‘Misconception created by Chinese press’

Alyaa Azhar| May 10, 2013

Free Malaysia Today

DAP advisor Lim Kit Siang says his statement with regard to a possible DAP-BN coalition was misconstrued by the Chinese press.

KUALA LUMPUR: DAP advisor Lim Kit Siang today said that newspaper headlines in Chinese press were to blame for a misconception that he wanted to form a coalition government with the Barisan Nasional.

“I was told that I have been the target of attacks in the social media for betraying the people. I have done nothing to justify that. The fault actually lies with the Chinese newspapers headlines, mixing two separate issues – first if DAP will join BN to replace MCA, and secondly the separate proposal of a BN-PR coalition government,” Lim told a press conference today.

Lim said that Sin Chew’s frontpaged headline gives readers, who only read the first headline, the impression that he supports the idea of DAP joining BN to replace MCA.

The main headline reads: ‘Lim Kit Siang: Can have coalition government with BN’ while the sub-heading reads: ‘Condition: Accept PR’s election manifesto’.

He said that Sin Chew and it sub-editors should be careful in ensuring that their primary headlines do not create misconceptions.

“They cannot assume that readers will read the full contents or even the sub-headings. You know how it is nowadays, most people only read the primary headline and not the full report,” he said.

He added that to avoid misunderstanding, both the main headline and sub-headings should not vary drastically.

DAP never intended to replace MCA in BN

On the two issues, he reiterated that he totally rejects the idea of DAP joining BN to replace MCA.

“DAP never intended to replace MCA in BN as our objectives have always been to fight for the rights of all Malaysians and never just for the Chinese,” said Lim.

As for the suggestion of Pakatan Rakyat forming a coalition government with BN: “It is only when BN is prepared to endorse the PR Common Policy Framework and the PR manifesto that there is basis for consideration of such a proposition of a BN-PR coalition government,” he said.

The DAP advisor also discussed several proposals for reforms to be made in Parliament.

He urged for Parliamentary Opposition Leaders to be given ministerial status to promote and advance parliamentary democracy in Malaysia.

“The allowance of the Parliamentary Opposition Leader should be comparable to that of a Cabinet Minister, together with all the perks and privileges, including being provided with an official car.

“The elevation of the position and status of the Parliamentary Opposition Leader in keeping with those of a normal democratic country is all the more pertinent as Malaysia has reached the stage where the Prime Minister of-the-day could well be the Parliamentary Opposition Leader tomorrow,” he said.

‘Live’ telecast of Parliament sessions

Lim also urged for an immediate end to the politics of discrimination against Opposition MPs who are denied the annual RM500,000, later raised to RM1 million, development funds allocated to BN MPs for their constituencies.

“Instead of such allocation annually for BN MPs, every MP should be allocated RM500,000 a year which must be used solely for the hiring of research assistants, constituency officers and operation of constituency offices.

“MPs who misuse these allocations should be removed from Parliament. Also, ministers should be required to attend Parliament to personally answer questions and to reply to speeches, unless they have to be out of the country,” said Lim, commenting on how the ministerial benches were often empty.

Lim further stated that it is important to carry ‘live’ telecasts of parliamentary proceedings.

“This would throw a spotlight on MPs and allow voters the opportunity to see for themselves if their MPs are playing truant or conscientiously discharging their duties to speak up in Parliament,” he said.

Lim also proposed the appointment of an Opposition MP to head the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

“In the House of Commons in the United Kingdom it has been the tradition to choose the Chairman of the PAC from the Opposition since the creation of this committee in 1861.

“However, in the Malaysian Parliament, we have the opposite, choosing a government MP to head the PAC.

“This is the primary reason why the PAC in Malaysia had never been able to make the impact made by other PACs in the UK or other Parliaments,” said Lim, adding that the PAC plays an important role as a check-and-balance on government financial abuses, excesses and malpractices.

Meanwhile, Sabah DAP chairman Jimmy Wong said that the recently concluded election showed that “ “there is a strong shift of non-Muslim Bumiputera community towards Pakatan Rakyat.”

DAP in Sabah won two parliamentary seats and four state seats as opposed to only one parliamentary and one state seat in the 2008 general election.

“Assuming there was a one-on-one fight between PR and BN, PR could have won another eight state seats and four parliamentary seats,” said Wong.

Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua who was also present said that a thanksgiving rally named “Himpunan Kesyukuran” will be held tomorrow at 7pm at Padang Timur, in front of the Amcorp Mall.

“People wishing to attend are advised to use the LRT (nearest station: Taman Jaya) to avoid traffic congestion,” said Pua.

Speakers will include DAP advisor Lim Kit Siang, Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah Anwar, Shah Alam MP Khalid Abdul Samad, Tamrin Abdul Ghafar and Zaid Ibrahim.

(note: The Himpunan Kesyukuran has been postponed to May 23, 2013).

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Rais: Decision by MCA to reject Cabinet posts shallow

The Malaysian Insider

May 11, 2013

JELEBU, May 11 — MCA should not have made a decision that reflected its shallow politics by making impulsive remarks, like not wanting to accept posts in the Cabinet, said Datuk Seri Rais Yatim.

The former Information, Communications and Culture Minister said the stance taken by MCA was not proper because Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak was still in the process of forming a new federal government, likewise at the state level.

“There should be consultations, but they rejected from the beginning. This attitude is very suspicious.

“Honestly, we have to say that MCA and Gerakan have actually contributed partly to Barisan Nasional’s loss.

“The internal bickering and misunderstanding or absence of collective stand to an extent that several seats were lost to the BN’s political enemy,” he told reporters after a thanksgiving ceremony at the Jelebu District Council hall, Kuala Klawang here last night.

The thanksgiving was held to commemorate BN’s victory in Jelebu in the just concluded 13th general election.

MCA had announced that the party would not accept any post in the government due to its dismal performance in Sunday’s general election, winning only seven of the 37 parliamentary seats it contested, and 11 of the 90 state seats.

Gerakan won only the Simpang Renggam parliamentary seat of the 11 parliamentary seats it contested. The party contested in 31 state constituencies, but won only three seats, namely Pemanis in Johore and Tanjong Papat and Elopura in Sabah.

Rais said MCA should have consulted the prime minister first, before making its stand.

He hoped that MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek (picture) would consider joining the Cabinet because the absence of the party representative could lead to a situation which could disrupt harmony and the social structure in the country.

“Whether through MCA or other channels, the Chinese community should be represented in the Cabinet. Likewise the Indian community and the minority group in Sarawak and Sabah. This has been practised in BN and we cannot shed this responsibility,” he added.

Rais said he believed that the MCA leadership would consider and rectify the situation.

Otherwise, they would be accused of being subjective and not thinking about the country, he added. — Bernama

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Rapprochement tough after BN’s ‘divisive’ campaign, says The Economist

By Clara Chooi

The Malaysian Insider

May 10, 2013

KUALA LUMPUR, May 10 ― National reconciliation appears a distant dream post-Election 2013 for a country scarred by the “nasty, divisive” electoral campaign led by Umno and Barisan Nasional (BN) in the rural heartlands, The Economist has said.

The international current affairs magazine observed that Umno, to shore up its base of rural Malay voters, had alienated the Chinese and other communities already fed up with the alleged cronyism and corruption associated with affirmative action policies that favour the country’s largest ethnic group.

“Mr Najib has said he wants to be prime minister for all Malaysians. Sadly, however, he presided over an ugly campaign by his… Umno, the main component of Barisan,” the magazine wrote, referring to Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who was sworn in for his second term as prime minister after BN emerged victors again for its 13th general election running.

“In the rural Malay heartlands, Umno was as negative, racially divisive and pro-Malay as ever,” it added.

Adding salt to wound, The Economist said blaming BN’s losses on a “Chinese tsunami” had been unwise of Najib as the vote trend had clearly shown a massive swing in votes from the young and rising urban middle class, which cut across racial lines.

“Casting the election in such racial terms is neither wise nor accurate,” the magazine wrote in one article titled “A dangerous result”.

“Despite professing to promote a multi-ethnic Malaysia, Barisan’s election strategy has left the country more divided than ever, both along ethnic lines and between urban and rural areas,” it said in another, titled, “A tawdy victory”.

The Malay language media also has not helped BN, The Economist added, citing Utusan Malaysia’s controversial front page on Wednesday when it splashed the headline, “Apa lagi Cina mahu (What else do the Chinese want?), in what appeared to be an attempt to shape the results of Election 2013 as a Chinese-versus-Malay vote.

Despite the outrage sparked, Najib came to the defence of the Umno-owned daily, earning himself more criticism for using race to characterise the results of Sunday’s polls.

Opposition leaders and analysts disagreed that it had simply been a “Chinese tsunami” that caused BN to bleed more seats this time, but a major swing in the urban and middle-class electorate that saw Malaysia’s urban-rural rift widen.

Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim blamed widespread fraud and electoral irregularities for denying Pakatan Rakyat (PR) victory, and has kick-started a mammoth movement to prove he has the solid backing of thousands of Malaysians.

