Mr PM Do not threaten the rakyat:
I don't care if you are Malay, Indian, Iban, Kadazan or just any Malaysians as long as you perform your elected duties diligently and honestly.
A weak and desperate leader will make silly statements and issue threats.
Looks like Najib is feeling the heat of defeat for umno/bn comes the 13th GE and have to make some desperate moves.
They have begged, plead and asked no less than three times for PAS to join umno but each time received a firm answer NO.
But without shame the PM Najib again begged PAS to leave Pakatan Rakyat and join Umno/bn and yet again PAS give a FIRM NO answer.
Next, the PM throw his 1Malaysia into the sewerage and threaten the Chinese with Najib telling the Chinese, choose MCA or be left out of government. How desperate can this leader be.
My tweets and RT today, the most I guess.
RT @junzwong Guru has never been shaken by evil offers “@staronline: Nik Aziz says it again: PAS will stay with PR http://t.co/80lAclE”
16 minutes ago
"Perkasa warns MCA, Gerakan toe the line" OMG @tankengliang @tilianker @giamsk @drchuaSL @kohtsukoon what 2do. Ali is calling the shot now
48 minutes ago
No point having a Chinese minister who has no say or cannot say anything in the government.Similarity 2 no representation in the government
54 minutes ago
I am calling the Chinese not 2 vote 4 MCA/Gerakan/BN. Representation or not does not matter. We have given them 54 yrs & they r as powerless
1 hour ago
Najib is fast losing grip on power, using threats against Chinese & calls 4 PAS 2 unite malays & Islam Najib: Vote MCA or no representation
1 hour ago
@
Got posts also so powerless, Y bother with MCA RT @mkini_en Chinese must choose - vote MCA or else no gov't posts: http://bit.ly/lPTWYG
1 hour ago
PAS will fight 4 Islam, Malays, Chinese, Indians & other communities in the country while umno fights 4 1melayu & turn others into pendatang
2 hours ago
People can talk about Omega watch but not allow 2 talk about "who order to c4 Altantuya" in campaigning.Is this the leader the nation wanted
2 hours ago
RT @ngseksan: In the history of mankind no credible people need to declare their sincerity by taking oath in churches temples or mosque
2 hours ago
@
@leongyookkong @datowoo Who is this CSL? A Chinese Sex Leader
4 hours ago
@
@giamsk @tilianker Should CSL not ask BN 2 abolish or else he would not vote 4 BN
4 hours ago
@
As I said PAS can accept on condition that PR govern RT @Art_Harun PM invites PAS to join BN. What if now PAS invites UMNO to join PR? Lol!
4 hours ago
@
lol cannot debate ask u 2 shut up PR dare not so MCA dare @giamsk @tilianker twisting again PR don't dare 2 propose the amendment so shut up
4 hours ago
Giam Say Khoon
giamsk Giam Say Khoon
by MalaysiaForAll
@
@MalaysiaForAll twisting again. PR don't dare to propose the amendment so shut up @tilianker
4 hours ago
CSL in a subtle way is calling its members not 2 vote 4 bn if umno does not abolished malays special priviledge.@giamsk @tilianker agree?
4 hours ago
PR crank up yr machineries, use najb's desperate wooing of PAS as sign of umno/bn defeat @ 13 GE @limkitsiang @abdulhadiawang @anwaribrahim
4 hours ago
Najib invites PAS 2 join BN woi where is @tankengliang did najib gets gerakan consent, if PAS agrees will gerakan leave bn?
5 hours ago
PAS u can accept Najib's invite on condition that PR runs the govt @NajibRazak @limkitsiang @abdulhadiawang @anwaribrahim @n_izzah @tonypua
5 hours ago
The truth is out Umno/BN will lose power comes13th GE: Najib invites PAS 2 join BN @NajibRazak @limkitsiang @abdulhadiawang @anwaribrahim
5 hours ago
Najib invites PAS 2 join BN; He must be peeing in his pant 4 the fear of losing power. Only an evil will do anything 2 remain relevant
5 hours ago
CSL will vote 4 PR if it abolishes Malay special privilege: Should CSL not ask BN 2 abolish or else he would not vote 4 BN. What a Nut head
Saturday, April 30, 2011
What offence has Anwar committed? Why is he being hounded?
by P Ramakrishnan
The scandalous porno tape, used in desperation to implicate Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim allegedly engaging in sex with a prostitute in order to turn the tide in favour of the Barisan Nasional during the Sarawak election, refuses to fade away even after the Sarawak election.
It was a widely publicised news item and – according to some reports – the tape was even distributed in the longhouses in Sarawak to disparage and demean Anwar and present the opposition in poor light to gain political mileage for BN.
The police declared that the tape was genuine. The people were made to feel that very soon the sordid episode would be unravelled and the person in the tape exposed.
The various statements in the public domain created the perception that it was Anwar in the porno tape. The police conveyed the impression that it was a matter of time before Anwar was exposed as the owner of the Omega watch stolen by the prostitute. The Omega watch seemed to be the most important missing link to establish Anwar’s identity.
But to their utter disappointment there was no record of the purchaser in Taiwan, where the watch was apparently bought. The missing link went missing and they were no nearer the truth.
Now they say ‘they will not hesitate to expose to the public if necessary “the performer” in the sex video who allegedly resembled opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.’
In other words, what they are saying is tantamount to the fact that they have identified “the performer” but they are not inclined to expose “the performer” unless it was necessary to do so.
The Malaysian public is rightly confused. What is meant by unless it was necessary? Why then did they go to such great length to find out the owner of the Omega watch? You took the trouble to trace the watch all the way to Taiwan.
What was the purpose? Wasn’t it to link “the performer” to the watch so that you can definitely identify “the performer” and expose him?
If it wasn’t necessary to identify “the performer” why is Anwar being harassed? He was called to give his statement a second time yesterday (28 April 2011). Unless you have irrefutable evidence that the character in the video is indeed Anwar, there was no necessity to ask him to report to Dang Wangi district police headquarters. Is it because they want to keep this shameful episode alive?
It is as though there is no other worthwhile issue in this country for the media to comment on and for our political leaders to discuss. Have we become so depraved that sex scandals have to hog the limelight and take up so much of the nation’s time and attention?
Malaysians have a right to be sceptical about the whole sordid affair. It is evident that there is a concerted effort to finish off Anwar in the interest of the Barisan Nasional. He is the only person standing in their way who can prevent the BN’s continued reign in Putrajaya. That being the case, would it not be logical to expose Anwar right now?
But why aren’t they doing it? Is it because “the performer” in the video is a pretender?! If it was Anwar, they would have gone to town with this information during the Sarawak election to disparage and destroy the opposition with one stroke. The print and electronic media and the blogs and websites would be gleefully swarmed with this news for days on end. But that is not happening!
But they are dragging their feet in this affair for far too long even though there doesn’t seem to be much hope of unearthing the truth. Why are they spending so much time with regard to Anwar when there is a simple, straightforward issue at their doorstep crying for a remedy?
The terrible Datuk Trio who were in possession of a pornography video should have been charged by now. The terrible Datuk Trio should be facing the music for screening a pornographic show to the public. With so much irrefutable evidence against the trio staring at and challenging the police, why is there so much foot-dragging? Why is there a reluctance to take action to punish those who screened a pornographic video? What is holding up the police and the Attorney-General?
Karpal Singh had rightly pointed out that prostitution is not an offence but using the premises for prostitution or living off the earnings of a prostitute is an offence. According to Karpal, “Whomsoever solicits or importunes for the purpose of prostitution or any immoral purpose in any place shall be punished with imprisonment…” If that is the law, where does Anwar fit into this? What offence is he guilty of?
A report has it that the police have located the place where the sex act took place and identified the prostitute. Why haven’t they taken action against the owner of the premises for allowing his place to be used for “immoral purpose”? Why haven’t they taken action against the person who procured the services of the prostitute?
The villains plotting to crucify Anwar have been identified; their involvement in this sordid affair has been established. Why are we not moving in on them?
P Ramakrishnan is president of Aliran
The scandalous porno tape, used in desperation to implicate Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim allegedly engaging in sex with a prostitute in order to turn the tide in favour of the Barisan Nasional during the Sarawak election, refuses to fade away even after the Sarawak election.
It was a widely publicised news item and – according to some reports – the tape was even distributed in the longhouses in Sarawak to disparage and demean Anwar and present the opposition in poor light to gain political mileage for BN.
The police declared that the tape was genuine. The people were made to feel that very soon the sordid episode would be unravelled and the person in the tape exposed.
The various statements in the public domain created the perception that it was Anwar in the porno tape. The police conveyed the impression that it was a matter of time before Anwar was exposed as the owner of the Omega watch stolen by the prostitute. The Omega watch seemed to be the most important missing link to establish Anwar’s identity.
But to their utter disappointment there was no record of the purchaser in Taiwan, where the watch was apparently bought. The missing link went missing and they were no nearer the truth.
Now they say ‘they will not hesitate to expose to the public if necessary “the performer” in the sex video who allegedly resembled opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.’
In other words, what they are saying is tantamount to the fact that they have identified “the performer” but they are not inclined to expose “the performer” unless it was necessary to do so.
The Malaysian public is rightly confused. What is meant by unless it was necessary? Why then did they go to such great length to find out the owner of the Omega watch? You took the trouble to trace the watch all the way to Taiwan.
What was the purpose? Wasn’t it to link “the performer” to the watch so that you can definitely identify “the performer” and expose him?
If it wasn’t necessary to identify “the performer” why is Anwar being harassed? He was called to give his statement a second time yesterday (28 April 2011). Unless you have irrefutable evidence that the character in the video is indeed Anwar, there was no necessity to ask him to report to Dang Wangi district police headquarters. Is it because they want to keep this shameful episode alive?
It is as though there is no other worthwhile issue in this country for the media to comment on and for our political leaders to discuss. Have we become so depraved that sex scandals have to hog the limelight and take up so much of the nation’s time and attention?
Malaysians have a right to be sceptical about the whole sordid affair. It is evident that there is a concerted effort to finish off Anwar in the interest of the Barisan Nasional. He is the only person standing in their way who can prevent the BN’s continued reign in Putrajaya. That being the case, would it not be logical to expose Anwar right now?
But why aren’t they doing it? Is it because “the performer” in the video is a pretender?! If it was Anwar, they would have gone to town with this information during the Sarawak election to disparage and destroy the opposition with one stroke. The print and electronic media and the blogs and websites would be gleefully swarmed with this news for days on end. But that is not happening!
But they are dragging their feet in this affair for far too long even though there doesn’t seem to be much hope of unearthing the truth. Why are they spending so much time with regard to Anwar when there is a simple, straightforward issue at their doorstep crying for a remedy?
The terrible Datuk Trio who were in possession of a pornography video should have been charged by now. The terrible Datuk Trio should be facing the music for screening a pornographic show to the public. With so much irrefutable evidence against the trio staring at and challenging the police, why is there so much foot-dragging? Why is there a reluctance to take action to punish those who screened a pornographic video? What is holding up the police and the Attorney-General?
Karpal Singh had rightly pointed out that prostitution is not an offence but using the premises for prostitution or living off the earnings of a prostitute is an offence. According to Karpal, “Whomsoever solicits or importunes for the purpose of prostitution or any immoral purpose in any place shall be punished with imprisonment…” If that is the law, where does Anwar fit into this? What offence is he guilty of?
A report has it that the police have located the place where the sex act took place and identified the prostitute. Why haven’t they taken action against the owner of the premises for allowing his place to be used for “immoral purpose”? Why haven’t they taken action against the person who procured the services of the prostitute?
The villains plotting to crucify Anwar have been identified; their involvement in this sordid affair has been established. Why are we not moving in on them?
P Ramakrishnan is president of Aliran
Friday, April 29, 2011
MCA is crying all over the internet to seek for sympathy
Should we curse or pity MCA. Just look how pathetic its leaders are, crying all over the internet. You have the president challenging PKR to abolish Malay privileges which shows how ignorant a leader he is.
Lim Kit Siang has this to say:
And this is how other MCA leaders are crying about in their tweet:
giamsk Giam Say Khoon
by rogertankm
@
@tilianker DAP making MCA to lose reps in the government and they blame MCA for being powerless when speaking up 4 Chinese community.
44 minutes ago
My reply to them:
@giamsk @tilianker if any of u got the balls to go after umno's unfair policies, u need only 1 to say it out loud no need for many lah
25 minutes ago
@giamsk @tilianker give u all more u dare not do or say anything, now blaming DAP 4 the lost and trying 2 talk tough but still NATO
32 minutes ago
@giamsk @tilianker u guys r just pathetic, when u have over 30 reps u r as powerless doing nothing zilt zero & that is y u all lost in 308
35 minutes ago
MCA is really going nuts. They have nothing more to dig into or anything bad to complaint about DAP/PR and now have to follow their master, umno, tactics of hitting below the belt and making a fool of themselves.
Lim Kit Siang has this to say:
Lim insisted that the MCA president had missed the point when he challenged PKR to abolish Malay privileges, pointing out that the opposition had never argued over the special position of the Malays as enshrined under Article 153 of the Federal Constitution.
The point of contention, said Lim, was the BN government’s “blatant abuse” of the New Economic Policy (NEP) and refusal to implement needs-based affirmative action policies.
“His (Dr Chua’s) theatrics interest no one. Article 153 is not an article of controversy… it does not arise. The point of controversy is that the NEP must go.
“Dr Chua is just trying to create something out of nothing so that the people are distracted from the focal issues.
And this is how other MCA leaders are crying about in their tweet:
giamsk Giam Say Khoon
by rogertankm
@
@tilianker DAP making MCA to lose reps in the government and they blame MCA for being powerless when speaking up 4 Chinese community.
44 minutes ago
My reply to them:
@giamsk @tilianker if any of u got the balls to go after umno's unfair policies, u need only 1 to say it out loud no need for many lah
25 minutes ago
@giamsk @tilianker give u all more u dare not do or say anything, now blaming DAP 4 the lost and trying 2 talk tough but still NATO
32 minutes ago
@giamsk @tilianker u guys r just pathetic, when u have over 30 reps u r as powerless doing nothing zilt zero & that is y u all lost in 308
35 minutes ago
MCA is really going nuts. They have nothing more to dig into or anything bad to complaint about DAP/PR and now have to follow their master, umno, tactics of hitting below the belt and making a fool of themselves.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
WHEN WILL STORIES OF SEX ORGY END?
by Mohd Arshad Raji
A second short video clip of the alleged Anuar Ibrahim sexual escapade has been up loaded on You Tube. I have not personally viewed the video, but from numerous still photos posted in a number of blogs and some news prints, I am more convinced now that the man isn’t Anuar Ibrahim. From the hair cut, protruding stomach, and sagging facial feature does not make him to be Anuar Ibrahim. The high hair cut looks like a man that is typically Thai. The sagging facial feature makes the man appear more elderly, and coupled with the protruding stomach eliminates any chances that it is Anuar Ibrahim.
Now, Nurul Izzah’s name is being used as the title of the second video. What has Nurul Izzah got to do with all this? Is it because Nurul Izzah is Anuar’s daughter; hence she should bear the brunt of being despised upon and condemned like her father?
Let me say this to those that had up loaded the video, that they are a bunch of idiots that has a heart and soul of a satan. They are being guided by the devil and are intent to instill hatred for others. If they all are of my race (hopefully there are not), I then need to remind them that what they did is much against the religion. To slander someone is a heinous crime and haven’t they been taught about this early in their life? Maybe, they may not have had enough religious grounding. Maybe, they are sex video paddlers themselves who earns a living by selling and distributing such videos. And don’t tell me that the famous Datuk Trio might have obtained the video from them.
Pardon me for being rude to those who have up loaded the video, for this is the only language that best suits them.
I and many other likeminded Malays have had enough of this sex stories. And as I have said in my earlier writings that the longer this case is prolonged, the more space is given to those who want to further damage the already battered image of Anuar Ibrahim. But one thing is also certain, the longer the delay, the more Anuar Ibrahim wins sympathy to his side, and this may not auger well for the government’s image as well.
While those who have so much of hatred for Anuar Ibrahim would want more of Anuar’s scandals to be exposed, but many parents of school going children are showing signs of disgust, more so when photos of the alleged sex activity is out in the print media as well as in the internet.
