Was Psy of “Opah Gangnam Style” brought to Penang for the Barisan Nasional CNY Open House on 1MDB expenses?

I am reminded of the unforgettable Barisan Nasional Chinese New Year Open House in Penang in February 2013 and the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s equally unforgettable public relations disaster when he introduced the top South Korean pop star Psy of “Opah Gangnam Style” asking four times “Are you ready for Psy?” followed three times with the question “Are you ready for BN?”

The crowd at Hang Chiang College field shouted “Yes” to the question “Are you ready for Psy?” but were equally vehement in their shout of “No” when Najib asked “Are you ready for BN?” – a video which went viral throughout Malaysia during the Chinese New Year before the 13th General Election.

This recollection was prompted by the report quoting Najib as saying that every working visit he makes was all for him to be with the rakyat, to listen to their problems and find solutions together.

A  question that is still unanswered  is whether Psy was brought to Penang for the Barisan Nasional CNY Open House on 1MDB expenses?

Probably the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) can find the answer to this question before it winds up its investigations on 1MDB today and tomorrow, as announced by the “cari makan” PAC Chairman, Datuk Hasan Arifin.

In his latest post on his blog, Najib said the main focus of “working visits” is the people, not protocols.

If Najib’s blog is meant to be taken seriously,  then the Prime Minister can make a start by issuing a directive before he leaves today for the ASEAN-US Leaders’ Summit at Sunnylands in California to cut out all protocols like red carpet treatment for the “working visits” of VIPs, especially Ministers and Deputy Ministers.

Why, for instance, should  students and teachers have to line up for hours because of visits by “VIPs” like a Minister or Deputy Minister?

Why can’t a Minister or Deputy Minister visit schools without these protocols?

It is reported that there is a “silent protest” by Kedahans who have taken to flying the Barisan Nasional flag upside down throughout the state to protest the removal of Mukhriz Mahathir as Mentri Besar, particularly in Jerlun, Jerai, Kuala Kedah, Kubang Pasu and Bandar Baharu.

There may be claims that this is the handiwork of the Opposition parties in Kedah, but it is obvious that this can only be carried out by UMNO people as they are the only people who would have access to the large quantities of Barisan Nasional flags.

Has Najib lost his grip on Kedah, as claimed by the sacked UMNO rebel, Anina Saadudin?

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 11 February 2016, 8:16 am and is filed under
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Hasan Arifin is solely to blame for  public doubts about  the PAC report on 1MDB as there was no such doubt when Nur Jazlan was the PAC Chairman

Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Chairman Datuk Hasan Arifin said yesterday that the public should not doubt the PAC report on 1MDB  as the committee members were made up of parliamentarians from both sides of the House, and the public must be confident of the transparency of the report to be tabled in Parliament.

Hasan is solely to blame for public doubts about the independence, transparency and  professionalism of the PAC report on 1MDB, as there was no such doubt when Datuk Seri Nur Jazlan Mohamad was Chairman of the PAC.

Hasan should ask himself why the sea-change in the public attitude to the PAC after he was appointed PAC Chairman in October?

Never mind  Hasan’s “Freudian slip” about being  “cari makan” PAC Chairman, but he undermined public confidence in PAC when he showed a total lack of any sense of urgency and priority to complete the PAC investigations on 1MDB in the shortest possible time – after the PAC had been sabotaged from continuing its 1MDB investigations for four months.

I myself was suspended from Parliament for six months for protesting against such sabotage of PAC investigations on the 1MDB.

Such dilatory attitude and procrastination with  the PAC under Hasan taking its own sweet time to conduct 1MDB investigations  changed overnight after the couple of national and international firestorms ignited by the Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali’s exoneration of Najib of any criminal wrongdoing for the RM2.6 billion donation and RM42 million SRC International scandals, resulting in reports about investigations into the 1MDB scandal world-wide, like Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong, United States and United Kingdom.

There was suddenly a sense of urgency to wrap up the PAC investigations into 1MDB as soon as possible, as  the carefully-stitched story about the innocence and professionalism of the 1MDB, while  remaining intact locally, seems to be coming apart from the spate of international reports which are not under the control or influence of Najib’s image-makers.

Public confidence in the independence, transparency and professionalism of the PAC under Hasan had  also been  undermined by two other factors:

•	Firstly, the refusal to summon important witnesses including the Attorney-General Apandi, former Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail, Bank Negara Governor Tan Sri Zeti Akhtar Aziz, the Chief Commissioner for MACC, Tan Sri Abu Kassim, the MACC director (special operations) Bahri Mohamed Zin,  the Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar and the former Special Branch deputy director Datuk Abdul Hamid Bador and of course the two most important witnesses for PAC investigations into 1MDB – the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and the Penang-born billionaire Jho Low.

Najib is the only person, apart from Jho Low, who knows the ins-and-outs of the RM2.6 billion ‘donation’ and RM55 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals in the past six years, as Arul Kanda Kandasamy is only the latest ‘operative’ to join the ‘revolving-door’ teams of operatives who had been employed to take orders to run the 1MDB in the past six years.

Why is the PAC under Hasan afraid to call Najib?

The PAC under Nur Jazlan as Chairman had decided on July 24 last year that Low Taek Jho should appear before it on Sept. 8 to testify on the 1MDB scandal.  Why was this decision rescinded by Hasan?

•	Secondly, the shabby treatment of the media by Hasan as the PAC Chairman.

