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- Shameless Umno drags Agong into its politics
- On ministerial responsibility
- Malaysia in the Era of Globalization #70
- BERSIH Must March On
| Shameless Umno drags Agong into its politics Posted: 19 Jun 2011 05:47 PM PDT
The Agong should not allow his August office to be drawn into Umno's infighting and acts of subversion to undermine the Penang state government. To drag the Agong into such a mundane affair as choosing mosque committee members which can be easily handled by ordinary citizens will expose the office of the Agong into disrepute. Mohd Ariff Sabri Aziz, Free Malaysia Today A few days ago Umno people in Penang celebrated a 'victory' of sorts. The 'victory' I refer to is the royal command to stop the elections of mosque officials. A 'victory' which I'm afraid will be a 'pyrrhic victory' and achieved at the cost of staggering losses. It is ironic that Umno has to turn to the very symbol representing the institution which it wanted to downsize in the 1980s. Our Agong has now been dragged into the murky and directionless politics of Umno. Why do Umno people worry if elections are held for choosing mosque officials? The answer is that Umno would be routed out. Positions as mosque office bearers represent the last bastion of power that Umno people have to gain direct access to people. If free elections are held, all those positions held by Umno and which they are now precariously clinging on to will be lost. People will find out that Umno mosque committee members are just seat warmers. They occupy positions but do no activities. To drag the Agong into such a mundane affair as choosing mosque committee members which can be easily handled by ordinary citizens will expose the office of the Agong into disrepute. The Agong will be seen as a willing accomplice in the furtherance of a desperate act by Umno people. No credibility We all know that when Umno dominate the committees, the mosques and suraus are practically dead and deserted. You (Umno representatives) would rather spend time at organising borias, karaokes and futsals. Your assemblymen never carry put activities there. You were not interested to do tazkirah, mussabaqah, berzanji, nasyids and all that were you? What could Umno people lose more terribly? They have lost Penang and no other losses can be worse than that? Penang Umno has lost whatever credibility it has. With this latest incident, it will be seen as an organization that wants victory by resorting to abundantly clear underhanded tactics. It is now using the office of our Agong in furtherance of some parochial objectives. The objective is to save what could be the last avenue with which Umno people can reach conservative Malays to prevent them from becoming converts to the pragmatic management of the state by Lim Guan Eng. In Penang, 4,485 people have offered themselves to fill the 4,530 vacancies in 151 of 200 mosques in six districts in the state to enhance the preservation of the mosque institution. Desperate Umno people are fighting for their last turf. But what they are actually doing now is just delaying the inevitable. Bid to undermine People don't want Umno to be the government; people don't want you to head the masjid and suraus. I know from personal experience what Umno will do the masjid and suraus. Unless you have an assemblyman who is committed in the belief that masjid and suraus are places of religious activism, then the masjid and suraus will just be a means to hold some positions. It doesn't take any serious effort to know that Umno people are behind the petitions. It's the last means whereby Umno can undermine the legitimacy of an elected state government that's opposed to it. The Agong should not allow his August office to be drawn into the infighting and acts of subversion conducted on the ground by discredited elements. This is the last means actually to undermine the Penang government. There must be reason why the government in Penang has agreed to the election process. The basic reason is obvious – to remove absentee office bearers who don't really go to mosques and suraus but who want to gallivant around with the title of pengerusi surau X and pengerusi masjid Y. No courage So we come to the jackpot question – will the BN government hold elections this year? No, they won't. If they don't have the courage even to allow elections of mosque office bearers, they will never have the nerves to conduct general election. The move by the Penang state to have mosque and surau officials elected instead of discretionary appointments is a revolutionary idea. It will help ensure only those who are committed to 'mengemarakkan dan memakmurkan masjid dan surau' will be elected. Those who are not interested will not be attending mosque and suraus anyway. Umno should support the election of mosque committees because that will help ensure the removal of laggards and layabouts. Getting positions by being given them is part of the bigger rent seeking culture that Umno has inculcated into Malays in general.