Undoubtedly, Datuk Trio has brought the media to new heights i.e. specializing in torrid stories of sex and scandals. Is this what the Malaysian media is good at i.e. destroying the good and noble values that our future generation should uphold? I am not surprise that the minds of our children today is so infested with orgy of sex that having sex in school is part of their 'social activity'.
I just wonder what the children and grandchildren of the famous Datuk Trio will would say of their father and grandfather.
CRUSADE AGAINST CORRUPTION
(Mohd Arshad Raji – A retired army officer who believes in justice for all and hates liars and apple polisher.Believes that all members of AF must be free of corrupt practices.)
A second short video clip of the alleged Anuar Ibrahim sexual escapade has been up loaded on You Tube. I have not personally viewed the video, but from numerous still photos posted in a number of blogs and some news prints, I am more convinced now that the man isn’t Anuar Ibrahim. From the hair cut, protruding stomach, and sagging facial feature does not make him to be Anuar Ibrahim. The high hair cut looks like a man that is typically Thai. The sagging facial feature makes the man appear more elderly, and coupled with the protruding stomach eliminates any chances that it is Anuar Ibrahim.
Now, Nurul Izzah’s name is being used as the title of the second video. What has Nurul Izzah got to do with all this? Is it because Nurul Izzah is Anuar’s daughter; hence she should bear the brunt of being despised upon and condemned like her father?
Let me say this to those that had up loaded the video, that they are a bunch of idiots that has a heart and soul of a satan. They are being guided by the devil and are intent to instill hatred for others. If they all are of my race (hopefully there are not), I then need to remind them that what they did is much against the religion. To slander someone is a heinous crime and haven’t they been taught about this early in their life? Maybe, they may not have had enough religious grounding. Maybe, they are sex video paddlers themselves who earns a living by selling and distributing such videos. And don’t tell me that the famous Datuk Trio might have obtained the video from them.
Pardon me for being rude to those who have up loaded the video, for this is the only language that best suits them.
I and many other likeminded Malays have had enough of this sex stories. And as I have said in my earlier writings that the longer this case is prolonged, the more space is given to those who want to further damage the already battered image of Anuar Ibrahim. But one thing is also certain, the longer the delay, the more Anuar Ibrahim wins sympathy to his side, and this may not auger well for the government’s image as well.
While those who have so much of hatred for Anuar Ibrahim would want more of Anuar’s scandals to be exposed, but many parents of school going children are showing signs of disgust, more so when photos of the alleged sex activity is out in the print media as well as in the internet.
Undoubtedly, Datuk Trio has brought the media to new heights i.e. specializing in torrid stories of sex and scandals. Is this what the Malaysian media is good at i.e. destroying the good and noble values that our future generation should uphold? I am not surprise that the minds of our children today is so infested with orgy of sex that having sex in school is part of their 'social activity'.
I just wonder what the children and grandchildren of the famous Datuk Trio will would say of their father and grandfather.
CRUSADE AGAINST CORRUPTION
(Mohd Arshad Raji – A retired army officer who believes in justice for all and hates liars and apple polisher.Believes that all members of AF must be free of corrupt practices.)
1 BUMIPUTRA VS 1 MALAYSIA
by Mohd Arshad Raji
Blog mind NO EVIL
1 Bumiputra…………..that’s something new to my ears. Is it similar or different from 1 Malaysia?
From what I gather, the two are vastly at divergence in purpose and contradictory at best. The former being a Perkasa creation talks about uniting all Malay parties (an impossible proposition as at now), while the latter being PM Najib’s aspiration of wanting to create a one Malaysian society that is comprised of the various ethic Malaysian races. It is the divergence that compelled PM Naijb to distance himself from 1 Bumiputra, although Utusan Malaysia, an UMNO controlled print media is supportive of the 1 Bumiputra idea. Tun Dr. Mahathir despite being closely associated with Perkasa, has himself declared that 1 Bumiputra has disastrous consequences.
Perkasa seems to have a penchant for sloganeering, and each time a slogan is drummed up, it catches the very heart of the Malays. One does not need further exposition. Just swallow and nod to all the howling of the Perkasa leaders of which they are extremely proficient. No reasoning or rational thinking is required. They just want others to know that the Malays must be superior because they are the majority. And Ibrahim Ali is just ever willing to draw out his kris, and for what?
I am curious as to why the idea of 1 Bumiputra has cropped up now i.e. after 50 odd years of independence? Why hasn’t years of political dominance of the Malays translate into economic power over the other Malaysian races? Do the Malays need another 50 odd years to be awakened to the realities that have them much poorer than their forefathers? I think it is already too late because 2020 is just around the corner. And even if the nation can achieve a develop nation status by that time; it has little meaning for the Malays. It is going to be the very few elite Malays that will be made rich, and I am not quite sure of the others.
My simple answer to the woes that is troubling the Malays today is in the weakness of the Malays themselves. Look at yourself in the mirror and ask this simple and direct question…………what’s wrong with me? The answer that you will get is also fairly simple and direct i.e. you have been spoon fed and relied on quick success without wanting to think of helping others of your kind. Malays are easily corrupt and there is too much of back stabbing. You may want to curse me for saying this, and I have been saying this many times before.
Just look at the many famous Malay corporate names of the 80’s and 90’s. Despite making their millions from government contracts, where are they today? Have they been able to develop other Malays to become entrepreneurs as well; I mean the honest and God fearing ones? The answer is a big NO, and who ought to be blame for this? Want to blame the other races for their misfortune? Again, I say…………take a good look at the mirror and ask the same question………..what’s wrong with me?
I can only say this of the Malay corporate leaders that depends their livelihood on government contracts i.e. stop being corrupt and do not corrupt others.
CRUSADE AGAINST CORRUPTION
(Mohd Arshad Raji – A retired army officer who believes in justice for all and hates liars and apple polisher.Believes that all members of AF must be free of corrupt practices.)
Blog mind NO EVIL
1 Bumiputra…………..that’s something new to my ears. Is it similar or different from 1 Malaysia?
From what I gather, the two are vastly at divergence in purpose and contradictory at best. The former being a Perkasa creation talks about uniting all Malay parties (an impossible proposition as at now), while the latter being PM Najib’s aspiration of wanting to create a one Malaysian society that is comprised of the various ethic Malaysian races. It is the divergence that compelled PM Naijb to distance himself from 1 Bumiputra, although Utusan Malaysia, an UMNO controlled print media is supportive of the 1 Bumiputra idea. Tun Dr. Mahathir despite being closely associated with Perkasa, has himself declared that 1 Bumiputra has disastrous consequences.
Perkasa seems to have a penchant for sloganeering, and each time a slogan is drummed up, it catches the very heart of the Malays. One does not need further exposition. Just swallow and nod to all the howling of the Perkasa leaders of which they are extremely proficient. No reasoning or rational thinking is required. They just want others to know that the Malays must be superior because they are the majority. And Ibrahim Ali is just ever willing to draw out his kris, and for what?
I am curious as to why the idea of 1 Bumiputra has cropped up now i.e. after 50 odd years of independence? Why hasn’t years of political dominance of the Malays translate into economic power over the other Malaysian races? Do the Malays need another 50 odd years to be awakened to the realities that have them much poorer than their forefathers? I think it is already too late because 2020 is just around the corner. And even if the nation can achieve a develop nation status by that time; it has little meaning for the Malays. It is going to be the very few elite Malays that will be made rich, and I am not quite sure of the others.
My simple answer to the woes that is troubling the Malays today is in the weakness of the Malays themselves. Look at yourself in the mirror and ask this simple and direct question…………what’s wrong with me? The answer that you will get is also fairly simple and direct i.e. you have been spoon fed and relied on quick success without wanting to think of helping others of your kind. Malays are easily corrupt and there is too much of back stabbing. You may want to curse me for saying this, and I have been saying this many times before.
Just look at the many famous Malay corporate names of the 80’s and 90’s. Despite making their millions from government contracts, where are they today? Have they been able to develop other Malays to become entrepreneurs as well; I mean the honest and God fearing ones? The answer is a big NO, and who ought to be blame for this? Want to blame the other races for their misfortune? Again, I say…………take a good look at the mirror and ask the same question………..what’s wrong with me?
I can only say this of the Malay corporate leaders that depends their livelihood on government contracts i.e. stop being corrupt and do not corrupt others.
CRUSADE AGAINST CORRUPTION
(Mohd Arshad Raji – A retired army officer who believes in justice for all and hates liars and apple polisher.Believes that all members of AF must be free of corrupt practices.)
1Malaysia.con
by Dean Johns
Malaysiakiini
The 1Malaysia Email project is both a symptom and a symbol of the rotten Umno/BN regime. It’s as blatant a con as everything this god-forsaken government says and does, and clearly corrupt into the bargain.
Its pretext of providing “direct and secure communications between the citizens and the government” and a “one-stop centre for government services, providing value-added services such as social networking, checking bills online and payment” sounds as fishy – or, since it is an Internet scam, phishy – as all get-out.
It is clearly intended to provide the government with unchecked power to spam and snoop on Malaysian netizens in the present, and the option of forcing the people to do anything from conducting all their Internet communications and transactions to possibly even voting through this dodgy portal in the future.
This promises to be the final link in the web of deceit that Umno/BN has progressively woven to extend and defend its criminal misrule of the country, and ensnare the populace forever in its net.
And the manner of presenting the thing to the people has been as suspect as the project itself. First it was presented on the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Permandu) website as ‘a government initiative in providing a unique and official email account and ID for the citizens of Malaysia’.
Then, a day or two later, the story was changed to read ‘a private sector initiative led by Tricubes Bhd’. Premier Najib Abdul Razak supported the second version by tweeting: “Let me clarify that the 1Malaysia Email is a private sector project. No public money is involved, and it’s entirely voluntary.”
If no public money is involved, however, many of us are wondering where Tricubes, the lucky recipient of the project, is going to find the RM50 million reportedly required to fund it.
In fact it appears that Tricubes is virtually broke, or was when it was mysteriously awarded the 1Malaysia.con project, as it was under GN3 status under Bursa Malaysia guidelines and thus facing delisting unless it restructures its finances.
So it is terribly difficult to believe the claim by Permandu CEO Idris Jala, that Tricubes was awarded the project in a process of open bidding.
It looks to me, and to many other people whose comments I’ve seen, far more like one of BN’s customary free gifts to cronies. And what a gift, with the government agreeing to pay an astonishing 50 sen per email and Tricubes set to offer “extra security” in return for an additional fee from subscribers!
No wonder that the formerly ailing company has delivered a windfall for its investors, as its formerly lamentable share price has soared since it was given the go-ahead to proceed with the 1Malaysia.con project.
Laughable hypocrisy
Meanwhile, Najib, self-proclaimed author of the 1Malaysia slogan and chief sponsor of 1Malaysia.con, hosted a BN propaganda event in KL billed as the First Malaysia-Asean Regional Bloggers’ Conference.
According to a report by BN’s lapdog ‘news’ agency, Bernama, this event with its theme ‘Blogging Mindfully and Responsibly’ was staged to ‘provide a platform to derive defence mechanisms to protect the plethora of bloggers, especially on Malaysia and Malaysia-centric postings’, and ‘to highlight the obstacles faced by these bloggers as well as the adversity that bloggers might experience in their day-to-day tackling of various issues’.
The timing of this confab, or rather con-fab, revealed its laughable hypocrisy, just a week after the BN regime had mounted a denial-of-service attack on sites including Malaysiakini and Sarawak Report, and following the release of a UN report that ranks Malaysia way down with the likes of Pakistan, Russia, Zimbabwe and Mubarak’s Egypt on the Internet freedom index.
Never one to allow facts to get in the way of his falsehoods, however, Najib declared in his keynote speech to the gathering: “I have no doubt that whatsoever that Malaysia has one of the liveliest blogospheres in the world and definitely one of the freest if not the most free.”
Having delivered himself of this outright, barefaced lie, he noted that “the Internet is an engine for economic growth, the portal that opens up to a knowledge society”, before following with the self-revealing remark that “even a government that is not too keen about the democracy part of ‘digital democracy’ should embrace the digital part, as the economic implications are simply too great to ignore”.
In other words, as I take him to mean, his 1Malaysia.con is all about dollars, not democracy, and that his attempted co-option of Malaysia’s blogosphere is driven by his terror of assaults on BN by local versions of what he called “cybertroopers who waged viral warfare with the might of their keyboards, keypads and smartphones” in the Middle East’s Twitter and Facebook revolutions.
Hence his fear-driven plea for bloggers to air their views about his government, “even if it is constructive criticism”, and for a relationship between BN and the bloggers “based on mutual respect”.
Thanks to the likes of Najib and his colleagues and cronies, however, the BN government – like similarly corrupt and repressive regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Iran, Syria, Morocco and dozens of other countries – has long lost any right to respect from bloggers or anyone else.
And how much “respect” do Najib and his ilk show their people in constantly feeding them a pack of lies and treating the most gullible of the populace like monkeys by paying them peanuts for their votes?
Typical of the total lack of respect that BN has for truth, honesty or the intelligence of the Malaysian people was the claim by Dr Mahathir Mohamad, patron of Blog House Malaysia, convenor of Najib’s blogger-nobbling conference, that, like bloggers, “the mainstream media should allow themselves to be critical of the government now and then”.
Pretending to decry the fact that the mainstream media practise self-censorship in the face of all the laws he himself enacted to crush media freedom, he declared that “this had given the wrong impression that they had been censored by the government”.
All I can say about this superannuated con-man is that, unlike Najib and his relatively youthful con-sorts in 1Malaysia.con, he is unfortunately unlikely to stand trial for his crimes against truth, justice and the Malaysian people, or ever be con-victed.
DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he mentors creative writing groups. Already published in Kuala Lumpur is a third book of his columns for Malaysiakini, following earlier collections ‘Mad about Malaysia’ and ‘Even Madder about Malaysia’.
Malaysiakiini
The 1Malaysia Email project is both a symptom and a symbol of the rotten Umno/BN regime. It’s as blatant a con as everything this god-forsaken government says and does, and clearly corrupt into the bargain.
Its pretext of providing “direct and secure communications between the citizens and the government” and a “one-stop centre for government services, providing value-added services such as social networking, checking bills online and payment” sounds as fishy – or, since it is an Internet scam, phishy – as all get-out.
It is clearly intended to provide the government with unchecked power to spam and snoop on Malaysian netizens in the present, and the option of forcing the people to do anything from conducting all their Internet communications and transactions to possibly even voting through this dodgy portal in the future.
This promises to be the final link in the web of deceit that Umno/BN has progressively woven to extend and defend its criminal misrule of the country, and ensnare the populace forever in its net.
And the manner of presenting the thing to the people has been as suspect as the project itself. First it was presented on the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Permandu) website as ‘a government initiative in providing a unique and official email account and ID for the citizens of Malaysia’.
Then, a day or two later, the story was changed to read ‘a private sector initiative led by Tricubes Bhd’. Premier Najib Abdul Razak supported the second version by tweeting: “Let me clarify that the 1Malaysia Email is a private sector project. No public money is involved, and it’s entirely voluntary.”
If no public money is involved, however, many of us are wondering where Tricubes, the lucky recipient of the project, is going to find the RM50 million reportedly required to fund it.
In fact it appears that Tricubes is virtually broke, or was when it was mysteriously awarded the 1Malaysia.con project, as it was under GN3 status under Bursa Malaysia guidelines and thus facing delisting unless it restructures its finances.
So it is terribly difficult to believe the claim by Permandu CEO Idris Jala, that Tricubes was awarded the project in a process of open bidding.
It looks to me, and to many other people whose comments I’ve seen, far more like one of BN’s customary free gifts to cronies. And what a gift, with the government agreeing to pay an astonishing 50 sen per email and Tricubes set to offer “extra security” in return for an additional fee from subscribers!
No wonder that the formerly ailing company has delivered a windfall for its investors, as its formerly lamentable share price has soared since it was given the go-ahead to proceed with the 1Malaysia.con project.
Laughable hypocrisy
Meanwhile, Najib, self-proclaimed author of the 1Malaysia slogan and chief sponsor of 1Malaysia.con, hosted a BN propaganda event in KL billed as the First Malaysia-Asean Regional Bloggers’ Conference.
According to a report by BN’s lapdog ‘news’ agency, Bernama, this event with its theme ‘Blogging Mindfully and Responsibly’ was staged to ‘provide a platform to derive defence mechanisms to protect the plethora of bloggers, especially on Malaysia and Malaysia-centric postings’, and ‘to highlight the obstacles faced by these bloggers as well as the adversity that bloggers might experience in their day-to-day tackling of various issues’.