Yesterday,  reporters were barred from entering Parliament to cover the PAC meeting on 1MDB.  Reporters had to wait outside the Parliament building.  Can Hasan explain why he has adopted such a hostile attitude towards the media as PAC Chairman, treating the media virtually as the enemies of transparency, accountability and good governance in Malaysia? Is Hasan going to apologise for such shabby treatment of the media?

                This entry was posted on Friday, 12 February 2016, 8:36 am and is filed under
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Hasan Arifin should resign as PAC Chairman if he dare not summon Jho Low to appear before the PAC investigations into 1MDB

One of the greatest sins of omission of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) investigations into the RM55 billion 1MDB is the rescindment of its earlier decision to summon Jho Low to testify before it.

The Malaysian public are still waiting for a cogent and reasonable explanation from the new PAC Chairman Datuk Hasan Arifin why he rescinded the decision of the earlier PAC Chairman, Datuk Seri Nur Jazlan Mohamad, who  announced on July 24 last year that Low Taek Jho would be summoned to appear before the PAC on Sept. 8 to testify on the 1MDB scandal.

But Nur Jazlan was “kicked upstairs” to become Deputy Home Minister in the “purges” launched  by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak on July 28 last year, which saw the sacking of the Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, Senior Minister for Rural and Regional Development Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal, the Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail, the dissolution of the high-powered multi-agency Special Task Force to investigate 1MDB and the four-month sabotage of the PAC investigations into 1MDB.

Najib’s world-class RM55 billion 1MDB and RM2.6 billion “donation” twin mega scandals have proved to be more intriguing than any long-running  television series, having more complicated plots and sub-plots – and we have not seen the end of these plots and sub-plots yet – making the audience wonder who is the Samaritan  and who is the real crook.

At times, there is even the “Alice in Wonderland” quality – bordering on the surreal.

For instance, the whole world seems to know that Malaysia’s  “wonder-boy” tycoon,  billionaire Jho Low, is the main “mover and shaker” of Najib’s 1MDB misadventure, except the government authorities, including the “cari makan” PAC Chairman, Hasan Arifin.

Is this the reason why Hasan is not summoning Jho Low to

 appear before the PAC investigations into the 1MDB?

Jho Low has today hit the world news again.

Last year, the flamboyant Penang billionaire captured the attention of the art world when he emerged as one of the art collectors who “buys pictures over US$20 million, US$30 million, $40 million” in a “shopping spree for trophy pieces” to swing the market.

This time, Jho Low has  created a stir in the  world art circle for selling the works of Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, and Jean-Michel Basquiat  for about US$54 million or some RM216 million,  at “unusually steep losses on at least two pieces”.

Low sold one 1935 Picasso painting for US$27.6 million (or RM110.4 million) which he bought in November 2013 at a price which was 45 per cent higher – which means that Low suffered a loss of some RM50 million for selling just one painting.

Are such “wonder boys” a boon or a bane for Malaysia?

Hasan should resign as PAC Chairman if he dare not summon Jho Low to appear before the PAC investigations into 1MDB.

(Speech at the Segamat DAP Chinese New Year Open House in Segamat on Friday, 12th February 2016 at 6 pm)

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 13 February 2016, 7:40 am and is filed under
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“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting” – Milan Kundera’s quote befits Keningau Batu Sumpah Movement

From Tweets

___________

First achievement of DAP Batu Sumpah movement http://goo.gl/ELlVqW  Oath stone in Keningau to be gazetted as national heritage site (MMO)

I first visited Keningau Oath Stone in March 2010 with KK MP Jimmy Wong (then Sri Tanjong Assemblyman) and DAP MPs Teo Nie Ching/Lim Lip Eng.

I am first MP to raise issue of Keningau Batu Sumpah in Parliament in March 2010, and called for Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on Sabah/Swak in Msia & Batu Sumpah’s Three Pledges.

This led to DAP Batu Sumpah Awareness Campaign – replica of Batu Sumpah in every Sabah village! Kudos to DAP Sabah SA Edwin Bosi and Peter Saili.

Although Keningau Batu Sumpah has come in from the cold – after 53 yrs – more important is fulfilment of Three Pledges of Batu Sumpah.

1. Ugama Bebas dalam Sabah 2. Tanah dalam Sabah di kuasai oleh Kerajaan Sabah 3. Adat istiadat anak rakyat Sabah dihormatkan dan dipelihara.

Three Pledges of Batu Sumpah should become policy, eg. Land for landless in Sabah. Can next Sabah State Assembly meeting proclaim/implement this policy?

Milan Kundera’s quote “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting” – basis of DAP Batu Sumpah Awareness Campaign

——————————————————————————————————

Oath stone in Keningau to be gazetted as national heritage site

The Malay Mail Online

Friday February 12, 2016

KENINGAU, Feb 12 — The Oath Stone here will be gazetted as National Heritage Site, said Tourism and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz.

He said the stone would be gazetted as a heritage object under Section 49 of the National Heritage Act 2005 based on its importance and significance in Sabah’s history, especially in the formation of Malaysia.

“The Oath Stone is indeed important in Malaysia’s history. So, it is only right that it should be gazetted. Starting today, we will start the process to make the Oath Stone a national heritage,” he told reporters after being briefed about the stone at the Keningau District Office here today.

Also present were Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Tan Sri Joseph Kurup.

The Oath Stone was erected in front of Keningau District Office here in the 1960s, as a historical monument that served to assure the Sabahans that their rights to religious freedom, land, culture and customs were guaranteed and would continue to be protected by the Federal Government after Sabah became a part of Malaysia.

 Commenting further, Mohamed Nazri said the state government through the Sabah Museum Department had agreed to gazette the Oath Stone under the State Cultural Heritage (Conservation) Enactment 1997.

