may be facing off with Perlis Mufti Dr Juanda Jaya who will contest under the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) banner.

Najib yesterday described the candidates' line-up as a reflection of BN's spirit of trustworthiness, inclusiveness and transformation which encapsulated the spirit of 1Malaysia. He also said any issues pertaining to overlapping seats and disappointment on the decisions made have been resolved in preparation for the election.


 

Give Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail a seat: SIGN THE PETITION

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 11:47 PM PDT

We, the undersigned, appeal to Parti Keadilan Rakyat for Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail to be given a state seat in Selangor to contest.

SIGN THE PETITION HERE: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/azizah/

PSM to decide

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 10:42 PM PDT

http://www.thenutgraph.com/user_uploads/images/2009/04/29/loga%20psm.jpg 

There is also an attempt to make PSM look unreasonable on its request to use its own logo in this coming GE. Let us put this now in perspective.
 
S.Arutchelvan, Secretary General PSM 
In the last 24 hours, there has been lots of queries and phone calls on the seat negotiation between PSM and PR. We would like to state that the PSM would be holding a an Emergency National Committee meeting to decide on a number of issues outlined below.

Besides that, there is also an attempt to make PSM look unreasonable on its request to use its own logo in this coming GE. Let us put this now in perspective.
 
1. PSM wanted to stand in the same seats it contested in 2008 as to maintain the status quo. The three seats stood by PSM in 2008 under PKR – Sg. Siput, Kota Damansara and Semenyih has never been contested by any PKR members before this. Therefore to claim that these are PKR seats and PSM is three cornering is totally wrong.

2. PSM has always stated that if there was a common PR logo, PSM would be willing to use it. This shows that PSM was never fussy on using only its logo but felt that it has the same democratic rights like other parties in PR to use their respective logos.

3. When we meet Datuk Sri Anwar Ibrahim on the 13th of April, several issues were discussed on a friendly manner. I put some critical points of dispute.

i. PKR wanted PSM to stand in both the Selangor seat using the PKR logo. PSM conceded to use PKR logo in Semenyih but said that PSM members will find it very difficult to ask the top leader of PSM Dr. Nasir Hashim not to use the PSM party logo. PSM members have fought for 11 years with the BN government for this logo and they felt that the PR should allow at least the PSM national Chairperson to stand on his party flag.  
ii. We were also shocked to learn that previously Dr. Jeyakumar was informed that he can stand under the PSM logo in Sungai Siput but during the discussion with DSAI, we were told that if he stands under PSM logo, then DAP will field a candidate against him.
iii. We were also told that even if PSM stand all three seats under PR logo, DAP will not allow PSM to stand in Jelapang. We requested that an NGO committee decide on the Jelapang seat and we will adhere to that.
iv. We were also told that if we win the seat as PKR logo, we can immediately use PSM logo upon winning here after. But again here, the same principles were not applied when PSM won 2 seats in 2008 and now we are given the same deal.
v. The meeting ended by us agreeing to talk to PSM members and DSAI saying that he will try to talk to other PR leaders on how to resolve this issue. Meanwhile DSAI mentioned that they may need to hold back the Selangor seat announcement until this issue is solved.
vi. The meeting ended with both parties trying to find a solution and to avoid any three corner fight which will be damaging to both parties.
 
4. On 14th night, we were shocked to learn that DSAI has already announced the Semenyih candidate. This decision was made in spite of PSM agreeing to stand under PKR logo in Semenyih. The Kota Damansara seat was not announced pending negotiation with PSM. We also hear that PKR has also prepared a parachute candidate to stand in Sungai Siput. 

5. PSM has now called for an emergency National Committee Meeting to discuss the following:

i. To review our position to stand in the 4 seats using our own logo.
ii. To discuss the current development where PR is three cornering PSM in all its seats and our relationship with PR.
iii. To discuss and decide on the request made by non PSM members, mostly members from DAP and PKR who wants to stand using PSM logo in some areas. To date there has been 10 requests - 2 from Sabah, 1 from Perak, 3 from Negeri Sembilan and 4 from Selangor.
iv. To discuss the request made by Environmental groups and PSM Cameron to field our candidate in Cameron Highlands.

 

Pitiful clowns assure Security for Sabah

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 10:40 PM PDT

http://starstorage.blob.core.windows.net/archives/2012/10/26/columnists/whynot/n_33naval.jpg 

BN wants the people of Sabah to vote for it for better security. That was the same old excuse in 1963!

Joe Fernandez


This must be the joke of the century considering the fact that they looked the other way for 50 years while the illegals flooded in and swamped the electoral rolls, marginalised and disenfranchised the Orang Asal, among others, increased the crime rate, filled the jails and caused other social problems.

The 200 Suluks involved in the Lahad Datu intrusion are the last group, not the first, to enter Sabah. About 800,000 of them are already here.

Najib bought two small submarines and parked it at Sepanggar because he knew Sabahans would just keep quiet.

The Government wants to sell them but there are no buyers.

Submarines are useless in shallow waters.

The Chinese are claiming the South China Sea up to 80 km off the Sabah coast. That's well within our 250 km Exclusive Economic Zone. Their ships are off our coast.

What does Putrajaya do?

Nothing!

What can it do?

Nothing!

Yet BN is urging Sabahans to vote for it. They claim that only the BN can provide security for Sabah.

The BN are degenerating into a bunch of pitiful clowns. They can't get away from the same old stale acts. They should think of some new ways of singing for their supper.

 

Sultan's men set up guerrilla base

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 10:38 PM PDT

(Philippine Star) - After eluding Malaysian authorities for several weeks, the followers of the sultanate of Sulu have set up a guerrilla base in the hinterlands of Sabah, the sultanate's spokesman said yesterday.

Abraham Idjirani told reporters that the Malaysian military and police knew about the base but could not pinpoint the exact location because the jungle in the area is vast.

Idjirani said the new stronghold is in a strategic location with enough sources of food and water, and with adequate shelter for nearly 500 men.

The base was reported to Idjirani during a conversation the other day with Agbimuddin Kiram, the sultanate-appointed "administrator" of Sabah.

A source from the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF)said the base was their former camp where a cache of high-powered weapons was kept at the height of the Mindanao uprising in the early '70s.

The source said the base was established by MNLF fighters who joined the group in Lahad Datu to press their proprietary claim over Sabah.

Idjirani clarified the sultan's fighters would continue to adopt defensive position and would not initiate any attack on the Malaysian forces.

The Malaysian military and police have stopped the operation against the armed group. The last encounter took place last April 9.

Aside from the 400 new arrivals from Sulu, Basilan and Tawi-Tawi, Tausugs based in Lahad Datu and Semporna have also joined the sultanate army at the stronghold.

Idjirani said 80 percent of the army is now fully armed and ready to repeal any attack on the base by Malaysian authorities.

Meanwhile, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) continues to provide transport for Filipinos evacuating Sabah.

Last Saturday, the BRP Nueva Vizcaya evacuated 79 Filipinos to Bongao, Tawi-Tawi; 17 others, including 12 children and five adults were brought to Jolo, and 62 to Zamboanga City. – With Rainier Allan Ronda

 

Party elections versus general elections

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 08:31 PM PDT

And that is why Azmin Ali refuses to give Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and Nurul Izzah Anwar state seats in Selangor. Dr Wan Azizah is barred from contesting a Parliament seat while Nurul Izzah is contesting an unsafe seat, Lembah Pantai.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

A total of 727 seats -- 222 Parliament seats and 505 state seats -- are going to be contested on 5th May 2013. This excludes the 71 Sarawak state seats or else there would be 798 seats in all (Sarawak already had its state election two years ago in April 2011).

Those who have been politically active -- meaning 'on the ground' -- for some time would know that the party elections are always seen as more important and more hotly contested than the general elections. More money is spent on the party elections than in the general elections.

It would appear that these 3,000 (or more) Malaysians are offering to serve the 28 million rakyat (citizens) as their wakil rakyat (people's representative). And it would also appear that these 3,000 (or more) Malaysians are selfless people who only wish to serve and do good deeds for the rakyat.

Actually, they will be paid a lot of money to do the job that requires no education or qualifications. They only need to know how to talk and how to apple-polish their party bosses and those who decide who gets to contest the elections.

Ultimately, this is cronyism and nepotism at its best. Those who get chosen to contest would be those who are loyal and can serve the interest of the party bosses. Those considered a threat to these party leaders would definitely be sidelined and would not get chosen to contest.

The general elections are crucial to politicians who wish to climb the party ladder or who wish hold on to their position in the party. If they are not wakil rakyat then their political future is bleak and they would not be able to climb the party ladder or hold on to their position in the party.

Hence becoming a wakil rakyat is the first step to bigger things. And if you cannot clear this first hurdle of becoming a wakil rakyat then forget about your political career in the party.

And this is why there is a lot of jostling for seats in every general election. Failing to get a seat means that the party and the party leaders do not have confidence in you, do not trust you, do not consider you one of the gang, do not wish for you to rise up the party ladder, and so on.

The general election is basically the trial run. If you get chosen as a candidate and you make it, then that means you are going to go places in the party. If you do not get chosen or you lose the election, your future in politics is not so bright.

And that was why many of those who were not chosen to contest in 1999, or lost the election in 1999, soon faded away and were never seen again. The same thing happened in 2004 and 2008. And that is why many who were not chosen to contest left the party and/or crossed over to another party and/or contested as independent candidates and/or sabotaged the candidate who was chosen over them.

And this is the greatest fear that Umno and Barisan Nasional faces -- that those who are not chosen will merajuk (sulk) and damage their own party out of spite and vengeance. (Note the many statements by Umno hinting to this over the last few weeks).

Let me put it this way. If their real interest is merely to serve the rakyat, then what does it matter who gets chosen to contest the election and what does it matter if they are not chosen? Why must it be them and only them? After all, anyone can serve the rakyat, not only them.

Well, that is because it is not about the rakyat but about their personal political career and future. And if they do not get to contest the election, no doubt the rakyat loses nothing, but they who do not get chosen will lose everything.

Now do you know why it is so important that you get chosen to contest the election if you wish to go places?

On the other hand, those who make the decision in choosing these candidates need to consider how these successful calun (candidates) can serve them and whether they will be loyal and not bite the hand that feeds them. And if certain people are seen as a threat, those decision makers need to make sure that these threats are eliminated -- meaning they do not get chosen to contest the election.

And that is why Azmin Ali refuses to give Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail and Nurul Izzah Anwar state seats in Selangor. Dr Wan Azizah is barred from contesting a Parliament seat while Nurul Izzah is contesting an unsafe seat, Lembah Pantai.

Now, if Dr Wan Azizah and Nurul Izzah are given state seats in Selangor, and if they are given safe seats on top of that, then the mother and daughter will most likely win the election. And this would mean that their political careers are secure.

However, since Dr Wan Azizah is no longer going to be a wakil rakyat and Nurul Izzah will most likely lose the Lembah Pantai seat, they can more or less kiss their political careers good-bye.

So who will rise up the party ladder instead? Well, the plan is, Azmin Ali will go for President, Zuraida Kamaruddin for Deputy President, and Rafizi Ramli for one of the Vice Presidents.

Hence 'Team Azmin' will emerge victorious while 'Team Azizah' is dead and buried.

And that is the only reason why Malaysia holds a general election every four or five years. It is for the party to weed out 'threats' to the party leadership. And this is what Umno does each and every time, as do all the other parties within Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat.

And this is what is happening to Dr Wan Azizah and Nurul Izzah as well. They are being weeded out because they are a threat to Azmin Ali.

 

MCA to contest in 37 parliament, 90 state seats, 68 new faces

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 07:26 PM PDT

(Bernama) - MCA will contest in 37 parliament and 90 state seats in the May 5 general election. Sixty-eight of the 127 candidates are new faces.

A 25-year-old aspirant is the youngest contestant from the party, the second major component of the Barisan Nasional (BN).

The five female candidates fielded are also new faces.

MCA President Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek said 19 or 51.3 per cent of the 37 candidates for Parliament seats were new faces while 49 contenders for the 90 state seats were also new faces.
 
MCA contested in 40 parliamentary and 90 state seats in the 2008 general election.

 

Pakatan eyeing magical 112 seats or more

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 06:45 PM PDT

DAP also says that Pakatan can cause 'phenomenal political revolution' in Johor.

Athi Shankar, FMT

Pakatan Rakyat can exceed the magical number of 112 parliamentary seats to capture the federal government if the coalition can win at least 33 of the 83 federal seats up for grabs in Johor, Sabah and Sarawak.

DAP senior leader Lim Kit Siang acknowledged that these three states held the keys to Putrajaya.

Lim said he decided to leave his safe seat in Ipoh Timur to contest in Gelang Patah, Johor, in 13th general election to convert these three Barisan Nasional 'fixed deposits' into Pakatan's loyal voters.

He also said that Pakatan could possibly win by a 28-seat majority to form the next federal government.

A total of 222 parliament seats are up for grabs. A simple majority of 112 seats is sufficient to form the federal government.

"We're aiming to win the 25 parliamentary seats which BN won with less than a 55% popular votes in previous polls," Lim said.

Among the seats targeted by Pakatan are Arau (Perlis), Alor Star (Kedah), Kuala Nerus (Terengganu), Larut, Kuala Kangsar, Kampar and Lumut (Perak), Bentong, Raub and Jerantut (Pahang), Sabak Bernam and Pandan (Selangor), Rembau (Negeri Sembilan) and Bukit Katil (Malacca).

"Pakatan can win with a good and comfortable majority," said Lim, who was once Kota Melaka, Sri Petaling and Tanjung MP.Lim's calculation is based on DAP and PAS winning 40 parliamentary seats each, and PKR 45 seats this time.

Pakatan targets big in Johor

Lim was speaking at a press conference at Wisma DAP here today. Also present were DAP secretary general and Lim's son Guan Eng, state DAP chief Chow Kon Yeow and his deputy P Ramasamy, secretary Ng Wei Aik and other state party leaders.

In the last general election in 2008, BN won 140 seats against Pakatan's 82 to retain the federal government despite a massive swing among voters against BN in the Peninsular.

Unlike other capital cities and urban areas, Johor Baru was the only state capital that managed to maintain Umno and BN dominance in 2008.

READ MORE HERE

 

Gerakan unveils candidates, more than half new faces

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 06:32 PM PDT

Of the 42 candidates, 22 are newcomers.

(Bernama) - Gerakan will contest in 11 parliamentary and 31 state seats in the May 5 general election, one parliamentary seat less allocated to the party in the last general election in 2008.

Party president Koh Tsu Koon said of the total 42 candidates, 22 or 52.4% are new faces who have not contested before, five or 12% are women and three or 7% are leaders of Indian origin, the rest are Chinese aspirants.

"The youngest candidate is 31 years' old," the Minister in the Prime Minister's Department said in a statement.

Earlier, Prime Minister and Barisan Nasional chairman Najib Tun Razak handed the documents of nomination and the BN's Pledge to BN component parties' presidents and and state BN chairmen.

Koh said Gerakan would contest in two state seats in Sabah, namely Elopura and Tanjong Papat, as the incumbents – Aw Kam Wah and Raymond Tan Shu Kiah – of Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) embraced Gerakan in 2009 after SAPP withdrew from BN.

In Pahang, Gerakan swapped the Ketari state seat with MCA's Tanah Rata, while it would "loan" the Kepong parliamentary seat in the Kuala Lumpur Federal Territory and the Kota Alam Shah state seat in Selangor to the People's Progressive Party (PPP).

Gerakan would also "loan" the Skudai state seat in Johor to MCA, he said.

The seats on "loan" are only for this general election, he added.