A gathering in the Kelana Jaya stadium saw a sea of over 60,000 black-clad Malaysians across all ages and races come together under wet skies to rally behind Anwar and PR and mourn the “death of democracy”.

The Economist said Anwar’s claim was “almost certainly” an exaggeration but admitted that the latter’s allegations, fuelled by those of other civil society leaders like Bersih co-chairman Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan, would only add to the loss of faith in the entire political process of the country.

“His (Anwar’s) claim is almost certainly an exaggeration. Still, the bitterness engendered by the vote will persist.

“National reconciliation, which Mr Najib sees as the way to heal the wounds, looks a way off,” the magazine said.

It added that with BN still emerging the overall winner even after the polls results saw the ruling pact lose the popular vote, Najib now owed it to Malaysians who backed the opposition to investigate the alleged fraud.

“Whether that is true or not, it is certain that the ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional, has huge inbuilt advantages.

“Gerrymandered constituencies meant that with less than 47 per cent of the popular vote, its worst-ever electoral performance, it still won 60 per cent of the 222 parliamentary seats,” The Economist wrote.

The BN coalition won with a weaker majority last Sunday by taking 133 out of 222 federal seats and ceding an additional seven seats to the federal opposition as compared to the 2008 polls results.

Out of the 89 federal seats won by PR, DAP had the largest share with its win of 38 seats.

BN also lost the popular vote to PR ― the first time since the 1969 election when the long-ruling coalition had contested as the Alliance Party.

In his victory speech after the polls, Najib said the vote trend suggested a need for national reconciliation, noting that it had been a “Chinese tsunami” that caused BN to perform worse than it did in Election 2008.

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The new Malaysia

 — Abdul Haleem Abdul Rahiman

The Malaysian Insider

May 10, 2013

MAY 10 — If you are not aware — there is a NEW MALAYSIA out there. The NEW MALAYSIA with a new generation. Before you think this is the young new generation let me tell you that you are wrong. No, the word “generation” is not an age group defined.

This NEW MALAYSIA also not restricted by geographical boundaries. A Malaysian, no matter where is he or she based at, be it Australia, the Middle East, North America, North Asia, Europe or Africa — they are and they also surely will be part of this NEW MALAYSIA.

This NEW MALAYSIA no longer intimidated by tear gas or risk of being arrested for participating in public gatherings.

This NEW MALAYSIA will speak up, will stand up and will walk for miles to be heard, to be recognised and to be RESPECTED.

This NEW MALAYSIA will not accept anything and everything. We will question everything — we will check everything and we will demand for anything that is fair, just and clean.

This NEW MALAYSIA is no longer an idle group. Be it weekdays or weekends. We will be there as long as it’s a good fight. The cause is noble. The reason is clear.

This NEW MALAYSIA is colour blind. No race or religious doctrine can suppress us. No bogeyman. Be it May 13 or what — we fear no more.

The NEW MALAYSIA believes in itself. Thus no matter how you stir the racial sentiments this NEW MALAYSIA will not bite it.

This NEW MALAYSIA is full of love and passion for this country. We believe we can make this country better than what it is today. We believe in fellow Malaysians and we believe in the better future. No manifesto or promises will take this believe away from us.

This NEW MALAYSIA will not stop at paying tax annually and vote every five years. We will be part of the future of this nation. We’ll participate and contribute continuously, consistently and on a daily basis.

This NEW MALAYSIA needs no slogan or idol. This is MALAYSIA and this is who we are. Never mind what the principles of your coalition are. Never mind what your agenda is. This NEW MALAYSIA is here and this is unstoppable.

This NEW MALAYSIA will not go down without a fight. We may fail but make no mistake — we’ll rise again and again.

This NEW MALAYSIA had enough of a comfort zone which is no longer comfy. We’ll all together — hand in hand — make this a better place for you and me and for the future of our kids and theirs.

This NEW MALAYSIA is in love with the country and passionate about its future. So “Be grateful” will not silence us and will not stop us from being vocal.

God speed, God bless — for the NEW MALAYSIA

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 11 May 2013, 8:43 am and is filed under
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The Star and being Malaysian

― The Malaysian Insider

May 10, 2013

MAY 10 ― Nothing is more nauseating than hypocrisy.

After weeks and months of driving a wedge between races in Malaysia and contributing to the “Chinese tsunami” myth in its coverage, The Star has now decided it is time for reconciliation and unity.

So, today, it has a front page montage of many happy faces of Malaysians, topped off with a headline “We are Malaysia”.

Are we now expected to forget the attempts by The Star and its owner MCA to pit Muslims against non-Muslims through its hudud-bashing articles and advertisements? Didn’t they realise that the hudud bashing was offensive to Muslims and other God-fearing people? Didn’t the editors bother about national unity then?

Are we expected to suffer from amnesia and forget reports by The Star’s editors and columnists aimed at portraying the DAP as a chauvinist party and PAS, extremists?

Now that its slavish adherence to MCA’s strategy has resulted in a near-complete rejection by Malaysians, the party-owned newspaper has decided to play the unity card and talk up reconciliation.

Reconciliation, whether by Putrajaya or by its media, is only possible if there is sincerity.

And the starting point for the mainstream media is by giving fair coverage to all. Not salivating that Azmin Ali is causing some furore because he is not in the running to be mentri besar for Selangor, while conveniently forgetting to ask pointed questions about MCA’s continued relevance or why Gary Lim was fielded despite the charges against him.

Reconciliation is only possible if The Star and other media stop believing that a few column inches a day to the Opposition will qualify as being “balanced and fair”. Remember, more than 50 per cent of Malaysians voted for Pakatan Rakyat.

Gimmicks and symbolic gestures will not work. A contrived campaign to promote “We are Malaysia” will not work if you don’t accept that many Malaysians voted for change ― and that includes how the mainstream media functions.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 11 May 2013, 8:25 am and is filed under
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This is a Democracy, You Understand?

by Kee Thuan Chye

Prime Minister Najib Razak blamed the Chinese for not voting for his Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition at the 13th general election on May 5 and ex-prime minister Mahathir Mohamad slammed the Chinese and the Malays who voted for Pakatan Rakyat.

Others from BN and its main component party, Umno, jumped on the bandwagon and said the same thing, accusing the Chinese of being ungrateful.

They all made it sound as if it was a great sin to vote for the Opposition.

What is so wrong with voting for the Opposition? Why is an Opposition set up in the first place? Isn’t it to provide competition to the ruling party? So if people are more persuaded by the case made by the Opposition, why shouldn’t they vote for it?

Mahathir and the rest of them surely can’t be ignorant of what a democracy is. For their enlightenment, let me point out that in a democracy, any number of parties can take part in a contest to decide which one should become the government. And the people who choose through voting are free to vote for any party.

So, since that is the case, it is neither a crime nor a moral wrong to vote for the Opposition. And that is why in a democracy, the ruling party can be voted out if more people feel it doesn’t deserve to be the government any more.

This, in fact, was what happened at GE13. The popular vote for Pakatan was higher than that for BN. But since our electoral system is based on the first-past-the-post one, and due to gerrymandering the Opposition needs to win more votes to win seats, BN came out the undeserving winner.

Ali Rustam, the former chief minister of Melaka, who lost in the polling and thereafter appeared a sore loser, echoed his master, Najib, and blamed the Chinese too. “The results have shown that the Chinese do not appreciate the Government, they just want to change without considering the consequences and what we have done for them all this while.”

Well, what is there to appreciate of a government that is corrupt and continually plays the race card? Even during the GE13 campaign period, its leaders, especially Mahathir, were saying things to demonise the DAP in order to frighten the Malays and persuade them against supporting the party and its Pakatan partners, PKR and PAS.

Furthermore, contrary to what Ali Rustam says, the Chinese did consider the consequences. They knew why they voted for the Opposition. They wanted Pakatan to form the next government so that a new Malaysia might emerge, purged of the malpractices of BN and its rotten system and culture.

And what is there to be grateful to the Government for? If it provides the things needed for society to thrive in, that is its job. That is what it was elected to do. So no Chinese, Malay, Indian, Kadazan, Iban needs to be grateful to the Government.

One more lesson for the BN leaders who are ignorant of what a democracy is – the Government is not the same thing as the party in government. They are two separate things, and therefore voting against BN is not voting against the Government. It is voting against the party that was in government up till the point Parliament was dissolved to allow for new elections. This is an important point that everyone – not only these ignorant leaders – should appreciate.

And even more important is this – BN is not the country. Anyone voting against BN is therefore not being disloyal to the country.

Anyway, Ali Rustam should learn from his BN colleague, former deputy minister Saifuddin Abdullah, who also lost in the elections.

Saifuddin said he did not blame anyone for his defeat. As for the Chinese vote, he said “it was not against the Malays and certainly not about being ungrateful”. He added: “It was more like they wanted to teach the MCA a lesson. Some of (the voters) told me frankly – we like you, but we want to teach the MCA a lesson.”