The timing of this confab, or rather con-fab, revealed its laughable hypocrisy, just a week after the BN regime had mounted a denial-of-service attack on sites including Malaysiakini and Sarawak Report, and following the release of a UN report that ranks Malaysia way down with the likes of Pakistan, Russia, Zimbabwe and Mubarak’s Egypt on the Internet freedom index.
Never one to allow facts to get in the way of his falsehoods, however, Najib declared in his keynote speech to the gathering: “I have no doubt that whatsoever that Malaysia has one of the liveliest blogospheres in the world and definitely one of the freest if not the most free.”
Having delivered himself of this outright, barefaced lie, he noted that “the Internet is an engine for economic growth, the portal that opens up to a knowledge society”, before following with the self-revealing remark that “even a government that is not too keen about the democracy part of ‘digital democracy’ should embrace the digital part, as the economic implications are simply too great to ignore”.
In other words, as I take him to mean, his 1Malaysia.con is all about dollars, not democracy, and that his attempted co-option of Malaysia’s blogosphere is driven by his terror of assaults on BN by local versions of what he called “cybertroopers who waged viral warfare with the might of their keyboards, keypads and smartphones” in the Middle East’s Twitter and Facebook revolutions.
Hence his fear-driven plea for bloggers to air their views about his government, “even if it is constructive criticism”, and for a relationship between BN and the bloggers “based on mutual respect”.
Thanks to the likes of Najib and his colleagues and cronies, however, the BN government – like similarly corrupt and repressive regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Iran, Syria, Morocco and dozens of other countries – has long lost any right to respect from bloggers or anyone else.
And how much “respect” do Najib and his ilk show their people in constantly feeding them a pack of lies and treating the most gullible of the populace like monkeys by paying them peanuts for their votes?
Typical of the total lack of respect that BN has for truth, honesty or the intelligence of the Malaysian people was the claim by Dr Mahathir Mohamad, patron of Blog House Malaysia, convenor of Najib’s blogger-nobbling conference, that, like bloggers, “the mainstream media should allow themselves to be critical of the government now and then”.
Pretending to decry the fact that the mainstream media practise self-censorship in the face of all the laws he himself enacted to crush media freedom, he declared that “this had given the wrong impression that they had been censored by the government”.
All I can say about this superannuated con-man is that, unlike Najib and his relatively youthful con-sorts in 1Malaysia.con, he is unfortunately unlikely to stand trial for his crimes against truth, justice and the Malaysian people, or ever be con-victed.
DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he mentors creative writing groups. Already published in Kuala Lumpur is a third book of his columns for Malaysiakini, following earlier collections ‘Mad about Malaysia’ and ‘Even Madder about Malaysia’.
Najib’s no match for wily old Taib
by Mohd Ariff Sabri Aziz
Free Malaysia Today
April 28, 2011
The moment he got wind of Umno KL’s plans to replace him, he swiftly moved to consolidate his grip over Sarawak.
COMMENT
It’s time for the boys on our side to rethink what has happened in Sarawak. A victorious and accordingly emboldened Taib Mahmud is now a cause for more headaches to Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and Umno.
Let’s replay the behind-the-scene incidents on April 16. On that night, after making sure he already had the numbers, Taib called the house asking family members to get ready.
He warned them that much depended on speed and that there was no time to lose. Taib then called the governor informing the latter to get ready by 10.30pm.
He arrived 15 minutes past 10.30pm and was sworn in as chief minister, even before the people in Kuala Lumpur could savour the win.
Taib had got wind of rumours that he will be replaced by someone more docile and favourable to Umno.
The man Umno had in mind is said to be deputy Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) president .
Abang Jo is a Sarawakaian Malay and earmarked to be Umno’s man in Sarawak. But he wasn’t the first choice. Umno had discovered Salleh Jafaruddin and much hope was now placed on him.
Raziah’s choice
Najib’s intelligence people had reported that Taib was a much despised person in Sarawak and needed to be replaced lest the “fixed deposit state” vanished.
Najib’s political secretary who had been spending months on end in Sarawak had also returned to Putrajaya with the same prognosis. Taib simply must go, if Barisan Nasional (BN) is to retain its “fixed deposit”.
While Taib may not have as yet “chosen” his successor, probably because he’d prefer to die in office, his sister Rosie Genied (Raziah Mahmud Geneid), however, had other ideas. Her own main man was Planning and Resources Management and Public Utilities Minister Awang Tengah Ali Hassan.
According to reports, while Taib was busy being a newly-wed, it was the team of Rosie and Awang Tengah who vetted through the list of BN candidates for the April 16 polls.
One of the early casualties was Salleh. He was recommended as a candidate by Umno. They saw him as a possible replacement for Taib if he had stood on PBB ticket.For that, Salleh was given a few million ringgit. If he had won, he could always be inducted later into PBB and installed as the pliant CM of Sarawak.
But Salleh’s appearance raised suspicion within Taib’s camp.
Umno plant
All of a sudden, this chap who was linked to the infamous Ming Court conspiracy in 1987, seemed to have a reversal of fortunes of sorts.
Salleh is known as a compulsive gambler and is a man of straw. The fact that he suddenly had money to contest in the state election raised suspicion that he must be funded by some people.
Taib went along, agreeing that Salleh be fielded as a PBB candidate. He was actually buying time to uncover what earthly plot has been hatched against him.
He didn’t have to think hard. Sister Rosie and her favourite horse, Awang Tengah, smelled a rat in Salleh. They suspected Salleh to be a plant by Kuala Lumpur to eject Taib.
If Taib goes, Awang Tengah, Rosie and company will also have to go. No more land grabs, no more yachts, no more salacious soirees. This simply meant that Salleh had to be guillotined.
When it became clear to Umno that Salleh wasn’t on the list validated by Team Rosie, it was decided then to field him as an independent.
With Salleh gone, Plan B was placed on alert.
Abang Johari’s shortcomings
This time it was decided that someone deep inside the ranks of PBB must be identified. They zeroed in Abang Johari. He’s no handsome Joe, but he serves the interest of Kuala Lumpur.
Abang Johari is a Sarawakian Malay, a man who can be counted upon to further the political interests of Umno.
Never mind his facial appearance. That doesn’t factor in peoples’ minds as there are several ministers at the federal level with Down’s Syndrome looks.
Not relevant, too, are Abang Johari’s shortcomings such as being damaged by the business excesses of his friends. He is also said to suffer from the same affliction affecting Pak Lah. He sleeps through his job.
But THE most important factor is that he is MALAY. With him at the helm, Umno can move into Sarawak.
Double dealing
Having “uncovered” a possible coup, Taib’s people rushed to brief him about Kuala Lumpur’s double dealing. Politically savvy Taib would now show these KL knuckleheads who’s the “taikor” in Sarawak.
He prepared his team to campaign on local issues and if this fails, PBB will go after personalities. And if everything else failed, then cheat-to-win would be the final alternative.
Unbeknown to Kuala Lumpur, Taib had got a firm grip on PBB’s 35 seats well before the polls on April 16.
He had his people all over the place. He had the local ketua kampungs (village chiefs), the tuai rumah (longhouse chiefs) and kapitan (community leaders) on his side.
Taib has a huge war chest and most of all he had better information than the misinformation that Najib’s intelligence people were conveying to Najib.
The moment Najib boldly announced that Taib will retire, the CM knew Najib’s intelligence people had been sleeping through their task.
Perhaps they had too much tuak, gawai dayaks and so forth. But the knowledge was enough to embolden Taib.
Taib’s countermand
Each time Najib reassured Sarawakians that Taib would go, Taib would come out in open defiance countermanding Najib. “I will deliver the coup de grace,” said Taib and so he did!
Taib had done sterlingly in the highly charged polls. He retained all the 35 seats PBB contested.
Other than Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP), which lost most of its seats, his other coalition partners won splendidly. Najib’s own BN over in the peninsula did dismally.
MCA had 15 seats in 2008 general election. Gerakan was all but wiped out – saved from extinction by the sad presence of its president Koh Tsu Koon, who incidentally also lost his seat.
MIC, meanwhile, is going around with bowl-in-hand chanting ritualistic assurances that the Indians are back in BN.
So, now comes the pain for Najib. How can Najib expedite the exit of Taib? He can’t force Taib out of office by using corruption as an issue.
If he does, then people will come back and ask him: “If you knew all along that Taib is corrupt, then why did you agree for Taib to stand as candidate? Wouldn’t that be like deceiving the people?”
Sarawakians are not Malay
The fact remains that Najib is powerless to deal with Taib and for many reasons. To begin with, there is the general sentiment of the Borneo people. They are not Malaya people. Sarawakians are not Malay people!
Sarawakians resent the dictates and high-handedness of the Malaya people. Secondly, Taib is not an Umno member and therefore not subject to any arm-twisting or enforcement of discipline. He doesn’t answer to the Umno president.
Thirdly, he has the numbers behind him. He won all the 35 seats his party contested. That’s more than what Umno can ever counter.
But the most important deterent to Najib’s possible voyage into Sarawak is what Taib holds – the key to Najib’s fixed deposit state.
Sarawak has 31 parliamentary seats. And Taib controls at least 25 of them. Can any of the boys on our side comprehend the implications of this awesome power?
Taib owns 25 parliamentary seats which he can deliver in any direction he so wants. If Taib decides to abandon ship, Najib becomes the opposition leader in the next Parliament. So indeed, a victorious Taib is no joy coming to town.
Free Malaysia Today
April 28, 2011
The moment he got wind of Umno KL’s plans to replace him, he swiftly moved to consolidate his grip over Sarawak.
COMMENT
It’s time for the boys on our side to rethink what has happened in Sarawak. A victorious and accordingly emboldened Taib Mahmud is now a cause for more headaches to Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and Umno.
Let’s replay the behind-the-scene incidents on April 16. On that night, after making sure he already had the numbers, Taib called the house asking family members to get ready.
He warned them that much depended on speed and that there was no time to lose. Taib then called the governor informing the latter to get ready by 10.30pm.
He arrived 15 minutes past 10.30pm and was sworn in as chief minister, even before the people in Kuala Lumpur could savour the win.
Taib had got wind of rumours that he will be replaced by someone more docile and favourable to Umno.
The man Umno had in mind is said to be deputy Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) president .
Abang Jo is a Sarawakaian Malay and earmarked to be Umno’s man in Sarawak. But he wasn’t the first choice. Umno had discovered Salleh Jafaruddin and much hope was now placed on him.
Raziah’s choice
Najib’s intelligence people had reported that Taib was a much despised person in Sarawak and needed to be replaced lest the “fixed deposit state” vanished.
Najib’s political secretary who had been spending months on end in Sarawak had also returned to Putrajaya with the same prognosis. Taib simply must go, if Barisan Nasional (BN) is to retain its “fixed deposit”.
While Taib may not have as yet “chosen” his successor, probably because he’d prefer to die in office, his sister Rosie Genied (Raziah Mahmud Geneid), however, had other ideas. Her own main man was Planning and Resources Management and Public Utilities Minister Awang Tengah Ali Hassan.
According to reports, while Taib was busy being a newly-wed, it was the team of Rosie and Awang Tengah who vetted through the list of BN candidates for the April 16 polls.
One of the early casualties was Salleh. He was recommended as a candidate by Umno. They saw him as a possible replacement for Taib if he had stood on PBB ticket.For that, Salleh was given a few million ringgit. If he had won, he could always be inducted later into PBB and installed as the pliant CM of Sarawak.
But Salleh’s appearance raised suspicion within Taib’s camp.
Umno plant
All of a sudden, this chap who was linked to the infamous Ming Court conspiracy in 1987, seemed to have a reversal of fortunes of sorts.
Salleh is known as a compulsive gambler and is a man of straw. The fact that he suddenly had money to contest in the state election raised suspicion that he must be funded by some people.
Taib went along, agreeing that Salleh be fielded as a PBB candidate. He was actually buying time to uncover what earthly plot has been hatched against him.
He didn’t have to think hard. Sister Rosie and her favourite horse, Awang Tengah, smelled a rat in Salleh. They suspected Salleh to be a plant by Kuala Lumpur to eject Taib.
If Taib goes, Awang Tengah, Rosie and company will also have to go. No more land grabs, no more yachts, no more salacious soirees. This simply meant that Salleh had to be guillotined.
When it became clear to Umno that Salleh wasn’t on the list validated by Team Rosie, it was decided then to field him as an independent.
With Salleh gone, Plan B was placed on alert.
Abang Johari’s shortcomings
This time it was decided that someone deep inside the ranks of PBB must be identified. They zeroed in Abang Johari. He’s no handsome Joe, but he serves the interest of Kuala Lumpur.
Abang Johari is a Sarawakian Malay, a man who can be counted upon to further the political interests of Umno.
Never mind his facial appearance. That doesn’t factor in peoples’ minds as there are several ministers at the federal level with Down’s Syndrome looks.
Not relevant, too, are Abang Johari’s shortcomings such as being damaged by the business excesses of his friends. He is also said to suffer from the same affliction affecting Pak Lah. He sleeps through his job.
But THE most important factor is that he is MALAY. With him at the helm, Umno can move into Sarawak.
Double dealing
Having “uncovered” a possible coup, Taib’s people rushed to brief him about Kuala Lumpur’s double dealing. Politically savvy Taib would now show these KL knuckleheads who’s the “taikor” in Sarawak.
He prepared his team to campaign on local issues and if this fails, PBB will go after personalities. And if everything else failed, then cheat-to-win would be the final alternative.
Unbeknown to Kuala Lumpur, Taib had got a firm grip on PBB’s 35 seats well before the polls on April 16.
He had his people all over the place. He had the local ketua kampungs (village chiefs), the tuai rumah (longhouse chiefs) and kapitan (community leaders) on his side.
Taib has a huge war chest and most of all he had better information than the misinformation that Najib’s intelligence people were conveying to Najib.
The moment Najib boldly announced that Taib will retire, the CM knew Najib’s intelligence people had been sleeping through their task.
Perhaps they had too much tuak, gawai dayaks and so forth. But the knowledge was enough to embolden Taib.
Taib’s countermand
Each time Najib reassured Sarawakians that Taib would go, Taib would come out in open defiance countermanding Najib. “I will deliver the coup de grace,” said Taib and so he did!
Taib had done sterlingly in the highly charged polls. He retained all the 35 seats PBB contested.
Other than Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP), which lost most of its seats, his other coalition partners won splendidly. Najib’s own BN over in the peninsula did dismally.
MCA had 15 seats in 2008 general election. Gerakan was all but wiped out – saved from extinction by the sad presence of its president Koh Tsu Koon, who incidentally also lost his seat.
MIC, meanwhile, is going around with bowl-in-hand chanting ritualistic assurances that the Indians are back in BN.
So, now comes the pain for Najib. How can Najib expedite the exit of Taib? He can’t force Taib out of office by using corruption as an issue.
If he does, then people will come back and ask him: “If you knew all along that Taib is corrupt, then why did you agree for Taib to stand as candidate? Wouldn’t that be like deceiving the people?”
Sarawakians are not Malay
The fact remains that Najib is powerless to deal with Taib and for many reasons. To begin with, there is the general sentiment of the Borneo people. They are not Malaya people. Sarawakians are not Malay people!
Sarawakians resent the dictates and high-handedness of the Malaya people. Secondly, Taib is not an Umno member and therefore not subject to any arm-twisting or enforcement of discipline. He doesn’t answer to the Umno president.
Thirdly, he has the numbers behind him. He won all the 35 seats his party contested. That’s more than what Umno can ever counter.
But the most important deterent to Najib’s possible voyage into Sarawak is what Taib holds – the key to Najib’s fixed deposit state.
Sarawak has 31 parliamentary seats. And Taib controls at least 25 of them. Can any of the boys on our side comprehend the implications of this awesome power?
Taib owns 25 parliamentary seats which he can deliver in any direction he so wants. If Taib decides to abandon ship, Najib becomes the opposition leader in the next Parliament. So indeed, a victorious Taib is no joy coming to town.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
13th General Election: All Political Parties Should Contest On Its Own
Pakatan Rakyat, yet to be a registered coalition, calls for change while Umno/BN is charging through its rhetoric voice for transformation. Whatever name each try to scream out does not matter to the general public anymore. One is trying to topple the incumbent and the other using all they have, power, money and state apparatus to remain in power comes what may.