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| Posted: 19 Jun 2011 11:20 AM PDT
By R Nadeswaran, The Sun DEPENDING on which newspaper you read, Chris Huhne is the best secretary of state for environment and climate change the UK ever has had. But when he left his wife Vicky Pryce of 27 years for his aide Carina Trimingham, things seem to have gone awry. Hell, they say, has no fury like a woman scorned. Huhne, his estranged wife claimed, asked her to accept the penalty for a speeding ticket he collected in 2003. There has been no prosecution yet but the police have passed on their investigations to the director of public prosecutions. In the past, ministers by convention have submitted their resignations if they had broken the law or had put the government in an embarrassing situation for failings within departments under their portfolios. Under the Westminster system, this is seen to guarantee that an elected official is answerable for every single government decision. It is also important to motivate ministers to scrutinise the activities within their departments. One rule coming from this principle is that each cabinet member answers for his or her own ministry in parliament. The reverse of ministerial responsibility is that civil servants are not supposed to take credit for the successes of their department, allowing the government to claim them. Although it may sound unfair, this doctrine demands that if waste, corruption, or any other misbehaviour is found to have occurred within a ministry, the minister is responsible even if the minister had no knowledge of the actions. A research paper from the House of Commons states: "A minister is ultimately responsible for all actions by a ministry. Even without knowledge of an infraction by subordinates the minister approved the hiring and continued employment of those civil servants. If misdeeds are found to have occurred in a ministry the minister is expected to resign. It is also possible for a minister to face criminal charges for malfeasance under their watch." The archives in parliament are full of episodes, articles, stories and accounts of a string of ministers who had to send their resignation letters to the prime minister for failing to account for their conduct or that of a subordinate. One of the most talked about case is that of junior education minister, Estelle Morris in 2002. She quit not because of personal scandal or personal agreement but she pledged to do so if the government failed to meet its targets for literacy and numeracy. From the Hansard, this is the exchange that took place in the house: Morris: Of course I will; I have already done so. Indeed, I generously commit the under-secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr Clarke) too. We speak with one voice. The Hon. Gentleman's question is a reflection of what life was like under teams of Conservative ministers, when a secretary of state would promise to resign but the rest of the team would not go. The material on Reginald Maudling who resigned in 1972 makes interesting reading. Not in the cabinet (yet) six years earlier, he was made director in a company owned by architect John Poulson. Maudling helped obtain lucrative contracts. When Poulson was subject to a bankruptcy hearing, bribe payments and his connections to Maudling became public knowledge. He quit and said: "As home secretary I was officially police authority for the metropolis, and was responsible for the Metropolitan Police. It seemed to me quite clear that I could not continue to hold that responsibility while the Met were investigating, with a view to possible prosecution, the activities of a man with whom I had had a business association. I had no option but to resign, which I did." In later years, Tony Blair's one-time spin doctor Peter Mandelson resigned on two occasions. In late 1998, he resigned after it emerged that he got a loan from the paymaster general, Geoffrey Robinson, to buy a house. The media dug up several stories concerning the financial conduct of Robinson and oversight of these by Mandelson. In his letter of resignation, Mandelson accepted that "it was necessary for ministers not only to uphold high standards in public life but also to be 'seen to do so'." He returned to the cabinet a year later but had to resign again two years later for alleged improprieties. The Observer charged that he had called the immigration minister to assist an Indian businessman, Srichand Hinduja to obtain British citizenship. Srichand and his brother had donated £1 million to sponsor part of the Millennium Dome when Mandelson was in charge of the project in 1998. In 2001, an official inquiry exonerated Mandelson by which time he declared he would not want to be in the cabinet again. In Malaysia, one of the earliest cases of a minister having to resign in unusual circumstances was in the sixties when the then Education Minister Abdul Rahman Talib submitted his resignation letter after he was unsuccessful in a defamation suit. PPP leader D. R. Seenivasagam had brought up in Parliament, where he enjoyed privilege, improprieties committed by the minister. Seenivasagam accepted the challenge to repeat the remarks outside and was unsuccessfully sued by Abdul Rahman. The other minister who resigned was Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek who quit as health minister in 2008 over a sex video featuring him. While we embrace the Westminster system, history may have forgotten some doctrines and the saga of Abdul Rahman Talib v D. R. Seenivasagam and Chua. R. Nadeswaran concedes that since it is a doctrine and not a law, it would be difficult to compel individuals to do the honourable thing. He is theSun's UK correspondent based in London and can be reached at:citizen-nades@thesundaily.com