The Chinese wanted to teach the Chinese party a lesson – that summed it up correctly. They voted for the DAP, but they also voted for Malay candidates from PKR and PAS. Some Malays also voted for the DAP; otherwise, it wouldn’t have won so many seats in Johor, Selangor, Penang, etc. Which debunks the spin that Najib concocted when he said BN’s poorer performance this time was due to a “Chinese tsunami”. Fortunately, he has since been pointed out to be grossly wrong by many people, including BN politicians, who say instead that it was a “Malaysian tsunami”.

Ali Rustam is quoted in Utusan Malaysia, the Umno-owned newspaper that published the offensive article ‘Apa Lagi Cina Mahu?’ (What Else do the Chinese Want?), as saying the Chinese are racist. He might do better to reserve that tag for Mahathir.

Before polling day, Mahathir irresponsibly said that if the DAP’s Lim Kit Siang were to win the Gelang Patah seat, there would be racial conflict. And after the results came out, he blamed the Chinese and said the Malays who voted for the Opposition were greedy.

Why greedy? Because, he said, they were willing to sell their own race.

Is politics about race? In multi-racial Malaysia, should it be about race? Isn’t it perpetuating racial conflict to drum it into people they should vote for the ruling party because of their race? Why are leaders who should know better telling people to vote according to their race?

Why are leaders like Mahathir taking this racist approach?

Mahathir keeps rubbing it in that Malays who voted for the Opposition should not have done so. He seems to imply that they couldn’t think for themselves. He and his ilk must think that such Malays are stupid. But he’s very wrong. They are among the most intelligent people in Malaysia.

And the more he rubs it in, the more he will distance them from him – and his party.

Malaysians who voted for the Opposition, regardless of race, did so following their conscience. They should not be shaken by bullying talk, even if it comes from a prime minister and a former one. They ought to know what such politicians are capable of saying.

Najib now says he wants to be “a prime minister for all Malaysians” and yet he defended what Utusan Malaysia wrote in that offensive article, obviously aimed at causing racial tension. He talks of national reconciliation and yet he doesn’t walk the talk. As I have written before, in my book No More Bullshit, Please, We’re All Malaysians, Najib speaks with a forked tongue. I am repeating it here.

If he wants national reconciliation, he should clean up the system, dismantle Mahathirism, end cronyism, free the media, make the EC and Petronas answerable to Parliament, redelineate the electoral constituencies to ensure a fair fight for all parties in GE14 … and do many more things right.

Otherwise, what he says is nothing but bullshit.

* Kee Thuan Chye is the author of the bestselling book No More Bullshit, Please, We’re All Malaysians, and the latest volume, Ask for No Bullshit, Get Some More!

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 11 May 2013, 2:27 pm and is filed under
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Johor UMNO, all its divisions and branches, as well as Johor UMNO leaders, should declare whether they support Ghani being appointed a Senator so that he could be made a Minister in charge of EPU?

There have not only been silence from UMNO/Barisan Nasional leaders to my proposal that the outgoing four-term Johor Mentri Besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman should be rewarded with a senior government post, there appears to be an officially-inspired rejection of the proposal when MUBARAK, the association of former Barisan Nasional MP and Assemblymen, came out with a statement declaring that those defeated in the recent general elections should not be appointed a Senator or made a Minister.

The President of MUBARAK Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Rahman can only be referring to Ghani as I had specifically suggested that Ghani, in view of his contributions and experience in Johor,  should be appointed a Senator and made a Minister,  and a Cabinet post suitable for him will be Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of Economic Planning Unit, replacing Nor Mohamad Yakcop.

The implicit rejection of the proposal to make Ghani a Senator and his appointment as a Minister has confirmed suspicions all along that Ghani was  a victim of a power struggle in UMNO, particularly in Johor, and Ghani was forced to contest in Gelang Patah to end his political career if he cannot, to use Tun Mahathir’s words, make Gelang Patah my “burial ground”.

The battle of Gelang Patah had never been a personal fight between Ghani and me, as I had publicly acknowledged his contributions to progress and development in Johor in his 18 years as Mentri Besar.

This is why I had suggested that Ghani, though he lost in Gelang Patah, could continue to serve the country by his appointment as a Senator and Minister, as the Battle of Gelang Patah should not be regarded as a zero-sum game where Ghani has to end his political career despite his defeat in Gelang Patah.

It would appear that we in the DAP and Pakatan Rakyat are prepared to recognise talents regardless of party affiliation which is not the case in Umno/BN.

I do not understand nor agree with the attitude that Ghani should be completely sidelined just because of his defeat in Gelang Patah.

I call on Johor UMNO, all its divisions and branches, as well as Johor UMNO leaders, to declare whether they support the proposal that Ghani be appointed a Senator so that he could be made a Minister, and be considered for the post of Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of Economic Planning Unit.

Dare MCA Johor give any views on this subject of Ghani?

(Speech at the 13GE thanksgiving party at Taman Puteri Utama, Nusajaya, on Sunday, 12th May 2013 at 4 pm)

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The nation cried on May 8, 2013

 — Foong Wai Fong

The Malaysian Insider

May 12, 2013

MAY 12 — My brother and his friend picked me up from Saujana and we proceeded slowly over to the Kelana Jaya Museum. None of us were speaking much as it was a solemn and sad occasion; it is like we are going

for a wake… to mourn the death of democracy.

I truly felt how the family of Tan Beng Hock felt when  they were told that their son “committed suicide.”

On the morning of May 6th even pass midnight of May 5th, that was how we felt, “ PR Lost.” The whole process of announcing the result make you feel that they forced it down your throat, “ I said you lose, so you lose.”

How different is this from the way they treated the death of  Tan Beng Hock.

My brother and I, and some of our other friends felt we just have to be at the Kelana Jaya Rally.

PR fought so hard to try to change the status quo for us; how can we not be there to show our support.

Yes, there is nothing much we can do now except the legal route, but showing up in strength is to send a message for those who worked hard that the people appreciated it; and that we are together in this struggle for a better Malaysia for all. That was the motivation for us to be there. It is very much like attending a wake, you want to be with the family of the bereaved to show them that you care.

This is my first attendance to a big rally. I was shocked at the size of the crowd and the orderliness. Mostly young people; by the time we got in, there was only some room on the field, we sat down, and we were lucky in a section wihere the loud speakers were clear so the messages were audible and powerful. It was a sorrowful night.

My heart went out to the PR leaders who worked so hard trying to bring about change. Everyone knew the  Malaysian election system is unfair, and like the BERSIH rallies, which I went to the last two; the solidarity is very strong.

It is the Rakyat versus the election commission; our victory was stolen by a system skewed to protect UMNO and BN.

The MC led very powerful renditions of “Kita Anak Malaysia,” the crowd responded with strong echo of that, it felt like tens of thousands of people calling out to the Gods for justice!

It was an amazing night, and an experience that I will never forget. After the emotional “Negara Ku” the crowd slowly dispersed, but it was impossible to get my brother’s car.

So I left them and started to walk home to my place in Saujana along Lapangan Terbang Subang.

It took me well over 90 minutes to make the journey; and I reached home passed midnight.

Malaysia, you deserve more; let’s not let all these energy and effort end in vain; let’s pull ourselves together and stand up firm against injustice; the Electoral system must be reformed before any new election can be meaningful.

BN or PR, let’s do this for our children. Malaysia deserves respect in the international place. We have gone so far, the BN government has to give credit to the PR leadership and Malaysians for their strong discipline and their commitment to change by peaceful means.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 12 May 2013, 7:36 pm and is filed under
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Silver linings in a GE13 without gold

Bridget Welsh

Malaysiakini

May 12, 2013

COMMENT

The dust is beginning to settle one week after the dirtiest election in the country’s history. Some of the dirt will stick, while others will hopefully wash away as the memory of the election fades.

My earlier pieces have focussed on the questions about the electoral process and impact of an Umno ‘victory’. Here I turn to the effects of the election on the expansion of democracy in Malaysia.

The message is one of strength, not weakness, or hope, rather than despair.

A strengthened opposition

As the results came in on polling day, despite the irregularities, a new political landscape has been created. Foremost, is that Pakatan is a viable electoral entity. Unlike in 2008 or even in Sarawak 2011, this campaign was a Pakatan opposition campaign. The opposition went into the polls together, rather than meeting for the first time after the results or at the seat negotiation table.

penang black rally post-ge13 record crowd 7On the ground and in the ceramah there was more open cooperation among the three parties. While much more can be done to forge stronger relationships and while ideological differences persist, the common bonds were stronger as Malaysia was given the option to choose a viable national alternative.

The two-coalition option has changed the landscape politically, assuring that alternative views will play a role in setting agendas, shaping policies and representing perspectives in governance ahead.

This opposition is now national in scope – it has a foothold in every state and, importantly, more than one party in Pakatan has representation in every state. This national footprint is unprecedented as Pakatan now has a base to build on.

The majority of seats are at the state level, where the opposition has won 229 seats* (95 for DAP, 85 for PAS and 49 for PKR) or 45 percent of the entire state seats up for grabs. The opposition may only hold on to three state governments – Penang, Kelantan and Selangor, but it has powerful minorities in Terengganu, Perak, Negeri Sembilan and Kedah and has sizeable minorities in every state.