Following are Gerakan's candidates' list for Parliament and state seats:

Parliament seats

1. Batu Kawan – N Gobalakrishnan (new face)

2. Bukit Bendera – Teh Leong Meng (new face)

3. Tanjong – Ng Song Kheng (new face)

4. Jelutong – Ng Fook On

5. Taiping – Tan Lian Hoe

6. Beruas – Chang Ko Youn

7. Telok Intan – Mah Siew Keong

8. Puchong – A Kohilan Pillay (new face)

9. Batu – Dr Dominic Lau Hoe Chai (new face)

10. Segambut – B Jayanthi Devi (new face)

11. Simpang Renggam – Liang Teck Meng

State seats

Penang:

1. Machang Bubuk – Tan Loke Heah (new face)

2. Bukit Tengah – Teng Chang Yeow

3. Bukit Tambun – Lai Chew Hock

4. Tanjung Bungah – Chia Kwang Chye

5. Kebun Bunga – H'ng Chee Wey (new face)

6. Pulau Tikus – Rowena Yam (new face)

7. Padang Kota – Oh Tong Keong (new face)

8. Datuk Keramat – Ong Thean Lye

9. Sungai Pinang – Dr Thor Teong Gee

10. Batu Lanchang – Lee Boon Ten

11. Air Itam – Loo Jieh Sheng (new face)

12. Batu Uban – Goh Kheng Sneah

13. Pantai Jerejak – Wong Mun Hoe

Kedah:

1. Derga – Dr Cheah Soon Hai

2. Sidam –Bee Sieong Heng (new face)

Perak:

1. Kuala Sepetang – Loh Swee Eng (new face)

2. Aulong – Soo Key Ping (new face)

3. Jalong – Liew Yew Aw (new face)

4. Canning – Ceylyn Tay Wei Lung (new face)

Pahang:

1. Tanah Rata – Ho Yip Kap

2. Triang – Tan Tin Loon

Selangor:

1. Teratai – Ben Liew Pok Boon (new face)

2. Bukit Gasing – Juan Sei Chang (new face)

3. Bukit Lanjan – Francis Chong Tuck Chiew (new face)

Negeri Sembilan:

1. Bukit Kepayang – Wong Oi Foon (new face)

2. Senawang – Choong Vee Hing (new face)

Malacca:

1. Bachang – Chua Lian Chye (new face)

Johor:

1. Pemanis – Lau Chin Hoon

2. Bukit Batu – Cheong Chin Liang

Sabah:

1. Elopura – Au Kam Wah

2. Tanjong Papat – Raymond Tan Shu Kiah

 

I love it when I can say, “I told you so”

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 06:02 PM PDT

I think two submarines failing to prevent 100 illegal immigrants from entering Sabah is a pretty good track record considering that the US has 71 nuclear-class submarines and they still can't stop 11 million illegal immigrants from entering the country.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Bishop Paul Tan said that despite the government knowing that Sunday is a holy day where Christians must go to Church and worship God, EC has fixed May 5th for polling. "This disrespect of the government of the Christian rights is to be denounced. It just proves that the government is not sincere in its 1Malaysia slogan."

*****************************************

"That is not democracy, that is communism," said Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat. "If you want to vote, go vote. But don't force people into choosing a party."

*****************************************

"Even I never worked that hard. But I must admit that the support (for BN) was very obvious (when I was PM). That's why I won five elections, each one with a two-thirds majority (in Parliament)," said former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

*****************************************

So far it has been, as a friend remarked the other day, "a very American election". With its mobilising and symbolic focus on PM Datuk Seri Najib Razak, the GE13 "pre-campaign" has been nothing if not "presidential". When an election is focused, through one key initiative, upon the fate of the national leader who is uniquely identified with that measure, we may well characterise the campaign as presidential. -- Clive Kessler.

*****************************************

As I write this, 87 comments have been posted in my article Should Tun Dr Mahathir be put to death? The comments would have been more than 100 had I not deleted about 20 or 30 comments that were so out of topic.

Those 20 or 30 comments I deleted talked about the reason and manner that Tun Dr Mahathir should be killed. Others debated Christianity and the New and Old Testaments and so on.

If you are a student of English literature and if you had read George Orwell's Animal Farm then you will know that the book is not about animals or farms. It is about Communism. Can you imagine Malaysia Today's readers reading that book and then debating as to why pork is haram in Islam (and Judaism) and therefore pigs should not be elected the leader of the animals?

Nevertheless, that would be exactly what Malaysia Today's readers would do. One reader said that I should go to Oxford and take an English language course so that I can learn how to write properly and, therefore, people can better understand what I am saying in my articles.

Sivarasa Rasiah, the 'caretaker' Member of Parliament for Subang, gave a talk in Kota Damansara two nights ago (with Bersih Chairperson Ambiga Sreenevasan in tow) and he commented that Malaysia wasted so much money buying two submarines and yet they could not stop the Filipinos from sneaking into Sabah. The United States has 71 submarines and yet they too can't seem to stop the 11 million illegal immigrants from entering the country.

I think two submarines failing to prevent 100 illegal immigrants from entering Sabah is a pretty good track record considering that the US has 71 nuclear-class submarines and they still can't stop 11 million illegal immigrants from entering the country.

Anyway, why is Ambiga escorting Sivarasa to a PKR ceramah when she said she is not campaigning for PKR? As they say in the legal fraternity (and Sivarasa and Ambiga are both lawyers): justice must not only be done but must also be seen to be done. Hence, being impartial is not good enough. Should you not also be seen to be impartial?

Bishop Paul Tan is angry that the government has fixed Polling Day on a Sunday. This, he appears to believe, is disrespectful to the Christians. In some Malaysian states, people have to work on a Sunday -- while the day off is Friday. And this has been going on since long before Merdeka in August 1957.

Should now all the states in Malaysia fix Sunday as the day off while Friday be declared a working day? And will the Pakatan Rakyat run states make these necessary changes to show more respect to the Christians seeing that this is very important to the Christians?

Anyway, polling is from 8.00am to 6.00pm. Do Christians sit in church for 12 hours from 7.00am to 7.00pm? Would there not be at least 30 minutes free time in between church on Sunday when Christian voters can run out to cast their vote?

And what about when the elections and by-elections are held on a Saturday (which has happened before)? Is this not disrespectful to the Jews (and there are some Jews in Malaysia)? Would fixing elections on a Saturday be considered anti-Semitism?

Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat has classified those who force people into choosing a party as Communists. That is very interesting. That would mean many of you who post comments in Malaysia Today forcing others to support Pakatan Rakyat are Communists. And, as many of you said, Nik Aziz would never lie. Hence you people are definitely Communists and not Democrats as you pretend to be.

An even more interesting comment was the one by former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. "I won five elections, each one with a two-thirds majority," said Dr Mahathir.

So, if 50% of the Malays voted opposition (PAS and Semangat 46 at that time) and yet Barisan Nasional won all the elections with a two-thirds majority, is it the Malays who are the culprits? I love it when I can say, "I told you so".

Finally, Clive Kessler said that the 13th General Election has been transformed into a US Presidential election. That is what I said last month and now Clive Kessler is saying the same thing.

I love it when I can say, "I told you so".

 

Trouble, trouble for Pakatan in Labuan

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 04:23 PM PDT

PKR has no locus standi to demand for seats when many of its elected representatives defected after the 2008 general elections, says Labuan PAS.

(FMT) - The defections from PKR following the 2008 general election have returned to haunt the party and put its credibility in question.

Hellbent on contesting the Labuan parliamentary seat, Labuan PAS chief Hamir Zahari said PKR has no locus standi to assert itself over PAS in seat negotiations.

"No member of parliament from PAS has ever jumped to another party and none has ever left the party.

"In terms of PAS's integrity, we are solid," he said.

Since the 2008 general election, six PKR elected representatives have defected. They are Mohsin Fadzli Samsuri (Bagan Serai), Zulkifli Noordin (Kulim-Bandar Baharu), Zahrain Mohamed Hashim (Bayan Baru), N Gobalakrishnan (Padang Serai), Tan Tee Beng (Nibong Tebal) and Wee Choo Keong (Wangsa Maju).

Even more significant is that PKR defectors had contributed to the opposition coalition losing control over Perak.

In the 2008 general election, Pakatan Rakyat through PAS, PKR and DAP was democratically elected to five states – Kedah, Penang, Perak, Selangor and Kelantan.

Pakatan wrested Perak from Barisan Nasional with a slim majority, winning 32 state assembly seats compared with BN's 27.

However, defections from PKR and DAP saw BN taking over the state a year later.

Labuan PAS blocks PKR

In an open defiance against Pakatan chief Anwar Ibrahim's declaration last Friday that PKR will field its candidate Ibrahim Menudin in Labuan, Labuan PAS responded with a resounding "no way".

Said Hamri: "The seat was agreed back in 2011 during a Pakatan meeting at Federal Territory level.

"At the time, we had agreed that out of 13 parliamentary seats in the Federal Territory, five of them were for PKR, another five for DAP.

"The balance three were for PAS. As such, PAS will stand in Putrajaya, Titiwangsa and Labuan.

"Therefore our candidate will stand in Labuan in this coming 13th general election."

Hamir said PAS would contest in 76 parliamentary seats nationwide, including Labuan, where it will field Hadnan Mohamad.

PAS has already named Husam Musa in Putrajaya and Zamri Khuzaimi in Titiwangsa.

READ MORE HERE

 

Stop harping on Chinese-majority seats issue between UMNO-MCA

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 04:19 PM PDT

(NST) - MCA Penang today turned the table on DAP advisor Lim Kit Siang by questioning his motive in playing up the issue on Chinese majority seats when the party had always claimed to be multiracial.

Penang MCA secretary Lau Chiek Tuan said Lim had no right to tell MCA to explain to people on whether it would surrender its Chinese majority parliamentary and state seats to Umno.

He said it was a poor attempt to tarnish the image and close cooperation between MCA and Umno with the voters.

"DAP claim to be multiracial so why keep talking about Chinese majority seats?

"This is all a political game of theirs," he said when asked to comment on Lim's remark.

Lim had told a press conference at noon today that he was expecting to meet an MCA "big gun" - a clear reference to MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek, anda not from Umno - in the Gelang Patah parliamentary seat in Johor, which he would be contesting in the polls.

Lim had claimed that MCA would not want to surrender the 53 per cent Chinese majority seat to its BN colleague.

 

The perils of Umno men joining PAS — The Malaysian Insider

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 03:54 PM PDT

Election 2013 will be the tightest race in recent Malaysian history and every party is looking for an advantage over their foe. PAS is no exception and has now taken in several Umno men to boost its ranks and profile in the May 5 polls.

Is that wise?

Corporate player Datuk Seri Abdul Rahman Maidin is now PAS's candidate for the Tasik Gelugor federal seat in Penang. He was a known associate of Tun Daim Zainuddin and even helmed the Umno-linked MRCB between 1999 and 2002.

Then there is mounting speculation that former Selangor Mentri Besar Tan Sri Muhammad Muhammad Taib will join PAS this week to give it a psychological edge over Umno.

Muhammad is a big catch, of course. But he comes with baggage too, including the one where RM3.8 million was found on him in Australia, forcing him to resign as mentri besar in 1997.

The man known as Mat Tyson might not be a candidate but what advantage does he and Rahman give to PAS in the long run? Perhaps they have repented and want to contribute to society through PAS but at what cost?

After all, the Islamist party has been grooming a younger set of leaders and they should be given a chance to contest the polls as they come without baggage.

So, why is PAS now going the route of having brand-name recognition to win the general election? To ensure it can keep up with its allies in Pakatan Rakyat?

Will it work? Or will such men with such past sink PAS's efforts in this general election.

These are the perils that PAS must know if it continues picking up former Umno men.

 

A very ‘American’ election

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 03:46 PM PDT

Clive Kessler, TMI

So far it has been, as a friend remarked the other day, "a very American election". With its mobilising and symbolic focus on PM Datuk Seri Najib Razak, the GE13 "pre-campaign" has been nothing if not "presidential".

"Presidential" campaigning: PM Najib and BR1M

If Umno/BN is now a brand, Najib is its face. Its trademark.

Not unlike a certain avuncular colonel and his own certain brand of fried chicken.

And if Umno/Bn now has a strategic approach, it is Najib's own iconic BR1M.

Umno/Bn now relies upon communicating an irresistible sense of party and government largesse that, in a very personal way, the prime minister distributes and also symbolises.

The outgoing government of the last four years — since Pak Abdullah Ahmad Badawi stood down — has largely placed its trust in, and now entrusted its political fate to, BR1M.

And the BR1M promises keep flowing. Endlessly, it would seem. "Our cup overfloweth," the government might well say, spilling over its generous brim.

It has been "brim-full" of subtle inducements and beguiling "goodies".

The election, it seems, will be a referendum on BR1M, and the prime minister will live or die politically on the people's verdict upon this measure, this key strategic device.

When an election is focused, through one key initiative, upon the fate of the national leader who is uniquely identified with that measure, we may well characterise the campaign as presidential.

Targeting the Malaysian "political market"

But there is more to be said. When the present campaign is typified as "very American", much more is involved than its presidential style and personalised "symbolics".

Let us return to the BR1M payments.

These are part of a very sophisticated strategy or political approach.

And the entire approach which the BR1M initiative suggests, and of which it is a part, seems to have a clear "genealogy", or readily identifiable origins.

It seems directly traceable to the "new approach" to election campaigning that has been pioneered in the US over the last quarter-century — especially and initially but now no longer exclusively by the "political right" — by such innovative political consultants,  strategists and "operatives" as Lee Atwater, Roger Ailes and their more recent successors, most notably Karl Rove Jr.

This is the approach that sees not a single nation — "a community of common destiny and shared national fate" — to be addressed, but a series of special interests and constituencies.

A discrepant array of groups that are to be reached, each specifically in its own way: with finely tuned and closely targeted messages, with its own special "tailor-made" policies, and its specifically targeted benefits and promises.

It is an approach that does not presume, nor seek to address, a "nation that is ever in the making", one continually engaged in the process of discovering and renewing itself, but merely a segmented and fragmented  political "market".

It is an approach that, so to speak, neither hears nor wishes to sing a national anthem voicing widely shared aspirations, but one that is instead eager to respond to a cacophony of discordant voices, all calling out "me , me!" and "remember us!"

"Do not forget us," they cry out, "do not leave us out of your official gift-giving at this special political festive season!"

And, guided by the consultant political marketers, the politicians — well, some kinds of politician — hear and respond. They do as the clamourers and the clamour-monitors suggest, they do what they are entreated and told to do.

The idea of a "political market"

This is an approach that assumes, and which orients itself towards, a highly differentiated market in which each component or "strategic actor" is little concerned with what is in the interest of "the whole".

To the "crackpot realists" (to use an expression of C. Wright Mills) who champion this piecemeal approach, such notions as "the common interest" are quite fanciful, even delusional and dangerous.

Those whom they and their preferred strategies address are interested in, and care only about, their own demands, their own insistent question (and the tangible political answers proffered to it!): "what is in this for me, what's the specific benefit for us over here?"

It is an approach that creates and promotes the very social and political fragmentation, the centrifugal drives, the sectional division of diverging interests that it presumes.

This approach, together with its calculating practitioners, is in the business of promoting a "self-fulfilling prophecy" — serviceable to some including its creators — that becomes real, and may become the dominant reality. But it does so, increasingly, to the neglect, and even at the expense, of any common national purpose and agenda.

It does so since it presumes that that is what human nature is like, and what human nature really and most authentically likes. (And when people say so, they maintain, you can believe it, they are "for real", since self-interest never lies, deceives or pretends. It is honestly self-regarding. It is never "fake", it is always trying it best.) 

On the other side of the same coin, this approach holds to the view, or conviction, that co-operation and consensus and "the negotiation of differences" — because they do not come easily — are unnatural, while socially "autistic" or heedless self-interest is no mere default position or moral "last resort", no token of social failure, but natural, commendable and "as good as you can get". That there is nothing better or higher.

It is therefore an approach that, when faced with the challenge of nation-building, always starts from the assumption — the often unexpressed and suppressed assumption — that the whole can never be more than, or achieve a reconciled accommodation among, the sum of its parts.

So people should not even try to seek any such common purpose, or imagine that one may be identified and realised. Any such exercise must be delusional, "chimerical", and even dangerous.

Dangerous because, or so the champions of this approach believe, such efforts — even if unsuccessful, and even if they are merely attempted — violate what they hold to be the most basic, sacred and authentic human realities. They interfere with personal preferences and individual choice and so distort market processes.

The limits of this view

What is wrong with this approach?

True, societies are a complex interplay of co-operation and individualism.

And, like the United States, and others in its wake, the more modern societies become, the more individualistic they also are.

We are all caught up, generally most happily, in this dynamic.

It is the dynamic of human emancipation and self-realisation.

And, again true, markets are arenas in which people — even when they are members of larger social aggregates and groups — think and strategise, choose and act, individually, as separate and independent individual agents.

So, in the short run, you can do so-called "retail politics" by treating the members of political society as nothing more than players in a market, even if it is a rather special kind of market called a political market.

Yet there is more involved than just that.

So that approach can be taken only "so far and no further".

Beyond that point, the idea of the "political market" collapses, becomes dysfunctional and, in practical terms, not helpful.

Why? How?

What we call "political society" these days, even when it has international dimensions and outreach and ramifications, is still largely something that resides, and is accommodated, within states.

And these states are, by and large, what we call "nation-states".

That is to say, they are identified not so much with foreign imperial masters (who may choose to colour large parts of the world map red, or blue or yellow or green, as was once the case) nor primarily with their former traditional sacred rulers but with their own people as citizens.

Whatever their different historical background, and the diversity of their origins and the various but converging paths by way of which they became citizens, these people are now and together members of what we call, and are generally understood as, "nations".

That, meaning cohesive and viable national communities, is what these people, or citizens, must together become and create if political society, and with it all social and economic development, are not to collapse.

That is why people these days, even in the age of rampant and unstoppable globalisation, still talk about "nation-building".

And why, even if its members come into citizenship from differing origins and via different but converging paths, we must speak of them as together "sharing the nation".

States, their institutional arrangements and resources are the common, shared property of all their citizens, as equal stakeholders in the nation. They are the common birthright and inheritance of all their citizens' children.

Political markets, citizens, states and nations

What this means, the first implication of this fact, is that there is more to political and national life than merely political marketing. A nation is not just a political market.

It may be that too — sometimes, at certain moments or phases of its own and citizens' lives — but it is so much more than that.