“The ministry, through the National Heritage Department, will provide consultancy in the aspects of preservation and conservation, as well as protection, of the Oath Stone, especially during the relocation process and the re-inscription of the text on the plaque.

“As such, we are hoping to get the support and cooperation from the state government in the effort to protect the heritage object, building and site,” he added.

It was reported that the Keningau District Office had agreed to relocate the stone to a new site near the Keningau Heritage Museum, to enable visits from local and foreign tourists, hence turn it into another tourism product for the district. — Bernama

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 13 February 2016, 6:09 am and is filed under
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Withdrawal of sedition charge against Azmi Sharom only silver lining in gathering of dark clouds following Apandi’s appointment – call for dropping of all sedition charges

The only good news in the past six months is the withdrawal  of the sedition charge against Universiti Malaya law professor Azmi Sharom, following on the earlier withdrawal of the sedition charge against DAP MP for Seputeh Teresa Kok over a  Chinese New Year video “’Onederful’ Malaysia CNY 2014”.

The withdrawal of sedition charge against Azmi, and the earlier withdrawal of the sedition charge against Teresa Kok, are the only silver lining in the gathering of dark clouds following the sudden and shocking sacking of Tan Sri Gani Patail as Attorney-General and the appointment of Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali as the Public Prosecutor of the land six months ago.

But this is not adequate, as both Teresa and Azmin should not have been charged in the first place.

I fully agree with Azmi that Malaysians are relieved that common sense had prevailed, but this must apply not only in the two cases of Azmi and Teresa, but also in all the other cases where the Sedition Act been used to stifle legitimate dissent and criticism.

For this reason, I call on Apandi to drop all charges under the Sedition Act against Opposition MPs, civil society activists, lawyers and cartoonist including Zunar.

Furthermore, Apandi should heed the outrage and opposition, both in Malaysia and in international circles, and announce an immediate halt to his proposal to increase criminal penalties under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) to punish and deter  whistleblowers and journalists for publishing information  to combat corruption,  as corruption has worsened under the Najib administration as compared to the Abdullah and Mahathir premierships.

It is  a total mockery of Malaysia’s commitment to combat corruption, elevating it as one of the six National Key Results Areas (NKRAs) of the National Transformation Programme, the talk about “Big Results” in the NKRA agenda to combat corruption,  and the hosting of the  16th International Anti-Corruption Convention in Putrajaya from Sept 2 – 4, 2015 for the government to produce the “Big Result” to make the OSA the most repressive and draconian law in  democratic countries to undermine and even paralyse anti-corruption efforts.

It is just unthinkable that the Najib government could think of such  retrogressive measure after Malaysia had just been named third in the world’s “worst corruption scandals in 2015” and fallen four places in Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2015, and risk being overtaken by China and Indonesia in both TI CPI rank and score within a decade.

The Attorney-General’s Chambers should not take a single step forward to draft proposals to increase criminal penalties under the OSA to punish and deter whistleblowers and journalists from publishing information to combat corruption,  unless the Attorney-General is specifically  directed, sanctioned or authorised by the Cabinet to do so.

The Attorney-General should not take the sycophantic support of a few UMNO Ministers to his proposal as Cabinet sanction and authority to amend the OSA to clamp down on whistleblowers and journalists from fighting corruption in Malaysia, which can only further impair Malaysia’s image in the world.

(Speech at the Labis DAP Chinese New Year Open House in Labis on Friday, 12th February 2016 at 8 pm)

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 13 February 2016, 11:49 am and is filed under
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At ASEAN Summit, Malaysia’s PM Is Foremost Among Crowd of Repressive Dictators

Jared Genser

Huffington Post

02/12/2016

On Feb. 15 in Southern California, President Obama will host the leaders of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations. While the Sunnylands estate, surrounded by acres of lush green desert gardens, is no stranger to more informal diplomatic meetings, one can only imagine how many of the assembled leaders will enjoy trading stories about how to maintain their grip on power.

Among those attending will be Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has ruled his country for 30 years with little tolerance for dissent; Thailand’s military junta leader; and the prime minister of Vietnam, president of Laos and Sultan of Brunei, all of whom rule their states with a heavy-handed authoritarian grip.

And yet, ironically, it is Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia, whose country is viewed as an erstwhile and even pseudo-democratic ally of the United States, who stands alone this year among the sordid lot.

Najib was elected in 2009 and many Malaysians hoped he would steer the country toward moderation, tolerance and political reform. But captured by his conservative Muslim ethnic Malay base, he advanced divisive policies and oversaw a crackdown on civil society, the press and opposition politicians. As Najib ran for reelection in 2013, Anwar Ibrahim led the multiethnic and multi-religious opposition coalition, which won a shocking 51 percent of the vote, handing Najib’s party its worst ever loss since the country’s independence in 1957. Nevertheless, because of extreme gerrymandering, Najib retained his grip on power.

Reneging completely on his pre-election promises to liberalize the country’s oppressive laws, Najib doubled down on repression. He resumed the politically motivated case against Anwar to remove him from the political scene, ultimately securing a conviction and sentence of five years imprisonment on bogus charges. Amnesty International labeled Anwar a prisoner of conscience. Human Rights Watch remarked that his conviction was a “travesty of justice.” And Ambassador Samantha Power recently joined the United Nations in calling for his immediate release.

Najib has also deployed the antiquated Sedition Act and other repressive laws as weapons of mass oppression. More than 150 Malaysians, including students, professors, journalists, cartoonists, activists and human-rights lawyers, who all dared to confront the government, have been arrested, charged or imprisoned.