The state assembly is an excellent arena to develop experience, groom talent and connect with people. The opposition simultaneously holds on to 40 percent of the seats in parliament, with many experienced MPs.

Diversity Pakatan’s strength

This opposition is more multiethnic and representative, as Pakatan has taken over the inclusiveness banner from the BN. There are more non-Malays represented in Pakatan than the BN, while the majority of representatives in the opposition are Malay, representing the majority population.

NONEUnlike the BN, many of the members in Pakatan are not from the political elite, as they come from more diverse backgrounds while at the same time have stronger professional training than in earlier years. More attention has been spent on selecting better calibre leaders.

The opposition coalition has already apparently been tested, as offers were made at both national and state levels to defect. From calls to the DAP to PAS, and individual offers of funds and positions of power to reps to move across, the immediate impact has been one of Pakatan resilience.

While some of the responses by disgruntled factions such as those in Selangor were unstatesmanlike and not in keeping with what is expected of national leaders, the immediate dynamic has been one of stronger ties. The shadow and shared pain caused by electoral irregularities over the polls, which has affected all the parties, has reinforced these bonds.

In the months ahead, as the opposition parties also head to internal polls this year, strain will inevitably be placed on the opposition coalition with the reality of defections always being present. Time will tell who is really loyal to reform and who are those who are more vested personally in the trappings of power. Strain will come in the form of different ideas and priorities, but time will also tell whether five years of dialogue will overpower the points of dissent.

Learning lessons

The tests for the opposition will be fierce in the months ahead. Most of these will be internally generated. As with Umno’s polls, all the opposition parties face significant challenges internally, accommodating the new representatives, addressing regeneration and resolving factionalism and ideological differences within parties.

NONEThey have to deal with the fact that unlike in 2008 the opposition is not an equal partnership in terms of results. The DAP won the lion’s share of the seats, with PAS suffering the most losses. All three parties gained in popular vote, however, despite the unevenness of the results, and their representation has broadened nationally across parties.

It is no longer fully correct to speak about the parties as representing only one community, as all fielded Malaysians across ethnicities, although the roots of the party identities are still strong and can feed into the differences among and within parties.

Beyond dealing with unevenness of the results the parties also have to address the reality that in some fundamental ways their electoral strategies did not work. The results cannot be completely blamed on the irregularities. The outreach to the Malay lower classes and East Malaysia were not effective, clearly.

The postmortems that will be done will be essential in setting the course for the future, but also affect opposition cooperation. These debates are likely to be played out during party elections. One important dimension will be how much blame will centre on one another.

In this regard there are two important points to share. First, governance issues played a major role in the results. In both Penang and Selangor these state governments gained at the polls, reflecting confidence in performance. The comparatively poorer performance of PAS governed states, especially in Kedah, contributed to the loss of seats.

Kelantan faces the struggle of regeneration and new ideas, and Kedah’s PAS leadership did not inspire confidence, especially among the young in Kedah. It is not a coincidence that PAS lost this government, as it was clearly in the cards well before the results were announced. This is a real challenge for Pakatan ahead, the need to put qualified professionals in leadership positions to govern.

The challenge is especially pressing for PAS. The time for ustaz-dominant state administrative leadership has passed, and this dynamic is difficult for the old guard in PAS to accept, and this refusal at acceptance lost public support. PAS has to come to terms with the situation that if it wants to govern nationally, it has to field national leaders that are seen as qualified capable national leaders.

The second lesson was one of infighting within the opposition. Factionalism has now become common in all the parties, and this contributed to losses for Pakatan – in Kedah, Kelantan, Terengganu and Perak notably.

Umno comparatively was not as affected by division as Pakatan in the final results, perhaps with Selangor the exception. With political expansion comes the challenge of party management, minimisation of rogue factions/inflated egos and improving communications.

Greater reflection on the results, the campaign performance, the manifestos and messaging are part and parcel of any postmortem on an election, but what needs to be appreciated is that lessons have to come from all sides, including the actions of the opposition itself. This is an inherent part of expanding democratic governance.

People’s power

Ultimately, this election was one shaped by the people. Ordinary Malaysians came out in record numbers, guarded the barricades against electoral fraud, watched and reported on the process and stood up to be counted. Their participation was truly extraordinary.

Most voted for change, but many voted for the status quo. In all assessments of the polls, the voices of dissent cannot be dismissed and ignored. They are part of the mosaic that makes up Malaysia, the neighbours, colleagues and friends who are part of the community.

Empowerment and activism were centre-stage in this election. The intensity of emotions and scope of involvement was unprecedented, across the political divide. Rather than work through parties and elites, people decided on their own what to do and just did it. Malaysians embraced their roles as citizens this election, voting and participating like never before across the globe.

As such, larger geographic sections of Malaysia have become more politically awakened compared to the past. A new 505 political cohort has been shaped. This election saw a southern awakening, as Johoreans joined political events in unprecedented numbers, including Malays, and it saw an increased awareness of the young in politics.

The gains at the polls for the opposition would not have been possible without multiethnic and youth support. The awakenings have happened in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and Penang in 2008, and in the urban areas of Sarawak in 2011. They have happened in the universities and on Facebook.

The gains translated into more seats and popular votes for the opposition and have now done so on repeated occasions, as voters once aware became more committed politically. Political awakenings in Malaysia have been resilient to date. Key will be whether this trend continues, as voters recognise their power as agents of change to affect the outcome at the polls and shape the political discourse.

This was also combined with an increased sense of national identity. Malaysians put Malaysia first in record numbers, and openly condemned racism, intolerance and unfairness. In the wake of the elections, the extraordinary character of Malaysians came through, not just in the messaging, but the acceptance of others and the views of others, even at the height of disappointment.

The black 505 rallies were celebrations of community, not dates for division. While anger persists among many, with many gutted by how the election was conducted, increasingly the focus of the anger is constructively aimed on reform rather than on blaming fellow Malaysians.

This constructiveness was even echoed by some Umno members (although only a handful), despite the vitriol spewed by the mainstream media outlets and by the race blame game of some leaders, and this speaks to the maturity and national character of the majority. The days of racial suspicion are on the decline, as the post-GE13 bonds of the Malaysians family are being forged and strengthened. This is a mark of a new Malaysia on the eve of May 13th.

GE13 a new beginning

Politics in democracies are not just about elections. The contestation over power and engagement over issues does not end at the ballot box. In fact, it just begins.

One of the most transformative changes nationally has been politics moving outside of the arena of formal politics. More and more Malaysians are involved in political activities outside of political parties, away from elite politics. This election is likely to only deepen this trend, to move people towards where they can see immediate results from engagement.

The impact will be a broadening of political contestation nationally, a strengthening of civil society and even more political empowerment in local communities. The doors of electoral power may appear closed for now, but there are other doors opening. Other electoral doors will open as well in the future.

These activities will only serve to bring more empowered and informed people to the polls in the next electoral contest and for the battles ahead over reform, especially electoral reform. This will only strengthen democratic governance in Malaysia, as more power will be embraced by the people, especially younger Malaysians.

GE13 offers real promise of change, despite the obstacles in the process itself and the reactionary responses. The steps ahead are outreach and understanding, community building and mutual appreciation. The burden rests on all of Malaysia’s leaders to act with statesmanship, to not forget that GE13 was a people’s election and the voice of all the people needs to be respected and engaged.

The election itself may have thwarted a democratic result, but the mobilisation around the polls and lessons in the aftermath show that the pressures and avenues for inclusive democratic governance remain robust.

*Editor’s note: Inclusive of Sarawak, there are 576 state seats in Malaysia. This means that in total, Pakatan holds 244 state seats (107 for DAP, 95 for PAS and 52 for PKR) or 42.4 percent of total state seats in the country.

DR BRIDGET WELSH is associate professor of political science at Singapore Management University. She travelled around Malaysia to provide her GE13 analyses exclusively to Malaysiakini. She can be reached at
[email protected]
.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 13 May 2013, 12:42 am and is filed under
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Can’t divide and rule, dear PM

 — Fikry Osman

The Malaysian Insider

May 12, 2013

MAY 12 — One week after GE13, you get the feeling that some Barisan Nasional (BN) leaders, especially in Umno, are in denial about what went wrong with their campaign.

Instead, they first blamed it on the Chinese for rejecting them, and then told the Chinese they were stupid enough to be duped by the DAP into rejecting them. In not so many words, the Chinese are ungrateful and stupid.

“Umno was not defeated, in fact it added more seats. If not for some quarters playing race issues, we would have won more seats,” Umno president Datuk Seri Najib Razak said in his speech at the party’s 67th anniversary celebration at the Putra World Trade Centre here last night

“We are not a racist party, we are a party that is moderate. We have been serving other races for a long time,” he added.

One of the harsh realities of the new world is this: you cannot tailor your message to different race groups and get away with it.

Umno and BN tried that in Election 2013 and failed, Umno’s Utusan Malaysia tried to scare people with DAP being the master and PAS the puppet, while MCA’s The Star did the opposite.