A nation may at times be a political market, or may be seen and treated as one. That may be one part of what is involved in its common life.

It is the part that the political consultants know, and the part that the campaign strategists who follow and apply the latest "American" technical innovations know how to address.

But that market and those who are involved in it are "subsumed" (or contained and enfolded) within the common life of a nation that finds its expression, its instruments for pursuing common purposes and also its arena for "the negotiation of difference" in state structures and institutions.

So more, much more, is needed in politics, especially in the "election season", than a good marketing strategy.

READ MORE HERE

 

GE13: End of an era

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 03:30 PM PDT

This election the country might bid farewell to leaders like Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (87 years old), Lim Kit Siang (72 years old), Karpal Singh (72 years old), Datuk Seri Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat (82 years old), Datuk Seri S Samy Vellu (77 years old), Tun Musa Hitam (78 years old) and Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah (76 years old).

Asrul Hadi Abdullah Sani, fz.com

THIS coming general election we will probably witness the climactic end to the career of politicians that have coloured and shaped the country's politics as we know it today.
 
Leaders who have flushed the country's newspaper headlines and stirred public imagination with their unmistakable quotes.  
 
Politicians of conviction and not consensus, as the late Margaret Thatcher had described herself.
 
This could also be used to describe these politicians who never minced their words regardless of how ridiculous they may have sounded to the common people.
 
Charismatic leaders who were puppet masters, able to tug at the heart and emotions of the rakyat with their oratory masterpieces.
 
The country's political sentiments have been swayed and anchored by these stalwarts of Malaysian politics and torchbearers of public opinion.
 
My generation, my father's generation and grandfather's generation have seen these leaders gun-slinging against one other with their quick and sharp retorts.
 
This election the country might bid farewell to leaders like Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (87 years old), Lim Kit Siang (72 years old), Karpal Singh (72 years old), Datuk Seri Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat (82 years old), Datuk Seri S Samy Vellu (77 years old), Tun Musa Hitam (78 years old) and Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah (76 years old).
 
With most of the leaders well into their 70s, it is hardly likely the country will see them campaigning in the 14th general election.
 
These leaders' personas reflected the country's state of political maturity at a time when the nation was still looking for direction and identity.
 
A country that was still learning how to breathe and considered as a backwater of the region.
 
A country of farmers and fishermen, rubber and tin.
 
Fifty-seven years later, these leaders still dominate the nation's politics but the country is no longer a blip between Singapore and Thailand.
 
The country is no longer black or white but black and white, with an emergence of a grey area.
 
The country is no longer divided into distinct racial or religious silos but united in their economic hardship.
 
The rakyat is slowly realising that their loyalty is not for any political party but to themselves and their future.
 
Politics in Malaysia is slowly becoming about the people and no longer about the political parties and its personalities.
 
Loyalty has often been used by politicians in the post-colonial era to divide and conquer but it is time that we move forward.
 
As the country turns a new chapter with polling day next month, both Pakatan Rakyat and Barisan Nasional will introduce new candidates as both try to reach out to the 3.7 million new voters who had never experienced the hardship of the pre-Merdeka generation.
 
The next five years, we will see who among the new leaders will able to take up the mantle from the old guards and drive their parties forward. 
 
These leaders will determine which political party will survive or slowly disappear into the history books.
 
We need leaders who are not looking to blow their own trumpet but able to articulate and intelligently discuss issues that affect the people.
 
We need thinking leaders and not only preachers.
 
It will be interesting to see which leaders will be pushed into the upper echelons of their party leadership.
 
Will it be leaders like Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah, Tony Pua, P Kamalanthan, Gan Ping Sieu, Rafizi Ramli, or Salahuddin Ayub? 
 
Malaysia will decide.

 

GE13 – Nik Aziz: Do not follow leaders blindly

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 03:22 PM PDT

He also debunked the myth that ulamas are always right. "Ulamas can also talk nonsense. During the Prophet's time, some ulamas were from the Jews and they were used to oppose the Islamic movement. Even Umno is doing this now – using the ulamas to oppose the Islamic movement."

Zakiah Koya, fz.com

KELANTAN's interim Menteri Besar and PAS spiritual leader Datuk Seri Nik Aziz Nik Mat is not very well. He shuffles slowly to the interview area in the MB office and then places his two little feet onto the thermal massager. 
 
He then switches on his hearing aid, ready for an exclusive interview with fz.com
 
The 82-year old Nik Aziz is quite a character. His witty cutting remarks, his political speeches which tend to be religious-based lectures and attacks on ruling party Umno make him an interesting politician to watch. His alertness when spewing out attacks against his main enemy – Umno – belies his frail health. 
 
PAS members say the pint-sized man in his simple ulama attire – who still lives in the small half-wooden house despite being the MB – is a gift from above to the party. But Kelantanese, PAS or otherwise, all agree that he is one of a kind.
 
Nik Aziz said that he will stand as a candidate in the coming General Election and will continue to be active in politics as long as PAS asks him to do so. 
 
Nik Aziz first stood in the Kelantan Hilir parliamentary seat in 1967 (later renamed as Pengkalan Chepa), which he held on to until 1986. He then played a role as the state PAS commissioner in ousting Datuk Asri Muda, the then PAS president who brought PAS into the ruling coalition of Barisan Nasional. 
 
Nik Aziz later on was active in Kelantan politics as a state assembly member. In 1990, PAS managed to wrest back Kelantan from Barisan Nasional and he was appointed the menteri besar. Nik Aziz became the PAS spiritual leader in 1991. 
 
"It is not that I do not want to step down, but I have never asked to be a candidate. The party wants me to stand. PAS Election Chief Datuk Mustafa Ali had said it is compulsory for me to stand, so I have to appease PAS," said Nik Aziz, referring to the attacks by Umno on his refusal to step down from helming PAS despite being ill. 
 
Nik Aziz claimed that PAS has now been able to attract the higher educated group to join the party as it promises more than mere material gains. 
 
"We now have not only the village people, but also the doctors, the PhD holders, the knowledgeable ones," said Nik Aziz. 
 
He likened those who are opting for the opposition to the people of Medina who welcomed the Prophet Muhammad and his followers who were fleeing from the Meccans' hostility to Islam. 
 
"The prophet then offered something which was never offered by the governments before him. He offered to open up their heart – not open up the country. The governments before him had brought development, roads, money, (and) food; but those were all. The prophet's teachings promised that it is God who is all powerful – not the King, not the President.
 
"No one can create a blade of grass, a grain of padi or make an ikan bilis (anchovy), and everyone has to answer to his doings after he dies. It is not only the kampung people who will die, even doctors will die – but who wants to die? No one wants to die!" said Nik Aziz, referring to retribution after death for those who have done wrongs. 
 
He said that PAS offers a government that is God-fearing and not just mere material development.
 
"Malaysia is a country rich in natural resources and the development of Malaysia for the past six decades has been one of material development.  
 
"Umno is like the cat, it will pounce, take and then hide with its booty," said a laughing Nik Aziz. 
 
Nik Aziz said that the lack of fear in God is the one factor that leads to bribery and corruption. 
 
"I would like to know why Umno does not make Islam as its basis and (instead) goes on nationalism. Is it because Islam is expired?" 
 
To the question of whether PAS is now being more open to the professionals as compared to before when the top leaders were only ulamas, Nik Aziz also said that there is no such thing as segregating professionals and ulamas.
 
"What is an ulama? It is the European terms – ulamas and professionals. Now, ulamas and scientists have come together to agree. Both are from universities, only some become ustaz (teachers), some become scientists and so on. Both are knowledgeable people. 
 
"The prediction by the prophet thousands of years ago also has come true, that it is through the findings of science that people will return to the religion," said Nik Aziz, trying to explain that there should not be such a segregation among members of PAS. 
 
He also debunked the myth that ulamas are always right.
 
"Ulamas can also talk nonsense. During the Prophet's time, some ulamas were from the Jews and they were used to oppose the Islamic movement. Even Umno is doing this now – using the ulamas to oppose the Islamic movement.
 
"I wonder why Umno did not take national leaders for its Kelantanese candidates – why resort to ulamas after finishing millions of ringgit in giving away BR1M? If they had finished giving away so much money, they do not have to resort to emulating PAS by fielding ulamas. It shows that Umno itself is already shaky. If you want to emulate PAS, copy everything – follow Islam," said Nik Aziz. 
 
He also questioned as to "what kind of ulamas join Umno – for it was Umno which wanted judi bola (betting on football matches) to be made legal in Kelantan".
 
Nik Aziz was referring to the federal government's attempt to legalise sports betting ahead of the 2010 World Cup. However, the move was aborted due to opposition from several quarters.
 
Umno has in recent years courted some renown ulamas to boost their Islamic image among the Malays. 
 
On allegations that PAS is very dictatorial, Nik Aziz also said it is not true that PAS members are not allowed to question their leaders. 
 
"How can you be sure of something when you do not question? One must always question. I am always questioned and I say to PAS members, question your leaders. Blind following is not allowed in Islam," said Nik Aziz. 
 
Nik Aziz said that the main struggle of PAS is to bring "a change in the mindset" of the people.
 
"We want people to change their mindset – that this world is not forever. PAS is for all Malaysians – not only for the Malays, but also for the Chinese and Indians. Islam tells us to treat all properly," said Nik Aziz.
 
On the allegations by Umno that illegal logging and corruption are rife in Kelantan under PAS, Nik Aziz challenged his critics to show proof.
 
"In 20 years under my administration, the anti-corruption agencies have never been able to convict any of my officers. We denounced Umno because of their corruption, and it will not be right if we come into power and end up being corrupted too.
 
"I tell my officers, you are answerable to God – not to me or to anyone else – for you answer in the hereafter for your doings. The character is of priority and the mindset must be changed to include the world and the hereafter," said Nik Aziz.

 

Barisan to unveil DREAM TEAM

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 03:13 PM PDT

BEST OF THE BEST: Mix of old and new faces likely

(NST) -  AS the battle lines are being drawn for the 13th General Election, Barisan Nasional will today and tomorrow unveil its candidates and one thing is certain — this will be BN's dream team.

A line-up made up of a balance of new and old, experience and exuberance, wisdom and a burning passion to serve, these are men and women who had not only acquitted themselves well in the past five years but also delivered
consistently and shown that they have the people's interests at heart. For result-oriented Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, they are the best of the best.

They will be the driver and overriding factor in Najib's consideration of the needs of the people, their aspirations and their ability to carry out the "Akujanji" as outlined in the BN manifesto.

Malaysians will see how the meticulously drawn-up list not only features those who meet their aspirations and expectations but also reflects a strong, collective leadership that will raise confidence in the electorate beyond this polls and into successive elections.

The line-up will also reflect BN's efforts in grooming talent that possess the ability and qualifications beyond  oratory skills, to cement their confidence in a BN-led government.

Today's unveiling of the BN candidates' list is a departure from the norm. Previously, the list would be  announced on the eve of nomination day. In preparing for what is expected to be the  most challenging general election in the country's history, BN had also tweaked its strategy by moving forward the day it made public its manifesto.

BN members also saw how the leadership took pains to address the disappointment of some hopefuls by getting them all under one roof to drive home the message that the party was above all else.

With just a few hours to go, many leaders, including those who had contested under the BN banner in the past, are in jitters over the uncertainty of being picked or asked to sit this election out.

Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, who is BN secretary-general, said candidates would be those   endorsed fully by the electorate at the constituencies where they would be fielded.

He said the BN leadership had also carried out surveys  to ascertain the reception of the people towards candidates to be fielded in every constituency.

The survey and "referendum" on  the candidates, he said were carried out by three independent bodies   for the leadership to gauge the sentiments of the people towards the names of the potential as well as shortlisted candidates.

Several names tipped to be leading BN in the general election  include Umno division secretary Rozman in Labuan. He is the son of former Labuan Umno chief Datuk Isli Siput, the force behind the entry of Umno into Labuan.

Dental specialist Dr Rozaidah Talib is likely to return to  Ampang, the parliamentary seat she won in the 2004 general election. BN lost the seat to PKR's Zuraida Kamaruddin in 2008.

Dr Rozaidah, who admitted to getting hints of her candidacy in Ampang, said and if it materialised, she knew exactly what the people in the area would expect of her if she was their leader.

"If I am chosen, I would like to believe that it is because of my track record," she said.

Other names that have cropped up to be fielded include new faces but not lacking knowledge of strategies and leadership qualities with experience of serving organisations.

 Selangor will set out 36 new faces, including  non-governmental organisation leaders and professionals, to wrest state seats  won by the Pakatan Rakyat coalition in the 2008 election.

The fiery former Kulim-Bandar Baharu member of parliament Datuk Zulkifli Noordin is likely to be announced as the candidate to wrest the Shah Alam parliamentary seat from Pas' Khalid Samad.

Tengku Adnan said the party leadership's decision on its candidates weighed on several critical factors, including  age  and track record.

The leadership, he added, also went through the track record and report card of candidates with a fine-tooth comb, before pinning down the final names.

"Their track record was a major point of consideration.

"The leadership also looked into the issue of liability, including how people in the area viewed him or her.

"It is crucial for issue of perception to be addressed thoroughly as BN candidates must be those that the people can accept wholeheartedly,"  he told the New Straits Times.

BN, he said, was also determined to ensure that its candidates were not saddled with health issues as it wanted only leaders who could best serve their constituents.

Tengku Adnan also told those  not picked  to keep their chin up and give their undivided loyalty to those bearing the BN flag in the general election. Their supporters, he added, should do the same.

"These changes (to candidates) must understand why this (being dropped) had to be done as we need to move forward.

"The candidates were chosen because they are individuals who can become excellent wakil rakyat and  serve impeccably as problem solvers for the people while improving constituents' wellbeing.

"This is in tandem with the BN government's 'People First' concept."

Tengku Adnan, who had been the only member of parliament for Putrajaya, added that  there would be a good mix of new and professionals as well as the young and old.

"The spirit of 'party above self' is also highly evident ... There were a number of new faces whom the leadership wanted to field as candidates but they declined saying it was not their time.

"Aside from saying there were not ready for the heavy responsibility, they felt that they might not have what it takes be 'enslaved' to voters."

Meanwhile, several state directors of elections have made their way to Kuala Lumpur as Najib is scheduled to hand over the letters of authorisation (watikah) to them at 11am today.

Checks at the states showed preparations were  being made for the directors to pass on the watikah to the chosen candidates.

 

PKR-PSM fight on the cards in S’gor

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 03:02 PM PDT

PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim last night announced his candidate for Semenyih, a state seat eyed by PSM's Arutchelvan. PKR is also interested in PSM's Kota Damansara.

Zefry Dahalan, FMT

PKR's decision to announce its candidate for the Semenyih state seat in Selangor is a major blow for Pakatan Rakyat-friendly PSM which had earmarked that seat for its secretary-general S Arutchelvan.

Arutchelvan is a known face in Semenyih and had started his work at the constituency believing that he would be the Pakatan representative for the seat.

However last night at a ceramah in Gombak, PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim announced that PKR's Hamidi Hassan would be contesting in Semenyih.

There could be more bad news for PSM as PKR is also said to be interested in contesting in the
Kota Damansara state seat, won by PSM president Dr Nasir Hashim in 2008.

FMT had previously reported that PKR had identified a lawyer as a candidate for this seat.

Last night Anwar did not announce his candidate for  Kota Damansara, merely saying that his party was still in negotiations with PSM over the seat, and that an announcement was expected today.

Apart from PKR's decision to contest in PSM stronghold Semenyih, there were no other major suprises in the PKR's list of candidates for the parliamentary and state seats in Selangor.

PKR would be contesting in 11 parliamentary and 20 state seats in the state, and as expected Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim would now move to the Pelabuhan Kelang state seat, giving way to new face Dr Idris Ahmad in Ijok.

Other PKR new faces for state seats are Borhan Aman Shah (Dengkil), Lee Chin Cheh (Kajang), Dr Daroyah Alwi (Sementa), Hamidi A Hassan (Semenyih), Tengku Marziah Tengku Sulaiman (Kuang) and K Ramachandran (Batang Kali).

Eleven others, including Selangor PKR chief Azmin Ali, would be contesting in state seats they had won in 2008. Azmin will be defending his Bukit Antarabangsa seat, the others are Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad (Seri Setia), Suhaimi Shafiei (Seri Muda), Dr Xavier Jayakumar (Seri Andalas), Rodziah Ismail (Batu Tiga), Dr Yaakop Sapari (Kota Anggerik), Elizabeth Wong (Bukit Lanjan), Haniza Talha (Taman Medan), Amir Shaari (Batu Caves), Gan Pei Nei (Rawang) dan Yahya Sahari (Permatang).

Anwar has also decided to move former Kapar MP S Manikavasagam to contest in the Bukit Melawati state seat to replace M Muthiah.

The Kapar parliamentary seat will be contested by PKR Youth wing leader G Manivanan, one of five new faces unleashed by PKR for the parliamentary seats in Selangor.

The others are Dr Aziz Bari (Sabak Bernam), Wong Chen (Kelana Jaya), Rafizi Ramli (Pandan) and Khalid Jaafar in Hulu Selangor.