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| Malaysia in the Era of Globalization #70 Posted: 19 Jun 2011 11:07 AM PDT
The chief minister, apart from being the chief executive of the state, is also the state leader of the party, mayor of the capital city, and chairman of various state corporations. Any of those jobs would have consumed the full attention of a skilled executive, yet we have these politicians, many with no formal training in management or special executive skills, who think they can credibly perform all those functions at the same time. No wonder nothing gets done. By M. Bakri Musa Chapter 8: Culture, Institutions, and Leadership Lack of Checks and Balances in Malaysian Leadership One unhealthy trend in the Malaysian leadership is the increasing concentration of power and the consequent absence of checks and balances. Invariably this leads to the lack of accountability and potential abuse. It is not so much that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely, as Lord Acton had put it, rather we do not have a system that prevents the inherently corrupt from becoming powerful. Consider that Mahathir is not only the chief executive (Prime Minister) of the country; he is also the leader of his party, chairman of a number of government corporations, as well as being the finance minister! With the lack of an effective system of checks and balances, such a structure is a set up for either spectacular achievement given a competent, honest and humble leader, or the destruction of the country given a lesser mortal. A system with effective checks and balances could handle even the most evil and corrupt. America survived Richard Nixon; he was forced to resign. The American system could also deal with the personal moral turpitude of a president, as when Clinton was impeached, albeit unsuccessfully. In Malaysia even at the state level we see this same pattern of concentration of power and lack of checks and balances. The chief minister, apart from being the chief executive of the state, is also the state leader of the party, mayor of the capital city, and chairman of various state corporations. Any of those jobs would have consumed the full attention of a skilled executive, yet we have these politicians, many with no formal training in management or special executive skills, who think they can credibly perform all those functions at the same time. No wonder nothing gets done. If we distribute the power, not only would we ensure the jobs would get done, but there would also be greater accountability. I see no reason why the head of the ruling party should be the same person as the prime minister, or that cabinet positions be reserved for top party officials. The prime minister should be able to select the best person to be in his cabinet and not be hamstrung with whether that person has been elected to a top position in UMNO. The skills to run for a party position are not necessarily the same skills needed to manage a ministry or agency. Similarly if the state UMNO leader and the chief minister were different persons, they would both keep each other on their toes. Again reverting to the American example, George W. Bush may be the President, but he is not the head of his Republican Party. Although he has the sole power to appoint his Cabinet Secretaries and other senior officials, nonetheless those too are subject to Senate confirmation – a check on presidential power. Even if the president's party were to control both houses of Congress, there is no guarantee that the president would get a free ride from the Speaker of the House and the Leader of the Senate. Another unhealthy trend in Malaysia is the lack of regular challenges to the senior leadership. Such challenges are important even when the leaders are strong and popular as such exercises then effectively become an evaluation of the leaders. Earlier leaders of UMNO right down to Mahathir's immediate predecessor, Hussein Onn, were all routinely challenged at their party's leadership conventions. Those challengers all had no realistic hope of winning, nonetheless the number of votes they garnered became a surrogate evaluation of the leader. Such exercises would also prevent leaders from becoming another Saddam Hussein. He routinely would get reelected with over 99 percent of the votes. And if he could determine who those 1 per cent of voters who did not vote for him, the next election would see Saddam returned with a 100 percent approval! Since the debacle of 1987 UMNO leadership crisis where Mahathir was challenged and nearly toppled by Tengku Razaleigh, a new culture has developed within the party, that of not challenging the senior leaders. All in the name of party unity! This is a retrogressive step. Such regular challenges and open competitions are important not only to keep a check on the leaders but also to encourage the emergence of new talent. What Malaysia needs today is a fresh generation of leaders with new vision, or to pursue my wings analogy, a new set of backswept or delta wings to go with its turbocharged engines. Unfortunately, the very nature of the political structure generally and UMNO in particular, does not encourage new talent. Apart from the emerging tradition of not challenging the senior leaders, the rules for candidates vying for party positions in UMNO are skewed to favor incumbents heavily. Candidates have to have the backing of at least 10 percent of the divisions before they could be nominated. I am surprised that they did not make that 50 percent and then do away completely with the election! As with the party, so it is with the country. In the general election of 1999 there was much hype about Mahathir fielding fresh candidates. Alas that was mere hype as in the end they were the same old tired faces being reshuffled. In striking contrast, Singapore had an election in November 2001 that saw over a