The NST, well, it couldn’t do really much because its sales and readership, is shrinking and it could only rely on bloggers for its news content.

And all these newspapers since then have only task at hand, to help the prime minister protect his Umno flank, which despite winning more federal seats and Kedah, however failed miserably in Selangor and Johor.

It lost more in Selangor and also in its home state Johor.

Umno and its leaders must understand one thing, that in order to protect whatever constituency and credibility among the Malays, you have to make sure you don’t alienate the other races.

You do that, and you get your “Malaysian tsunami” on May 5, 2013. The results already show that your divide and rule campaigns don’t work.

That putting the various races in silos don’t work.

People see through that campaign, that you talk in a narrow sectarian way to the Malays while preaching unity among Malaysians. We have become Bangsa Malaysia and such bigotry is not tolerated.

If you want to continue leading this country, believe in your 1Malaysia and be a Malaysian. If not, we will show you the door.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 13 May 2013, 7:21 am and is filed under
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Glad I made it

— Sharm

The Malaysian Insider

May 12, 2013

MAY 12 — Yes, I was there. Why was I there? Without doubt, in the name of SUPPORT.

I had no idea what time fellow supporters were already thronging to the stadium.

In my mind, I thought we (my sister, brother-in-law and me) could get an easy access of car park and we can make it to the stadium.

But to our surprise, we were at a standstill for almost half an hour in our car just about 500 metres away from the Kelana Jaya toll exit. This was at approximately before 9pm.

Everyone started honking and no one seem to be clearing the clogged up toll booth area. What else, to avoid our cars from overheating, everyone turned off our car engines and got out of our cars. The spirit was superb. A mix of people.

Most were in black. What I saw was a true Malaysian spirit out there. We spoke to people as if we knew them ages ago, but in reality, that was our first meet. Cheering and waving the flags of PKR, DAP and PAS. All this to show support to the party we are inclined to.

While walking towards the stadium rather slowly, I heard a group suddenly cheering loudly.

Out of curiosity, I ran towards them and it was Lim Kit Siang brought in by a motorcycle.

Approximately 15 minutes later, Dato Seri Wan Azizah walks pass us, towards the stadium.  Petrol stations turned into parking lots. The little mart at the petrol stations became a super market when the queue was super long, what more the public toilets.

That didn’t fade our spirit.

We walked to the stadium and from the outside, all I saw was a stadium packed like a sardine can. We stood outside to hear Datuk Seri Anwar Inbrahim’s speech, but the cheer by crowd sunk the sound of the speakers as well. Though we weren’t able to listen to his speech, we were glad we made it there, as to show the tremendous support the party has.

The election disappointment was literally washed away just to see the mammoth crowd that cheered together to show support to PKR.

All in all, whatever negative remark that was given on this Kelana Jaya event, I am more than glad that I made it there.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 13 May 2013, 6:33 am and is filed under
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I joined the black parade

 — Pravin Pillai

The Malaysian Insider

May 12, 2013

Empathy is feeling sorry for those who voted for a racist government. Sympathy is being sorry that they aren’t.

MAY 12 — I wasn’t going to go. But as the Facebook messages kept coming in about where help was needed I changed my mind.

I joined the black parade.

Like millions of others I felt like someone close to me had died. I was in mourning. The other side wants me to believe that all was fair and square. That I had a poor grasp of politics, the electorate and logic. Tis’ true, I am less a fan of logic than I am of heart. I believe logic can deceive you. You come home unexpectedly one afternoon and find your wife in bed. She says she’s having a headache. Logic moves you to check her temperature. The heart tells you to check under the bed. Half the country doesn’t have to wait for Rafizi to confirm the fact that they have been fucked. They feel it in their bones.

Empathy is feeling sorry for those who voted for a racist government. Sympathy is being sorry that they aren’t.

It seems, to many, this entire affair was no more than a football match with winners and sore losers. They would like you to accept defeat graciously and move on. To what? Move on to what? Will you see to it that the government you elected makes good on the promises it made? Will you hold them accountable? Will you come to the ground and check that every penny from every pledge has been delivered? Or will you just look out for yourself eagerly anticipating the rewards of having backed the victor.

And while you impatiently wait, what do you tell yourself to feel better about voting for a government whose first action was to incite hatred towards a community that lost faith in the racist, self-serving reprobates.

An idea is a powerful thing. A poor idea a dangerous thing.

The mind has a tough time letting go of an idea. It doesn’t discriminate against poor ideas. Usually resorting to further taunts, ridicule and in severe cases elimination of any opposition to the idea.

Conscience

A hundred courts and a thousand judges cannot absolve you of the guilt you feel in your conscience. It is yours to resolve. It is the angst you feel inside you. The restlessness. The desire to convince or remove from the face of this earth every person who tried to reason with you and fail. Anyone could find themselves in this position. Many don’t pay the full price. The generation following Nazi Germany found themselves carrying the burden of shame from the idea their parents and grandparents so willingly rallied behind. Men and women who could not but know that all was not right, but were not great people enough to drop the idea.

And so you find yourself taunting and ridiculing them further, the sore losers, not realising that the real battle is between you and your Self.

The real losers

Your children and theirs. And generations to follow. The race card will stay in play until the last ounce of power can be sapped from it. Hitler’s influence would have grown too large to do anything about it. You retreat into your apathetic mediocrity hoping that someday soon it will all go away so your entitled kids can come out to play. By now you have learnt to stonewall any remorse while lying to your grandchildren that they may not hold you accountable for the shit of nation you leave behind.

Welcome to the Black Parade

There will be no sorry children. There will be no shit nation. Not until every last one of us is out for the count. And then more will rise. Maybe even your children. Every challenge we face makes us better, stronger, closer. Call us prejudiced and we’ll hug tighter. Call us stupid and we’ll educate the weaker. We, will, persevere. And if black is the colour that we must come under then so be it. Move on with your lives, forget about us. But don’t hold your breath hoping we will give up. Cos you know what they say, once you go black, you never go back.

When I was a young boy

My father took me into the city

To see a marching band

He said, “Son, when you grow up

Would you be the savior of the broken

The beaten and the damned?”

He said, “Will you defeat them

Your demons and all the non-believers

The plans that they have made?

Because one day, I’ll leave you

A phantom to lead you in the summer

To join the Black Parade”

My Chemical Romance – ‘Welcome to the Black Parade’

                This entry was posted on Monday, 13 May 2013, 12:25 am and is filed under
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Kit Siang denies ‘Malai-seh’ slogan, calls Zul Noordin ‘irresponsible liar’

BY
CLARA CHOOI, ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR

MAY 13, 2013

The Malaysian Insider

KUALA LUMPUR, May 13 — Lim Kit Siang today denied that he or the DAP had called for the death of Malays with the term “Malai-seh” during the bloody May 1969 riots, saying Datuk Zulkifli Noordin had committed sedition and criminal defamation with the allegation.

Lim, who is frequently targeted by right-wing Malay leaders as the protagonist behind the country’s worse racial clash in history, said Zulkifli’s remarks were merely lies uttered by a man who voters had rejected in the just-concluded Election 2013.

“After having been rejected in Shah Alam, even by the Malay voters, he continues to tell irresponsible lies.

“Now he speaks about May 13, accusing me of being responsible for the riots and for the slogan ‘Malai-seh’. It is not at all true, I was not even in Kuala Lumpur at the time,” Lim (picture) told The Malaysian Insider when contacted.

The Gelang Patah MP said the accusation was just a “figment” of Zulkifli’s imagination, and explained that the words “Malai-seh” had never been linked to him or any DAP leader in the White Paper on the May 13, 1969 incident.

He added that the White Paper had noted that an illegal procession had been held and the slogan “Malai-seh” was tossed about then but it was never linked to a particular individual.

In a series of postings on Twitter yesterday, Zulkifli accused the DAP and Lim of being behind the 1969 race riots, even as Umno leaders continue to blame last week’s poor election results on a “Chinese tsunami” that was fanned by the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) party.

The controversial Perkasa vice-president, who was a direct Barisan Nasional (BN) losing candidate in Election 2013, made the allegations in a series of tweets sent out on the eve of the 44th anniversary of the riots.

“Tomorrow is May 13… the 44th anniversary of race riots in Malaysia which was the atrocity of chauvinists including Kit Siang’s party which used the slogan Malai-Seh or Die Malays,” he tweeted late last night.

But former Umno member Tamrin Ghafar had already cleared Lim while on the stump of the Election 2013 campaign trail, saying that Umno itself was behind the riot.

The son of former Deputy Prime Minister Tun Abdul Ghafar Baba said he was told by former home minister, the late Tun Ghazali Shafie, that the May 13 riots were likely the result of an internal Umno coup against founding Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman.

According to police records, 196 people were killed in the riots which were largely clashes between Malay and Chinese groups, following the results of the general election held a few days earlier.

In the 1969 elections, the Alliance coalition of Umno, the MCA and MIC lost the popular vote but won the elections.

Lim said he regards Zulkifli’s remarks with “utter contempt” but did not say if he would take any action against the former Kulim Bandar Baharu MP, simply labelling the latter “desperate”.