But even worse, Najib’s government has stoked animosity between his political base and the country’s large ethnic Chinese and Indian communities as well as religious minorities. Last September, a “red shirt” rally in downtown Kuala Lumpur, addressed by government ministers, urged Malays to rally against a purported plot by the Chinese to usurp Malay political power. State-run media organizations disparage Shiite Islam. And despite his claims of moderation, Najib famously urged his ruling political party at a national convention to be “brave” like so-called Islamic State fighters.

These domestic strategies appear designed to maintain support from his shrinking political base and intimidate and silence those speaking out domestically about Najib’s twin corruption scandals — billions of dollars of unexplained losses in the state-run investment fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad and a”donation” of $681 million he received into a bank account in his own name from the Middle East.

To forestall Malaysian investigations into 1MDB last July, Najib sacked his deputy prime minister and four ministers and replaced his attorney general. Meanwhile, Swiss authorities claim $4 billion is missing from 1MDB. And the FBI opened an investigation into money laundering allegations last fall. And then in late January, the new attorney general — appointed by Najib — ruled that the money deposited into Najib’s personal account had been a “gift” from the Saudi royal family but that $620 million had been “returned.” No explanation was provided about the intent of the gift or how the missing funds were spent.

The United States has courted Malaysia as a moderate Muslim country to be a key partner on counter-terrorism efforts in Southeast Asia. And no doubt Obama is grateful for Najib having signed and secured parliamentary ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which he counts as a crucial achievement.

Yet, at the same time, Obama’s muted public response to Najib’s repressive ways, the failure of the administration to examine Najib’s role in fomenting radicalization through Malaysia’s state-run media and the willingness of the United States to maintain its embrace of this particularly toxic Malaysian prime minister has been deeply disheartening to Malaysia’s democrats and civil society leaders.

Conversely, strong American diplomacy in the case of the former president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed — who, like Anwar, is a moderate Muslim democrat and had been sentenced to 13 years imprisonment on manufactured charges — led to Nasheed’s recent travel abroad for medical reasons. Both men are leading voices in their countries against the forces of division and radicalization. One remains in prison.

When Obama meets Najib over canapés and toasts to the vibrancy of the U.S.-ASEAN relationship, it is time for a new direction. Obama must publicly demand Anwar’s immediate release and the dismissal of politically motivated charges for sedition and other crimes facing so many activists in Malaysia. For Obama to remain silent is tantamount to giving Najib a license to act with impunity.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 14 February 2016, 6:46 am and is filed under
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Pakatan Harapan Johor ready to co-operate with Muhyiddin and  UMNO, MCA, Barisan Nasional leaders at all levels in the state on a programme to “Save Malaysia”

The most important messages Johore Pakatan Harapan wants to send out from tonight’s Chinese New Year Open House in Muar is firstly, the three constituent Pakatan Harapan political parties of DAP, PKR and AMANAH are determined to ensure that Johor will be the front-line state  in the battle for political change culminating in the  14th General Election by 2018.

Until the 12th General Election in 2008, UMNO and Barisan Nasional were so cocky and arrogant about their political stranglehold in Johor that they campaigned for a “Zero-Opposition” Johor in the election campaign.

But the political tables have been turned and there has been such a sea-change in politics in Johor that in the 14th General Election, the great challenge in Johor is whether Pakatan Harapan can succeed in toppling the UMNO-BN government in Johor.

The second message is that if UMNO/BN falls in Johor in  the 14th General Election, there is no way UMNO/BN can continue to have the parliamentary majority to form the Federal Government in Putrajaya.

The road to Putrajaya in the 14th General Election must be traversed therefore through the road to victory in Johor!

Thirdly, the message we want to send out to Johorians and Malaysians is that the greatest objective in the 14th General Election is not whether Pakatan Harapan can replace UMNO/BN in Johore State and Putrajaya Federal Governments, but whether Malaysians, regardless of race, religion, region and even politics are capable of uniting on  a common national platform to “Save Malaysia” from becoming a failed state because of rampant corruption and widespread socio-economic justices and a “rogue state” where there is no Rule of Law and those in power can abuse their powers with impunity.

“Save Malaysia” from becoming a failed and rogue state must  now be the rallying cry for all Malaysians, starting from Johor, and I am glad that more and more Malaysians are taking up this patriotic call before it is too late.

The latest recruit to the “Save Malaysia” agenda is none other than the former Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin whose message at the Chinese New Year Open House in Pagoh was the urgent and imperative need for Malaysians to unite to “Save Malaysia” from becoming a “failed state”.

Muhyiddin lamented that the biggest problem facing Malaysia today is an absence of the spirit that ensures that its leaders hold fast to good values and dare to speak up truthfully and honestly.

He called for “the start of the struggle” for Malaysia to recover its greatness, to make Malaysia a great nation, and not a country heading in the direction of  a “failed state” because of rampant corruption and widespread socio-economic injustices.

He said that the most important principle in life is adherence to the truth and standing by what is right.

He stressed that as a Muslim, “never should we defend what is wrong” is a religious requirement.

I am most struck by his specific call at the Chinese New Year Open House in Pagoh on  MCA leaders to have the courage to speak up for the truth.

The Deputy President of Parti Amanah Sallehuddin Ayub and the PKR Information Chief Syed Ibrahim Syed Nor are here tonight, and I am sure they are in full agreement when I say that Pakatan Harapan particularly in Johor are ready to co-operate with Muhyiddin and UMNO, MCA and Barisan Nasional leaders at all levels in the state if they are prepared to speak up for the rights of the ordinary people and the future of the nation on a programme to “Save Malaysia”.