Everyday, everything that is done or said by the opposition or the government are all politically connected. Looks like Malaysia will vanished from this earth if there is no bitching about politic for a single day be it from the opposition, government, news media or just about anywhere.
The PM seems not able to manage the country anymore with his DPM, Utusan and Malay NGO fighting on a total different transformation agenda while the non Malays particularly the Chinese are staying away from his rhetoric of 1Malaysia, People First Performance Now.
Each day the PM keeps quiet on the calls for a Malay Agenda, the other component parties within his BN coalition will get more reckless and soon the infighting will get bigger and will spill out into the open.
Pakatan Rakyat is no difference. You have one arrogant party, not willing to discuss or compromise and acting like a big boss, still living on cloud nine over their 308 performance. All their concern is to fight for seats and not be bothered with the welfare of the rakyat.
What I am going to suggest may seems illogical but with the present state of both the coalitions will it be better to loosen things up and rejuvenates a new political system.
For this coming 13th General Election, all political parties should compete on their own party flagship. BN component parties should come out and contest as individual party.
Let the rakyat decide the fate of this nation for once and not be dictated by existing coalition political parties.
As individual party, they can choose whichever constituency or constituencies they want to contest and feel comfortable of winning. Yes, there are bound to have three, four or more corner fights, so be it, it is the rakyat who will decide the party/candidate they wanted to represent them.
I am very sure that not a single party can contest in all the constituencies for States or Parliamentary seats. Umno may have the resources to contest all seats but will they do it knowing that there are seats that they can never win. Likewise for all the other parties which may have great resources.
For example, let us talk about Bukit Bintang Parliament seat. Surely Umno, MIC and PAS will not contest this seat for obvious reason. DAP and MCA will surely go for this seat. PKR and Gerakan are welcome to contest if they feel that they have the chances of winning but if they study the ground well enough likely they will not.
So as for all "beyond doubt" seats, only those parties that are confident of winning will contest and this leaves us the mixed seats where all parties will think that they can win. Even so, I am quite sure not all parties will jump in to contest these mixed seats.
The scenario for the 13th general election will be a free for all political party fight.
The most interesting thing to watch is the final results and how a new government will be formed.
With this free for all political party contest, most likely not a single party can win enough parliamentary seats to govern. Umno may win the most seats but not enough to govern and they have to seek others to join it in order to be able to form the government.
From this kind of scenario, umno will be reduced to the status on par with all the others which will depend on others to form a government. MCA, Gerakan, MIC may still want to work with Umno but other parties in Sabah and Sarawak may not want to or all of these previous BN component parties may not want to form the coalition with Umno anymore.
The option to form a new government with a variety of combinations among the parties will be great and will surely tame the arrogant Umno.
PAS, DAP and PKR are already contesting on their own flagship. The component parties of Umno controlled BN must wise up and leave the coalition to be more effective. They have the option to work with PAS, DAP, PKR or all three together and form a new government.
Malaysia needs change and transformation but will not happen if it remains in its present political scene It needs to break free from the dominant of Umno and it can only happen if BN other 13 component parties have the guts to leave and fight on its own. They need to contest the general election on their own and then only decide which party/parties they will work with to form the new government.
Everyday, everything that is done or said by the opposition or the government are all politically connected. Looks like Malaysia will vanished from this earth if there is no bitching about politic for a single day be it from the opposition, government, news media or just about anywhere.
The PM seems not able to manage the country anymore with his DPM, Utusan and Malay NGO fighting on a total different transformation agenda while the non Malays particularly the Chinese are staying away from his rhetoric of 1Malaysia, People First Performance Now.
Each day the PM keeps quiet on the calls for a Malay Agenda, the other component parties within his BN coalition will get more reckless and soon the infighting will get bigger and will spill out into the open.
Pakatan Rakyat is no difference. You have one arrogant party, not willing to discuss or compromise and acting like a big boss, still living on cloud nine over their 308 performance. All their concern is to fight for seats and not be bothered with the welfare of the rakyat.
What I am going to suggest may seems illogical but with the present state of both the coalitions will it be better to loosen things up and rejuvenates a new political system.
For this coming 13th General Election, all political parties should compete on their own party flagship. BN component parties should come out and contest as individual party.
Let the rakyat decide the fate of this nation for once and not be dictated by existing coalition political parties.
As individual party, they can choose whichever constituency or constituencies they want to contest and feel comfortable of winning. Yes, there are bound to have three, four or more corner fights, so be it, it is the rakyat who will decide the party/candidate they wanted to represent them.
I am very sure that not a single party can contest in all the constituencies for States or Parliamentary seats. Umno may have the resources to contest all seats but will they do it knowing that there are seats that they can never win. Likewise for all the other parties which may have great resources.
For example, let us talk about Bukit Bintang Parliament seat. Surely Umno, MIC and PAS will not contest this seat for obvious reason. DAP and MCA will surely go for this seat. PKR and Gerakan are welcome to contest if they feel that they have the chances of winning but if they study the ground well enough likely they will not.
So as for all "beyond doubt" seats, only those parties that are confident of winning will contest and this leaves us the mixed seats where all parties will think that they can win. Even so, I am quite sure not all parties will jump in to contest these mixed seats.
The scenario for the 13th general election will be a free for all political party fight.
The most interesting thing to watch is the final results and how a new government will be formed.
With this free for all political party contest, most likely not a single party can win enough parliamentary seats to govern. Umno may win the most seats but not enough to govern and they have to seek others to join it in order to be able to form the government.
From this kind of scenario, umno will be reduced to the status on par with all the others which will depend on others to form a government. MCA, Gerakan, MIC may still want to work with Umno but other parties in Sabah and Sarawak may not want to or all of these previous BN component parties may not want to form the coalition with Umno anymore.
The option to form a new government with a variety of combinations among the parties will be great and will surely tame the arrogant Umno.
PAS, DAP and PKR are already contesting on their own flagship. The component parties of Umno controlled BN must wise up and leave the coalition to be more effective. They have the option to work with PAS, DAP, PKR or all three together and form a new government.
Malaysia needs change and transformation but will not happen if it remains in its present political scene It needs to break free from the dominant of Umno and it can only happen if BN other 13 component parties have the guts to leave and fight on its own. They need to contest the general election on their own and then only decide which party/parties they will work with to form the new government.
Monday, April 25, 2011
When wolves cry ‘wolf’
by Zairil Khir Johari
The Malaysian Insider
When a known liar accuses someone else of lying, whom do you trust? In a nutshell, that is the predicament faced by the proverbial boy who cried wolf. And, of late, there have certainly been many boys crying “Wolf”.
The 2011 Sarawak election has been a successful one, insofar as the DAP is concerned. However, our success has now rendered us victims of a vicious hate campaign being propagated by the BN and its media.
A quick glance at news items last week reveals a barrage of high-profile attacks on the DAP. First it began, unsurprisingly, with an editorial from Umno mouthpiece Utusan Malaysia, calling upon the BN to forego Chinese support because, ostensibly, the community has turned its back on the government. Such ungrateful citizens! We gave them the right to vote, and they dared to vote against us?
Awang Selamat’s call-to-arms was immediately followed up by a fellow Utusan editor, who went one step further by announcing the need for a “1 Melayu, 1 Bumi” movement in order to unite the “divided” Malay community.
And this is apparently necessary because Malay political power is now under threat by the Chinese, who, despite making up only 25 per cent of the Malaysian population, is suddenly capable of taking over the reins of power. I for one am glad I had a different maths teacher.
If that wasn’t enough, the president of the MCA decided to bay for blood as well, essentially threatening the Chinese community in Sarawak for their folly of daring to vote for anyone other than an “approved” BN representative.
Last but not least, joining in the chorus was a retired prime minister-turned-blogger and part-time amateur historian, said to be working on his latest book: “Hari Ini Dalam Sejarah (Di Alam Fantasiku)”.
In his usual manner, subtlety was dispensed with. The DAP is a racist party that has brought racism to Sarawak! Ruh-roh! Only the BN can truly represent the needs of the various races in Malaysia.
Phew! At the rate they were going, one would have thought the DAP had single-handedly won control of the Sarawak government. Imagine if we had actually won every seat we contested. Gasp, that would give us control over a whopping 15 out of 71 seats! Seriously, maths lessons?
Yet we should not dismiss their delirium wholesale. Let us look further and attempt to deconstruct their arguments. As it appears, the DAP’s alleged “racism” is predicated upon:
a. A mainly Chinese-member base and support.
b. The fact that we only seem to win Chinese-majority seats.
c. The “Malaysian Malaysia” slogan.
First of all, I would like to point out that every single DAP member, whether Malay, Indian, Chinese or Iban, is, above all, a Malaysian. However, if we insist on going into racial semantics, then let me be as clear as possible.
There is a world of a difference between a party with a large member base derived from a certain community, and a party with a racialist agenda. Just because a party has many members of one race does not automatically mean the party’s agenda is based along racial lines.
Similarly, when Umno is accused of being racialist, it is not because it is a Malay party, but because it espouses policies like “ketuanan Melayu”, which is not only outwardly racist but also extra-constitutional.
Now, despite deriving most of its members from one community, the DAP’s message is clearly non-racial. Our struggle is one for democracy, justice and a fairer distribution of wealth. Our campaign, and this was especially evident in Sarawak, was focused entirely on issues such as abuse of power, corruption and an authoritarian leader who has long overstayed his welcome.
If any of the above is considered racist in any way, it is only for two reasons. Either it is presumed that only Chinese Malaysians are concerned about the problems of our country, or that the aforementioned problems afflict only one race. And, unlike the MCA, we know neither to be true.
Next, the DAP does indeed win in mostly Chinese-majority seats, but how is that surprising? Being a party that is traditionally urban-based, and since most urban centres happen to be Chinese-majority, isn’t it only natural?
However, it is also important to note that many of the seats we contested and won in Sarawak were marginally Chinese majority. Hence, most of those wins would not have been possible without the votes of the other races. Thus, it is a fallacy to assume that the DAP appeals to only one section of the community.
Also, having spent the last few weeks in Sarawak, I can confirm that politics there has much less to do with race compared to Peninsular Malaysia. In fact, as my fellow columnist June Rubis so marvellously observed, nearly everyone in Sarawak is able to stake a claim on more than one of the many cultures that make up the colourful state. In fact, Sarawakian society is so plural it makes some of us Peninsular Malaysians envious.
Lastly, the DAP’s old war-cry of a “Malaysian Malaysia” is deemed to be offensive, despite the fact that it does not differ greatly from the BN’s versions, i.e. “Bangsa Malaysia” or its latest incarnation, “1 Malaysia.” Why is anything only kosher when the BN does it?
Desperation is obviously in the air when the BN will resort to anything in order to maintain its grip on power. But at what expense? The BN’s racialised posturing, in the form of fear-mongering and outward racial mobilisation, is clearly threatening Malaysian unity, and yet they claim that the DAP is trying to break the country in two.
However, despite all the spin, Malaysians are no longer so easily fooled. The Sarawak election is proof of that. This is what happens when we have finally realised that the boy crying “wolf” is actually the big, bad wolf himself.
The Malaysian Insider
When a known liar accuses someone else of lying, whom do you trust? In a nutshell, that is the predicament faced by the proverbial boy who cried wolf. And, of late, there have certainly been many boys crying “Wolf”.
The 2011 Sarawak election has been a successful one, insofar as the DAP is concerned. However, our success has now rendered us victims of a vicious hate campaign being propagated by the BN and its media.
A quick glance at news items last week reveals a barrage of high-profile attacks on the DAP. First it began, unsurprisingly, with an editorial from Umno mouthpiece Utusan Malaysia, calling upon the BN to forego Chinese support because, ostensibly, the community has turned its back on the government. Such ungrateful citizens! We gave them the right to vote, and they dared to vote against us?
Awang Selamat’s call-to-arms was immediately followed up by a fellow Utusan editor, who went one step further by announcing the need for a “1 Melayu, 1 Bumi” movement in order to unite the “divided” Malay community.
And this is apparently necessary because Malay political power is now under threat by the Chinese, who, despite making up only 25 per cent of the Malaysian population, is suddenly capable of taking over the reins of power. I for one am glad I had a different maths teacher.
If that wasn’t enough, the president of the MCA decided to bay for blood as well, essentially threatening the Chinese community in Sarawak for their folly of daring to vote for anyone other than an “approved” BN representative.
Last but not least, joining in the chorus was a retired prime minister-turned-blogger and part-time amateur historian, said to be working on his latest book: “Hari Ini Dalam Sejarah (Di Alam Fantasiku)”.
In his usual manner, subtlety was dispensed with. The DAP is a racist party that has brought racism to Sarawak! Ruh-roh! Only the BN can truly represent the needs of the various races in Malaysia.
Phew! At the rate they were going, one would have thought the DAP had single-handedly won control of the Sarawak government. Imagine if we had actually won every seat we contested. Gasp, that would give us control over a whopping 15 out of 71 seats! Seriously, maths lessons?
Yet we should not dismiss their delirium wholesale. Let us look further and attempt to deconstruct their arguments. As it appears, the DAP’s alleged “racism” is predicated upon:
a. A mainly Chinese-member base and support.
b. The fact that we only seem to win Chinese-majority seats.
c. The “Malaysian Malaysia” slogan.
First of all, I would like to point out that every single DAP member, whether Malay, Indian, Chinese or Iban, is, above all, a Malaysian. However, if we insist on going into racial semantics, then let me be as clear as possible.
There is a world of a difference between a party with a large member base derived from a certain community, and a party with a racialist agenda. Just because a party has many members of one race does not automatically mean the party’s agenda is based along racial lines.
Similarly, when Umno is accused of being racialist, it is not because it is a Malay party, but because it espouses policies like “ketuanan Melayu”, which is not only outwardly racist but also extra-constitutional.
Now, despite deriving most of its members from one community, the DAP’s message is clearly non-racial. Our struggle is one for democracy, justice and a fairer distribution of wealth. Our campaign, and this was especially evident in Sarawak, was focused entirely on issues such as abuse of power, corruption and an authoritarian leader who has long overstayed his welcome.
If any of the above is considered racist in any way, it is only for two reasons. Either it is presumed that only Chinese Malaysians are concerned about the problems of our country, or that the aforementioned problems afflict only one race. And, unlike the MCA, we know neither to be true.
Next, the DAP does indeed win in mostly Chinese-majority seats, but how is that surprising? Being a party that is traditionally urban-based, and since most urban centres happen to be Chinese-majority, isn’t it only natural?
However, it is also important to note that many of the seats we contested and won in Sarawak were marginally Chinese majority. Hence, most of those wins would not have been possible without the votes of the other races. Thus, it is a fallacy to assume that the DAP appeals to only one section of the community.
Also, having spent the last few weeks in Sarawak, I can confirm that politics there has much less to do with race compared to Peninsular Malaysia. In fact, as my fellow columnist June Rubis so marvellously observed, nearly everyone in Sarawak is able to stake a claim on more than one of the many cultures that make up the colourful state. In fact, Sarawakian society is so plural it makes some of us Peninsular Malaysians envious.
Lastly, the DAP’s old war-cry of a “Malaysian Malaysia” is deemed to be offensive, despite the fact that it does not differ greatly from the BN’s versions, i.e. “Bangsa Malaysia” or its latest incarnation, “1 Malaysia.” Why is anything only kosher when the BN does it?
Desperation is obviously in the air when the BN will resort to anything in order to maintain its grip on power. But at what expense? The BN’s racialised posturing, in the form of fear-mongering and outward racial mobilisation, is clearly threatening Malaysian unity, and yet they claim that the DAP is trying to break the country in two.
However, despite all the spin, Malaysians are no longer so easily fooled. The Sarawak election is proof of that. This is what happens when we have finally realised that the boy crying “wolf” is actually the big, bad wolf himself.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Is Najib becoming another Pak Lah – a Prime Minister whose writ does not run in UMNO?
By Lim Kit Siang
The question many are asking is whether the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is becoming another Pak Lah, the fifth Prime Minister whose writ did not run in Umno although he was also Umno President ending in his ignominious exit as Umno chief and prime minister.
This question has become more pronounced after Najib’s meek and completely unacceptable stance over Utusan Malaysia’s “1Melayu, 1Bumi” call.
Najib’s tame excuse is that the “1Melayu, 1Bumi” call was made by a columnist of a local daily and was the personal opinion of the writer concerned.