“If he had said it during the campaign, my immediate recourse would be to cite him for sedition or criminal defamation and a police report can be lodged, or legal action taken.

“Now, I regard this with utter contempt,” he said.

When contacted, DAP publicity secretary Tony Pua said Zulkifli had lost his right to speak on behalf of Malaysians after he lost his bid for the Shah Alam federal seat in a contest against incumbent Khalid Samad of PAS.

The Petaling Jaya Utara MP added, however, that with Zulkifli running riot with his remarks without earning repudiation from BN or Umno leaders, it was clear that the controversial leader was representative “of what Umno is today”.

“Umno is becoming more and more far-right as they seek to protect their shrinking voter base,” he said.

Umno and its president, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, have blamed a “Chinese tsunami” for its losses in the just-concluded May 5 polls, despite several analyses of the results pointing to a urban-rural divide rather than a Malay-Chinese division. While a majority of Chinese backed PR parties, a significant number of Malay voters also voted for the opposition parties, particularly in urban centres.

Since the DAP became the target of Umno attacks, it has been backed by its PR partners PKR and PAS which are largely Malay parties.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 13 May 2013, 3:58 pm and is filed under
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Reflections on GE13

 — SV Song

The Malaysian Insider

May 12, 2013

MAY 12 — I’m not angry because you retained a simple majority to form the government. Given that you’ve been in power for the past 56 years, I didn’t expect your opponents to easily overcome all the advantages you’ve built into the system like the gerrymandering, an election commission which answers to the PM’s office, and your control of mainstream media. I’m not even all that angry that you managed to form the government while losing the popular vote. This situation is not unique to our country, and no election process is foolproof.

I’m angry at how far you went in your bid to ‘win at all costs’. Unidentified voters arriving by the busloads, ballot boxes falling out of helicopters, chartered flights ferrying phantoms to different parts of the country, mysterious blackouts and disrupted telephone lines, ballot boxes appearing at opportune moments, cash handouts near voting centres – all at the expense of Malaysian taxpayers.

I’m angry that civilians had to resort to forming human barricades to counteract your dirty tactics, risking their own safety in the process – while the police either stood by and did nothing, or worse, aided you in your schemes. You, who claim to put the people first, instead, risked the lives of ordinary Malaysians just so you could continue to stay in power.

I’m angry at the way your practices breed fear and discrimination on so many levels. Human nature has its dark side – this is true. But there is also choice, and circumstance. You could have built bridges to help heal long-standing rifts. You could have created circumstances which allowed grievances to be aired and intellectual debate to thrive. Instead, you chose censorship and divisiveness. Your rule is characterised by escalating resentment and spreading distrust. Your rule propagates circumstances which bring out the ugly side of human nature.

Time and again, Malaysians have proven themselves to be a caring and compassionate lot. Whether it be a fellow citizen or an international community, the Malaysian people have always risen to the occasion, giving generously to those in need irrespective of colour or creed. But the last few weeks have seen an alarming rise of incidences involving ‘the ugly Malaysian’ with unprecedented anger, violence and racist slurs against foreigners in this country. The backlash against Bangladeshis in particular is the direct result of your ‘IC Project’ where your henchmen literally gave these foreign nationals Malaysian identity cards in exchange for their votes.

You may blame the foreigners for their lack of ethics, but in no way does that absolve you of any responsibility. More often than not, these immigrants face harsh working and living conditions on a daily basis. They have the excuse of being victims of poverty or ignorance. You do not. Like the drug trafficker who exploits the addict’s weakness, you exploit the circumstances of these immigrants for your own benefit. And like the drug trafficker also, you should bear the heavier punishment for your crime.

I’m angry at how you can blame one ethnic group for your losses and then talk about ‘national reconciliation’ in the same breath. As long as you continue to play the race card, I have no reason to believe any promises you make, and every reason to believe that your regime will continue to be self-serving.

Yet, I have reason to rejoice.

I rejoice because I believe this is only the beginning of the end. I’m not angry that you consider yourselves the winner of this election. Humility has never been one of your strong points after all. You may have won the battle, but you have already lost part of the war. Over half of the Malaysian people have rejected your rule of corruption, oppression and fear-mongering. In most of the states where you won, you only managed a simple majority. In contrast, your opponents received a comfortable two-thirds majority in all of their 3 states.

I rejoice that your opponents gained some inroads into your strongholds. You must be worried that even your ‘fixed deposit’ states are starting to show signs of dissatisfaction at your rule. I’m amused that you hold on to 3 states with only a two to three-seat majority. Don’t be surprised if your opponents beat you at your own party-hopping game. After what happened post-GE12, they have had 4 years to learn from the best.

If there is one message that I have learned from this election, it is about the power of hope and collective action.

The people of Malaysia have reason to rejoice.

We have reason to rejoice because GE13 recorded the highest voter turnout in our country’s history. Prior to GE12, general elections were mostly met with apathy. Those who supported the government of the day were secure in the knowledge that the ruling coalition would never fall; thus one less vote for them would not matter. Those who were unhappy with the ruling coalition were cynical about the possibility of change; thus one less vote for the opposition would not be a great loss. Where GE12 sparked the rise of a viable alternative and planted the seed of hope, GE13 brought a wave of active participation towards translating this hope into a reality.

We have reason to rejoice because we live in a country which is not ravaged by disease, poverty or natural disasters. That we are not ravaged by civil wars is a credit to all Malaysians who value peace over retribution. Our country is bountiful, and our people are full of potential. We deserve far better than what a corrupt, self-serving regime can give us.

We have reason to rejoice because a world of knowledge lies within our reach. We have access to alternative sources of information. We can use this knowledge to stand apart from each other, or we can use it to bring us closer together. We can choose to incite hate and fear, or choose to spread messages of love, hope and peace.

The choice is yours. The choice is ours.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 13 May 2013, 7:39 am and is filed under
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The day Malaysians spoke out loud

 — Harris Nasril

The Malaysian Insider

May 11, 2013

MAY 11 — The rally on May 8 was amazing. I left the office in Cheras around 6.30pm. It took me almost two hours before I reached the LDP toll plaza at Sunway around 8.30pm. Traffic was crawling on the LDP highway. I reached the Sungai Way industrial zone at 9.15pm. People were parking their cars on the highway here as traffic had come to a standstill. I parked my car near the Western Digital factory. A simple check on Google map showed that I had to walk 3.8km to the Kelana Jaya stadium. Oh my! That is the longest walk since my school days! People were already walking from here in their thousands, almost 90 per cent dressed in black. Few of them were chanting “Ubah”, “Reformasi”. The four-lane LDP had turned into a single-lane road. Cars were double-parked by the roadside.

Despite the police warning that it was an illegal rally, I did not see even a single policeman when I reached the stadium around 9.45pm. It was packed like sardines in a can! The entrance was totally blocked. I saw a few people climbing the fence to get inside. Without wasting time, I too climbed the fence to get in. People from inside the stadium helped me up. I also saw a young Chinese girl climb up too and helped by a Malay guy.

The view from inside the stadium was incredible! It was a sea of people in black.
 It was an amazing sight to see that such a crowd could be mobilised in just two days and despite the police warning to arrest anyone going to the stadium. Journalists estimated the crowd at 120,000, making it one of the biggest rallies in recent times. Those who could not get in the stadium also numbered in the thousands. More people were pouring in around 10pm.

The spirit of the people was extraordinary. Most of them were upset with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak for playing with racial sentiments to divert attention from the poor Umno performance in the general election. The Utusan Malaysia headline the previous day also contributed to this anger. I was very surprised with the many youngsters, and they were multiracial as well, joining this rally. Another sign that this election belonged to the younger generation.

The rally ended about 11.30pm with the singing of the national anthem “Negaraku”. It really touched my heart to hear 120,000 Malaysians singing the song together, with one common mission.

I reached home at almost 2am because of the heavy traffic. I was totally exhausted but it was worth it! The people have spoken. They reject racist politics that is been played by Umno and Utusan. We are Malaysians. Once we see ourselves as a Malaysian, we can see the end of Umno-BN race-based politics.

The people spoke quietly on May 5 by voting and they didn’t get what they wanted.

On May 8 the people spoke loud! Louder than ever to claim back what is rightfully theirs. Those youngsters who joined the rally will determine the next general election. When Najib will listen to them, only time will tell.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 13 May 2013, 6:42 am and is filed under
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There to be heard

Stephen Tan

The Malaysian Insider

May 12, 2013

MAY 12 — I was there. I am usually not too active or vocal with regards to politics. However, the series of blatant cheating practices with regards to the elections has made me upset, frustrated and extremely angry.

Furthermore, the blatant accusation made by the PM post elections is totally unstatesman-like. He practically proved to the whole country and world of the insincerity of his policies and so called transformation programs. He does not deserve to be PM, let alone a leader of a political party.

Malaysia is turning into a mini apartheid, or a Nazi state with leaders like this. Superior race in this time and age?! It pisses me off.