In his latest Facebook posting, Muhyiddin lamented about the widespread “criminal breach of trust” in the country  – “no responsibility to the people and perhaps even no fear for Allah SWT’s retributions”.

He said:

“The mystery surrounding the loss of public funds and national assets will not be resolved, although for those in the know, it was akin to daylight robbery.”

Referring to  Najib’s RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM55 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals, Muhyiddin said: “Tales will continue to be spun to pull the wool over people’s eyes in order to hide the wrongdoings of certain individuals. The justice demanded will not be so easily upheld.

“We know that previously there have been civil servants, businessmen and politicians who were investigated, charged, and later punished for misuse of public funds and corruption.

“But when it comes to the country’s biggest financial scandal involving 1MDB and SRC International, not a single person was charged.

“In fact, there is a party that is blatantly defending the wrongdoings of certain individuals though I know deep in the corner of their hearts, they too know what actually happened.”

There are three subjects on which Pakatan Harapan can start co-operating with Muhyiddin and UMNO, MCA and Barisan Nasional leaders who are prepared to rise above narrow self and/or party interests to work on a national agenda to “Save Malaysia” –

1. Demand for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into Najib’s twin mega scandals
 – the RM2.6 billion donation and RM55 billion 1MDB scandals.

The Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali’s exoneration of Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak of not guilty of any criminal wrongdoing in the RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM42 million SRC International scandals has become the butt of jokes both inside the country and internationally, as it has no credibility whatsoever.

I have often wondered what would have happened to me if I had RM2.6 billion in my personal banking accounts and I gave the same dumb answers as Najib  of not knowing who put the vast deposits into my account and my refusal to explain what had happened to the monies.

Would the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General exonerate me and declare that I am not guilty of any wrongdoing?

Even now, UMNO cybertroopers are carrying out a vicious campaign demanding to know what had happened to the RM1.2 billion given to DAP by Israelis in the last general election  in exchange for DAP undertaking to allow for an Isaraeli naval base in Port Dickson, when the Prime Minister, the police, Bank Negara and  the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission all knew that  the  alleged RM1.2 billion Israeli donation was a downright lie as there was no such incident.

Would I be able to get away like Najib claiming ignorance about where the RM 2.6 billion came from and where they have gone to?

2. An immediate public stand to oppose the Attorney-General’s proposals
 to increase criminal penalties under the Official Secrets Act to punish and deter whistleblowers and journalists for publishing information to combat corruption.

3. Call on the Attorney-General to drop all sedition charges against the scores of Opposition leaders and MPs, civil society activists, academicians and cartoonist Zunar to uphold and respect the fundamental right of free speech, dissen and criticism in Malaysia.

On these three subjects, Pakatan Harapan will co-operate with Muhyiddin and UMNO, MCA and Barisan Nasional leaders both inside and outside Parliament, with the objective of saving Malaysia from becoming a “failed state” and a “rogue state”.

The question is whether there are any takers?

(Speech  at the Johor Pakatan Harapan Chinese New Year Open House in Muar on Saturday, 13th February 2016 at   9 pm)

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 14 February 2016, 8:39 am and is filed under
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Is the TPP really a leap forward for Malaysia?

Shankaran Nambiar

East Asia Forum

13 February 2016

Malaysia’s leadership must be extremely satisfied on two counts: their success in negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement and the parliament’s favourable position on the agreement.

It is amazing that Malaysia has negotiated to preserve the Bumiputera agenda, obtain a minimum five-year grace period to reform state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and gain exemption for Khazanah from investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions for two years after the deal comes into force.

There were fears that the TPP would necessitate the dismantling of SOEs, prise open the government procurement market and cause the whittling down of the Bumiputera agenda. Those anxieties are unfounded. The TPP has turned out to be an agreement where the Malaysian government can have its cake and eat it too.

While maintaining the Bumiputera agenda may be a victory of sorts in the short term, it reduces the impetus for drastic economic reforms. The push towards greater private sector participation, in particular, will be further postponed. Economic efficiency may have been sacrificed in an effort to appease a significant domestic political constituency. The TPP negotiations presented a trade-off between obtaining political support for the agreement and striving to achieve efficiency and greater social welfare gains. It seems that the end result tilted in favour of the former.

Many of the criticisms of the TPP that have been raised do not trouble the government. The government seems to believe that the ISDS clause is not a cause for concern. This is because it considers ISDS to be a standard addition to many free trade agreement packages. And the government has had experience from previous encounters with ISDS both in its favour and against it. Legitimately or otherwise, it thinks it has enough expertise to handle such disputes.

With regard to pharmaceuticals, Malaysia’s existing patent period and data exclusivity provisions are already the same as that of the TPP. But Malaysia will have to change its laws to comply with the TPP on biologics. On the face of it Malaysia appears to be on safe ground. Yet the Jordanian experience is deeply worrying: the prices of medicines in Jordan went up by as much as 20 per cent after its trade agreement with the United States.

International experience on intellectual property rights and the games that multinational pharmaceutical companies play has been a cause for concern. Yet, surprisingly, the Malaysian Organisation of Pharmaceutical Industries does not think that the TPP will have an impact on this sector. Hopefully, their assessment is correct. In any case, the government should take measures to improve the national healthcare system. The government should upgrade access to medicines and healthcare. And it should not shirk its responsibility of bearing the burden of healthcare costs, with or without the TPP.