Najib’s excuse might be acceptable if Utusan Melayu is not the official organ of Umno, whose columns represent the mainstream opinion and demands of the Umno leadership in government.
Najib’s meek stance is doubly unacceptable because Utusan Malaysia’s “1Melayu, 1Bumi” call is an open challenge to his 1Malaysia policy in the past two years – tantamount to an open slap in the face of the Prime Minister’s signature concept.
Furthermore, if any Chinese newspaper had for instance called for a “1Chinese” campaign in the country, it would have been slapped with the full weight of the law, the press closed down and its editor/writer charged with sedition. Why the double standards in the case of Utusan Malaysia?
The Cabinet on Wednesday should repudiate and condemn the Utusan Malaysia’s “1Melayu, 1Bumi” call as irresponsible, seditious and a subtle attempt to sabotage Najib’s 1Malaysia policy.
As Umno President, he should revamp Utusan Malaysia to ensure that it should stop its anti-national campaign and to stop subverting his 1Malaysia signature policy.
If the Cabinet is silent on Utusan Malaysia’s “1Melayu, 1Bumi”, it could only mean that Najib’s 1Malaysia policy is sheer hypocrisy and chicanery costing Malaysian taxpayers RM70 million for APCO to package it as the greatest gift by Najib to Malaysians.
The question many are asking is whether the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is becoming another Pak Lah, the fifth Prime Minister whose writ did not run in Umno although he was also Umno President ending in his ignominious exit as Umno chief and prime minister.
This question has become more pronounced after Najib’s meek and completely unacceptable stance over Utusan Malaysia’s “1Melayu, 1Bumi” call.
Najib’s tame excuse is that the “1Melayu, 1Bumi” call was made by a columnist of a local daily and was the personal opinion of the writer concerned.
Najib’s excuse might be acceptable if Utusan Melayu is not the official organ of Umno, whose columns represent the mainstream opinion and demands of the Umno leadership in government.
Najib’s meek stance is doubly unacceptable because Utusan Malaysia’s “1Melayu, 1Bumi” call is an open challenge to his 1Malaysia policy in the past two years – tantamount to an open slap in the face of the Prime Minister’s signature concept.
Furthermore, if any Chinese newspaper had for instance called for a “1Chinese” campaign in the country, it would have been slapped with the full weight of the law, the press closed down and its editor/writer charged with sedition. Why the double standards in the case of Utusan Malaysia?
The Cabinet on Wednesday should repudiate and condemn the Utusan Malaysia’s “1Melayu, 1Bumi” call as irresponsible, seditious and a subtle attempt to sabotage Najib’s 1Malaysia policy.
As Umno President, he should revamp Utusan Malaysia to ensure that it should stop its anti-national campaign and to stop subverting his 1Malaysia signature policy.
If the Cabinet is silent on Utusan Malaysia’s “1Melayu, 1Bumi”, it could only mean that Najib’s 1Malaysia policy is sheer hypocrisy and chicanery costing Malaysian taxpayers RM70 million for APCO to package it as the greatest gift by Najib to Malaysians.
Did you hear about the Bidayuh who voted for DAP?
By June Rubis
We were like a bad bar joke: two Bidayuhs, a Lun Bawang, an Iban, and two Malays walk into a DAP ceramah in Kuching. The crowd is mostly Chinese, and the speeches so far are all in Mandarin.
“I don’t understand what they are saying,” I complain to my fellow Bidayuh.
“Neither do we, and that is why we drink,” he replies, handing me a can of beer.
The next day is Election Day for Sarawak, and we, the motley crew representing the urban non-Chinese, cast our votes for DAP.
Times have changed for urban Sarawakians who all this while have embraced DAP as a home-grown party despite it having its origins in West Malaysia. We have seen the party struggle to grab a foothold in the state political arena for many decades.
It may be a Chinese-based party but for many of us urban voters, it represents the best possible choice for change of a state governance that we have grown weary of. Plus, you have to admit, their mascot is very cun.
Unsurprisingly, DAP has done very well in the urban areas (and 30,000 Ubah plush toys have sold out in less than two weeks), and soon everyone’s jumping on the bandwagon about how the Sarawak Chinese have rejected Barisan Nasional.
I jokingly tweet about feeling neglected as an urban Dayak who had voted for “ubah”, and how the Chinese are getting all the credit.
And then, it starts to get a bit nasty. The Chinese community in Sarawak are accused of rejecting multi-racialism. Seriously?
I ask you, pick any Sarawak Chinese and ask them whether they have indigenous relatives, either by blood or marriage, and they will answer you in the affirmative. Sarawakians are a plural society, and we are proud of it. We may identify ourselves as Chinese, Bidayuh or Lun Bawang but at the heart of it, we are always Sarawakians first.
Blaming the divide between the urban and rural votes in the state election on race is lazy analysis.
It is all too easy to blame a group of people — either the Chinese for “rejecting multi-racialism” and voting for DAP, or the rural indigenous population for being “short-sighted, and naive” and voting for BN — than to acknowledge the real issues on the ground.
Let us put aside, for now, the obvious vote-buying, intimidation, trickery and unfairness during the electoral process that we all know happened during the election.
What we have to acknowledge and try to understand is that for the most part, the rural population still identify and support BN as the only genuine state government. Dismissing the voting results from the rural areas to the corruption process is simplistic and lazy because it absolves do-gooders from having to go on the ground, and try to understand why the rural peoples feel beholden to BN. We need to go beyond tweeting/facebooking/blogging about our outrage of the state election results.
Years of indoctrination cannot be undone in one state election, yet please do not mistake me for being dismissive about the results.
As a Sarawakian who has lived most of her life in this state, I am quite happy with the outcome. We may not have the government that we had hoped for but yet 45 per cent of my fellow Sarawakians voted for a change of government.
And this has given me hope.
I acknowledge that Pakatan Rakyat has given Sarawak a collective hope that we have not seen in years. That a change of government is indeed possible.
It is not the fiery speeches from the ceramahs that has inspired me per se, but the thousands of my people — Chinese, Bidayuh, Melanau, Iban, Malay — that came out despite the fear of being seen as “opposition”.
And now we, urbanites of Sarawak, ARE the opposition. There is some beauty in this.
For those two short weeks of intense campaigning, I would hope that those who came from West Malaysia with the genuine intent to help Sarawak, had a quick glimpse at what we have lived with for the past 30 years. You may not understand why we see things the way we do, but I do hope that this is the beginning of what will be a long process of trying to understand and help.
To my fellow Sarawakians who were outraged with how our brothers and sisters came from West Malaysia with their own ideas of doing things, let us at least acknowledge that their abrasiveness, lack of protocol, enthusiasm, and yes, naiveté, of how things work in Sarawak, and overcome our own inhibitions of “this is just how things are”. They helped us get our voices back. Their speeches, while at times biased towards West Malaysian issues, inspired us so that we too can speak out, loud and proud, and not be afraid. And yes, a lot of us were afraid for many years.
Instead of being angry and outraged at the huge interest in Sarawak, let us use this to inspire ourselves to be more involved in our state issues.
We do not like how the West Malaysians are doing things? Then let us lead the way.
Let us find the humility that there are still things we need to learn. Do not worry about the condescension that they sometimes show towards us. I am beginning to realise lately that it is more of their reflection of fear and confusion than anything else.
There is so much to do for Sarawak, on the political and civil society front, and we have to realise that it starts with us Sarawakians, but we do not have to do it alone.
And maybe, one day, we can move on beyond being a bad bar joke, and prove to the rest of the country that when we cast our votes, we indeed cast our votes for the representatives that we felt were best suited for the job, and not because of the colour of her skin.
*June is very sad that she did not manage to get an Ubah plush toy.
We were like a bad bar joke: two Bidayuhs, a Lun Bawang, an Iban, and two Malays walk into a DAP ceramah in Kuching. The crowd is mostly Chinese, and the speeches so far are all in Mandarin.
“I don’t understand what they are saying,” I complain to my fellow Bidayuh.
“Neither do we, and that is why we drink,” he replies, handing me a can of beer.
The next day is Election Day for Sarawak, and we, the motley crew representing the urban non-Chinese, cast our votes for DAP.
Times have changed for urban Sarawakians who all this while have embraced DAP as a home-grown party despite it having its origins in West Malaysia. We have seen the party struggle to grab a foothold in the state political arena for many decades.
It may be a Chinese-based party but for many of us urban voters, it represents the best possible choice for change of a state governance that we have grown weary of. Plus, you have to admit, their mascot is very cun.
Unsurprisingly, DAP has done very well in the urban areas (and 30,000 Ubah plush toys have sold out in less than two weeks), and soon everyone’s jumping on the bandwagon about how the Sarawak Chinese have rejected Barisan Nasional.
I jokingly tweet about feeling neglected as an urban Dayak who had voted for “ubah”, and how the Chinese are getting all the credit.
And then, it starts to get a bit nasty. The Chinese community in Sarawak are accused of rejecting multi-racialism. Seriously?
I ask you, pick any Sarawak Chinese and ask them whether they have indigenous relatives, either by blood or marriage, and they will answer you in the affirmative. Sarawakians are a plural society, and we are proud of it. We may identify ourselves as Chinese, Bidayuh or Lun Bawang but at the heart of it, we are always Sarawakians first.
Blaming the divide between the urban and rural votes in the state election on race is lazy analysis.
It is all too easy to blame a group of people — either the Chinese for “rejecting multi-racialism” and voting for DAP, or the rural indigenous population for being “short-sighted, and naive” and voting for BN — than to acknowledge the real issues on the ground.
Let us put aside, for now, the obvious vote-buying, intimidation, trickery and unfairness during the electoral process that we all know happened during the election.
What we have to acknowledge and try to understand is that for the most part, the rural population still identify and support BN as the only genuine state government. Dismissing the voting results from the rural areas to the corruption process is simplistic and lazy because it absolves do-gooders from having to go on the ground, and try to understand why the rural peoples feel beholden to BN. We need to go beyond tweeting/facebooking/blogging about our outrage of the state election results.
Years of indoctrination cannot be undone in one state election, yet please do not mistake me for being dismissive about the results.
As a Sarawakian who has lived most of her life in this state, I am quite happy with the outcome. We may not have the government that we had hoped for but yet 45 per cent of my fellow Sarawakians voted for a change of government.
And this has given me hope.
I acknowledge that Pakatan Rakyat has given Sarawak a collective hope that we have not seen in years. That a change of government is indeed possible.
It is not the fiery speeches from the ceramahs that has inspired me per se, but the thousands of my people — Chinese, Bidayuh, Melanau, Iban, Malay — that came out despite the fear of being seen as “opposition”.
And now we, urbanites of Sarawak, ARE the opposition. There is some beauty in this.
For those two short weeks of intense campaigning, I would hope that those who came from West Malaysia with the genuine intent to help Sarawak, had a quick glimpse at what we have lived with for the past 30 years. You may not understand why we see things the way we do, but I do hope that this is the beginning of what will be a long process of trying to understand and help.
To my fellow Sarawakians who were outraged with how our brothers and sisters came from West Malaysia with their own ideas of doing things, let us at least acknowledge that their abrasiveness, lack of protocol, enthusiasm, and yes, naiveté, of how things work in Sarawak, and overcome our own inhibitions of “this is just how things are”. They helped us get our voices back. Their speeches, while at times biased towards West Malaysian issues, inspired us so that we too can speak out, loud and proud, and not be afraid. And yes, a lot of us were afraid for many years.
Instead of being angry and outraged at the huge interest in Sarawak, let us use this to inspire ourselves to be more involved in our state issues.
We do not like how the West Malaysians are doing things? Then let us lead the way.
Let us find the humility that there are still things we need to learn. Do not worry about the condescension that they sometimes show towards us. I am beginning to realise lately that it is more of their reflection of fear and confusion than anything else.
There is so much to do for Sarawak, on the political and civil society front, and we have to realise that it starts with us Sarawakians, but we do not have to do it alone.
And maybe, one day, we can move on beyond being a bad bar joke, and prove to the rest of the country that when we cast our votes, we indeed cast our votes for the representatives that we felt were best suited for the job, and not because of the colour of her skin.
*June is very sad that she did not manage to get an Ubah plush toy.
Postal votes which are never posted
By Ivy Kwek
Having acted as a coordinator for polling and counting agents for the Opposition campaign in the recently concluded Sarawak state election has made me more confused about the rationale of the electoral system in Malaysia, in particular with regard to postal voting.
Under Malaysian election laws, postal voting is mainly allowed for police personnel, members of the armed forces and Election Commission workers who are on duty on polling day. Six days before polling day, postal votes will be issued through a procedure which can be witnessed by agents from all contesting parties. The ballot papers are inserted into envelopes with an acknowledgment form attached to be ‘posted’ to the voters concerned. (*Source: Brian Moh/The Star)
Don’t be fooled by the name, though. In actual fact, only a very small number of overseas votes are sent by post. The postal votes for police personnel and members of the armed forces are dispatched by police and military officials respectively to designated police stations and army camps, whereas Election Commission workers are required to collect their own postal votes from the issuing centre.
Upon arrival at the issuing centre, the EC workers have a choice of either voting on-the-spot (a polling station a la the normal voting procedure will be set up for them), or to take the ballot papers back and return them later. The postal voting station will be open for six days until polling day.
Questions which immediately arise are: if the EC workers can come in person to collect their postal votes, why can’t they just vote on-the-spot under the normal voting procedure? Why the additional choice of issuing ballot papers in envelopes which involves more steps and makes the system more prone to abuse? Why should the EC workers be allowed to bring the ballot papers back while ordinary voters do not enjoy this privilege? Why do they need six days to return the ballot papers? Is it to wait for God’s vision of who to vote for?
Such is the leniency given by the EC to postal voters. Not only did police personnel and members of the armed forces enjoy the privilege of casting postal votes, it was also extended to their spouses! Meanwhile, Malaysians abroad do not have such luck.
In addition to that, a registered voter who is eligible for postal voting can apply to be a postal voter up until 3pm the day before polling day. This is to say that less than 24 hours is required for the EC to process the application. Doesn’t such efficiency sound all too ridiculously amazing considering that the EC needs three to six months to process the registration of an ordinary voter like you and I?
The EC’s decisions caused the number of postal voters to skyrocket in the last few days before the Sarawak State Elections, as can be seen in the constituency of Kota Sentosa (Kuching), which saw an increase from 1,800 postal voters to a whopping 3,000 and Pelawan (Sibu) from 14 voters to about 300 voters. As party workers, we had no choice but to compare the list of newly-added postal voters with the electoral roll and cross out the names of the postal voters from the electoral roll in order to prevent double-voting, and to be sleep-deprived in the process!
Postal votes can be regarded as a ‘fixed deposit’ for the incumbent government. This can be seen in the constituency of Senadin, where the PKR candidate was leading by a substantial number of votes but was eventually overcome by postal votes in favour of the BN candidate, causing the PKR candidate to lose the election by a mere 58 votes. In Dudong, one of constituencies in which the DAP contested, the election battle with SUPP, the other party contesting the seat, was close. The counting of the votes was a very tensed affair until, at least for a short while, the DAP finally took the lead by about a thousand votes. At that time, the counting of postal votes — which numbered about 700 in that constituency — had yet to be completed. Just as the DAP was about to celebrate its unofficial victory, a blackout occurred in the counting centre of the postal votes (one can only guess what can happen to the ballot papers in the dark!). Fortunately, the matter was resolved amicably between the leaders of both parties without unnecessary chaos.
Postal votes also make vote-buying easier, as its complicated process is more prone to loopholes and abuses. As the ballot paper can be taken out of the voting station unlike normal voting, it is easy for the voter to show an ‘interested party’ his or her vote in return for a monetary reward. On the second day after the postal votes were issued, a DAP polling agent in Sibu caught on video a group of people purportedly involved in vote-buying. A man was seen giving three or four ladies orange papers similar to postal ballot papers along a building staircase. When they realised that the ‘transaction’ was being recorded, they quickly dispersed into the crowd. Although the ladies later denied any wrongdoing when contacted, their actions remain highly suspect and demonstrate the vulnerability of the system.
Party workers need to go along with the ridiculous system and try their very best to prevent any dirty tricks. In Sarawak, agents were sent to postal voting centres to ensure that postal votes were issued according to the official list. They stayed at these centres from 8am to 5pm for six days to ensure that the votes were picked up by the voters themselves and to stare at the ballot box to make sure that it was not moved or stuffed with extra papers. For those votes that are despatched to army camps or police stations, they tailed the car escorting the ballot boxes to ensure that the boxes did not get ‘lost’ along the way.