third of the candidates from the ruling PAP being new faces. Their leaders knew they needed a new set of wings. I do not see that the political line up in Malaysia to change much in the foreseeable future. The country seems stuck, with minimal influx of fresh talent. UMNO made a tepid attempt at attracting young women professionals with its new Puteri (princess) wing, but that met with considerable resistance from the established order. The party that is successful at drawing in new talent is PAS. But if that party ever hope to rule the country, these new leaders must replace the rigid set in the ulama council and make that supreme body directly elected by and accountable to the members. Malaysia's present senior political leaders do not appreciate the serious need to attract fresh candidates. They simply assume that politics and public service will continue to attract the best and talented. These leaders are in a dream world. With opportunities in the private sector so much more challenging and enticing, Malaysians no longer value public service, and in particular, politics. The marked discrepancy in pay between the public and private sector only aggravates the situation. The next Malaysian leader will need the IQ (Intelligence Quotient) of a Tun Razak and the EQ (Emotional Quotient) of a Tunku Abdul Rahman. Thanks to the successes of Mahathir's policies, Malaysia now does not lack for such individuals. The challenge is to entice them into public service. The Malaysian leaders of tomorrow will not be those who simply bark out orders a la the drill sergeant. Rather they will be individuals with proven personal and professional achievements who can share their vision for the country's future with their followers. They will be more like the symphony conductor, cajoling and encouraging in order to bring out the best from the citizens. These leaders will lead through personal examples of competence, integrity and excellence, and not merely by manipulating personnel, information, and institutions. In addition to the political leadership, there is also the leadership of the hereditary class, principally the sultans and territorial chiefs. These hereditary leaders are found only in the nine sultanates; the remaining four states of Sabah, Sarawak, Penang, and Melaka are fortunately spared this additional burden. These hereditary leaders add another layer of inertia to change. The royalty and nobility classes have never provided much leadership to Malays either in their official or personal capacity. Unlike European kings and dukes who through their patronage provided for the development and nurturing of talented artists, musicians, and scholars, Malaysian royalty and aristocrats feel no similar obligation. A new development among members of the royalty is their increasing involvement in business. To the extent that they are now contributing to the economy, that is good. But if they are using their royal clout to secure unfair advantages over their competitors, that would be dangerous. We must also be mindful of Ibn Khaldun's admonition about the ruinous effect of rulers' involvement in commerce. There would be less criticisms if members of the royal family were well qualified and competent to run their businesses, but if they were content in being merely silent partners and figureheads or sultans of their enterprises, then that would easily evoke the hostilities of not only their competitors but also their subjects. Another trend that I view with increasing concern is the current vogue of installing sultans or their consorts to important bodies such as chancellors of universities. I do not mind them becoming chairman of the Malaysian Society of Orchid Lovers, but for them to be directly involved with important organizations would be unhealthy. Given the typical Malaysian obsequiousness in the presence of members of the royalty, I cannot imagine any substantive discussions taking place in such meetings chaired by these sultans. The government is doing these bodies a great disservice by appointing these royal luminaries. If the government were to honor these bodies, than by all means appoint the sultans in an honorary capacity. Malaysian sultans and nobilities are akin to bulkheads on a ship rather than propellers. Not only do they not help in pushing the ship of state forward, on the contrary they effect a significant drag. They are an expensive burden to boot. They also set a very poor example to the masses. They sit at the apex of the privileged heap and do not contribute. The sultans also disproportionately influence Malays by being not only the secular leader but also as head of the Muslim faith. This latter function protects the sultans from criticisms from the masses, for doing so would be tantamount to criticizing the faith itself. And because the citizens are discouraged from criticizing the sultans, this habit is carried over to all the other leaders, including political leaders and also their superiors at work. In short Malaysia has all the makings of a compliant and robotic society – a flock of sheep. There is one other important factor that accelerates this trend. That is the attitude towards and the influence of Islam, especially in Malay life and culture. This is such a significant bearing that I have a devoted the entire next chapter to it. Next: Chapter 9: Islam in Malay Life
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| Posted: 19 Jun 2011 10:44 AM PDT