Ungrateful for voting against the ruling party? What right have they to rule when they do not deserve to!? In terms of political maturity, I feel Malaysia has dropped below the levels of Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines to the level of Zimbabwe.

A developed nation status means not only income level, but also civic consciousness and political maturity amongst other things. The ruling party has no desire to achieve a developed nation status if they behave as such. They themselves are one of the major obstacles to Malaysia becoming a developed country.

They must be disposed of for Malaysia to move forward.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 13 May 2013, 1:28 am and is filed under
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Umno’s reactionary GE13 ‘victory’

by Bridget Welsh

Malaysiakini

May 12, 2013

COMMENT

The May 2013 general election was a potential transition election in which the BN governing coalition held onto power.

The majority of the Malaysians supported an alternative government, but the incumbent Umno elite, supported by vested interests and years of constructing an electoral system in its favour, won out.

Even with yet another multi-ethnic national swing in electoral support towards Pakatan and more Malaysians voting than ever before, the incumbent elite in power held on, thwarting democracy.

Earlier, I pointed to some of the specific questions surrounding the electoral roll, the placement of voters, the conduct of the election itself and the character of the results, highlighting many of the unanswered questions of GE13.

The process of evidence gathering has begun and in the months ahead many of the irregularities in the polls will be illustrated and investigated.

The contest between truth and denial has begun, with the BN banking on Malaysians forgetting, and for those filled with optimism for change this election, to let the disappointment turn into disengagement.

It is important to step out of the details of the election to identify some of the broader factors explaining the results. The process of understanding is now more pressing than ever.

A review of underlying factors in this election results shows real political strains that are only likely to deepen further. There is a growing battle in Malaysia between democratic pressures for change and resistance to these demands.

This election was a victory for the reactionary forces within Umno against change. Ironically, however, GE13 has the potential to serve as a catalyst for further democracy rather than the change in itself.

Electoral bias

This 44-seat BN majority – which ultimately came down to 22 seats favouring the BN of which more of than these have reported significant irregularities during the election – has to be seen for what is was, the success of a system in fighting for its survival.

Najib Abdul Razak and his party Umno pulled out all stops to hold onto power, myopically thinking little about the long term effects of using these means on Malaysia, or himself.

Most of the attention in the immediate aftermath of the GE has been on the system, drawing attention to the electoral bias deeply ingrained.

The elements of how skewed Malaysia’s system has become openly apparent. The factors have long been identified by scholars – malaportionment (when one vote is not equal to another), gerrymandering (the drawing of lines in favor of the incumbent government), electoral roll manipulation (padding of the electoral roll with phantom voters and placement of these voters for strategic advantage), electoral administrative bias (reporting directly to the prime minister and failing to be a neutral arbitrator of the polling process), control of the mainstream media and more.

Electoral unfairness has long been established.

What marred these polls compared to earlier ones, was the open intimidation of civil servants and voters, especially in Sabah and Sarawak, during the election itself, moving Malaysia’s election from free to ‘partially free’ – if there is such a thing as ‘partially free’.

The systemic unevenness of the playing field has put the issues of electoral reform even more centre stage politically with attention on the upcoming delineation, the ongoing RCI in Sabah that addresses foreigners on the rolls and the election petitions that will be filed.

Bersih’s people’s tribunal will be an important avenue for evidence building. The reality is that without these biases, Malaysia would have a new government.

The dependence on the use of the state to hold onto power is illustrative of the increasing dependence of the elite on using levers of power to shore up its position, rather than its governance and performance.

With a lot of support from ‘friends’

Also in these polls, the BN relied heavily on its ‘friends’ – to use the word termed by the Umno secretary-general. Those carried on planes were ’friends’, those paying for free dinners for thousands and election entertainers were ‘friends’, those giving out money to voters were ‘friends’.

This election brought to the surface the underlying economic relationships supporting the incumbent government and those benefitting from special licenses and access, those with personal relationships with those in power and those who have profited from the status quo.

The opposition made it clear that they were going to review the long-term business deals, and these special deals were to be protected at all costs.

While the primer for the polls is easy to estimate, as this was public money spent in budgets and announced publicly, an assessment of how much was spent in the campaign itself is much more difficult.

The vote buying in this election was rampant, with as much as RM3,000 allegedly paid for voters in Lembah Pantai (who were allegedly given yellow chits to cash in later) to RM20 in parts of rural Sarawak.

The average figure reported was RM500 per voter in most areas on the peninsula, with this prominent in rural and semi-rural areas.

The reports of vote buying are flooding in, but what is worrying this round is that unlike the use of this common practice in East Malaysia and during by-elections, this became a nation-wide phenomenon.

This was practiced even in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, and this was not all party funds, as the private sector played a more direct role.

The political economy of interests and their involvement in the elections is unprecedented in scope and the amount of funding. It is important to understand what many of these private interests represent – they resist opening up the economy to greater competition, they resist transparency in governance, and importantly they are comfortable with the status quo as it benefits their interests and the political elite they are close to.

Entrenched economic interests were party to the results, as they funded the process.  This brings to the fore the serious issue also raised by scholars and Transparency International of a pressing need for campaign finance reform. Too much of the campaign funding is behind closed doors.

Many would like to keep the doors closed and funds hidden, but these funds obscure business relationships that should be more open as they involve the people’s welfare.

Lower class populism

This BN campaign was touted as ‘people first’ – and it was a carefully crafted lower class populist strategy. The focus of the efforts was on Malaysia’s lower income group, those bringing home less than RM3,000 a household.

While race, generational differences, and the rural-urban divides were important in this election (and will be explored later), the dominant paradigm was class.

This campaign built on the weaknesses of the disadvantaged, playing on their financial needs through materialist incentives.

The government lost the overwhelming majority of the middle class and upper classes, the educated and informed, relying heavily on those less informed and engaged for its base. They won the majority of the lower classes, although not all.

The irony is that these lower class communities are in their financial positions by the very shortcomings of the incumbent governments policies, as income inequalities have widened and comparatively incomes of the majority of Malaysians have not significantly risen in decades, especially when one compares Malaysia with other regional neighbors.

Disproportionately, Malaysia’s wealth is increasingly being held by those linked to the incumbent government, the political elite, who used the lower classes to stay in office, especially in East Malaysia.

Racial insecurity

The use of the lower classes is common in right-leaning regimes. One element that distinguishes the more reactionary elements of this system is the use of race, as the message explicitly and implicitly delivered to the Malay community in particular, especially economically vulnerable class Malays, was a racially embedded nationalist rhetoric based on the threat of the ‘other’. The Chinese were painted as the other.

The mass rallies of Chinese supporters in places like Johor were used to stir up fear and heighten insecurity of the Malay community who have long been told of displacement.

Many Malays dismissed this messaging, but others reacted, preferring the known to the unknown, equating Umno with security of their position politically and economically.

As with the economic interests mobilised in this campaign, this election was made out to be a crucial vote to protect the status quo from those who were touted to threaten their welfare, a negative vote against the forces of change supposedly led by a racial ‘threat’.

The opposition was characterised as the enemy of the nation that Umno built that needed to be protected in often explicit terms. The larger the opposition rallies, the more the counter-reaction was harnessed as a campaign tool. The blaming of the Chinese in the wake of the polls was an extension of the race-based reactionary nationalism that has underscored the entire campaign.

Mahathir nostalgia

There was one more reactionary element in this GE13, the Mahathir factor. In many right-leaning governments, the use of the strongman leader is common.

While Najib was front and centre in the campaign posters, the man leading the campaign symbolically and strategically was Mahathir himself.

Openly campaigning was just the surface. What marks this campaign are the trademarks of Mahathirism and ‘old politics’.

Racial insecurity, manipulation of political institutions and mobilisation of groups and money were measures honed during his tenure.

Fundamentally, they were old tactics packaged in more modern expensive trimmings. Najib did not offer anything fundamentally new in terms of messaging or tactics, except the populist commercialisation financing.

Many of those who voted for Umno this election are nostalgic for the old era, an era of strongman politics, where decisions are decided by one man. Over and over again, the Umno voters in my interviews spoke of Mahathir as a hero.

There is a strong undercurrent of Malaysians, especially but not exclusively Malays, who want strong leadership and Mahathir’s endorsement and blueprint in the campaign made a difference.

Many of those that supported Umno did so because they were mobilised by Mahathir and Mahathirism.

Non-reformist minority-less government

Throughout the analysis, I have carefully not stated that this election was an endorsement of Najib Razak. The reason is simple – it is not clear that it was. The Najib factor might have been prominent in the BN messaging, but in the voting itself it has faded in importance.

Najib overpromised politically – failing to improve on the numbers of seats, failing to significantly deliver the non-Malay vote, failing to deliver Selangor and failing to come out of the campaign with a strong mandate in part due to the conduct of the polls and campaign itself. At best, this election is a weak mandate for Najib personally, who now faces an intense fight at party polls later this year. Umno is one of many parties facing internal polls by year’s end, including PAS, MCA, Gerakan, and PKR.

Views of Najib’s ability to win the Umno polls differ, with some pointing to the new electoral process as advantaging him and others highlighting the low numbers and limited electoral gains – despite years of delay and massive amounts of funding – as obstacles.