But that is only as much as we can do. Until the Election Commission decides to get smarter, we will all need to do it the brain-less way. — loyaburok.com
Ivy Kwek was part of the DAP Sibu’s campaign for two weeks and still has some trouble adjusting to the KL driving manners.
Having acted as a coordinator for polling and counting agents for the Opposition campaign in the recently concluded Sarawak state election has made me more confused about the rationale of the electoral system in Malaysia, in particular with regard to postal voting.
Under Malaysian election laws, postal voting is mainly allowed for police personnel, members of the armed forces and Election Commission workers who are on duty on polling day. Six days before polling day, postal votes will be issued through a procedure which can be witnessed by agents from all contesting parties. The ballot papers are inserted into envelopes with an acknowledgment form attached to be ‘posted’ to the voters concerned. (*Source: Brian Moh/The Star)
Don’t be fooled by the name, though. In actual fact, only a very small number of overseas votes are sent by post. The postal votes for police personnel and members of the armed forces are dispatched by police and military officials respectively to designated police stations and army camps, whereas Election Commission workers are required to collect their own postal votes from the issuing centre.
Upon arrival at the issuing centre, the EC workers have a choice of either voting on-the-spot (a polling station a la the normal voting procedure will be set up for them), or to take the ballot papers back and return them later. The postal voting station will be open for six days until polling day.
Questions which immediately arise are: if the EC workers can come in person to collect their postal votes, why can’t they just vote on-the-spot under the normal voting procedure? Why the additional choice of issuing ballot papers in envelopes which involves more steps and makes the system more prone to abuse? Why should the EC workers be allowed to bring the ballot papers back while ordinary voters do not enjoy this privilege? Why do they need six days to return the ballot papers? Is it to wait for God’s vision of who to vote for?
Such is the leniency given by the EC to postal voters. Not only did police personnel and members of the armed forces enjoy the privilege of casting postal votes, it was also extended to their spouses! Meanwhile, Malaysians abroad do not have such luck.
In addition to that, a registered voter who is eligible for postal voting can apply to be a postal voter up until 3pm the day before polling day. This is to say that less than 24 hours is required for the EC to process the application. Doesn’t such efficiency sound all too ridiculously amazing considering that the EC needs three to six months to process the registration of an ordinary voter like you and I?
The EC’s decisions caused the number of postal voters to skyrocket in the last few days before the Sarawak State Elections, as can be seen in the constituency of Kota Sentosa (Kuching), which saw an increase from 1,800 postal voters to a whopping 3,000 and Pelawan (Sibu) from 14 voters to about 300 voters. As party workers, we had no choice but to compare the list of newly-added postal voters with the electoral roll and cross out the names of the postal voters from the electoral roll in order to prevent double-voting, and to be sleep-deprived in the process!
Postal votes can be regarded as a ‘fixed deposit’ for the incumbent government. This can be seen in the constituency of Senadin, where the PKR candidate was leading by a substantial number of votes but was eventually overcome by postal votes in favour of the BN candidate, causing the PKR candidate to lose the election by a mere 58 votes. In Dudong, one of constituencies in which the DAP contested, the election battle with SUPP, the other party contesting the seat, was close. The counting of the votes was a very tensed affair until, at least for a short while, the DAP finally took the lead by about a thousand votes. At that time, the counting of postal votes — which numbered about 700 in that constituency — had yet to be completed. Just as the DAP was about to celebrate its unofficial victory, a blackout occurred in the counting centre of the postal votes (one can only guess what can happen to the ballot papers in the dark!). Fortunately, the matter was resolved amicably between the leaders of both parties without unnecessary chaos.
Postal votes also make vote-buying easier, as its complicated process is more prone to loopholes and abuses. As the ballot paper can be taken out of the voting station unlike normal voting, it is easy for the voter to show an ‘interested party’ his or her vote in return for a monetary reward. On the second day after the postal votes were issued, a DAP polling agent in Sibu caught on video a group of people purportedly involved in vote-buying. A man was seen giving three or four ladies orange papers similar to postal ballot papers along a building staircase. When they realised that the ‘transaction’ was being recorded, they quickly dispersed into the crowd. Although the ladies later denied any wrongdoing when contacted, their actions remain highly suspect and demonstrate the vulnerability of the system.
Party workers need to go along with the ridiculous system and try their very best to prevent any dirty tricks. In Sarawak, agents were sent to postal voting centres to ensure that postal votes were issued according to the official list. They stayed at these centres from 8am to 5pm for six days to ensure that the votes were picked up by the voters themselves and to stare at the ballot box to make sure that it was not moved or stuffed with extra papers. For those votes that are despatched to army camps or police stations, they tailed the car escorting the ballot boxes to ensure that the boxes did not get ‘lost’ along the way.
But that is only as much as we can do. Until the Election Commission decides to get smarter, we will all need to do it the brain-less way. — loyaburok.com
Ivy Kwek was part of the DAP Sibu’s campaign for two weeks and still has some trouble adjusting to the KL driving manners.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
1Malaysia Email : 1Malaysia Boleh But Malaysians Bodoh?
The tweet from the Prime Minister before he went to sleep last night:
NajibRazak Mohd Najib Tun Razak
Before I sleep , let me clarify that the 1Malaysia E Mail is a private sector project. No public money is involved n entirely voluntary.
13 hours ago
From his tweet we can justify and conclude that he is not qualify to be the Prime Minister of Malaysia. He does not know that in this world, particularly Malaysia, that nothing is free and he still thinks that Malaysians are fools.
Let us take his word for the time being and believe that the 1Malaysia Email is a private sector project. Now, if it is private why is 1Malaysia domain owned by the PM got to do with it? It is because the PM wanted to set up an email system within the 1Malaysia domain to be given free to the people. So this private entity is roped in to provide this service, entirely voluntarily at a cost of RM 50 million. It means the PM is telling the truth, not a single cent from the government purse.
This report just came in:
Tricubes has underlined key strategies to ensure commercial viability including advertising and future e-services transactions,” said CEO Khairun Zainal Mokhtar.
“Private testing is already under way as we prepare towards system readiness.”
The project will offer centralised e-government services such as online notifications and digital bill statements from government agencies.
Every Malaysian above the age of 18 will be entitled to an official email account to communicate with the government.
Look at it, the project is for the government but Tricubes claimed that its resources will come from commercial viability including advertising and future e-services transactions. Question is, what if they fail to generate enough resources to continue managing this email system after it had gone online? Is the government willing to shut it down or will bail them out?
"Believe it or not" We still got a private entity coughing out RM 50 Million to set up for the PM a 1Malaysia Email system for free not to mention that this entity is in trouble with Bursa Saham Malaysia and about to be de-listed.
My point of view is still that the PM may be misled by the people around him, saying that this is a private project and no cost involved but they did not tell him the whole story. The setting up of this 1Malaysia Email system by the appointed entity is surely for free but when the whole system is completed he will then sell it to the government at a price which I presume is the RM 50 million. But the cost will not end there, they need to maintain the system at another price and later they will have to upgrade the system at another price and most likely it will balloon to at least RM 100 million.
So, Najib is not a qualified leader when he can be so easily misled that there are still good corporation (even though some may be in financial trouble ) willing to provide free service costing millions for the government and get nothing back in return. Malaysians are not that stupid to believe that any private entity that has dealings with the government will not get something back in return. And that something in the form of money indirectly belongs to the rakyat.
On another point, why do we need to set up the 1Malaysia Email to be given to the rakyat when firstly, there are already so many free email providers on the net, secondly, there are still many parts of the country without internet line and how are they going to access their free 1Malaysia Email, thirdly, there are also many parts of the country without electricity, how the hell are they going to connect online.
Again, I conclude that Najib is not a capable PM. He does things without any studies on the pros and cons, viability, any benefits for the rakyat other than to cronies and will not admit the mistakes that were made.
Just for example the mrt. They said works will start in July 2011 yet they are paying a consultant millions recently to study the concept, they have yet to figure out the actual costing and plans have yet to be approved. Imagine they can start work without a complete study, proper planning and costing.
1Malaysia Boleh but Malaysians Bodoh?
A Face Book page 1M Malaysians who don't want Najib's 1 Malaysia email was launched immediately to raise objection. At the time of writting this post,24 hours after it had launched, there are 24,586 likes. Go over to like the page if you object and read the comments and reasons for their objections.
NajibRazak Mohd Najib Tun Razak
Before I sleep , let me clarify that the 1Malaysia E Mail is a private sector project. No public money is involved n entirely voluntary.
13 hours ago
From his tweet we can justify and conclude that he is not qualify to be the Prime Minister of Malaysia. He does not know that in this world, particularly Malaysia, that nothing is free and he still thinks that Malaysians are fools.
Let us take his word for the time being and believe that the 1Malaysia Email is a private sector project. Now, if it is private why is 1Malaysia domain owned by the PM got to do with it? It is because the PM wanted to set up an email system within the 1Malaysia domain to be given free to the people. So this private entity is roped in to provide this service, entirely voluntarily at a cost of RM 50 million. It means the PM is telling the truth, not a single cent from the government purse.
This report just came in:
Tricubes has underlined key strategies to ensure commercial viability including advertising and future e-services transactions,” said CEO Khairun Zainal Mokhtar.
“Private testing is already under way as we prepare towards system readiness.”
The project will offer centralised e-government services such as online notifications and digital bill statements from government agencies.
Every Malaysian above the age of 18 will be entitled to an official email account to communicate with the government.
Look at it, the project is for the government but Tricubes claimed that its resources will come from commercial viability including advertising and future e-services transactions. Question is, what if they fail to generate enough resources to continue managing this email system after it had gone online? Is the government willing to shut it down or will bail them out?
"Believe it or not" We still got a private entity coughing out RM 50 Million to set up for the PM a 1Malaysia Email system for free not to mention that this entity is in trouble with Bursa Saham Malaysia and about to be de-listed.
My point of view is still that the PM may be misled by the people around him, saying that this is a private project and no cost involved but they did not tell him the whole story. The setting up of this 1Malaysia Email system by the appointed entity is surely for free but when the whole system is completed he will then sell it to the government at a price which I presume is the RM 50 million. But the cost will not end there, they need to maintain the system at another price and later they will have to upgrade the system at another price and most likely it will balloon to at least RM 100 million.
So, Najib is not a qualified leader when he can be so easily misled that there are still good corporation (even though some may be in financial trouble ) willing to provide free service costing millions for the government and get nothing back in return. Malaysians are not that stupid to believe that any private entity that has dealings with the government will not get something back in return. And that something in the form of money indirectly belongs to the rakyat.
On another point, why do we need to set up the 1Malaysia Email to be given to the rakyat when firstly, there are already so many free email providers on the net, secondly, there are still many parts of the country without internet line and how are they going to access their free 1Malaysia Email, thirdly, there are also many parts of the country without electricity, how the hell are they going to connect online.
Again, I conclude that Najib is not a capable PM. He does things without any studies on the pros and cons, viability, any benefits for the rakyat other than to cronies and will not admit the mistakes that were made.
Just for example the mrt. They said works will start in July 2011 yet they are paying a consultant millions recently to study the concept, they have yet to figure out the actual costing and plans have yet to be approved. Imagine they can start work without a complete study, proper planning and costing.
1Malaysia Boleh but Malaysians Bodoh?
A Face Book page 1M Malaysians who don't want Najib's 1 Malaysia email was launched immediately to raise objection. At the time of writting this post,24 hours after it had launched, there are 24,586 likes. Go over to like the page if you object and read the comments and reasons for their objections.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
The myths of Sarawak polls results
By Bridget Welsh
Malaysiakini
The dust has begun to settle on the 10th Sarawak polls with the BN touting its retention of the two-thirds majority as a victory, while Pakatan Rakyat points to the more than doubling of its seats. This was the most competitive state election in Sarawak's history and was hard fought by both sides.
BN, led by Prime Minister Najib Razak essentially camped in the state for 10 days to assure the two-thirds, while the opposition also focused is national machinery in Sarawak, bringing in the top guns from Peninsular Malaysia and thousands of party workers.
A closer look at the results show that the opposition has made impressive ground, despite its failure to break the two-thirds threshold. Sarawak is no longer BN's fixed deposit, and trends in mobilisation and support suggest that it is even more likely not to be so unless Sarawak BN radically changes how it governs.
Political awakening
The spin on this election reflects a similar tone of 2006, focusing on the gains in urban seats and Chinese voters. The implicit threat in Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud's statement that the Chinese will pay for their lack of loyalty highlights the perception that the losses are the product of continued Chinese support for the opposition.
In terms of sheer number of voters for the opposition, this is correct. In all the Chinese-majority seats - from Padungan to Bukit Assek - the level of support for the opposition increased, both in number of votes and share of the vote.
This reflected the dynamic - almost electrifying - opposition campaign in the urban areas, especially in Miri where voters experienced the political awakening that their counterparts in Kuching had experienced in 2006, and in Sibu at the 2010 by-election.
No question about it, a growing number of Chinese supported the opposition in Sarawak. The interesting finding from the results, however, is that they are not alone, and in fact the Chinese swing toward the opposition is comparatively less (yes, less) than the changes within other communities.
By comparing the 2011 results with those of 2006, I trace the changes in voter turnout and share of support (percentage of majority among voters who turned out to vote) for the opposition at the seat level and, when appropriate and with available data, the polling stream level.
The preliminary findings highlight that the movement is greatest in mixed constituencies, and significant movement occurred across the ethnic communities, even the Malays.
Let's begin with the mobilisation of voters across ethnicities. The 2011 polls show an impressive increase in voter turnout, in keeping with the increased competitiveness of the election. The greatest turnout increase was among the Malays, where the PBB machinery was well-honed, as more voters were brought to the polls, followed by increased participation of Chinese and Iban voters.
What this impressive increase in mobilisation across groups reveals is that Sarawakians recognised their power as voters and came out to vote in an unprecedented manner. This highlights the growing appreciation of political power in Sarawak and engagement with politics, which is in keeping with the unprecedented crowds at ceramah across the state, even in the rural areas.
The table (left) also highlights that the change in voting across the ethnic communities. The greatest movement compared to 2006 was in mixed seats, followed by movement in the Orang Ulu community in places such as Ba'Kelalan (where Baru Bian won his seat) but also places such as Telang Usan.
The share of movement in Orang Ulu-majority seats is large, a 20% swing. These numbers can be a bit deceiving in that the actual numbers of voters in Sarawak are small and 20% can reflect a small number of voters in the small constituencies, yet nevertheless, the swing is significant.
Ibans and Bidayuhs too change loyalities
Why then, given the swing, did the seats not move into opposition hands? The reason is simple - before 2011 opposition support in some of these areas was minuscule. In many constituencies, the opposition needed more than a 40% change to win. Yet there has been a very large swing, which is much larger than the swing in Peninsular Malaysia in 2008.
From my perspective, the most interesting ethnic changes occurred in the Malay/Melanau, Iban and Bidayuh areas. A look at the seat tally suggests that Malays are squarely in the BN camp. The PBB won all 35 of its seats and PAS failed to win a single seat, even in the close contest of Beting Maro.
The Malay/Melanau seats are interesting in a number of ways. First, the pattern towards the opposition varies, with a few of the seats moving even more strongly toward the BN, such as Sadong Jaya, and as such, the pattern is uneven.
Yet the Malay/Melanau ground was more competitive with more straight fights and more contests, such as in Daro and Dalat. PAS, in particular, made inroads. To suggest that the Malay/Melanau community is firmly behind the BN is wrong. Their support is changing as well, in spite of the ethnic campaigning and use of the racial card.
The Iban and Bidayuh majority seats also followed the pattern of opposition gains. In Iban areas, there was less movement in the share of the vote and like the Malay/Melanau seats the pattern was not consistent across seats toward the opposition, with some increased support towards the BN in Engkilili, but overall, the Iban have also changed loyalties.
As is shown in this table (right), this occurred most starkly in semi-rural areas.
The Bidayuh seats were seen to be those that would have determined whether the opposition broke the two-thirds or not. Pakatan hoped to pick up at least three of these Bidayuh seats, as sentiment on the ground toward the BN had shifted due to the religious issues and persistent exclusion of this group from economic benefits.
Higher education among the Bidayuh had increased awareness and exposure to political issues. The opposition failed to win a single seat, but here too the gains in the share of majority were impressive - an estimated 17.9% swing.