Incumbents that would be defending the parliament seats are Mohamed Azmin Ali (Gombak), Abdullah Sani Abdul Hamid (Kuala Langat), R Sivarasa (Subang), Hee Loy Sian (Petaling Jaya Selatan), Zuraida Kamaruddin (Ampang) and William Leong (Selayang).

Anwar has decided to drop Loh Gwo Burne from contesting again. He won the Kelana Jaya parliamentary seat in 2008.

READ MORE HERE

 

PAS not keen on Zaid for Kota Baru

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 02:57 PM PDT

The talk that former law minister Zaid Ibrahim would be contesting on a PAS ticket was not raised in any PAS meeting.

Hawkeye, FMT

Former law minister Zaid Ibrahim does not figure in PAS plan for the Kota Baru parliamentary seat.

PAS deputy secretary-general Takiyuddin Hassan said the matter was not raised at any of its state or national strategic meetings.

"I can categorically state that the issue concerning Zaid was not raised at any of our special meetings. I also know who are the PAS candidates by the virtue of me attending such meetings," Takiyuddin said in an interview.

A state PAS veteran who also confirmed what Takiyuddin is saying, said that Zaid did initiate a series of discussions with the state PAS here previously.

However, there were issues about his health and his decision later to re-focus on his law firm – reputably the largest in the country, the veteran said.

There were speculations that Zaid had reportedly said that he did not mind contesting the seat again on a PAS ticket.

The issue has also something to do with the indications that the voters in the Kota Baru constituency – long hailed as a Umno enclave – will be switching back to the party after voting in PAS strategist Wan Rahim Wan Abdullah in the last election.

Wan Rahim is reportedly either retiring or seeking to contest the Gua Musang parliamentary seat.

Mohamad Fatmi Che Salleh, who is one of the political secretaries to Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, is earmarked as the likely Barisan Nasional candidate for the seat. He contested in 2008 and lost to Wan Rahim.

His political nemises has always been Zaid, who had blocked the former from clinching the Kota Baru Umno division head post in the early 2000s when Zaid was still in Umno.

 

Who can meet the expectations of the majority?

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 02:51 PM PDT

Najib Razak Barisan Nasional

Gerhard Hoffstaedter, New Mandala

Malaysia's thirteenth general elections (GE13) will be a battle of the coalitions, pitting the world's most successful ruling coalition – the 13 party Barisan Nasional (BN/National Front) against the 4 year old, three party Pakatan Rakyat (PR/People's Pact/People's Alliance).

It is not easy to categorise the two opposing coalitions and its members as they are disparate, complex, and, with multiple agendas, often fractured. This is primarily the outcome of Malaysia's recent history. The disparate regions and people that make up Malaysia today are, after all, an artificial construct whose only common denominator was that they were all subject to British Imperial power. A peninsular with 9 Malay kingdoms at the end of Asia's land mass whose citizens were populated in majority by a polyglot of people from the Malay Archipelago, the Chinese and South Asian subcontinents, with a sprinkling of Arabs, Turks, remnants of past colonialists, various unique groups that were created through inter-marriages, and not to mention the many indigenous peoples aggregated together with two geographical entities on the island of Borneo, that is separated by 800 kilometres of the South China Sea, and whose people have greater cultural affinities with the peoples of the Philippines and Indonesia, and who themselves are disparate in culture, ethnicity and language.

However, all these societies did have one feature in common – feudalism. This was buttressed by British efforts to violently suppress progressive elements in the Malayan polity, preferring instead to hand over power after independence to conservative elements, primarily as a means to protect British interests. The feudalistic nature of these societies gave rise to what has become a very successful model of politics practised by the ruling coalition since the first elections before independence in 1955: Consociational politics, where the elites bargained and struck a deal where each group – first three, then rising to 14, now 13 political parties – had some share of political and economic power under the hegemonic power of the Malay and increasingly Islamised United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). This system has served BN well, chalking up electoral victory after victory at the past 12 general elections.

More importantly, the BN and its predecessor, the Alliance, were able to monopolise power because they were able to forge a 'syncretism' in their style of government i.e. governing via a variety of ideological orientations and political practises. The BN was successful not only because of its competent stewardship of the Malaysian economy but mainly because they were able to straddle competing (social, economic and political) interests within their coalition as well as address competing interests outside it by either co-opting them into BN, stifling them through draconian measures or skilfully manipulating these competing interests. The opposition parties and coalitions of the past were not able to successfully mount a challenge to the Alliance and BN partly because the electoral process and system was stacked against them, but also because the opposition parties could never successfully find a way to manage the competing interests that they each represented.

In the past decade or so, especially since the sacking of former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and the East Asian Financial Crisis of 1997/98, the BN appears to have lost this unique ability to straddle the competing interests of its members and the communities they represent, while the opposition, led by, ironically, the sacked former Deputy Prime Minister, appears to be increasingly adroit at managing these tensions.

Therefore, one big question at GE13 is how the two coalitions are projecting themselves as true representatives of the people's wishes, and how they go about addressing the key challenges that Malaysia as a country and Malaysians as a people face, in a way that satisfies the myriad competing interests.

The key reasons for widespread dissatisfaction with the present situation are manifold, but the key issues that both coalitions have to address are the rising living costs, demographic change, rapid urbanisation and increasingly uneasy race-relations.

The BN, in the past, has been very successful with their politics of development and key among these has been the reduction of absolute poverty to below three per cent and shaping Malaysia into a middle income economy by 1994 on the back of a low-cost, export-oriented economic model whilst at the same time creating a Malay middle class, primarily through the expansion of the public sector and government linked corporations (GLCs) jobs that is financed primarily through Malaysia's revenue from non-renewable resources.

However, this particular model has two unintended effects: widespread relative poverty and high income inequality. The low-cost model has seen wages for 80 per cent of Malaysian households stagnate over the past three decades. These households earn less than RM3,000 (around AUS$ 1,000) a month in a country where the average monthly income is RM4,025 (around AUS$ 1,250). More critically, the bottom 40 per cent of households earn on average RM1,440 a month (around AUS$ 450). Most shockingly, the vast majority (71 per cent) of people in the bottom 40 per cent are bumiputeras – literally sons of the soil, a  designation that includes Malays and a range of indigenous groups – despite 40 odd years of affirmative action for this group. Indeed, their well-being is and has been the raison de être of UMNO, the backbone of the ruling coalition.

People have been able to get by in spite of rising living costs, because they have been kept at bay by infusing government funds into basic social services, food staples and a fuel subsidy. The last especially has proven effective, but any attempts to rein in costs have been met by popular resistance as a motorised populace has become addicted to cheap petrol.

There is also a significant demographic change in Malaysia. 71 per cent of Malaysians are under the age of 40 with 34 per cent aged between 20 and 40. They face a major challenge. Malaysia is in a middle income trap and must either develop or procure high quality human capital as a pre-requisite to transition into a high income economy. However, Malaysia's poor quality education has not prepared them for the necessary challenges of a knowledge intensive economy. International benchmarks and surveys shows that the quality of education in Malaysia, at all levels, is no match to the successful East Asian economies that Malaysia has chosen to emulate. 80 per cent of Malaysia's labour force has no more than the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM – equivalent to year 10 or O'levels qualifications), and the 57 universities and the more than 500 colleges are producing large numbers of graduates that the Malaysian labour market deems unsuitable or poorly skilled. This in an economy experiencing full employment since the late 1980s, and severe skills shortage since the early 1990s. Ironically, unemployment among graduates was highest. In 2007, graduates accounted for more than one-quarter of those unemployed, while unemployment among new graduates was 24. 1 per cent in 2008. With limited employability, mediocre wages and loans to be repaid, young Malaysian graduates end up saddled with enormous debt. The bloated civil service and GLCs, which are also perceived to be inefficient and a fiscal drag on the economy, are unable to provide the expected middle class jobs for bumiputeras long accustomed to getting them as part of a perceived social contract with UMNO.

However, perhaps ironically, it has been rapid urbanisation, that has brought these once disparate communities closer together. While many urban areas are still stratified by race and class, the sheer density has increased the interaction. 71 per cent of Malaysia is now urban. Only Kelantan, Pahang, Perlis, Sabah and Sarawak have rates or urbanisation below 55 per cent.

Better infrastructure, especially information communication and telecommunications, in urban areas have also provided a platform for dissatisfied Malaysians to hear alternative views and to connect with each other. 65 per cent of Malaysians were using the internet in 2010. As the internet largely remains uncensored, the opposition coalition and civil society movements have used it effectively to mobilise support for their causes. These groups have used social media, technology and the internet to also penetrate into rural areas through free radio, websites, but also the audio-visual recording of government scandals in DVDs, and other forms. While the ruling party has also joined the information technology revolution, the opposition has been quicker and more able to marshal support online despite being out-resourced by the ruling coalition.

These developments, whose impacts were first experienced at the 2008 general election, have impacted the coalitions in different ways, and have prompted different reactions. It appears that the BN continues to rely on its tried and tested race-based, trickle-down economic growth, and welfarist approach to policies while PR sensing that the ground has shifted, appears to focus on class-based and rights-based policies.

READ MORE HERE

 

Uncommon Sense with Wong Chin Huat: The battle for Johor

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 02:50 PM PDT

http://www.thenutgraph.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/LEAD15042013-new-580x263.jpg 

THE Nut Graph speaks to political scientist Wong Chin Huat on the exciting contest in Johor this coming general election. Will the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) make significant inroads in this Barisan Nasional (BN) bastion? Or is the BN support in Johor just too strong to overcome?

TNG: What accounts for the BN's strong support in Johor? 

Johor's colonial history is unique compared with other Malay states. Thanks to Sultan Abu Bakar's modernisation and diplomacy, Johor managed to delay British "protection" till as late as 1915 and, hence, maintained more autonomy. One outcome of that is a competent and confident Malay aristocratic-administrative elite. Umno's founder and first president, Datuk Onn Jaafar, is from Johor, making Johor the party's birthplace and creating a special bond between the two.

Additionally, the influx of Chinese immigrants was engineered by Sultan Abu Bakar and his father, Temenggung Ibrahim, rather than the British. This resulted in close ties between the Malay feudal class and the Chinese capitalists, which partially translated into an Umno-MCA bond in modern politics. While there were incidents where Chinese Malaysian cultural heritage or religious freedom were allegedly suppressed, Johor MCA generally delivered what the community expected. Like Johor Umno, Johor MCA is strong within the party. So far, four out of nine MCA presidents have been elected as parliamentarians in Johor: Tan Sri Lee San Choon, Tun Dr Ling Liong Sik, Tan Sri Ong Ka Ting and Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek.

Read more at: http://www.thenutgraph.com/uncommon-sense-with-wong-chin-huat-the-battle-for-johor/ 

Dr M says he and Thatcher cut from same cloth

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 02:42 PM PDT


(TMI) - Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has compared himself to the late Margaret Thatcher and finds they were similar in character.

The political relationship between the two leaders was one of mutual respect, though it did not start off well when Dr Mahathir led the "Buy British Last" campaign in the early 1980s to boycott all British goods during Thatcher's reign as Britain's prime minister, following the latter's decision to charge higher fees for overseas students.

"I think our characters were about the same. I wasn't copying her in any way, I have always been like that," he told The New Straits Times in an interview today.

Thatcher, popularly known as the "Iron Lady", dominated British politics for two decades, leading the Conservatives from 1979 to 1990. 

"She was willing to stick her neck out. When she wanted to do something, she would do it, even though it would make her extremely unpopular," he said.

"She was brave enough to do (what she did) because the UK was going down the drain. The unions were so powerful that they could frustrate every scheme put up by the government... So, as a result, she had to stop the unions."

Similarly, The New Straits Times suggested to Dr Mahathir that he had carried on with projects that were previously seen as unpopular, such as the Penang Bridge and the Petronas Twin Towers here.

"It was common sense! You needed the bridge. Of course, there will be people, especially those in the opposition — they will oppose anything!" he said.

"They even opposed this building (Petronas Twin Towers)... but now, it is called a Malaysian icon. Every one comes to see it," he added.

Thatcher, the only woman prime minister in British history, died last Monday from a stroke at 87.

Anti-Margaret Thatcher song Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead reaches number two spot: Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead - Margaret Thatcher Party Death Remix 2013

 

GE13: Muhammad Taib to join us, says PAS leader

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 02:36 PM PDT

(The Star) - Former Selangor Mentri Besar Tan Sri Muhammad Muhammad Taib (pic) is expected to join PAS this week, according to a senior PAS leader.

"Yes, Muhammad is joining us.

"This is pretty significant for us, a shot-in-the-arm despite his past sins of omission and commission," he told news portal The Malaysian Insider.

"He just wants to see changes in the elections," said the leader, who declined to be named.

He added that he was made to understand that Muhammad had filled up the nomination form and an announcement was expected soon.

Muhammad, a former minister, could not be reach for comment.

However, PAS vice-president Salahuddin Ayub told party organHarakahDaily that it was a former mentri besar from a northern state who was expected to quit Umno and join PAS.

Salahuddin said the former mentri besar was tired of the internal bickering within Umno.

The prospect of Muhammad joining the opposition met with much criticism in cyberspace.

 

A Barisan Win is No Victory for Malaysia

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 02:30 PM PDT

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRwyyuRZrrEPIt5eoKe6Pgu-g2tICOyZb5o4T9q91QO3rijs7obWg 

There is little chance for Najib to better his predecessor's performance of 2008. If they started to scheme for Abdullah's downfall before the total votes were tallied in then, this time the power struggle to replace Najib would be even cruder, more vicious, and utterly destructive.  

M. Bakri Musa 

(Second of Four Parts)

There can only be three possible outcomes to the next election:  Barisan to win with a comfortable victory; Pakatan Rakyat to prevail; and a hung parliament. A comfortable victory is one where the expected hopping of a dozen or so successful candidates would not materially affect the political balance. A hung parliament is where the buying or the shifting of allegiance of a handful of elected members would significantly alter the political balance.

Contrary to the pronouncements of many, the worst possible outcome would not be a hung parliament but a Barisan victory. The best possible outcome would be for Pakatan to secure that majority. A hung parliament is not the worse but then also not the best possible outcome either.

I begin with Barisan being returned to power, not with a supra majority for not even Najib Razak is predicting that, not in his wildest dream. In his speech dissolving Parliament, he implicitly conceded the possibility of defeat. Only his fanatic supporters are fantasizing big victory, but only after they have been high on their free tapai(fermented rice).

If you relish precious public funds being squandered through bloated contracts (think of the scandalous "commission" that slimy "Datuk T" secured for the non-existing crooked bridge) and outright pilferage (as with the "cow-gate" scandal and the Scorpene submarines that would not submerge), then expect more of the same with another Barisan victory. Only this time the scale would be even more outrageous both in scope and amount, difficult though that may be to imagine. Barisan, and UMNO specifically, would look upon their victory as approval if not vindication of their corrupt and wasteful ways. That is what Najib meant by not changing horse midway. He and his cronies wish to remain on their gilded saddles.

With a Barisan victory we would never get to the bottom of the "cow-gate" scandal or the outrageous civil settlement between Khazanah and ex-Malaysian Airlines' boss Tajuddin Ramli. Consider that had Barisan won Selangor in 2008, that Khir Toyo character would still be its Chief Minister and not the convicted criminal that he is today. There are many Khir Toyos at the federal level; only a Barisan defeat would expose these scumbags. Only with a Pakatan victory could they be held accountable and be prosecuted.

Read more at: http://www.bakrimusa.com/archives/barisan-win-no-victory-for-malaysia 

 

Anwar after Hindraf over Ministry of Orang Asal and Minority Affairs (Moama)

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 02:22 PM PDT

http://www.themalaysiantimes.com.my/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/S-Jayathas.jpg 

Anwar is just a case of sour grapes trying to create trouble for Hindraf on the registration issue through Jayathas 

Joe Fernandez

Is Jayathas of Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), allegedly Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim's newly-recruited political mandore from Hindraf, trying to say the NGO should not be registered just because his boss doesn't like it?

It appears to be so judging from his song-and-dance act on Sat at a press conference, for his 15 minutes of fame, on the subject.

Hindraf, or any organisation, has a right to be registered. It's the Registrar of Societies (ROS) which plays politics with registration, on the instructions of Umno, until the matter ends up in Court. Umno doesn't own the ROS.

Anwar is just a case of sour grapes trying to create trouble for Hindraf on the registration issue through Jayathas and his other known Indian political mandores. He's painting Hindraf's registration as proof of it being in cahoots -- whatever it means -- with Umno/BN. If there's one thing which can annoy PR and drive it up the wall, if not around the bend, it's the registration of Hindraf and Umno/BN knows it only too well and has capitalised on it.

Anwar has never stopped trying to discredit Hindraf as a "racist" organisation ever since 2008 when he shamelessly jumped onto its makkal sakthi -- people power in Tamil - - bandwagon which created the political tsunami at the 12th General Elections. He forgets that Umno/BN has never once referred to Hindraf as a racist organisation. In 67 parliamentary seats in Malaya, and the related state seats, the Indians decide. That was the reading in 2008. But "lembu punya susu, sapi dapat nama" Anwar continues to remain in a state of denial.