One issue where both critics and supporters of the TPP agree is on Malaysia’s questionable readiness to take advantage of its exports. Many of Malaysia’s key sectors are low on value-addition. There are few sectors that are export-oriented, have high value-added contributions and are also technologically sophisticated. So Malaysia will not be able to wage a strong competitive war to increase the industrial value-added that would benefit domestic stakeholders. But this is a structural problem, a phenomenon that describes the nature of the economy. It does not apply specifically to the TPP.

There is also little doubt that the rate of growth of imports would likely be faster than exports post-TPP implementation. There are two reasons for this: the removal of impediments to trade would encourage greater imports, and with growing exports there would be a need to import more intermediate goods.

By seeking to join the TPP, Malaysia has signalled its reluctance to take on a leadership position with ASEAN. Vietnam, Brunei and Singapore are in the TPP. And Indonesia and the Philippines have expressed interest in joining. ASEAN being as loose an organisation as it is, and with members not being firmly and exclusively committed to it, Malaysia has opted to exploit its first-mover advantage.

Malaysia is confident that it can enjoy the best of both worlds by being in the US-led TPP and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. If Malaysia did not join the TPP, impelled by its loyalty to the notion of ASEAN centrality, it would be disadvantaging itself when additional ASEAN members participate in the TPP in future. The threat of being the last entrant into the TPP must have weighed heavily on the government’s strategy.

Malaysia’s membership in the TPP does not imply that is shifting away from China and moving closer to the United States. Much like Singapore, Malaysia will spread both its wings, courting the United States and China, extending concessions to both in equal measure, or as opportunities arise, regardless of their source.

Malaysia remains today, as it did 25 years ago: a nation that is dependent on trade and investment. It does not have the advantage of a huge market, a surplus of high-tech skills or cheap labour. Malaysia is, in a manner of speaking, a price-taker. There are adjustments that it must make as part of this process. That will include changes to domestic laws, especially with regard to labour and intellectual property rights, issues that the opposition party will rightly question.

The TPP is not the gold standard it was touted to be: major concessions have been made. Anybody who thought that the TPP would trigger a domestic reform process in Malaysia will be disappointed. The TPP may not turn out to be such a game changer after all. But, without the TPP, trade and investment might be diverted to Vietnam and Singapore. At least, Malaysia can now rest in the comfort that that will not happen.

Dr Shankaran Nambiar is author of The Malaysian Economy: Rethinking Policies and Purposes. He is also a senior research fellow at the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 15 February 2016, 9:31 pm and is filed under
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Mismanagement, waste, and corruption in Malaysia’s public universities

by Murray Hunter | 15th February 2016

Asian Correspondent

MALAYSIAN public universities have dropped in the Times Higher Education University Rankings over the last few years. Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) made 87th position in 2013, but as of 2015, no Malaysian university made the top 100 Asian rankings.

Malaysian public universities have also shown mixed results in other rankings like the QS rankings, where three Malaysian universities had slight rises in their rankings, while Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), International Islamic Universiti Malaysia (IIUM), and Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), all slipped in rankings from previous years. No Malaysian university made the top 100. According to the QS ranking profiles, Malaysian universities have lost significant ground in academic reputation and tend to be weak in research, where no Malaysian university reached the top 400.

Public Universities Vice-Chancellor/Rector Committee chairman Dr. Kamarudin Hussin, who is also vice chancellor of Universiti Malaysia Perlis (Unimap) claims that the ranking methodologies favour older, more established universities. Yet many universities within the THES top 100 Asian universities were established relatively recently. Hong Kong University of Science and technology, ranked 7th, was established in 1980, Nanyang Technological University, ranked 10th, was set up in 1981, and Pohang University of Science and Technology, ranked 11th, was established in 1986.

When comparing performance to Malaysia’s neighbour, Thailand, King Mongkut’s University of Technology, established in 1960 made 55th place, and Mahidol University came in with a 91st placing.

In addition, a number of universities from countries which are not democratically governed like Sharif University of Technology (43, Iran), Isfahan University of Technology (61, Iran), Iran University of Science and Technology (69), King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (71, Saudi Arabia), and King Saud University (72, Saudi Arabia), all made the THES top 100 Asian university rankings last year.

Dr Kamarudin accepts that Malaysian universities have “many issues that must be resolved….(and) there are plenty of oversights that must be fixed”. However, unfortunately, he didn’t mention what they are, or offer any solutions.

World Bank economist Dr Frederico Gil Sander agrees with Kamarudin’s comment that the “stakes are high”, when he says that the poor state of Malaysia’s education system is more alarming than the country’s public debt. The talent needed to develop the Malaysian economy is not being produced.

Probably the tone used by Dr Kamarudin used in his article hints at the first problem with Malaysian public universities. That is, the view of authority over the rest. Kamarudin asserts that ‘academic freedom’ exists, yet this should be subject to the views of the ‘so called’ majority’, which could be read as authority. In August last year, he was one of the strongest opponents of students attending the Bersih 4 rally, threatening disciplinary action, such as suspension or even expulsion of students who attended from university.

Suppressing independent thought is counterproductive to creativity, critical thinking, and problem solving, the very mindset that Malaysian universities should be developing. Among the characteristics of society required for progression are people who are knowledgeable and have the right to choose.

This attitude by university leaders doesn’t appear to be isolated. Hazman Baharom called their attitude ‘aristocratic’, in reference to the partisan political leanings of Professor Sahol Hamid Abu Bakar, former vice Chancellor of Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM). This institutional arrogance can be seen in the proposal to educate students about the ills of ISIS. The underlying assumption being that Malaysian students are easily led and cannot think for themselves.