The bottom line is that the view that this election was the product of a bifurcated pattern of support - Chinese with the opposition and other groups with the BN - is wrong. Every group expressed serious concerns with the BN, and this was driven primarily with angst toward the long tenure and perceived excesses of the chief minister.
The urban voters myth
It is thus not surprising that given the changes across the board across ethnic communities, another myth needs to be shattered, namely that the opposition support is only in the urban areas.
Much has been made that the opposition won two very rural seats, Ba'kelalan and Krian. Yet, the most significant gains in terms of seats were in the semi-rural areas - for example, Batu Kawah, Dudong, Piasau (which has a large semi-rural area). The close fight in Senadin is also illustrative.
My preliminary analysis at the seat level shows that the gains in semi-rural seats were more than in the other areas, 19.7% compared to 14.8% in the rural areas and 13.4% in the urban communities.
The 'safe' seats in the urban periphery are no longer 'safe'. The change in voting pattern reflected not just Chinese support for Pakatan, but Iban and Bidayuh support as well. In fact, what is especially interesting is that the movement in support in rural areas is more than the share in urban areas (although it is important to note that the urban areas have more voters).
More than anything, these findings point illustrate how much the 'fixed deposit' is no longer secure. Semi-rural and rural cracks in BN support are part of the new Sarawak, a more competitive polity that has become increasingly receptive to a stronger two-party system and critical of BN governance, especially in the areas of corruption.
The growing youth revolution
The election of young candidates in the opposition in some cases fresh out to university may come as a surprise to some, but it highlights the final important dynamic in this election, the massive movement among young voters away from the BN.
Drawing from the study of 'saluran' results in seven seats so far, from the Miri, Kuching and Bidayuh areas (semi-rural and urban seats), the findings suggest that a youth revolt has occurred.
In the lower polling streams, where new voters are concentrated, more than 70% of voters opposed the BN. Given the largely young crowds at rallies, especially in Kuching and Miri, this is no surprise.
We see two pattern - higher mobilisation of younger voters, an estimated 16% increase in turnout compared to older voters, and an overwhelming level of support for Pakatan among younger voters in the lower streams, with a change in trend of over 25%. In 2006, there was already stronger support for the opposition among the youth, but this appears to have significantly increased.
When one considers the high number of younger voters that did not register, estimated in the 100,000s in Sarawak, and the large number of younger voters working outstation, these results should be quite worrying for the BN indeed. The fact that the election came before Gawai (harvest festival) is also important as it is likely that when younger voters returned home possibly further movement from the BN could have occurred.
Many a younger voter in my exit interviews highlighted the fact that they convinced their parents (and grandparents) to change support. The youthful composition of voting this election compared to 2006 shows that indeed a revolution among younger voters has occurred in Sarawak.
Rise of a new Sarawak
These results are preliminary and need to further confirmed with the official results at the 'saluran' (polling stream) level. This analysis is drawn from the newspaper publication of results and 'saluran' results that have been made available immediately after the polls, so the numbers should be seen as indicators of trends rather than absolutes.
These findings collectively show that there is indeed a new Sarawak, that voters across races, across geographic areas and especially the state's future are no longer supporting the BN to the same degree. While the two-thirds may not have been broken, profound political change did come to Sarawak.
It remains to be seen whether the opposition can continue to momentum or the BN will address the root causes of the discontent, but irrespective of this, Sarawak remains critical for the political direction of the country - now more than ever.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
DR BRIDGET WELSH is associate professor of political science at Singapore Management University and she can be reached at bwelsh@smu.edu.sg
Malaysiakini
The dust has begun to settle on the 10th Sarawak polls with the BN touting its retention of the two-thirds majority as a victory, while Pakatan Rakyat points to the more than doubling of its seats. This was the most competitive state election in Sarawak's history and was hard fought by both sides.
BN, led by Prime Minister Najib Razak essentially camped in the state for 10 days to assure the two-thirds, while the opposition also focused is national machinery in Sarawak, bringing in the top guns from Peninsular Malaysia and thousands of party workers.
A closer look at the results show that the opposition has made impressive ground, despite its failure to break the two-thirds threshold. Sarawak is no longer BN's fixed deposit, and trends in mobilisation and support suggest that it is even more likely not to be so unless Sarawak BN radically changes how it governs.
Political awakening
The spin on this election reflects a similar tone of 2006, focusing on the gains in urban seats and Chinese voters. The implicit threat in Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud's statement that the Chinese will pay for their lack of loyalty highlights the perception that the losses are the product of continued Chinese support for the opposition.
In terms of sheer number of voters for the opposition, this is correct. In all the Chinese-majority seats - from Padungan to Bukit Assek - the level of support for the opposition increased, both in number of votes and share of the vote.
This reflected the dynamic - almost electrifying - opposition campaign in the urban areas, especially in Miri where voters experienced the political awakening that their counterparts in Kuching had experienced in 2006, and in Sibu at the 2010 by-election.
No question about it, a growing number of Chinese supported the opposition in Sarawak. The interesting finding from the results, however, is that they are not alone, and in fact the Chinese swing toward the opposition is comparatively less (yes, less) than the changes within other communities.
By comparing the 2011 results with those of 2006, I trace the changes in voter turnout and share of support (percentage of majority among voters who turned out to vote) for the opposition at the seat level and, when appropriate and with available data, the polling stream level.
The preliminary findings highlight that the movement is greatest in mixed constituencies, and significant movement occurred across the ethnic communities, even the Malays.
Let's begin with the mobilisation of voters across ethnicities. The 2011 polls show an impressive increase in voter turnout, in keeping with the increased competitiveness of the election. The greatest turnout increase was among the Malays, where the PBB machinery was well-honed, as more voters were brought to the polls, followed by increased participation of Chinese and Iban voters.
What this impressive increase in mobilisation across groups reveals is that Sarawakians recognised their power as voters and came out to vote in an unprecedented manner. This highlights the growing appreciation of political power in Sarawak and engagement with politics, which is in keeping with the unprecedented crowds at ceramah across the state, even in the rural areas.
The table (left) also highlights that the change in voting across the ethnic communities. The greatest movement compared to 2006 was in mixed seats, followed by movement in the Orang Ulu community in places such as Ba'Kelalan (where Baru Bian won his seat) but also places such as Telang Usan.The share of movement in Orang Ulu-majority seats is large, a 20% swing. These numbers can be a bit deceiving in that the actual numbers of voters in Sarawak are small and 20% can reflect a small number of voters in the small constituencies, yet nevertheless, the swing is significant.
Ibans and Bidayuhs too change loyalities
Why then, given the swing, did the seats not move into opposition hands? The reason is simple - before 2011 opposition support in some of these areas was minuscule. In many constituencies, the opposition needed more than a 40% change to win. Yet there has been a very large swing, which is much larger than the swing in Peninsular Malaysia in 2008.
From my perspective, the most interesting ethnic changes occurred in the Malay/Melanau, Iban and Bidayuh areas. A look at the seat tally suggests that Malays are squarely in the BN camp. The PBB won all 35 of its seats and PAS failed to win a single seat, even in the close contest of Beting Maro.
The Malay/Melanau seats are interesting in a number of ways. First, the pattern towards the opposition varies, with a few of the seats moving even more strongly toward the BN, such as Sadong Jaya, and as such, the pattern is uneven.
Yet the Malay/Melanau ground was more competitive with more straight fights and more contests, such as in Daro and Dalat. PAS, in particular, made inroads. To suggest that the Malay/Melanau community is firmly behind the BN is wrong. Their support is changing as well, in spite of the ethnic campaigning and use of the racial card.
The Iban and Bidayuh majority seats also followed the pattern of opposition gains. In Iban areas, there was less movement in the share of the vote and like the Malay/Melanau seats the pattern was not consistent across seats toward the opposition, with some increased support towards the BN in Engkilili, but overall, the Iban have also changed loyalties.
As is shown in this table (right), this occurred most starkly in semi-rural areas.
The Bidayuh seats were seen to be those that would have determined whether the opposition broke the two-thirds or not. Pakatan hoped to pick up at least three of these Bidayuh seats, as sentiment on the ground toward the BN had shifted due to the religious issues and persistent exclusion of this group from economic benefits.
Higher education among the Bidayuh had increased awareness and exposure to political issues. The opposition failed to win a single seat, but here too the gains in the share of majority were impressive - an estimated 17.9% swing.
The bottom line is that the view that this election was the product of a bifurcated pattern of support - Chinese with the opposition and other groups with the BN - is wrong. Every group expressed serious concerns with the BN, and this was driven primarily with angst toward the long tenure and perceived excesses of the chief minister.
The urban voters myth
It is thus not surprising that given the changes across the board across ethnic communities, another myth needs to be shattered, namely that the opposition support is only in the urban areas.
Much has been made that the opposition won two very rural seats, Ba'kelalan and Krian. Yet, the most significant gains in terms of seats were in the semi-rural areas - for example, Batu Kawah, Dudong, Piasau (which has a large semi-rural area). The close fight in Senadin is also illustrative.
My preliminary analysis at the seat level shows that the gains in semi-rural seats were more than in the other areas, 19.7% compared to 14.8% in the rural areas and 13.4% in the urban communities.
The 'safe' seats in the urban periphery are no longer 'safe'. The change in voting pattern reflected not just Chinese support for Pakatan, but Iban and Bidayuh support as well. In fact, what is especially interesting is that the movement in support in rural areas is more than the share in urban areas (although it is important to note that the urban areas have more voters).
More than anything, these findings point illustrate how much the 'fixed deposit' is no longer secure. Semi-rural and rural cracks in BN support are part of the new Sarawak, a more competitive polity that has become increasingly receptive to a stronger two-party system and critical of BN governance, especially in the areas of corruption.
The growing youth revolution
The election of young candidates in the opposition in some cases fresh out to university may come as a surprise to some, but it highlights the final important dynamic in this election, the massive movement among young voters away from the BN.
Drawing from the study of 'saluran' results in seven seats so far, from the Miri, Kuching and Bidayuh areas (semi-rural and urban seats), the findings suggest that a youth revolt has occurred.
In the lower polling streams, where new voters are concentrated, more than 70% of voters opposed the BN. Given the largely young crowds at rallies, especially in Kuching and Miri, this is no surprise.
We see two pattern - higher mobilisation of younger voters, an estimated 16% increase in turnout compared to older voters, and an overwhelming level of support for Pakatan among younger voters in the lower streams, with a change in trend of over 25%. In 2006, there was already stronger support for the opposition among the youth, but this appears to have significantly increased.
When one considers the high number of younger voters that did not register, estimated in the 100,000s in Sarawak, and the large number of younger voters working outstation, these results should be quite worrying for the BN indeed. The fact that the election came before Gawai (harvest festival) is also important as it is likely that when younger voters returned home possibly further movement from the BN could have occurred.
Many a younger voter in my exit interviews highlighted the fact that they convinced their parents (and grandparents) to change support. The youthful composition of voting this election compared to 2006 shows that indeed a revolution among younger voters has occurred in Sarawak.
Rise of a new Sarawak
These results are preliminary and need to further confirmed with the official results at the 'saluran' (polling stream) level. This analysis is drawn from the newspaper publication of results and 'saluran' results that have been made available immediately after the polls, so the numbers should be seen as indicators of trends rather than absolutes.
These findings collectively show that there is indeed a new Sarawak, that voters across races, across geographic areas and especially the state's future are no longer supporting the BN to the same degree. While the two-thirds may not have been broken, profound political change did come to Sarawak.
It remains to be seen whether the opposition can continue to momentum or the BN will address the root causes of the discontent, but irrespective of this, Sarawak remains critical for the political direction of the country - now more than ever.
DR BRIDGET WELSH is associate professor of political science at Singapore Management University and she can be reached at bwelsh@smu.edu.sg
Monday, April 18, 2011
10th Sarawak State Election 2011 Results - A Reflection For GE 13
Sarawak 10th State Election has come and gone and the winner declared. For those who still don't know the results, here are the summaries:
BN/Taib won 55 seats
DAP won 12 seats (My prediction between 8 to 10 seats)
PKR won 3 seats (My prediction not more than 6 seats)
Independent won 1 seat.
SNAP, PAS and other independents failed to win any seats.
My delayed comment on the Sarawak State Election results was because I was on the road the past few days. By now most of you must have read statements from party leaders from both sides, the winners and losers, the experts from the new media and of course the umno/bn controlled media as well.
Was there really a tsunami in this State Election? There was none and let me explain why.
A tsunami cannot happened by itself, it needs an action to trigger it. The recent tsunami in Japan was triggered by a 8.9 Richter Scale earthquake. A tsunami usually will not happened for earthquake less than 5 Richter Scale, it will just create ripples.
On my earlier posting I clearly mentioned that the wind of change in Sarawak was only ripples being formed and there can be no tsunami as yet.
Sarawak and to an extend Sabah are totally different 'monsters' to tackle. They will only listen to their masters who have controlled them for over 40 years and will growl and bite anyone else that come near them. Even if they are being tortured, denied their food, basic amenities and land, they will still go back to their masters after been given small pep talks (with some threats) and a little incentives better than the usual, thrown in.
By just blowing air from your mouth is not going to create any tsunami. Some concrete actions need to be done that will have the effect of a 7 Richter Scale earthquake which can shake the people, only then a tsunami can be seen and felt.
For Pakatan Rakyat to make inroads into Sarawak and Sabah or rather to gain state power there are many challenges and obstacles that PR has to face and fend off and by just shouting and claiming that the tsunami has arrived is simply not good enough. The best bet is to work with the local leaders, members and political parties that are serious in wanting change as they are the ones who know better the in-things of their states. TALK less and WORK more. By talking too much you allow the media especially umno's to spin more.
It is hope that Pakatan Rakyat will not stay jubilant over the small gain for too long but start looking into what went wrong for their failure to deny Umno/BN/Taib the two third majority, if I am not wrong, this is their main objective.
GE 13 is just round the corner and if PR is still on cloud nine with the little improvement of the Sarawak Election and the 308 results, they are in big trouble.
From afar and on the sideline, many are seeing a very shaky Pakatan Rakyat and with the help of the umno/bn controlled media spinning out of control every little thing that they can find on PR, irrespective of its truth, PR can be disintegrated even before the 13th GE arrives.
PR must not only be seen to be a strong coalition but all its physical actions must be accepted by the rakyat. But sadly no one wants to admit the fault line within the coalition. Looks like it is easier to pretend then admitting it.
PR must face reality and start to clean up the internal mess of one of the party. There is no point in pretending that all is fine when everyone on the outside can see clearly that it is not so.
My question to PR is, are you sincere in wanting to capture Putra Jaya? If you are, then prove to us that all the three parties can agree to stand as one and withstand the onslaught of your opponent. The rakyat are very worried and frustrated when the three parties are quarrelling over seats allocation and party members fighting for candidacy.
My postings may offend and make some PR leaders and supporters angry but my intention is very clear. I want PR to capture Putra Jaya and I need to speak my mind when I see anything wrong that may cost the chances of capturing Putra Jaya. For example, my tweet on the latest TV3 interview may have offended Raja Petra Kamarudin thus he removed and blocked me from following him. RPK is not a politician, he can do what he likes to anybody but PR leaders should not show their anger directly and upfront when confronted by members and supporters who are more vocal.
I may be wrong most of the time in hammering PR but I cannot be wrong all the time.
BN/Taib won 55 seats
DAP won 12 seats (My prediction between 8 to 10 seats)
PKR won 3 seats (My prediction not more than 6 seats)
Independent won 1 seat.
SNAP, PAS and other independents failed to win any seats.
My delayed comment on the Sarawak State Election results was because I was on the road the past few days. By now most of you must have read statements from party leaders from both sides, the winners and losers, the experts from the new media and of course the umno/bn controlled media as well.
Was there really a tsunami in this State Election? There was none and let me explain why.
A tsunami cannot happened by itself, it needs an action to trigger it. The recent tsunami in Japan was triggered by a 8.9 Richter Scale earthquake. A tsunami usually will not happened for earthquake less than 5 Richter Scale, it will just create ripples.
On my earlier posting I clearly mentioned that the wind of change in Sarawak was only ripples being formed and there can be no tsunami as yet.
Sarawak and to an extend Sabah are totally different 'monsters' to tackle. They will only listen to their masters who have controlled them for over 40 years and will growl and bite anyone else that come near them. Even if they are being tortured, denied their food, basic amenities and land, they will still go back to their masters after been given small pep talks (with some threats) and a little incentives better than the usual, thrown in.