When unelected caretaker Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak wanted to talk to Hindraf, they said, "lift the ban first". Obviously, the Government can't be in discussions with an unlawful or banned organisation.

So, the ban was lifted and at the same time the organisation was registered. All the paperwork was done. Again, the Government can't be engaged in discussions either with an unregistered organisation. The registration had to be done.

 

Mahathir makes it seem as if the Malays are desperate for heroes

Hindraf was banned although it was not a registered organisation and did not apply for registration. Anwar was among those who gloated in public when Hindraf was banned. He was even seen doing his usual dance jig, Oh! Hindraf sudah goyang!, at various ceramah over the banning.

The then IGP Musa Hassan even disingenuously accused Hindraf of having links with the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka. Anwar applauded the IGP although his paternal grandfather is a Tamil Hindu and he should have known better. His main concern, as a well-known "user", was to eliminate Hindraf so that he doesn't have to share political space with the NGO.

The IGP wanted to cover up the fact that there was little intelligence in his intelligence service, the Special Branch, and Military Intelligence. Déjà vu!

Indians had a good laugh since there's no love lost between the Sri Lanka Tamils and Indian Tamils. The Tamil Tigers would have been able to carve a separate homeland by now for the Tamils, Muslims and Malays in northern and eastern Sri Lanka had the Tamils of Tamil Nadu in south-eastern India supported them. The Tamil Tiger killing of Rajiv Gandhi in Tamil Nadu was the last straw.

Initially, Hindraf began as an ad hoc protest movement against the bogus conversion of Everest hero Moorthy to Islam by two operatives of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.

Mahathir makes it seem as if the Malays are desperate for heroes to enter, by hook or crook, in our history books which are already highly politicised and full of propaganda. Fortunately, the truth is out there in the libraries of the world. Mahathir should take his own advice not so long ago when he urged the Malays to commit hara kiri should they bring shame upon their own people.

Then, in response to Mahathir on Moorthy, the Indian community jumped on the Hindraf bandwagon with all their pent-up demands from over the last half century. The rest is history.

 

Buku Jingga, Manifesto an irritating response to Blueprint

One needs to read the Tamil papers, not Malaysiakini and the like, to get an idea of what's going on in the Indian community.

Hindraf can help Pakatan Rakyat (PR) against Umno/BN despite the Indian community not having even one ethnic-majority seat in any legislature. Anwar doesn't seem to realise that the people did not vote for PR in 2008. It voted against Umno/BN. Who channelled the hate against Umno/BN into the political tsunami if not Hindraf? That does not mean that Indians, in the absence of a clear direction from Hindraf, will take leave of their senses and root wholesale for Umno/BN.

However, Hindraf cannot be a political mandore for PR or BN, after having been so vocal on the issue and for so long.

Political mandoreism is a theory on which Hindraf holds intellectual property rights. Jeffrey Kitingan, similarly, holds intellectual property rights with his theories on the Dependency Syndrome, and Putrajaya's rule by proxy, composed of traitors who are proxies, stooges and rogue elements, in Borneo.

If Umno/BN supports the proposed Ministry of Orang Asal and Minority Affairs (Moama), it must make an open declaration and not come to a secret understanding, as feared, with Hindraf.

Anwar can steal the thunder from Umno/BN by openly declaring PR's support for the proposed Ministry instead of taking pot shots at Hindraf through minions like Jayathas who may mean well but are naïve enough to be like buffaloes led by a rope through the nostrils. Let not the Ministry become yet another Fixed Deposit for Umno/BN. The ball is in PR's court.

Anwar must realise that Hindraf, being apolitical, cares two hoots about his PR or even Umno/BN.

He has already made a big mistake by not probing whether the Hindraf Blueprint may have been a Red Herring.

Instead, he was going on and on about his Buku Jingga whatever and Manifesto, both of which doesn't interest Hindraf and Indians in the least. They are all about the Chinese and Malays.

 

Ministry of Orang Asal and Minority Affairs (Moama) the key concern

Malaysia is perhaps the only country in the world where politicians expect free votes especially from the marginalised and disenfranchised.

Even the great Obama had to make concessions on immigration reform, for example, before he could clinch the Latino votes to win a second term as US President. Otherwise, how could a black man enter the White House, in a largely white country which is still generally racist to the core?

Anwar offers Indians nothing in return for their votes except the remote possibility of throwing out Umno/BN in retaliation for the 56 years of internal colonisation they suffered under the ruling party's bangsa, agama, negara driven ketuanan Melayu (Malay political supremacy and dominance) "ideology", a sick combination of Apartheid, Nazism, Fascism, Communism, Political Islam, terrorism, militancy, "ethnic cleansing", and the caste system which denies the non-Malays upward social mobility.

Dap compounded Anwar's big mistake by copy pasting the Hindraf Blueprint in part for their 14 Point Gelang Patah Declaration. No reference was made, if any, to the Hindraf Blueprint. Now the Dap has both egg and mud on their faces as Hindraf cried plagiarism and rolled on the floor with laughter. Don't underestimate these estate Indians. They had 56 years to work out which side their bread is buttered.

All Hindraf is concerned about is pushing through the proposed Ministry, an idea which has the support of State Reform Party (Star) chairman Jeffrey Kitingan and the Orang Asal on both sides of the South China Sea, the Suluks, the Chinese, Christians, Siamese, Portuguese, Eurasians, Anglo Indians, Baba Nonya, Chitty and other members of the 45 per cent non-Malay minorities in Malays. The mood is clear from Hindraf's ceramah, tea party talks and town hall-style meetings.

 

Entry of Star into the fray in Malaya an unknown factor

Once the Ministry kicks off, the Hindraf Blueprint will automatically take on a life of its own. If Anwar is smart, he will say that he supports the proposed Ministry and will leave any decision on the Hindraf Blueprint to it. Many countries have a ministry for minorities, an idea promoted by the UN High Commission on Human Rights.

If both PR and Umno/BN refuse to endorse the Hindraf Blueprint, the NGO has pledged to urge Indians to abstain from voting. This is equivalent to spoiling the ballots. In the former case, Indians don't have to bother visiting the polling stations.

If Indians abstain, there are no prizes for guessing what will be the result come polling day. The winners (BN) will know that they won because the Indians didn't vote against them. The losers (PR) will know they lost because Indians didn't vote for them. In 2008, 85 per cent of Indians voted against BN. This means PR needs Indian votes more than BN does.

We still haven't factored in Hindraf's reported plans to field candidates under the State Reform Party (Star) symbol and flag in Malaya. Hindraf chairman P. Waythamoorthy, win or lose, can be expected to take on MIC President, G. Palanivel, in Cameron Highlands or wherever he's fielded.

 

Hindraf wants deviations, distortions and anti-non Malay laws ended

Hindraf must remain an apolitical NGO on human rights for all (hurifa).

Hindraf is not about Hinduism or a particular religion as Anwar keeps preaching to his mandores and others.

It has never been about Hinduism as evident from its stand on Article 3 of the Federal Constitution, which does not mention an official religion, and about creeping Islamisation in the country.

Hindraf's stand against the intrusion of the Syariah and the Syariah Court into civil law, bogus conversions, forced conversions, and the lack of freedom of worship, has the support of all right-minded Malaysians.

Hindraf's stand on the deviations and distortions on Article 153 of the Federal Constitution and the New Economic Policy (NEP) and the anti non-Malay minorities administrative laws must also have the support of all right and fair-minded Malaysians.

Hindraf wants these deviations, distortions and administrative laws ended and abolished.

It has further called for Article 153 and the NEP to be ended and abolished. The jury is still out on this matter among the Malay-speaking nation -- Bugis, Javanese, Minang, Acehnese, Arab Muslims, Indian Muslims etc -- in Malaya and the Orang Asal.

Hindraf has taken a stand against the ruling elite running up the National Debt Burden to put their hands in the National Cookie Jar under the guise of bringing development to the people but in fact to feather their own nests at the expense of the nation. Consider the fact that the Malay-speaking communities are no match for the Chinese as a people despite 56 years of racist rule by Umno pushing the so-called Malay Agenda.

 

Had it remained ad hoc, Hindraf could have been a Hydra on human rights

The Orang Asal can join Hindraf as they were originally Hindus, are culturally Hindus, and the pagans practise an animist form of Hinduism.

All Indians, Afghans, Iranians, and southeast and East Asians, irrespective of religion, are culturally Hindus.

Had it remained ad hoc, Hindraf could have been a Hydra on human rights.

Now, that possibility remains unclear even diminished, as the inevitable struggle for posts, come in-house elections if any in Hindraf, would give rise to internal politicking and power struggles. Jayathas is not Anwar's only political mandore. He has others bidding their time in Hindraf while feeding him with information in return for a little tambang bas but there should be no witch-hunt. They are under the constant watch of the hardcore Hindraf loyalists.

 

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.

 

Voting for Harmony

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 02:16 PM PDT

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/images/uploads/mugshots/chandra-muzaffar1-sept13.jpg 

It is an irrefutable fact that the BN has the experience and the expertise in dealing with ethnic challenges. 

Chandra Muzaffar

It is a truism that the survival and success of our nation depends upon our ability to sustain and enhance our inter-ethnic harmony. This is why the question of how the Barisan Nasional (BN) or the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) will manage ethnic relations in the country in the coming years is of critical importance to the voter in the 5 May General Election.

For a society whose multi-religious and multi-cultural texture is one of the most complex in the world, Malaysia has done remarkably well in preserving a degree of inter-ethnic harmony which is the envy of the rest of the human family. An objective criterion testifies to this. Over 55 years there has been a minimum of communal violence. There has been only one major riot with communal overtones that resulted in the loss of lives. That the riot of 13 May 1969 was contained within a specific city, that law and order was restored within weeks and democratic rule reinstated in 21 months, is incontrovertible proof of the Government's ability to deal with an ethnic challenge.

The BN government and its predecessor, the Alliance, have proven their credentials in a number of other less significant fracases. The 1967 disturbance in Penang; the 1978 Kerling incident; and the 2001 Kampong Medan episode would be some examples. The BN has also defused ethnic tensions arising from certain issues such as the 1978 Merdeka University controversy, and the 2010 sporadic attacks on churches, mosques and a gurdawara in the wake of a Court decision on the use of the term 'Allah'. Culprits responsible for the one cow head and five pig head incidents in recent years have also been punished by the law.

It is an irrefutable fact that the BN has the experience and the expertise in dealing with ethnic challenges. The PR has yet to be tested largely because when ethnic issues impinge upon security, they come within the purview of the Federal Government. Its management of four state governments has not equipped the PR with the skills and knowledge to negotiate the complex multi-ethnic terrain that is Malaysia.

PR supporters sometimes point to the inter-ethnic harmony in Kelantan as proof of its ability to maintain good relations among the different communities. Inter-harmony in Kelantan has very little to do with the Pas led government per se. Even when the BN was in power in Kota Baru from 1978 to 1990, relations between the majority Malay community and the Chinese and Siamese minorities were amicable. Kelantan has a long and distinguished record of inter-ethnic conviviality which goes beyond parties and politics. The small size of the minorities--- 5% of the population --- and their readiness to integrate into the larger Malay cultural ethos, the accommodative attitude of the majority, and an indigenous structure of governance which was not totally subverted by colonial rule, have all contributed to this.

In fact, current trends seem to suggest that conviviality among the communities in Kelantan may be under some strain as a result of the politics represented by PAS and its partner, the DAP. Some of the restrictions and controls imposed in the name of PAS's notion of 'Islamic morality' are beginning to create a certain degree of uneasiness among younger non-Muslim Kelantanese. Similarly, the rise of Chinese ethnocentrism at the national level, fuelled to a large extent by the DAP, is seeping into the consciousness of a segment of Chinese youths in Kelantan, and separating them from the Malay majority.

This is the real danger of enthroning PAS and DAP in Putrajaya. If they rule Malaysia, their respective ideological orientations will widen even further the chasm that divides Malaysian communities. PAS's superficial approach to Muslim identity reflected in its negative outlook on the rights and roles of women; the interaction between the sexes; and what constitutes wholesome entertainment, coupled with its obsession with prohibitions and punishments, will not only drive a wedge between Muslims and non-Muslims but also polarise Muslims themselves. The DAP, on the other hand, which is already alienated from the Malay majority because of some of its chauvinistic stances will trigger a backlash from the latter if it pursues policies on the economy or education motivated by its lopsided view of equality.

It is not just their individual policies that are inimical to national unity. The DAP is vehemently opposed to PAS's Islamic state which remains the Islamic party's real goal even as it continues to flip-flop over its 'negara kebajikan'. The DAP's mission of a 'Malaysian Malaysia' which in reality demonstrates very little empathy for the defining attributes of the land and its identity --- Bahasa Melayu; Islam and the Malay Rulers --- is a quest which Pas rejects totally though it has not been vocal about it since 2008. This huge gap that separates the two parties in the Pakatan defies resolution. The third partner in the PR, the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), has made no attempt to reconcile this ideological split between the two parties. This is why the PR is, for all intents and purposes, an inchoate, disparate inter-party grouping which is utterly incapable of bringing the various Malaysian communities together.

Malaysians should ask themselves if it is wise to hand the reins of power to such a grouping especially at a time when religion is emerging as the fundamental fault-line in our society. This is a pertinent question to raise for while PAS remains wedded to a narrow identity based dogma, the DAP is increasingly becoming the conduit for strident Christian voices that are less than sensitive to the prevailing Muslim majority landscape. How can any sane, sensible person expect these two parties to help forge unity in the years ahead?

 

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Yayasan 1Malaysia.

 

Hadi riles partners over overlapping seats

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 02:00 PM PDT

http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/hadi-awang2.jpg 

(FMT) - Neither DAP nor PKR in Sarawak is likely to give way to PAS to contest in Julau, Kota Samarahan and Mukah.

The likelihood of PKR, DAP and PAS fighting each other in Julau, Kota Samarahan and Mukah seats is very real now that after PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang has declared that his party's candidates will contest in all three constituencies.

Disregarding ongoing discussion between the Pakatan Rakyat coalition partners on the overlapping claims, Hadi had on Sunday named PAS candidates Ambrose Labang Jamba for Julau and Abang Ahmad Kerdee Abang Massagus for Kota Samarahan.

He also named Nani Sahari for Mukah.

By jumping the gun PAS has riled its partners.

"Unless the issue is solved, it is very likely that PKR will fight PAS in Kota Samarahan and Julau, and DAP will fight PAS in Mukah," said a political observer.

He said that PKR and DAP would not give way to PAS.

While Kota Samarahan is a mixed constituency of Malays, Ibans and Bidayuhs, Julau is made of almost 100 percent Iban voters.

Other candidates that Hadi named yesterday for Sarawak parliamentary seats were Robby @ Muhamad Zaid Tandang (Sibuti), Mohamad jolhi (Batang Sadong), Ajji Ajiji (Igan) and Jurina Mut (Tanjung Manis).

DAP had some time ago announced that its candidate for Mukah was Hai Merawin @ Bonaventure, a pensioner.

No concensus yet

Reacting to the PAS claims, state PKR chairman Baru Bian said: "I am very concerned by the statement by the PAS president that the seats of Kota Samarahan and Julau will be contested by PAS.

"I was informed by our deputy president Azmin Ali that these are among the seats for which negotiations between our national leaders have not been finalised.

Read more at: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2013/04/15/hadi-riles-partners-over-overlapping-seats/ 

Time for 1MDB to come out in the open

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 01:56 PM PDT

http://www.ifrasia.com/Pictures/web/u/w/d/Jonathan%20Rogers_ifrawe_150.jpg 

IFR Asia's Jonathan Rogers suggests latest private placement serves neither transparency nor sensible pricing

So our old friends from Malaysia's 1MDB are back again, or should I say were back again, since the US$3bn 10-year private placement arranged for the government investment vehicle by Goldman Sachs was closed in conspicuous silence some weeks ago – on March 29 to be precise.

The under-the-radar modus operandi mirrored that seen on the US$1.75bn 10-year private placement Goldman closed for 1MDB last June. As with that deal, the new transaction is likely spark controversy, not just because of the quiet manner in which it was completed but because it comes barely three weeks before Malaysia's general election on May 5.

That is because Malaysia's opposition party led by Anwar Ibrahim has called for 1MDB's abolition as part of its election manifesto, claiming 1MDB, which replaced the former Terengannu sovereign wealth fund in and is a plank of prime minister Najib Razak's New Economic Policy, duplicates the functions of the country's pension fund Khazanah Nasional. But beyond that seemingly anodyne policy call, Anwar has claimed that the debt assumed by 1MDB could bankrupt Malaysia.

Meanwhile, various Malaysian commentators have criticised 1MDB for lacking transparency, and it seems likely that the latest transaction will simply add to the noise – if that's the right word – which surrounds the entity.