Since the 2008 election, BN's election bribery has gone from covert to overt, famously dramatized by none other than Prime Minister Najib Razak himself when he publicly attempted to buy votes by offering instant cash aid to the tune of millions of ringgit subject to a BN win in two successive by-elections (Hulu Selangor and Sibu). By Kim Quek A peaceful rally calling for electoral reform would have gone down as almost a non-event in any democracy, but not in Malaysia. Here, the news of such an impending rally has virtually caused the incumbent ruling power to go into a state of panic. Ever since the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections – a civil society movement known as BERSIH – calls for a peaceful rally on July 9 to press for electoral reform, hardly a day goes by without some bigwigs pressing the panic button, as if calamities will befall the nation if such a rally were to take place. Home minister has warned of dire consequences to political and economic stability, Umno's ultra-racist wing Perkasa has called for a rally of its own to crush the BERSIH rally, police chief has warned BERSIH of preventive arrest, and hundreds of reports have been lodged with the police by Umno and its associated bodies to oppose such a rally. And now, the latest, Deputy Prime Minister Muyhiddin Yassin called the BERSIH rally an opposition plot to topple the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) government when he officiated a local Umno annual meeting in Beaufort, Sabah on June 18. (BERSIH had earlier extended invitation to all political parties including ruling BN and opposition alliance Pakatan Rakyat (PR), as well as NGOs and activists to participate in this mass movement to restore integrity to the Malaysian electoral system, which has been hopelessly corrupted to favour the incumbent ruling coalition. While PR component parties have accepted the invitation, BN has not.) BN'S RATIONALE ABSURD Muhyiddin debunked BERSIH's agitation for reform by citing opposition's impressive electoral gain in the 2008 general election as proof of the electoral system's fairness. He asked: "If it is not free and fair, how could they make such electoral gains? If they win they keep quiet, and if they lose, they claim unfairness. I think their motive is to have a short cut to Putrajaya." Equating opposition's electoral win as proof of the system's fairness has become BN's standard answer to fence off rising condemnation of BN's massive abuses that have gone from bad to worse. But such argument is as illogical as it is laughable. Whether an election is fair should be determined by the conditions under which the election is conducted, factors such as the presence or absence of an impartial the election commission and the existence or non-existence of a level playing field. It should never be determined by whether a contestant has won or lost. Malaysian elections are so notoriously unleveled that one should have no hesitation to conclude that PR would have been swept to power in the 2008 election if there was free and fair election, considering the fact that the popular vote was virtually split at 50-50. ELECTORAL SYSTEM HOPELESSLY FLAWED How can anyone consider Malaysian elections fair when the election commission is unabashedly acting as ruling coalition BN's virtual agent, and the entire mass media of the country (with the exception of the Internet) serve as BN's propaganda machines to the complete exclusion of PR? Since the 2008 election, BN's election bribery has gone from covert to overt, famously dramatized by none other than Prime Minister Najib Razak himself when he publicly attempted to buy votes by offering instant cash aid to the tune of millions of ringgit subject to a BN win in two successive by-elections (Hulu Selangor and Sibu). Strangely, or rather shockingly, while the video clip of this drama had been watched by a worldwide audience via Youtube, the presiding judge (Azahar Mohamed) threw out a subsequent election petition to nullify the Hulu Selangor by-election result on the ground of "lack of evidence". When even the court sanctioned such open bribery committed by the top leader of the ruling coalition, the floodgate for all kinds of corruption, intimation and abuse of authority was virtually thrown wide open to work in BN's overwhelming advantage. And this is exactly what happened in the recently concluded Sarawak state elections, where BN swept to a landslide victory on the twin strategy of bribery and intimidation. BERSIH'S MOVE COMMENDABLE Under these circumstances, BERSIH ought to be commended for its gallant and timely move to call for a mass rally whereby a petition will be delivered to the King to put a stop to the election system that has been turned into a complete mockery of democracy. Among BERSIH's reform proposals are: prohibition of vote-buying of any form, restoration of independence and impartiality to enforcing bodies on election offences, fair media access to all contesting parties, reform of the current dubious postal voting system and cleanse the electoral roll that is fraught with irregularities and phantom voters. It will be seen from these proposals that the current BERSIH move is not only not a threat to national interests, but a most reasonable and logical proposition to save democracy and restore justice and decency to a country where the state institutions have been pervasively perverted by BN's prolong autocratic misrule. With regards to police's avowed refusal to grant permit to the rally, we have to respectfully advice the police that they have no authority to obstruct such a peaceful rally. Freedom of assembly is a constitutional right guaranteed to all citizens, and the role of the police in such an event is to ensure that peace prevails throughout the rally. Any attempt by police or any quarter to disrupt a peaceful rally of such noble intention will be construed as a serious breach of the Constitution and will not be taken kindly by peace-loving Malaysians. Be assured that Malaysians will not back down or compromise on such important principles as the right to have free and fair election and the right to have freedom of assembly.
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