Malaysian universities begin to lose the plot where their leaders are glorified with unnecessary ceremonies that make a mockery of academia, and tend to dominate the persona of universities, rather than act as facilitators for people to excel.

This leads to a lot of unnecessary expenses such as lavish dinners with highly paid entertainers to celebrate this event and that event, this award and that award. Some of these dinners are very extravagant at some universities costing up to hundreds of thousands of ringgit. Vice chancellors make lavish trips both domestically and internationally, where the benefits of these trips to the university have not been scrutinized, except for MOUs that are never acted upon.

This is in a time when university budgets are being slashed, the minister has directed university management to be frugal with spending and seek funds outside government allocations, and the public are suffering economic hardships through the economic downturn, GST, and depreciated ringgit.

The waste goes much further. Within the few parts of the Malaysian Auditor General’s report that is released to the public, the 2012 report cited Universiti Malaysia Sabah’s (UMS) mishandling of its computerized maintenance management system. After spending RM400,000 (US$96,100) on the system between 2008 and 2012, the auditor general found that data was not keyed into the system and the person responsible for managing the system had no IT knowledge.

The cost of three building projects ballooned 8.9 percent at Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM) due to delays and inexperience of the contractor.

The auditor general further found at Universiti Malaysia Perlis (Unimap) that funding allocations didn’t take into account the basic needs of students in the planning and construction of its main campus. Despite RM438.64 million (US$105.5 million) allocated for setting up Unimap under the 8th Malaysian Plan, only 25 percent of these campus plans have been completed, which university management blamed on budget constraints.

What is even more startling according to the AGs report is that Unimap made the first payment to the contractor working on the permanent campus before the contract was fully negotiated and signed. The report further states that workmanship is extremely poor, where cement in many places is cracking and crumbling, roads and parking areas where inappropriate, and much of the equipment supplied is not functioning.

According to the AGs report from 2002 to 2012 the university has no hostels of its own, and has been renting them and ferrying students to campus instead, which cost RM138.4 million. As of 2015, Unimap entered into an arrangement with the Proven Group of Companies to supply additional privately owned accommodation at Titi Tinggi, some 35kms from Kangar and 40kms from the main campus at Ulu Pauh. Details of this agreement have never been made public, but Unimap will pay rent for 15 years for the use of this accommodation, but ownership will remain private after this period.

The Unimap-Proven venture is contrary to the Education Ministry’s vision of universities earning income through hostel rental to students. Thus in the medium to long term the university will be restricted in the ways it can earn revenue to fund future budget cuts.

Similar issues exist at Universiti Malaysia Kelantan (UMK) where the lack of student accommodation has led to severe overcrowding at hostels.

Mismanagement and waste is one issue, but outright corruption is another.

If one has spent any significant time within Malaysian academia, stories about corruption within the institution will no doubt arise. However, most, if not all of these remain hearsay, as there are few reports of corruption to higher authorities and very few charges are ever made, with no convictions made in this area.

University staff tend to be fearful of their superiors, most are extremely hesitant to speak out and whistle-blow on their peers and superiors. In an interview with a state director of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, the writer was told that the MACC would provide a neutral and discrete place for those who wanted to remain anonymous and report corruption. However, those few that came forward faced hurdles with the MACC that were almost insurmountable, such as being requested to file a police report which would jeopardize anonymity.

A major problem is the leadership of Malaysia’s public universities today. Vice chancellors tend to be domineering, not allowing too much room for dissent from their own faculty and university members. Often, staff are selected upon loyalty rather than merit, breeding a culture of gratitude within their institutions. Strong vice chancellors can browbeat the university board, and senate, getting their own way on operational issues, due to the transitory nature of university boards.

Universities within Malaysia have become dominated by vice chancellors who are intent on micromanaging their universities. The strong power-distance relationships that develop between the leader and subordinates in Malaysia is powerful enough to destroy many of the management checks and balances that exist to prevent mis-management and even abuse of power.

It’s time to re-organize Malaysian public universities from the top down. Not only is new leadership needed, but heavy reform of the university organization so that these institutions should function how they are really meant to. All importantly, vision beyond self-glorification is desperately needed by public university leadership.

Make this change and Malaysian universities will very quickly feature in the top 100 Asian university rankings again.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 15 February 2016, 6:04 pm and is filed under
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What other intellectual and mental prowess and feats are University of UMNO “graduates” capable of?

In the last two days, “graduates” of University of UMNO have been showing off their intellectual and mental prowess and feats.

The first was the  new UMNO information chief, Tan Sri Annuar Musa who  declared that the RM2.6 billion donation deposited into Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s personal banking account is “not a big sum” to face one general election.

Can Annuar share with ordinary Malaysians who do not have benefit of being ”graduates” of University of UMNO  what would be “a big sum” to face one general election in Malaysia  – RM50 billion, RM100 billion or RM200 billion?

Malaysia’s election laws stipulate that the maximum expenditure legally permissible for a parliamentary candidate is RM200,000 while the maximum legal expenditure for a State Assembly candidate is RM100,000.

With 222 Parliamentary seats and 505 State Assembly seats contested in the 13th General Elections, this meant that the maximum election expenditures permitted by Malaysian election laws came to RM44.4 million by all UMNO/BN’s 222 Parliamentary candidates and RM50.5 million by the 505 UMNO/BN State Assembly candidates, or a total of RM94.9 million – just short of RM100 million!