THERE IS AN obvious point to be made about the 1MDB private placement, the size of which equates to last week's US$3bn two-tranche transaction for the Republic of Indonesia, which was the largest G3 public offshore market deal so far this year. Why wasn't the transaction launched, marketed and distributed like any conventional bond transaction rather than placed privately?

While there are no doubt many deals of hefty size in Asia which could have been placed with one or a handful of investors, issuers take the public route because it best serves their interests.

Not only does canvassing a broad base of investors enable syndicate bankers to discover the optimum price point at which a deal can be successfully placed, but the secondary trading of a well-placed bond will tend in most cases to lower an issuer's implied cost of term funding. It also opens up a broad investor base which can be called upon in the future to provide funds and secondary market liquidity.

And the bookbuilding process can often uncover hitherto unimagined demand for an issuer's paper which in turn allows leads to drastically tighten pricing. Not so with a private placement, where demand is uncovered bilaterally or with a handful of investors.

Taking the public route also helps large enterprises build up liquid meaningful yield curves, again, something which the private placement market cannot provide. And when private placement paper finds its way into the secondary market, it inevitably does so via the brokers. It's not uncommon to see paper crossed for obscenely large skims between a less than clued-up seller and an even less savvy buyer.

The last time around, 1MDB's paper, which priced at Treasuries plus 425bp, was rumoured to have been shown a few days later to an Asian insurance company at around 200bp inside that level.

None of this does any service whatsoever to the issuer, unless of course the primary aim was simply to get the funds in, whether the source is one investor, or in the case of the latest placement from 1MDB, a handful of investors.

Read more at: http://www.ifrasia.com/time-for-1mdb-to-come-out-in-the-open/21079726.article 

 

Fulfilling a promise of hope?

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 01:51 PM PDT

https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQgM_3QgSf2HuMiZLpkAJ6j3SaadZ8N7cV9peh0kBp4UjscSIJy

Rather than stepping out of the way to allow the private sector to do what they do best – create wealth for everyone – BN is embedding government intervention in the private sector to achieve political

goals. 

Wan Saiful Wan Jan, IDEAS

Barisan Nasional launched their long awaited manifesto on Saturday 6 April. I was in Kuala Terengganu that evening for a meeting. Since I knew that the Barisan Nasional event will be broadcasted live on the taxpayer funded RTM, I decided to head for an ikan bakar dinner near the Kuala Ibai bridge, expecting to watch it while enjoying the food. But someone stood up as soon as the programme started and changed to a football match instead. So I missed the atmosphere of the grand event as it happened.

 

Luckily there is Youtube. Watching the video recording, I could see that the atmosphere was electric. The Bukit Jalil National Stadium was filled was BN supporters, cheering Dato' Sri Najib as he attacked Pakatan Rakyat's record, presented BN's plans for the next five years, and proudly praising BN's achievements to date.

Indeed BN deserves to be proud of what they have achieved. There is no doubt that under BN, and its predecessor Alliance, Malaysia has changed tremendously. Particularly during the time of Tun Mahathir, Malaysia was transformed from an agriculture economy into a manufacturing powerhouse. And over the last four years, Najib has worked hard to turn our economy into one that is based more on knowledge and technology.

The New Economic Model (NEM) has become the thrust of BN's agenda today. It aspires to make Malaysia a high income nation that is both inclusive and sustainable by galvanising the private sector to become our engine of growth. The NEM also aspires to remove the distributive and entitlement culture and rentier behaviour that has become widespread in our society. This is almost the best promise of hope any leader can give.

So when BN launched its first manifesto – the first one after the NEM- I expected the spirit of NEM will envelope all their promises. Surely BN wants to be consistent in their messaging, ensuring people take their promises seriously.

Alas the manifesto confirms that BN too has chosen the populist and welfarist path.

The manifesto contains a deluge of promises on how BN wants to spend our money. The list of welfare programmes is extensive, including committing to more than doubling the amount for BR1M to RM1200 per household and RM600 for singles, increasing the value of 1Malaysia Book Vouchers to RM300, and Schooling Aid to RM150.

If BN wins GE13, we can expect to see more widespread use of the 1Malaysia brand. There will be more clinics, retail outlets, retail items, daycare centres, and housing projects sporting the brand. The implication is that these will all be "affordable", which should be read as the government actively distorting prices or heavily subsidising them.

When the promises of handouts and subsidies were read out at Bukit Jalil Stadium, the crowd cheered loudly. And with those cheers, the NEM promise to remove the distributive and entitlement culture looks set to be broken.

BN's manifesto also makes several promises involving the private sector and government-linked companies (GLCs). The production of more 1Malaysia products will be "driven by GLCs and the private sector" The private sector is expected to take part in building 1 million affordable homes, including 500,000 PR1MA houses.

GLCs will be expected to be more active in developing Bumiputra entrepreneurs by increasing outsourcing programmes for Bumiputra companies. And social engineering will be made a norm in GLCs as BN promises to "ensure a fair mix of all races" in these companies.

In other words, this manifesto envisions a Malaysia in which the private sector and GLCs will play the role of political agents tasked with delivering the agenda of a political coalition. This is a worrying future and is at odds with what was envisaged in the NEM. Rather than stepping out of the way to allow the private sector to do what they do best – create wealth for everyone – BN is embedding government intervention in the private sector to achieve political
goals.

Read more at: http://ideas.org.my/?p=6771 

 

Bishop condemns ‘Sunday’ polling

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 01:49 PM PDT

http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Bishop-Paul-Tan-300x202.jpg 

(FMT) - Bishop Paul Tan says the decision to hold polling on a Sunday, reflects the callous insensitivity towards Christians.

The Election Commission's decision to hold the 13th general election on a Sunday has earned the wrath of a senior clergyman.

Bishop Paul Tan condemned it as a reflection of the callous insensitivity towards Christians here.

He said that despite the government knowing that Sunday is a holy day where Christians must go to Church and worship God, EC has fixed May 5 for polling.

"This disrespect of the government of the Christian rights is to be denounced. It just proves that the government is not sincere in its 1Malaysia slogan," added the head of the Malacca and Johor diocese.

Tan noted that the voting in the last two general elections was held on a Saturday which is ideal for the discharge of the civic obligation to vote, particularly in a country that adheres to a five-day work week.

Of a sudden, he said, this time the vote has been fixed for a Sunday which would be disruptive to Christians wanting to acquit themselves of their religious and civic duties on the same day.

The vocal bishop said the decision to hold the vote on a Sunday is characteristic of the government's insensitivity to Christians as reflected by the immunity conferred on some politicians who engaged in stoking unfounded fears of Christian proselytisation of Muslims and even threatened to burn the bible.

"This decision to hold the vote on a Sunday caps a series of actions or their lack which in combination reflect callous insensitivity to the feelings of Christians in Malaysia," he added.

Read more at: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2013/04/15/bishop-condemns-sunday-polling/ 

Abdul Ghani to face Kit Siang in Gelang Patah

Posted: 14 Apr 2013 01:43 PM PDT

http://www.stasiareport.com/sites/straitstimes.com/files/imagecache/story-gallery-featured/fnghani14e.jpg 

(Sin Chew Daily) - Johor Mentri Besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman is expected to face opposition stalwart Lim Kit Siang in Gelang Patah, according to a latest information.

Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek has informed Gelang Patah MCA division chairman Jason Teoh and state leaders that the MCA would lease the Gelang Patah parliamentary constituency to Umno.

If there are no changes, Datuk Abdul Ghani will be contesting for the seat.

After assessing the latest situation in Gelang Patah, the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition leadership believes that Datuk Abdul Ghani, who has been the state Menteri Besar since 1995, has a good reputation and prestige. Since Johor is a bastion of the BN, fielding Datuk Abdul Ghani to face Democratic Action Party's (DAP) Mr Lim can boost the BN's morale in Johor, according to the latest information.

It was also understood that Mr Teoh, the MCA's initial preferred candidate, would be fielded to contest in Skudai state constituency.

Johor Gerakan chairman Teo Kok Chee contested in Skudai but lost to DAP's Dr Boo Cheng Hau in the last election, gaining 12,854 less votes than Dr Boo.

This time, the MCA would contest in Skudai, where 65 per cent of its voters are Chinese. Mr Teo is entrusted with the task to assist the BN in gaining the seat.

The MCA must handle well the discontentment of Gelang Patah division members over leasing of the constituency to prevent internal sabotage.

Should Tun Dr Mahathir be put to death? (UPDATED with Chinese Translation)

Posted: 13 Apr 2013 10:48 PM PDT

Now, let us assume that the person who asked this question happens to be a Christian. How would I answer the question without being accused of insulting Christianity? Considering that the Christians are as sensitive to perceived insults to their religion as Muslims are, we need to be very careful that I am not perceived as insulting Christianity.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Someone posted a comment in Malaysia Today asking me my opinion on whether Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad should be put to death. The way this person asked me that question sounded like he or she agreed that Tun Dr Mahathir should be put to death and this person was just testing me and was trying to extricate a response from me.

Now, first of all, which crime are you referring to? Did Tun Dr Mahathir murder someone? Which murder case was this? We need to first know the details of the crime.

Or are you talking about the crime of treason, which carries a death penalty? Now, not all cases of treason carry the death penalty. There are many types of treasonous acts. Selling secrets to a foreign power. Spying for a foreign power. Sabotaging our security and national defence to weaken Malaysia so that a foreign power can invade Malaysia and occupy the country.

We need specifics.

We also need to know whether you are talking from a legal/law point of view or a moral/religious point of view. Which section of the law are you talking about and does that section of the law carry the death penalty? Then the issue of evidence comes into play. What is the evidence you are talking about that a crime has been committed under that section of the law that carries the death penalty?

I fear that some people talk about the law but have very limited knowledge of the law. For example, they ask why the Malaysian government does not extradite me. They do not seem to know that the first issue to be considered in an extradition application is dual criminality. Do they even know what dual criminality means? Hence if there is no dual criminality then Malaysia cannot extradite me.

Secondly, they need to convince the UK court that a crime has been committed (after first establishing dual criminality). And that would mean they need evidence to do this. To just tell the UK court that I have insulted Islam is not good enough because in the UK insulting Islam is not a crime.

To the Malaysian government, my crime of insulting Islam is because I whacked the religious department for saying that non-Muslims are the enemy of Islam. The UK government will not only reject the argument that condemning the religious department for saying that non-Muslims are the enemy of Islam is a crime, they would probably give me the key to the city for opposing what the UK would regard as a hate crime. I may even be given 24-hour protection and be listed alongside Salman Rushdie as a protected species.

So you see, before I can even comment as to whether Tun Dr Mahathir should be put to death, we need to go through the long and tedious process of the indictment, the trial, the appeals or counter appeals, the pardon, and only after the process has been completed and all avenues exhausted can the death sentence be carried out. And considering Tun Dr Mahathir's age, he would most likely leave this world long before you can complete the process. Hence the process and my comment would be purely academic.

Now, let us assume that the person who asked this question happens to be a Christian. How would I answer the question without being accused of insulting Christianity? Considering that the Christians are as sensitive to perceived insults to their religion as Muslims are, we need to be very careful that I am not perceived as insulting Christianity.

Christianity says 'thou shalt not kill'. Hence if I say that Tun Dr Mahathir should be put to death that would mean I am saying that Christianity is wrong. How would the Christians react to my statement that says 'thou shalt kill' Tun Dr Mahathir when Christianity says 'thou shalt not kill'?

Can you see my dilemma I am facing here? As it is, people like Keith Pereira are already accusing me of being a Christian hater. Do I want to risk contradicting the Ten Commandments by suggesting that you kill Tun Dr Mahathir?

Okay, you may say that the Bible says an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But the Bible also asks you to turn the other cheek. Hence which version of the Bible should I use? And if I were to say that I am confused because there appears to be contradicting versions of the Bible, again, the Christians would whack me and preach to me about the Old Testament and the New Testament, as if I am ignorant about the religion when in fact I probably know more about Christianity than Christians themselves.

So you see, your question is a difficult question to reply to. Maybe if you can be more specific then I may be able to give you a reply to that question. Until then I await your more detailed response so that I can offer you the reply that you seek.

Meanwhile, take care and don't worry too much about putting people to death. Eventually we are all going to die anyway. It is only a matter of when. And there is always a chance that you may die before Tun Dr Mahathir does. After all, 10,000 Malaysians die every year due to traffic and other accidents so you never know when your time is up.

******************************* 

敦馬哈迪應該被處死嗎?

現在,讓我們假設提出上述這個問題的人是個基督徒。那我應該怎樣回答他才能不被講説我是在侮辱基督教呢?基督徒們和囘教徒一樣都是很敏感的,他們很容易會把別人的動作看成是侮辱他們的宗教,所以我必須格外小心才不被儅成是侮辱基督教。

原文:Raja Petra Kamarudin

譯文:方宙

有人在MT上留言問我敦馬哈迪應不應該被處死。從那個人的問法我看得出他或她很贊同敦馬哈迪應該被處死,而這個人只是想測試我,要從我的口中得到一個答復。

那好,首先請問你指的是哪宗罪?敦馬殺了人嗎?這是哪宗謀殺罪呢?我們必須先知道犯罪的内容。

還是你指的足以判死刑的叛國罪?並不是所有的叛國都帶死刑的。這世界存在很多种叛國的行爲:販賣國家機密,為其他國家進行間諜活動,破壞國防來削弱國家實力以讓其他勢力更容易地侵犯我國等。

我們需要具體的説明。

我們也有必要知道你是從法律觀點出發還是從道德/宗教觀點出發。你是從哪一條法律來看而那條法律是否又帶死刑呢?然後我們要談到證據。你能夠為那條帶有死刑的法律提供證據嗎?

我擔心的是有些人大談法律但他們根本就不懂法律。給你個例子,很多人都問爲什麽大馬政府不要引渡我。他們看起來並不知道引渡嫌犯的首要條件是'兩國共認罪行'(dual criminality)。他們到底懂什麽是'兩國共認罪行'嗎? 如果'兩國共認罪行'這個條件不成立的話那馬來西亞是不能引渡我的。

其二,他們必須説服英國法庭我的確有犯罪(當然'兩國共認罪行'條件必須先成立)。爲此他們必須提出證據。只是告訴英國法庭我污辱回教是不夠的,因爲在英國污辱回教不是罪行。

對大馬政府而言,我污辱回教是因爲我就宗教侷發表'非穆斯林是回教敵人'的談論而幹屌宗教侷。然而,英國政府不止不會接受我譴責宗教侷發表'非穆斯林是回教敵人'言論是個犯罪,他們還會因我做出了以上的行爲而保護我(宗教侷的以上言論在英國是件仇恨罪)。我甚至還能像Salman Rushdie 般申請24小時貼身保護。

所以你看,在我能發表敦馬是否應該被處死之前,我們必須經過起訴,審訊,上訴,赦免等等繁重複雜的程序。只有在經過這些程序和和沒有其他上訴途徑以後一個人才會被判死刑。想想敦馬現在的年齡,在走完這些程序以前他可能就不于人世了。所以說這些程序和我的評論可以說只是學術爭論而已。

現在,讓我們假設提出上述這個問題的人是個基督徒。那我應該怎樣回答他才能不被講説我是在侮辱基督教呢?基督徒們和囘教徒一樣都是很敏感的,他們很容易會把別人的動作看成是侮辱他們的宗教,所以我必須格外小心才不被儅成是侮辱基督教。

基督教義很清楚的説明'汝不可杀戮'。如果我說敦馬應該被處死的話那就代表我認爲基督教義是錯的。試想,基督徒提倡'汝不可杀戮'而我講的是'汝可杀戮',他們對我的'褻瀆'會有什麽反應呢?

你看到我正在進退兩難了嗎?已經有人,就像是Keith Pereira,指控我是個仇恨基督徒者了;我還敢低觸基督教的十誡,跟你說敦馬應被處死嗎? 

好,你可以講說聖經有提到可以以牙還牙。但聖經也提到'有人打你这边的脸,连那边的脸也由他打',那我到底應該應用哪個版本呢?如果我現在跟你說我對聖經的矛盾感到困惑,那肯定會有基督徒跳出來幹屌我,然後再把我當成很無知般的用舊約和新約跟我講道。事實上,我對基督教的認知應該比大多數的基督徒來得多。

你現在應該知道你的問題有多難回答了吧。如果你能夠更加具體的話我或許能夠回答你的問題。我會等待你的詳細答復,然後再給你你要的答案。

與此同時,我希望你能珍重和不要太過擔心別人被處死的問題。

我們最終都會死掉的,問題是什麽時候而已。你有可能比敦馬還要早去世;畢竟,大馬每天有1万個人因車禍和其他意外而死亡,所以你永遠也不會知道你的限期究竟是幾時。 

PSM asked to run under Pakatan ticket

Posted: 13 Apr 2013 09:39 PM PDT

Pauline Wong and Tan Yi Liang, The Sun Daily

Parti Sosialis Malaysia's (PSM) candidates who want mutual cooperation with Pakatan Rakyat (PR) in the 13th general election (GE13) may run in seats also sought by PR parties - provided they agree to contest under the symbol of the relevant PR party.