By just blowing air from your mouth is not going to create any tsunami. Some concrete actions need to be done that will have the effect of a 7 Richter Scale earthquake which can shake the people, only then a tsunami can be seen and felt.
For Pakatan Rakyat to make inroads into Sarawak and Sabah or rather to gain state power there are many challenges and obstacles that PR has to face and fend off and by just shouting and claiming that the tsunami has arrived is simply not good enough. The best bet is to work with the local leaders, members and political parties that are serious in wanting change as they are the ones who know better the in-things of their states. TALK less and WORK more. By talking too much you allow the media especially umno's to spin more.
It is hope that Pakatan Rakyat will not stay jubilant over the small gain for too long but start looking into what went wrong for their failure to deny Umno/BN/Taib the two third majority, if I am not wrong, this is their main objective.
GE 13 is just round the corner and if PR is still on cloud nine with the little improvement of the Sarawak Election and the 308 results, they are in big trouble.
From afar and on the sideline, many are seeing a very shaky Pakatan Rakyat and with the help of the umno/bn controlled media spinning out of control every little thing that they can find on PR, irrespective of its truth, PR can be disintegrated even before the 13th GE arrives.
PR must not only be seen to be a strong coalition but all its physical actions must be accepted by the rakyat. But sadly no one wants to admit the fault line within the coalition. Looks like it is easier to pretend then admitting it.
PR must face reality and start to clean up the internal mess of one of the party. There is no point in pretending that all is fine when everyone on the outside can see clearly that it is not so.
My question to PR is, are you sincere in wanting to capture Putra Jaya? If you are, then prove to us that all the three parties can agree to stand as one and withstand the onslaught of your opponent. The rakyat are very worried and frustrated when the three parties are quarrelling over seats allocation and party members fighting for candidacy.
My postings may offend and make some PR leaders and supporters angry but my intention is very clear. I want PR to capture Putra Jaya and I need to speak my mind when I see anything wrong that may cost the chances of capturing Putra Jaya. For example, my tweet on the latest TV3 interview may have offended Raja Petra Kamarudin thus he removed and blocked me from following him. RPK is not a politician, he can do what he likes to anybody but PR leaders should not show their anger directly and upfront when confronted by members and supporters who are more vocal.
I may be wrong most of the time in hammering PR but I cannot be wrong all the time.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
UBAH ! 416 Sarawak4Change - 3 Angles To The Sarawak Election Results
Huge crowd attending ceramah does not mean huge support nor guarantee of getting their votes. The 10th Sarawak state election has turned into something that the country cannot be proud of. The craze to remain in power has lead to all kinds of dirty tactics including breaking the law of harassing, corruptions and promises made that do not guarantee of fulfillment. The heart of the nation has to stop with the PM and the whole cabinet ministers and elected representatives ordered to go on the campaigning trail.
Projects costing millions being promised, instant fund allocation to schools, churches and free goodies, free food are aplenty coupled with entertainment.
The ruling government keeps on harping that they are the only party that can help developed the state and no one else. The state has seen so much development and progress thanks to the ruling government. The big question, is it true?
Why all these commotions with the PM himself leading the charge if what they claim were true. They should have no worries of losing power if they were true, isn't it?
If I am a Sarawakian I would asked, why all these promises, instant mee type of arrangement and care only during state election but after the election, everyone leaves and Sarawakians will be forgotten again until the next state election.
After reading through all the reports from both sides over the past 8 days the election results can be formed from 3 angles.
1) 50 % of Sarawakians have one way or another came to know about what is really happening to their state. The other half does not know and living their usual life, ignorant of what is happening to the outside world and some may not even be bothered at all. Waves are forming calling for change and with the opposition working very hard to convince the ignorant group there is a possibility that the opposition might wrest power. The possibility is there for the opposition to take power with a simple majority and it depends on whether they can break the third angle (read below).
2) Even though there are waves calling for change, some may not have the confident to trust a new government. They are used to their type of living for over 40 years and would not like to rock the boat. The younger generation will leave for greener pasture elsewhere and may not even return. If this is the attitude, the opposition may not wrest power but got the chance to deny the ruling government the two third majority.
3) The ruling government knew the wrongs that they have committed and that the rakyat are very angry. But they also know how to tackle the situation. They know that those living in rural areas including many locations that are totally disconnected from others are more easier to pacify. Moreover many have known only one party that have ruled over them for over 40 years. They are in control over these areas which constitute about 30% of the seats.
They are putting more effort on the semi rural areas where the chances of winning is 50 - 50. With their might and in control of everything from ec, pdrm and hard core supporters, they are throwing funds here and there without us knowing where these funds came from. For over 40 years they cannot find funds for development but out of the blue in this election, millions are pouring in.
The urban areas are tough but throwing money around sometimes can still sway the rakyat. Other then money and free goodies, they can threaten, instigate, provoke, talk tough along racial and religious lines and worst, lying through their teeth.
With such a mass onslaught by the rich and powerful ruling government, the opposition should just be happy to retain their seats and maybe some consolation of adding a few more seats.
Will Sarawakians be so easily bought, instigated, threaten or provoke and believe in their lies, the answer will be known by midnight on the 16th April 2011.
UBAH ! 416 Sarawak4Change - Federal govt contesting Sarawak polls – not BN
Fellow Sarawakians, your destiny is beckoning you to put right what is clearly wrong. The time has arrived for you to set the example for the rest of the country to reject corrupt officials and political bribery. This is the moment to inject morality and bring back good behavior into public life. This sacred duty to bring about change is in your hands.
Aliran
We are witnessing the worst human behavior employed and deployed in the pursuit of political power in the Sarawak election campaign, observes P Ramakrishnan. And to think that our national leaders are involved in this despicable conduct is really nauseating.
by P Ramakrishnan
When power and position means everything, ethics can go to hell, every principle of the Rukun Negara can be totally discarded, pious religious edicts can be ignored with impunity – everything becomes subservient to greed and power.
We are witnessing the worst human behavior employed and deployed in the pursuit of political power. And to think that our national leaders are involved in this despicable conduct is really nauseating.
The Sarawak election should be a contest among political parties. This is the practice in mature democracies in the civilised world. What we are witnessing in Sarawak only confirms that we are not a democracy and our conduct is not civilised in keeping with the rule of law.
The high profile figures of the Barisan Nasional are not there as leaders of the BN. They are there as leaders of the federal government and cabinet ministers. It is in these capacities that they are campaigning.
As leaders of the BN, they can only make promises but cannot grant outright allocations for projects. In this capacity they will be equal in footing with the rest of the contesting political parties. Under such circumstance, the Sarawak election would be deemed as fair and free with equal opportunity for all political parties to contest fairly.
But this is not the case in this instance. The entire cabinet seems to have descended in Sarawak for this state election. Enticing promises are made, generous allocations are declared to seduce and win over the voters with such inducements. This is nothing but vote-buying; this is nothing but political corruption.
But how is it the Election Commission does not see this as corruption? What is their definition of corruption?
Free dinners and goodies during an election – what does one make of it? New projects announced and grants declared – what is the meaning of this?
During the intervening five years after the last Sarawak election in 2006, where was this concern? Where was this compassion for the impoverished people of Sarawak many of whom exist in abject poverty, without employment, piped water, electricity, proper roads, the much needed health clinics and schools to support the communities in their locality? There was so much indifference during these five years.
But now that the election is here, it is outrageously revolting that the BN should be so suddenly concerned with the welfare of the Sarawakians. So much so, even the weekly cabinet meeting had to be cancelled to allow for the prime minister, deputy prime minister and cabinet ministers to campaign, abandoning their ministerial duties in Putrajaya.
The coarse and vulgar campaign will only get even worse as polling day approaches. Already the porno video is available on Ipad in Sarawak. How is this possible when only the infamous Datuk Trio and the police were the ones in possession of this video? Who leaked or released this scandalous porno tape? Are they all responsible for this turn of events?
To be sure, on Friday it will be announced that the Omega watch that was stolen by the prostitute belongs to Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim. We can read the likely pattern that will follow in order to clinch the election for the BN – come what may.
Fellow Sarawakians, your destiny is beckoning you to put right what is clearly wrong. The time has arrived for you to set the example for the rest of the country to reject corrupt officials and political bribery. This is the moment to inject morality and bring back good behavior into public life. This sacred duty to bring about change is in your hands.
You cannot be silent or indifferent to your calling in this hour of opportunity.
Remember:
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
–Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—
P Ramakrishnan is president of Aliran
UBAH ! Sarawak4Change - Sarawak Elections 2011 – Change or transformation?
by Chris Anthony
Dawn of a new Sarawak for all
Come April 16,2011 our fellow Malaysians in Sarawak will go to the ballots to choose their state government for the next five years. This tenth state election is an important one for both BN and PR as the results may determine their fate at the next general elections predicted to be held soon. It is also of utmost importance to the people of Sarawak as their destiny would be decided on that day.It is also an important election for the rest of us as the results of this election will greatly determine the trend in the whole country in the next general elections.
The exceptionally huge crowds at the ceramah of opposition PR came as a great surprise to all. Even the opposition leaders who were pleasantly surprised were shocked at the huge turn outs. That gave them a great moral booster which was badly needed after successive losses in several by-elections lately.
On the other hand the BN leaders too were taken by surprise that the state which used to be referred as the safe ‘fixed deposit’ for them for over 30 years is suddenly changing. It is evident from the response of the people to the campaign so far that they want change. Large crowds at election ceramah may not be an accurate reflection of wins as many a time such massive response does not necessarily translate into votes.
However it is definitely an indication of the people’s sentiments and their yearning for political change. It is an indication that the people are not happy with incumbent rule and that they want change. It is also an indication that the ruling party has not listened to their plea and has lost touch with the needs of the ordinary man on the street who is struggling to make ends meet.
From the feedback of people on the ground we are clear that the main grouse of the people is with the policies of their Chief Minister of 30 years whom they feel have neglected them and they want him to leave which he bluntly rejects, despite being politely asked to do so by the Prime Minister.
This state election is not about not about the opposition Pakatan Rakyat; what it can do for them or is it about its capability to rule the state effectively. The people know that the PR may not be able to do much without the backing of the Federal Government but they know for certain that it cannot do anything worse than what it is now. To the people this election is about what has been going on for the last 30 years.
The major issues are corruption, unfair land policies, and indiscriminate destruction of natural resources, power abuse and curtailment of religious freedom. This election is a form of referendum on the BN Government of over 3 decades on these issues that the people feel so strongly about.
Distributing handouts in cash and kind just before the election may have worked before but is not going work anymore as the people expect their rights to be granted and respected all through the tenure of the government in power.
The fact the ceramah crowds largely consists of the younger generation is significant.It supports the speculation they have access to wider sources of information than available in the mainstream media which is which subservient to the ruling elite. The younger citizens have lost faith in the mainstream media and the government that have become mere propaganda tools of the ruling party. Truth, which could easily be hidden before are revealed more readily in the new cyber media for which the younger voters have much savvy.
It is undoubtedly because of this IT enlightened younger generation that for the first time in our history that a CM’s overstaying in office and his misdoings have become a pivotal issue in the state election and fortunately it is going to do so in the years to come as illustrated in the ongoing people uprisings in many Arab nations today. It should be lesson for future leaders that they cannot take the people for granted.
We have come to the final hours of the countdown when Sarawakians will have to choose between change advocated by Pakatan and transformation by BN.It is a choice they must make after very careful deliberation. What happens in Sarawak this 16 April will have a tremendous bearing on the destiny of the country as a whole come the 13GE.
Our fellow citizens in Sarawak are given a very vital task to lead the way by doing the right thing this April 16. They must let that day to go down in history as the day when Sarawakians rose above ethnic differences and voted for the dawn of a new Sarawak where all its citizens get to share its wealth equally among them without distinction.
Marking the ‘X’ in their ballot papers may take less than a minute but that solitary minute may well determine the destiny of their state now and the nation later. As we wait anxiously await the actions of fellow citizens in Sarawak, let us pray that the Almighty will guide them to act wisely for the well being of all.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
UBAH ! Sarawak4Change - PM’s Sandiwara in Sarawak!
By Martin Jalleh
The PM has excused himself from his duties in Putrajaya (at the taxpayer’s expense of course) and planted himself in Sarawak for six days till polling day to give the BN campaign a much-needed push.
He seems to be panicking for he has asked the whole Cabinet to park themselves in the Land of the Hornbill and endlessly praise the component BN parties there, whilst pouring scorn on the Opposition.
It appears that Taib Mahmud’s campaign has been quite pathetic. After 30 years as CM there is little proof that the people have progressed! But, he now promises he will turn Sarawak into the richest state after the elections!
Najib believes that as PM his personality, popularity, position and plenty of “I-help-you-you-help-me” pledges, will lessen public preoccupation with Taib and successfully persuade the masses to vote for BN.
It was pure comedy though when Najib gave his assurance that Taib will step down as Sarawak CM “some time after the state election” and Taib responded he will – “in a few years”! Najib smiled, painfully…
Najib’s first public meeting, a 1 Malaysia meet-the-leaders session which was plied with goodies in exchange for their attendance, degenerated into what Lim Kit Siang described as a “1 T-Shirt, 1 Tupperware circus”.
Not to worry, the PM will fly to many more places to parade and preen on the political stage, promote his “Transformation” programmes and relentlessly pooh-pooh the Opposition’s combat cry of “Ubah”!
Najib had proudly proclaimed to the Sarawakians that the BN not only promises “but we can deliver and we have delivered for the country”. Pray tell, what has Najib delivered since he became PM two years ago?
His think-tank “Performance Management on Delivery Units” (Pemandu) has provided Bolehland with only a plethora of projections, programmes, powerpoint presentations, persuasive charts, and promising plans!
Indeed, it has been a prime “performance” by the Prime Minister, thereby making perfect his slogan “1Malaysia: People First, Performance Now”, as he offers the rakyat a pipe-dream and a pie in the sky!
Sarawakians need to only look at last year to recognize the PM’s play-acting for it was clearly a year of public relations, publicity stunts, political rhetoric, populist slogans and pure propaganda puff by the PM to win over public perception.
Najib’s flagging image was re-engineered by Apco Worldwide, a global public relations consultant (paid RM77 yearly with taxpayers’ money). He was portrayed as a premier who was ready and raring to redeem Bolehland with his purported radical reforms.
But all he has managed to achieve so far is to present to the nation his slew of acronyms, showcase of plans and pledges, and spate of potential privatised projects costing trillions!
His 1Malaysia slogan spun out of control when it was pointed out to him that it is a concept propagated by a Government that promotes and perpetuates a race-based party system – which is the main obstacle to our unity!
Since the introduction of 1Malaysia there has been unprecedented racist extremism and religious bigotry emanating from Perkasa and within Umno and in particular by Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia.
Whether it be human rights or civil liberties, the mainstream or online media, Najib’s government continued to spin its illusory world and Bolehland’s standing in international indexes continued to plummet.
When it came to the economy, Najib chickened out of reforming the “bastardised” NEP and relegated the “New Economic Model” (NEM) to merely a “trial balloon”, as a very pleased Perkasa patted him on the back for giving in to their pressure.
Statistics in 2010 showed that our 2009 national debt rose to RM362.39 billion or 53.7% of GDP, its highest level in five years. It soared to RM407.1 billion in 2010 but the Government said it was no cause to worry!
There was an exodus of money from Malaysia on a scale which surpassed that during the Asian crisis. Malaysia’s FDI plunged 81% and we were the only Asean country to experience negative FDI flow in 2009.
Najib’s “transformation programmes” did not deter the damning diaspora data in Bolehland to rise to a level which he himself admitted has threatened his vision of transforming Malaysia into a high-income nation by 2020.
In 2010, in the midst of Najib’s many pronouncements of transformation, the people (especially those in Sabah and Sarawak) struggled with soaring prices and senseless high cost of living while corporate giants and the PM’s cronies escaped subsidy cuts.
By the end of 2010, the Father of Transformation had only farcical changes, fantasised figures, flip-flops, a frail economy, failing institutions and flawed policies to show, resulting in persitent public protests.
Hopefully, the people of the Land of the Hornbill will put a halt to Najib’s hype, hypocrisy and hogwash by rejecting the BN component parties at the coming polls, thereby paving the way for genuine transformation in the next general elections!
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