It is too early to tell how the polls will play out, but signs are already brewing that he is up for a good fight.

He has the challenge of managing many warlords, including Mahathir himself, as his efforts to accommodate many interests in the party now will make the negotiation process taxing and expensive.

As shown by the number of Umno independents who ran, the management of the party has not been his strong suit.

The pattern in Malaysians politics has long been set that when Umno is confident it fights hard internally. Despite the electoral irregularities and bruising with the loss of the popular vote, within Umno this election is perceived as a victory for them.

They are on top, without having to listen to anyone and without having to accommodate any group. They have been given license to continue to rule.

There is no real comprehension that they represent a minority of Malaysians, or fundamental appreciation that they have no substantive minority representation within their ranks. Many could not care less.

The BN as a multi-ethnic coalition was smashed in 2008, but this election it is fundamentally destroyed. Non-Malay parties – now blamed by Umno elites for their own losses due to infighting – are irrelevant, to be used as punching bags for political frustration rather than as partners in governance.

Don’t expect true reforms

This is the environment that Najib has inherited post GE13, one of even greater Umno hubris. Many in the party have no real appreciation that they are the reason for the mass defections away for the BN and the reason that most outreach efforts Najib made however genuine were fundamentally rejected.

Those that understand this are minority voices within Umno, being overshadowed by the race baiting post-election analysis that aims to distract from the discussion of electoral irregularities. Inclusion is no longer a priority now that the election is over.

Neither is reform. Najib has portrayed himself as a reformer, but the election itself, the results and the brewing battle in Umno squash any space for any reforms on both the economic and political front.

It is now difficult to liberalise sectors when the same interests that monopolise them paid for the campaign.

It is now difficult to engage in political reform, when the very institutions were weakened in their reputations by their perceived conduct in the polls.

Najib now faces not only a trust deficit, but a more angry and disappointed majority who see him negatively. He cannot appeal to the electorate for support in any reform effort due to this lack of trust.

He simultaneously faces an internal fight, led by the main beneficiaries of the GE13 results, who see him as failing to deliver and being dependent on Mahathir, who many feel really brought home the victory.

The people are also no longer important, as attention focuses on the political elite. This is another real disconnect in the post-election environment.

After mobilising the electorate unprecedentedly, the focus is not on listening to what the people voted for, but to use the results however constructed and interpreted for elite interests and battles.

Trying to relive the past

It is this sort of disregard that inspires anger, and forges greater disconnect between the Umno government and Malaysians. The perception of entitlement to govern runs deep, as the conception in Mahathir mode is that people follow, rather then lead. The ultimately reactionary element of this election is that the people are unimportant.

The constraints on reform in Malaysia have always been significant, but this election reveals that when threatened there will be mobilized efforts to protect the status quo. The mobilisation efforts however had an unintended consequence.

Rather than buoy Najib to victory with his own mandate, they have galvanised reactionary forces interested in reliving the past, moving Malaysia back to the era of Mahathirism.

Najib faces a difficult path to navigate, as he is still focusing on shoring up his political position rather than governance. He cannot substantively rely on the election results for leverage.

The GE13 election has opened the eyes of many in the public of the realities of the system, and potentially will be a catalyst to widen the differences between those advocating reform and those preventing it. The reactionaries against reform are in the driving seat.

The disconnect between the old politics and new realities will only widen further as Malaysia moves bravely forward into a new political world.

DR BRIDGET WELSH is associate professor of political science at Singapore Management University. She travelled around Malaysia to provide her GE13 analyses exclusively to Malaysiakini. Bridget can be reached at
[email protected]
.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 13 May 2013, 6:56 am and is filed under
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What more does Kit Siang want? At least five things – clean, free and fair elections; Malaysia as a normal democratic country; restoration of rule of law; world-class education and a safe, green, healthy and united Malaysia

Utusan Malaysia today carried its campaign to demonise me as an ogre and monster to a new height when in its main article on its editorial page by its senior editor Zulkiflee Bakar, posed the question: “
Apa lagi Kit Siang mahu?
”, launched a series of baseless attacks and insinuations against me.

Let me first answer the Utusan question: “
Apa lagi Kit Siang mahu?
”

My answer is: At least five thing – a clean, free and fair elections; Malaysia as a normal democratic country; restoration of rule of law; world-class education and a safe, green, healthy and united Malaysia.

If there is a clean, free and fair elections system, the Prime Minister in Malaysia today after the 13th general elections is Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and not Datuk Seri Najib Razak, as Pakatan Rakyat would have no difficulty in winning 125 parliamentary seats distributed among PKR 45, PAS and DAP 40 each with a comfortable majority of 28 out of 222 parliamentary seats.

Even despite the dirtiest election in the nation’s history, with UMNO/BN resorting to three main dishonest and unscrupulous strategies of “Money Money Money”, “Lies Lies Lies” and “Fear Fear Fear”, Najib is a minority Prime Minister winning only 47% of the popular vote while Anwar and Pakatan Raykat won the majority of the 51% popular vote, first time in the nation’s 56-year history of 13 general elections.

As a result, for the first time in the nation’s history, the nation and Parliament will have a Prime Minister whose legitimacy is under a cloud as he does not command majority popular vote as compared to Anwar.

Can Najib and the Elections Commission blame substantial sections of the Malaysian people, in particular the new young generation of Malaysians who feel cheated in the 13GE when their clear choice who should be Prime Minister and who should form the new Malaysian government had been stolen from them as a result of the dirtiest general elections in the nation’s history?

Secondly, like all patriotic Malaysians, I want Malaysia as a normal democratic country, where all political parties and candidates accept the cardinal principle that voters have the fundamental democratic right to choose the elected government for the next five years, where there is peaceful and democratic transition of power through the ballot box, and where a change of government is regarded as a routine democratic exercise and not a national catastrophe, justifying the most dire and threatening of scenarios, like chaos, mayhem and a repeat of May 13 Incidents.

Thirdly, the restoration of the rule of law, where the law is no respecter of persons but would be upheld with no immunity or impunity because of a person is ensconced in the group of cronies protected by the powers-that-be.

If there is a restoration of the rule of law, where the law is no respecter of persons, the former Court of Appeal judge Mohd Noor Abdullah would have been arrested, charged, prosecuted and jailed for making the most reckless, irresponsible, seditious and racist of speeches in the past 44 years!

Why is Mohd Noor getting immunity and impunity for making the most seditious and racists speeches in the past 44 years?

Similarly, why is the Perkasa Vice President Zulkifli Noordin enjoying immunity and impunity for his seditious lies and falsehoods, such as accusing me as the cause of the May 13 riots in 1969?

Yesterday, on the eve of the 44th anniversary of the May 13 riots in 1969, Zulkifli sent out a series of criminal and seditious tweets, such as:

“Tomorrow is May 13… the 44th anniversary of race riots in Malaysia which was the atrocity of chauvinists including Kit Siang’s party which used the slogan Malai-Seh or Die Malay.”

These are downright lies and falsehoods, as I was never in Kuala Lumpur on May 11 – 13, 1969, and was never involved in any processions through the streets of Kuala Lumpur, not to mention the alleged slogans like “Malai-See”.

In fact, former Umno member Tamrin Ghafar, who is son of former Deputy Prime Minister, Tun Abdul Ghafar Baba, had spoken at ceramahs during the 13GE, clearing me of any involvement in the May 13 riots, saying that it was a mini-coup in Umno itself to topple the first Malaysian Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman.

The sources quoted by Tamrin was Tunku himself and the former Home Minister, Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie.

Fourthly, world-class education, whether primary, secondary or university for all Malaysians. At present, Malaysia lagged behind other countries in educational standards for science and mathematics subjects, whether at the primary or secondary levels Our universities also trail behind universities in other countries, as we fail to be ranked even in the World’s Top 400 Universities.

Fifthly, a safe, green, healthy and united Malaysia. I need only mention Johor Baru which is the capital of crime in Malaysia, where no person feels safe and everyone is haunted by the fear of crime – a totally unacceptable state of affairs which must be corrected without any delay whatsoever.

I am prepared to have a rational debate with Utusan Malaysia or anyone on what is best for the future of the country, but Utusan Malaysia is not interested in any such rational debate but only in carrying out the Umno agenda to demonise me.

For instance, Mingguan Malaysia yesterday carried a front-page report about rumours that a DAP official had tried to bribe the Registrar of Societies to get the DAP deregistered – when there is no totallyt truth or basis whatsoever.

But what is shocking is that Utusan could put such a rumour on its front page, creating the most disgraceful record in Malaysia and world journalism, where rumours become front page news.

How low can the Utusan editors plumb to in their scraping the bottom of the barrel to placate and please their Umno masters in the campaign of demonisation against DAP leaders and me?

Utusan Malaysia also carried a report and a commentary on my describing Najib as a “shaitan” (devil”) when I had never done such a thing.

Utusan has violated all ethics and journalistic standards. Can it descend further?

                This entry was posted on Monday, 13 May 2013, 4:14 pm and is filed under
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