PKR supreme council member R. Sivarasa explained that the PR coalition is not rejecting PSM's request to contest in those seats.

"We are offering the seats to their candidates but on condition that they contest under a PR ticket," he said at a press conference today. Also present was PKR secretary-general Datuk Saifuddin Nasution.

"We hope they compromise accordingly as we are thinking of winnability," he added.

He was responding to questions on reported seat tussles between PSM and PKR in Kota Damansara (which PSM won in the March 2008 GE) and Semenyih (which PSM lost).

In the 2008 election, PSM had not had its registration as political party approved by the Home Ministry and therefore contested on the PKR ticket. The registration was given in June 2008.

The PKR leaders yesterday were however mum on whether PSM will be accepted as a component of the PR coalition, saying the presidential council has yet to make a decision.

Meanwhile, at a separate press conference, PSM secretary-general S. Arutchelvan said PSM feels its candidates are the most credible for their respective constituencies.

"We are not parachute candidates as we have done work in these areas. We will support Pakatan Rakyat in all seats they are fighting for, except for the ones we are contesting," he said.

He stressed that PSM had strict conditions as to who the party could field as an election candidate, as only those who have worked for the party for five years in a constituency can stand as a candidate.

PSM is fielding four candidates – Dr. Michael Jeyakumar for the Sungai Siput parliamentary seat, PSM deputy chairman M. Sarasvathy for the Jelapang state seat, Arutchelvan for the Semenyih state seat, and PSM president Dr. Mohd Nasir Hashim for the Kota Damansara state seat.

On potential three-corner fights, Arutchelvan said PSM has proposed that a non-governmental organisation committee decides who should run for the seat.

"There must be a process when parties cannot agree who should run for a seat," he said.

He stressed PSM will not sabotage efforts by PR in its bid to seize Putrajaya.

Asked about the Selangor PKR's intention to field its candidates in Kota Damansara and Semenyih, Arutchelvan pointed out that Mohd Nasir was the incumbent in Kota Damansara having won during the 2008 general elections.

He said PSM was confident of winning as it had been working hard on the ground in its other campaign areas, Semenyih, Sungai Siput and Jelapang.

"In Sungai Siput, Dr. Michael Jeyakumar has been actively resolving local issues such as flooding and land disputes and in Jelapang, Sarasvathy has been resolving land disputes, such as the one in Kampung Jelapang Tambahan," he added.

Meanwhile, Saifuddin said seat allocations in PR have to follow two 'rules'.

A seat sought by the incumbent party cannot be contested by another party. And if the seat was lost marginally in the previous election, priority is given to the party which lost to re-contest there.

On the tussle for the Sungai Aceh state seat in Penang, which has seen announcements by PAS and PKR for their own candidates there, he said the coalition's leaders will need to resolve the issue based on these rules.

 

Politicians make strange bedfellows (UPDATED with Chinese Translation)

Posted: 13 Apr 2013 07:45 PM PDT

Some view Mustafa Ali as a threat to Pakatan Rakyat solidarity. They view him as an Umno mole who may sway many in PAS to agree that their party go to bed with Umno in the event that Umno or Barisan Nasional does not win enough seats and DAP ends up getting the most number of seats compared to PAS and PKR.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Whoever thought that my party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LibDem) of the UK, would go to bed with the Conservative Party after saying that in the event of a hung parliament they would go to bed with the Labour Party. "Why the 'U-turn'?" as what Malaysia Today readers are fond of saying.

This is not about doing a U-turn. After all, politics is all about U-turns. Even the most famous Prime Minister in UK history and the most famous Prime Minister in Malaysian history (meaning the Tunku) changed parties. This is about political expediency and who can offer a better deal.

What LibDem wanted was reforms, the same thing that Malaysians have been clamouring for since 1998 but did not almost see until ten years later in 2008. However, while Labour offered only electoral reforms, Conservative offered a bigger and more complete package, political reforms -- part of that package being, of course, electoral reforms.

This is not about what LibDem wants for itself or about what is good for LibDem. This is about what is good for the people and the country. And political reforms are by far better than electoral reforms.

Of course, whether they can deliver these reforms or whether they will keep to their promise is another thing altogether. Time will tell. But we must at least start off by promising first. If you won't even promise that, then for sure you will never deliver it.

Malaysian politics is no different. Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat are both coalitions, just like the Conservative-LibDem coalition in the UK -- and many other coalitions all over the world that will not be able to form the government on their own unless they enter into a coalition because no one party won enough seats to form the government.

So Malaysians had better get used to this new political culture. All over the world very few political parties can win enough seats to form a government on its own. Governments need to be formed via coalitions. And coalition partners are political parties, most times parties that are at odds with one another. And coalition partners can and do change from one election to another.

In 1957, Umno could have never gained Independence or Merdeka for Malaya on its own. So it was forced (by the British) to go into a coalition with MCA and MIC, which they called the Alliance Party.

Just 12 years down the road and the Alliance Party (or coalition) could no longer sustain itself. So they needed to form yet another coalition called Barisan Nasional and the opposition parties were invited to join this new ruling coalition. DAP was the only party that did not join Barisan Nasional.

Umno says DAP refused to join while DAP says it was not invited. I suppose this debate would go on forever -- just like the debate about whether Singapore was kicked out of Malaysia or Singapore left Malaysia.

Nevertheless, PAS stayed in the Barisan Nasional coalition for just three years. In 1977, PAS left Barisan Nasional to join DAP in the opposition ranks.

But not everyone was happy for PAS to leave Barisan Nasional. Once such person was (or is) Mustafa Ali who was a Deputy Minister (and for less than one year on top of that). But Mustafa Ali and the rest of the 'Umno-friendly' PAS leaders had no choice. They were members/leaders of the party and the Cabinet post 'belonged' to the party. Hence if PAS left Barisan Nasional then they too had to leave, like it or not.

There are still leaders in PAS who have no objections to a 'unity government' with Umno or Barisan Nasional in the event that Umno or Barisan Nasional does not win enough seats to form the federal government or state governments.

If you can remember, soon after the 2008 General Election, I wrote about the secret negotiations going on between some leaders in PAS and some leaders in Umno to form unity governments in Perak and Selangor -- two states that fell to the opposition Pakatan Rakyat.

At first, and as usual, they denied this and called me a liar. Later, it was revealed that the secret negotiations did, in fact, take place. However, not all the PAS leaders were excited about going to bed with Umno. Only a few of the 'Umno-friendly' PAS leaders wanted it to happen. Those such as Kelantan Menteri Besar Nik Aziz Nik Mat, who has never forgotten and forgiven Umno's 'betrayal' of 1977, would not go to bed with Umno ever again even if their political life depended on it.

Hence, without a clear consensus, the secret negotiations failed. And later some of the PAS leaders came out to confess that the secret negotiations did take place. They also confirmed that one of the carrots that Umno dangled in front of them was that PAS would become the Menteris Besar of both Perak and Selangor.

And hence, also, Raja Petra Kamarudin did not lie after all, as they had originally alleged.

And the man who would become the Menteri Besar of Selangor would be Hasan Ali, one of those who together with Nasharudin Mat Isa were involved in the secret negotiations -- and who have both since left PAS (or got kicked out) and are now 'independent cum Umno-friendly' ex-PAS leaders.

In fact, as far back as 1999, Hasan Ali already indicated that he wanted to become the Menteri Besar of Selangor and this was the reason why he and Azmin Ali could not see eye-to-eye -- because Azmin too wanted to become the Menteri Besar of Selangor. (Now you know why Khalid Ibrahim got the job instead -- to keep both these sons of Ali from tearing into each other).

You will have noticed that many of those PAS leaders involved in the unity government secret negotiations have since drifted away from PAS. But there is one man still in PAS and who is considered very influential and who could play an important role in bringing PAS and Umno together in the event Umno or Barisan Nasional does not win enough seats to form the government on 5th May 2013.

And this man is Mustafa Ali. And Mustafa Ali does not want to state in very clear terms that in the event Pakatan Rakyat gets to form the federal government then Anwar Ibrahim is without a doubt going to be the Prime Minister.

Some view Mustafa Ali as a threat to Pakatan Rakyat solidarity. They view him as an Umno mole who may sway many in PAS to agree that their party go to bed with Umno in the event that Umno or Barisan Nasional does not win enough seats and DAP ends up getting the most number of seats compared to PAS and PKR.

You must remember, most of the top PAS leaders are ulama' (religious scholars). Mustafa Ali is not and that is why they call him Cikgu Pah and not Ustaz Pah. Mustafa Ali is more a Malay nationalist than an Islamist. Hence Mustafa Ali would have no problems if PAS went to bed with Umno, a Malay nationalist party.

So who killed off Mustafa Ali (and I can only assume that with the latest Mustafa Ali sex video going viral on the internet we can consider him dead)? Is it Umno? Why would Umno want to kill the best friend they have in PAS? Or are the people behind the video those who view Mustafa Ali as a threat to Pakatan Rakyat as well as a threat to Anwar Ibrahim's ambition to become Prime Minister?

Honestly I do not know. But if I had to hazard a guess I would guess that Umno would be the last one who would want to see Mustafa Ali killed off.

I have always said, in politics you need to keep your friends close and your enemies even closer. And has this not been proven so many times?

 ***************************

從政者:一群很奇怪的同枕人

有些人把Mustafa Ali看成民聯團結的絆腳石。他們把他看成巫統派來的内鬼,而儅伊黨和巫統贏不了多數席且行動黨贏得多於伊黨和公正黨的席位時,他的首要任務就是把伊黨和巫統'睡在同一張床上'。 

原文:Raja Petra Kamarudin

譯文:方宙

很多人會以爲我在英國的自由民主黨(Liberal Democratic Party ,LibDem)在國會懸吊的情況下會如他們之前所說的跟工黨聯盟,但事實上他們是跟保守黨聯盟的。"爲什麽要U轉呢?"這是MT讀者們很喜歡問的。

這並不是U轉,因爲政治本來就是U轉的。就連英國最出名的首相和我們最出名的首相(即國父)也曾經換黨。很多時候政治是要看便利性和哪方會開出更好的條件的。

LibDem要的是改革,正如很多大馬人從1998年就開始想要的, 當然要到了2008年大馬人才真正開始看到改革。無論如何,工黨提供的只有選舉改革,但保守黨提供的是一個更全面的政治改革配套,當中當然包括選舉改革。

在這裡我們並不看重LibDem 要的是什麽,或對LibDem有利的是什麽;我們著重的是對人民和國家有利的到底是什麽。而政治改革在這方面相比選舉改革要好得多。

當然,他們能不能實行這些改革和他們能不能堅持他們的承諾是另一回事。時間將會證明一切,但我們必須先從他們的諾言開始。如果你連承諾都給不了,那你肯定會做不了那些東西。

大馬政治其實沒有太大差別。囯陣和民聯都是政治聯盟,正如英國LibDem-保守黨聯盟般。世界各國也有很多的政治聯盟,因爲很多時候單一政黨並沒有足夠的席位來組織政府。

所以大馬人最好要能熟悉這個新的政治文化。全世界只有區區那幾個國家擁有單一執政黨,所以有很多政府都是靠聯盟組建的。很多時候這些聯盟的成員黨的信念是相互不合的,而且還會時不時地替換成員。

就講我們好了,在1957年巫統根本不可能獨自取得馬來亞獨立,所以它被(英國)強迫和馬華和印度囯大黨聯盟,通稱Alliance Party聯盟黨。

僅僅12年内聯盟黨就支撐不住了,所以他們開始邀請反對黨來組織新的聯盟,這次稱爲囯陣。行動黨當時是唯一一個沒有加盟的政黨。

巫統聲稱是行動黨自己不想加入,但行動黨則聲稱他們根本沒有受到邀請。我想這件事情會辯得永遠也沒有答案----就正如新加坡是自己要退出馬來亞或是被迫退出馬來亞這個問題。

無論如何,伊斯蘭黨只加入了囯陣3年,在1997年伊黨就離開了進而和行動黨組成反對黨。但並不是伊黨的所有人都對此擧感到開心的。Mustafa Ali 就是其中一個,他當時當了1年的副部長。但是Mustafa Ali 和其他親巫統的領袖們沒有得選擇,因爲内閣部長的職位只是公開給囯陣聯盟成員而已,他們得跟伊黨一起退出囯陣。

至今爲止,伊黨還是有人很願意和巫統組成聯合政府,尤其是儅巫統沒有足夠的席位來組織中央/州政府時。

如果你還記得的話,在08年大選后,我寫了一篇文章,内容是伊黨某些領袖和巫統領袖進行秘密談判來商量在霹靂和雪蘭莪組織聯合州政府----霹靂和雪蘭莪當時都是民聯的州屬。

一開始他們如往常般跳出來否認和指責我講騙話,但後來事實證明那個秘密談判確實是存在的。無論如何,不是所有伊黨領袖都想和巫統'同床'的。吉蘭丹州務大臣聂阿芝就是其中一個。他從未忘記巫統在1977年所作出的背叛行爲,他永遠也不會想要和巫統'同床',即使他的政治生涯會因此結束。

之後,那個秘密談判在未有清楚的共識下宣告破裂。有些伊黨領袖後來有站出來承認那個談判的存在。他們也確認巫統當時開給他們的條件是霹靂和雪蘭莪的州務大臣一職歸伊黨所管。

這也證明了我,Raja Petra Kamarudin,並沒有像他們指控般的説謊。

當時雪蘭莪州務大臣的内定人選為Hasan Ali,他當時和Nasharudin Mat Isa一樣參加了那個秘密談判。他們兩人之後退出了(或被踢出了)伊黨而成爲了'獨立但親巫統'的前伊黨領袖。

事實上,早在1999年Hasan Ali 就表示他要成爲雪蘭莪州務大臣,而這也是爲什麽他和阿芝敏Azmin Ali 互相看不順眼的原因-----阿芝敏本身也想成爲雪蘭莪州務大臣。(你現在知道爲什麽卡立會被命名為大臣了吧,那是爲了防止這兩個阿里互相把對方撕爛)

你也應該看到了很多出席那場秘密談判的成員日後與伊黨漸行漸遠。但還有一個人到今天爲止還留在伊黨,而他還擁有很大的影響力。如果5月5號伊黨和巫統都贏不了多數席位的話,那他很可能能把雙方拉在一起組成聯合政府。那個人就是Mustafa Ali。Mustafa Ali至今爲止都不願闡明如果民聯真的贏得政權的話那安華是否會成爲首相。

有些人把Mustafa Ali看成民聯團結的絆腳石。他們把他看成巫統派來的内鬼,而儅伊黨和巫統贏不了多數席且行動黨贏得多於伊黨和公正黨的席位時,他的首要任務就是把伊黨和巫統'睡在同一張床上'。 

你必須記得,多數的伊黨領導都是宗教師'ulama'。Mustafa Ali他本身並不是,所以人們都把他稱爲Cikgu Pah而不是Ustaz Pah。他本身更像的是個馬來民族主義而不是穆斯林主義者。所以說要Mustafa Ali和巫統這個馬來民族主義政黨同枕的話,他絕對沒問題。

所以到底是誰'謀殺'了Mustafa Ali呢?(我在這裡會這樣講,是因爲網上瘋傳的性愛片足夠要他性命了)是巫統嗎?爲什麽巫統要把他們在伊黨的好朋友給幹掉呢?還是幕後操手其實是在擔心民聯的前途和安華要成爲首相的野心而下此對策?

老實講我真的不知道。但如果你要我粗略的猜測的話,我會說巫統會是最後一個想把Mustafa Ali 給幹掉的。

我已經說過很多次了,在政治世界裏,你必須親近你的朋友,但你更要親近你的敵人(keep your friends close but your enemies closer)。這不是已經上演很多次了嗎? 

Sabah PAS announces names of 11 candidates

Posted: 13 Apr 2013 06:15 PM PDT

(Bernama) -- PAS appears to be reluctant to wait for the Pakatan alliance led by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to announce the opposition's line up for Sabah in the 13th general election (GE13).

The party announced today that it would be contesting two parliamentary and nine state seats.

PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang said the party's state deputy commissioner Hamzah Abdullah and Kalabakan PAS Youth chief Usman Madeaming would stand in the Batu Sapi and Kalabakan parliamentary constituencies respectively.

He disclosed this after a closed door meeting with the party's potential candidates for Sabah at its liaison office here.

In the last election, PAS did not field any parliamentary candidate and only two state candidates, in Sukau and Merotai, where it was defeated.

Abdul Hadi said line up for state seats comprised seven men, Awang Laiman Ikin@ Abang (Tempasuk), Hamid Ismail (Tanjung Aru), Ahdah Sulaiman (Sukau), Kasman Karate (Kunak), Hasai Tudai (Bugaya), Ahmad Dullah (Merotai), Daud Jalaluddin (Sebatik) and two women, Dausieh Queck (Pitas) and Fatmawati Mohd Yusuf (Tanjung Batu).

Anwar in a press conference in Kota Kinabalu yesterday had said the opposition line up would be decided by the Pakatan Rakyat state leadership.

The state Pakatan Rakyat comprises PKR, DAP, PAS and two non-governmental organisations, Angkatan Perubahan Sabah (APS) led by Datuk Wilfred Bumburing and Pakatan Perubahan Sabah (PPS) led by Datuk Seri Lajim Ukin.

Meanwhile, Lajim in a press conference here today, said PPS would be given at least four parliamentary seats and 14 state seats.

"Our candidates will be contesting on the PKR ticket. However, two of them, in Bugaya and Sukau, will use the PAS symbol," he said, hinting that he might be standing in the Beaufort parliamentary and Klias state constituencies.

Lajim said Anwar would reveal Pakatan's full line up for Sabah at the latest by Tuesday.

 

PKR shocked, PAS unveils Sarawak candidates

Posted: 13 Apr 2013 06:08 PM PDT

(The Kuala Lumpur Post) - PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang today named the party's candidates in seven constituencies in Sarawak, but three of the constituencies are also being claimed by Pakatan Rakyat partners DAP and PKR.

The names of the candidates are Abang Ahmad Kerdee Abang Masagus, a lawyer (for Kota Samarahan); Robby @ Muhamad Zaid Tandang, PAS Youth leader (Sibuti); Mohamad Jolhi, a homeopathy practitioner and PAS director of election, Sarawak (Batang Sadong); Ajji Ajiji, a businessman (Igan); Ambrose Labang Jamba, editor of Buletin Kenyalang (Julau); Jurina Mut, businesswoman (Tanjung Manis); and Nani Sahari, a businesswoman (Mukah).

Meanwhile, PKR also claimed Julau and Kota Samarahan, while DAP has named Hai Merawin @ Bonaventure for Mukah.

Hadi said that the list of the candidates has been finalised and had been agreed to by DAP and PKR.

The decision was made in the past few days.

Hadi said that the decision of the party to contest in Julau was to show that the party did not find its candidates in Muslim constituencies, but also in non-Muslim constituencies.

Julau has about 90 percent Iban voters, the majority of whom are Christians.

"We want to show that we have Iban and non-Muslims as our candidates," he said.

PKR 'shocked'

But PAS' decision to contest in Kota Samarahan and Julau is set to clash with PKR Sarawak which has firmly established its roots in the two constituencies.

Last month, over 3,000 people in Kota Samarahan attended a PKR ceramah where party de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim spoke at length.

When informed of the PAS decision, PKR chairperson Baru Bian expressed shock and said that he has not been informed of the decision.

"I will find out from Kuala Lumpur, and I am shocked that I have not been informed of the decision," he said.

He said he had directed Andy Wong, PKR's potential candidate for Julau to be on standby, pointing out that he might have to contest as an independent.

In Sibu, Wong Ho Leng, Sarawak DAP chairperson refused to comment on the decision of PAS to contest in Mukah.

He had earlier named Hai Merawin to be DAP's candidate there.

PKR and DAP still negotiating

Pakatan Rakyat has not finalised a number of Sarawak seats such as Mas Gading, Mambong, Sri Aman, Miri, and Stampin as both PKR and DAP want to stake their claim.

So far PKR has announced the names of its candidates for 11 seats that it will contest, and they are Baru Bian (Limbang), Roland Engan (Baram), Joshua Jabeng (Selangau), Thomas Laja (Kanowit), Abun Sui Anyit (Hulu Rajang), Ali Biju (Saratok), Cecilia Siti Una (Betong), Nicholas Bawin (Lubok Antu), Zulrusdi Hol (Santubong), Ahmad Nazib Johari (Petra Jaya) and Abang Zulkifli Abang Engkeh (Batang Lupar).

Meanwhile DAP has announced Bob Baru (Lawas), John Anthony Brian (Bintulu), Lim Sui Kien (Miri), Oscar Ling (Sibu),  Hai Merawin (Mukah), Ramli Malaka (Kapit) and Alice Lau (Lanang),  Edward Luak (Serian), and Andrew Wong (Sarikei).

DAP has yet to announce the candidates for Stampin and Bandar Kuching, but Sarawak DAP secretary Chong Chieng Jen and Julian Tan are expected to contest the respective seats.

As for the overlapping claims in Mas Gading, Mambong and Sri Aman, Anwar Ibrahim during his recent visit to Kuching that it is expected to be resolved very soon.

 

Hadi Awang insists man in sex video is not Mustafa Ali

Posted: 13 Apr 2013 06:04 PM PDT

(Bernama) - PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang insisted that Mustafa Ali was not involved in the sex video recording spread in the internet.

He said he did not believe the PAS secretary-general was capable of doing the video act because for the past few years, Mustafa Ali performed his prayers while sitting down.

"Those who made the recording were not aware that for the past few years Mustafa Ali performed his prayers while sitting on a chair because his knees were aching…even going down the stairs was painful (for him)…go an find someone strong and not like what was shown in the recording," he said.

He disclosed this to reporters when asked to comment on the sex video issue concerning a man who is said to look like the PAS secretary-general, here today.

Meanwhile, reporters who attended the coverage on the announcement of PAS candidates for the 13th general election (GE13) were required to register their presence and had to undergo another check before being allowed to enter the PAS office in Kota Samarahan.

 

Dr M: Chinese votes in BN’s bag as long as business chances exist

Posted: 13 Apr 2013 05:13 PM PDT

"The NEP has in fact, benefitted the Chinese more than the Malays," he added, referring to the controversial national affirmative action policy introduced in 1971 by second prime minister Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, that aimed to close the economic gap between the Malays who were largely small-time farmers and Chinese who were into businesses. 

Debra Chong, TMI

Economic stability and chances for business growth are valued by Chinese Malaysians and they will support the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) at the polls so long these are not at risk, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said in an interview published today. 

Ahead of the 13th general elections, surveys and analyses by pundits have flagged the Chinese — who make up about 30 per cent of multiracial Malaysia's 13.3 million electorate — as pro-oposition supporters, contrary to the former prime minister's view.  

"I think the Chinese would still value their opportunities in business. If you take an environment where they can succeed in business, they would be supportive of BN, which they did even when the BN introduced the New Economic Policy," Dr Mahathir was quoted saying in the New Sunday Times

"The NEP has in fact, benefitted the Chinese more than the Malays," he added, referring to the controversial national affirmative action policy introduced in 1971 by second prime minister Tun Abdul Razak Hussein, that aimed to close the economic gap between the Malays who were largely small-time farmers and Chinese who were into businesses. 

Officially, NEP was ended in 1990 but its fundamental idea remains in effect through other governmental policies. Critics have argued that the NEP has only helped the few with close ties to the ruling elite. 

Dr Mahathir also acknowledged that without the NEP, Southeast Asia's third-largest economy would likely develop at a much faster rate than at present due to the dynamism of the Chinese community. 

"(But) it would be an unhealthy growth," he said. 

He pointed that the lopsided distribution of wealth between the races would be sharpened if the government had not taken action, and that the social imbalance would stir unrest. 

"The Chinese would be rich and the Malays would be poor. And that would lead to instability," he said. 

The 87-year-old who ran Malaysia for 22 years until his resignation from office in October 2003 said he still believed his socio-economic policies have been "fair". 

"I keep on telling people that in this country no one should feel extremely happy because if they feel happy, if one race feels happy, it means you are doing the wrong thing. You are helping that race too much. 

"The thing is you have to deny everyone something that they think they are entitled to. So they will all be unhappy, which means we are treating everyone equally," he said. 

The former Umno president who is now Perkasa advisor defended his patronage of the right-wing Malay organisation whom many Chinese appear to view dimly as being racist. 

"We cannot reject them as being non-Umno. We have to work with them. Otherwise, Umno will be a tiny organisation quite unable to get either Chinese or Malay support," he said. 

He added that he was unsure what role the group will play after May 5, but insisted that Perkasa backed not just Umno, the Malay component in the 13-party BN coalition but the other racial components as well. 

Dr Mahathir has been engaging in a tit-for-tat verbal battle against his political foe in the DAP, Lim Kit Siang since the opposition leader announced he was gunning for Gelang Patah, a Chinese-majority federal seat in Umno's JOhor home turf. 

Lim, who has repeatedly sparred with Dr Mahathir in Parliament, has also been backing the Umno veteran's ex-deputy, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, with whom he is now politically-friendly to be Malaysia's next leader. 

In his interview today, Dr Mahathir described his former right-hand man as a very smart man, very charismatic, and with the ability to get along with many people of diverse backgrounds. 

"He is a fantastic man, a fantastic man!" he said, but the compliment was backhanded. 

"In a way, he is a chameleon. His colours turn to suit the environment he is in."

READ MORE HERE

 

GE13: DAP and PKR yet to settle seat distribution in Johor

Posted: 13 Apr 2013 04:29 PM PDT

(The Star) - JOHOR BARU: The battle for seats between state DAP and PKR seems to be still firing on with both sides keeping mum on their list of confirmed candidates for GE13.

"The seats will be announced when it is announced," said DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang during a press conference at the Gelang Patah DAP headquarters on Sunday.

When asked if the delay reflected disagreement on seat allocations with PKR, Lim stuck with the same reply.

"Just give us some privacy.

"It will be announced when it is announced," he said.

On Saturday, PAS introduced their full list of state candidates and confirmed that the party would be contesting for 30 out of 50 state seats and eight out of the 26 parliamentary seats.

 

Jelapang state seat to witness three-corner fight

Posted: 13 Apr 2013 04:11 PM PDT

(NST) - SUNGAI SIPUT: The Jelapang state seat is expected to witness a three cornered fight as the PSM may be forced to field its candidate in the DAP-stronghold seat in the upcoming general election.

Former Sg Siput MP Dr D. Jeyakumar said as at now the DAP has failed to respond to PSM proposal for the issue to be solved by an independent committee consisting members of several NGOs.

"We have sent a letter explaining our proposal to the DAP two weeks ago. As at now, we have not received any response from the DAP leadership," he told reporters at his service centre here today.

Dr Jeyakumar said the DAP has also refused to meet the PSM to discuss the matter with the former insisted that there is nothing to discuss.

He added PSM will use the party's logo for its candidates in the 13th general election.


Opposition still bickering over seats in many places

Posted: 13 Apr 2013 04:04 PM PDT

NO AGREEMENT: It shows they are not capable of running the country, says UUM don

(NST) - EVEN as it draws near to nomination day, the loose opposition coalition comprising PKR, DAP and Pas still cannot resolve the seat allocation issue and this may force them to contest against each other.

Universiti Utara Malaysia political analyst Prof Datuk Dr Mustafa Ishak opines that this reflects badly on Pakatan Rakyat as it was considered "old hand" when it comes to elections.

"They claim they can govern the nation. How can they do that if they cannot even resolve the most basic thing in a general election?" he said.

Barisan Nasional, on the other hand, has achieved a consensus in terms of the allocation of seats despite having 13 component parties.

"This is the real problem Pakatan is facing -- the possibility of three-cornered or multi-cornered fights among them underscores that there is no better formula than the one practised by BN."

He added that BN leaders did not squabble openly and the swapping of seats among them was for strategic purposes, so only one component party could represent BN in a particular seat.

"But in the case of Pakatan, every single party wants to gain maximum benefit and the maximum number of seats to determine who can lead the coalition post-general election," Mustafa explained.

Since the opposition did not have a clear agreement or arrangement on who should lead the coalition, Mustafa said this had prompted it to make a decision based on the number of seats each party was contesting.

"If PKR wins more seats, it will head the coalition.

"If DAP wins more, it will call the shots. Same goes to Pas," he added.

Pakatan is embroiled in seat allocation disputes in several states.

In Perlis, animosity is brewing between PKR and DAP over the Indera Kayangan state seat, where both have refused to budge on who should be contesting.

In Penang, the opposition is facing a similar problem with the Sungai Aceh state seat where PKR and Pas had both announced their respective candidates.

Meanwhile in Johor, the squabbling on seat allocation is still not over, with both PKR and DAP adamant on contesting the Johor Jaya state seat.

DAP had gone ahead and announced its candidate and this had angered many state PKR leaders also vying for the seat.

Apart from Johor Jaya, two other state seats -- Pengkalan Rinting and Tangkak -- are also being eyed by both parties.

There is also a tussle for seats in Sarawak with DAP staking a claim to predominantly Dayak areas -- Mambong and Sri Aman -- which PKR had also expressed its intention to contest.

Problems may also arise between PKR and DAP as the latter also wants to contest in Mas Gading, Bintulu and Kapit.

To complicate matters, Pas has also joined in the fray by naming candidates to contest in Kota Samarahan and Julau.

DAP has also reportedly refused to budge in the Chinese-majority seats of Stampin and Miri.

Trouble is also brewing over seat allocation involving opposition-friendly Parti Sosialis Malaysia, which is adamant in contesting under its own banner this time around in seats that PKR had claimed.

(PSM could not contest using its own logo in previous elections as the party was not registered then.)

In a statement, its secretary-general S. Arutchelvan said PKR could not claim rights to the Semenyih and Kota Damansara state seats, and Sungai Siput parliamentary seat as no PKR members had ever stood there in previous elections.

 

BN sure of bagging 15 extra seats as opposition squabbles

Posted: 13 Apr 2013 03:58 PM PDT

(ST) - Malaysia's ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) is confident of reaping a bonus of 15 federal seats due to infighting in the opposition camp, bringing the total it can win from 160 to 175 seats, according to coalition information chief Ahmad Maslan.

Mr Ahmad claimed party intelligence indicated multi-cornered fights in the 15 parliamentary constituencies where opposition alliance Pakatan Rakyat (PR) component parties have ostensibly failed to resolve the deadlocks in its seat allocation talks, the Malaysian Insider reported.

"Our latest intel is indicating that we could add 11 more seats where Pakatan have failed to resolve the negotiations so there is a huge possibility that we would have multi-cornered fights there.

"On the same note, we can also win four more in Sabah and Sarawak," he told a press conference at Umno's headquarters here on Saturday.

Mr Ahmad had previously said BN was confident of restoring its parliamentary supermajority by winning 160 seats. The coalition won 140 of the 222 federal seats it contested in 2008. It needed just eight more to take two-thirds control of the House.

He said BN was confident of recapturing 5 seats each from the Democratic Action Party (DAP) and Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS), which together won 51 seats, while it expects to retake 10 of the 31 seats PKR won in Election 2008.

"The 140 seats we won were during the 'political tsunami'. As I said before, the tsunami has ended. It was stopped by Najib's many initiatives like BR1M, PR1M, KR1M and many more," he said, referring to the programmes benefiting the lower income group initiated by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who chairs the BN.

In the last election 2008, which was dubbed Malaysia's "political tsunami", saw BN lose its customary two-thirds parliamentary majority and cede four more states - Perak, Penang, Kedah and Selangor - to the loose opposition pact of PKR, PAS and the DAP that later formed Pakatan Rakyat (PR). PAS had also retained Kelantan.

Earlier this week, former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said he expects BN to score a bigger parliamentary majority in Election 2013 than in 2008 with the "possibility" of the ruling coalition regaining a supermajority.

He also said in an interview with Malay-language broadsheet Utusan Malaysia published on Saturday that BN had a 50-50 chance of retaking Kelantan and Penang, and slightly higher chances at 55-45 in winning back Kedah and Selangor in the 13th general election.

Mr Ahmad's statement comes as PR component parties are struggling to settle differences on seat-sharing for the May 5 election.

In one instance of this, the Insider report said, Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was forced to cancel the announcement of PKR's candidates list for Sabah, a state key to PR's push for federal power.

 

PPP eyes 4 state and 2 parliament seats

Posted: 13 Apr 2013 03:51 PM PDT

Among the names mentioned as a potential PPP candidate is PPP vice chief Maglin Dennis D'Cruz, presently a senator and a deputy minister in Najib's last cabinet.

Humayun Kabir, FMT

The People's Progressive Party (PPP) is likely to contest in two parliamentary and four state seats that were lost by Barisan Nasional component parties in the 2008 political tsunami.

According to a BN source, the party has earmarked the four state seats of Pasir Bedamar in Perak, Manek Urai (Kelantan), Kota Laksamana (Malacca) and Kota Alam Shah (Selangor), and also the Federal Territory parliamentary seat of Batu.

PPP is also said to be eyeing either the parliamentary seats of Kepong or Kapar, or another parliamentary seat in Perak.

The source said PPP was awaiting Barisan Nasional chairman Najib Tun Razak's approval before making any official move.

"They have said that Najib will tell them some time this week. They are confident of doing well in these seats," said the source.

In 2008, Gerakan failed to unseat DAP's Dr Tan Seng Giaw in Keong while MIC's Kapar seat was lost to PKR S Manikavasagam.

PPP meanwhile lost both the Taiping parliamentary seat and the Pasir Bedamar state seat that it had contested in 2008.

Last year PPP president M Kayveas told FMT that the party wanted to contest in BN areas that were lost to the opposition in the last general election.

While the party had claimed that it had been assured of two parliamentary seats and two state seats, it had however proposed to Najib for the additional two state seats.

READ MORE HERE

 

Kredit: www.malaysia-today.net
 

Malaysia Today Online

Copyright 2010 All Rights Reserved