The  RM2.6 billion “donation” to Najib is 26 times more than the legally permissible election expenditures for all the 222 Parliamentary and 505 State Assembly candidates from UMNO/Barisan Nasional.

But this is clearly only “chicken-feed” for fighting one general election as far as the new UMNO Information chief is concerned.

Annuar  also exhibited another attribute which must be inculcated into  University of UMNO “graduates” – not to believe in what top government officials, like the Attorney-General, say publicly, like Najib having returned RM2.03 billion to the “donor”.

Annuar regards the Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali’s claim that Najib had returned RM2.03 billion in August 2013 as nothing but a “tall tale” as no documents have been produced to verify it, or Anuar would not have focussed on  RM2.6 billion as “not a big sum” to fight one general election.

Actually, even if RM2.03 billion had been returned to the mysterious “donor”, some RM570 million would have remained which would be six times more than the legally maximum expenditure of RM94.9 million for all parliamentary and state assembly candidates by UMNO/BN in one general election – but which clearly is only “chicken-feed of chickenfeed” in the vistas of University of Malaya “graduates”.

If it is of any consolation to Annuar,  not only the overwhelming majority of Malaysians, but the world, agree with him  that without evidence, Apandi’s story that RM2.03 billion had been returned by Najib to the mysterious “donor”  is nothing but a fairy tale!

The second University of UMNO “graduate” to jump into the ring is the Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Senator Datuk Dr. Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki who wants action to be taken against food outlets which mislead Muslims with their “pork-free” labelling to mean halal.

I can understand the consternation all round as to how  Asyraf can make the intellectual leap to assume that the term “pork free” means “halal” when the term “pork free” simply means what it says and says what it means – that it does not supply pork meat, nothing more nothing less!

University of UMNO “graduates” must have been inculcated with the unique capability to make such  an intellectual leap in their logic and thinking as far as the term “pork-free” is concerned and still be very comfortable with having a Prime Minister and a government mired in the  world-class RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM55 billion  1MDB twin mega scandals, claiming that the  Malaysian government stands for a policy of  zero-tolerance for corruption – despite being named third in the world’s “worst corruption scandal in 2015” and Malaysia falling four places in Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2015!

What other intellectual and mental prowess and feats are University of UMNO “graduates” capable of?

                This entry was posted on Monday, 15 February 2016, 4:38 pm and is filed under
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Malaysia: The 1MDB money trail

Michael Peel and Jeevan Vasagar

Financial Times

February 15, 2016

The chief executive of BSI, the Swiss private bank, was jubilant about its foray into Asia. So much so that he wrote to a star employee in Singapore who had helped lead the effort. “I wanted to personally thank you for your immense contribution not only to the growth of our new Asia business, but to BSI Group as a whole,” enthused the December 2011 letter from Alfredo Gysi, who is now BSI’s honorary chairman.

What a difference four years makes. Today that same bank official in Singapore, Yak Yew Chee, is battling a criminal investigation by the city-state’s authorities on suspicion that he benefited “from criminal conduct”.

At issue are transactions allegedly linked to the very company that helped him earn his boss’s gratitude and more than S$27m ($19m) in pay and bonuses since 2011: Malaysia’s 1MDB state investment fund, which is at the centre of a growing international scandal over claims of the misappropriation of billions of dollars. Mr Yak denies wrongdoing. BSI declined to comment, other than to say it would co-operate with the authorities, when and if requested.

The letter was part of a bundle of documents disclosed this month that undermined the Malaysian government’s effort to contain the 1MDB scandal.

The papers emerged after Mr Yak began proceedings to transfer money back to Singapore to pay tax and legal bills. He withdrew the claim after authorities agreed to allow him to bring in funds. The case came a week after Swiss authorities said their investigations into suspected bribery involving former 1MDB officials and others had found “serious indications” that $4bn — earmarked for development projects — had been misappropriated from Malaysian state companies.

At the same time Najib Razak, Malaysia’s prime minister, is under pressure to explain the $680m that ended up in his personal bank account, officially from the Saudi royal family. The prime minister says it was a political contribution and denies it is linked to 1MDB. The revelation of the payment, however, has rocked Southeast Asia’s third-largest economy and threatens the near six-decade rule of the governing United Malays National Organisation.

It is not just a matter of domestic politics. The impact of the cases is being felt way beyond Malaysia’s borders due to the amount of money allegedly involved and its scope. The parties said to be affected include foreign officials, leading banks and offshore financial centres, with transactions stretching from Kuala Lumpur to the Cayman Islands and from Abu Dhabi to New York.

1MDB has become a test of regulators’ ability, and desire, to penetrate a web of dealings that take full advantage of the privacy and cross-border complexity available in the global financial system. It is also being seen as a measure of how well authorities deal with cases of suspected grand corruption. Laws have been tightened worldwide to force regulators and companies to gather more ownership information, in the wake of scandals such as the looting of billions of dollars from Nigeria by General Sani Abacha, the late dictator.

“Do the banks in the 1MDB case have that information — and do the authorities have the political will to investigate this properly?” asks Prof Jason Sharman, a governance specialist at Australia’s Griffith University. “The other thing is, if the transactions were as suspicious as they look, what the hell were the banks doing accepting the money?”

Growth plan

At the heart of the 1MDB affair are two overlapping failures of governance: in Malaysia, where political power has increasingly been centralised; and in the global financial architecture, where it appears that opaque corporate structures remain open to abuse.

The country’s politics have long been greased with money — cash handouts to voters are a standard tactic at election time — while political power is concentrated in the hands of a small network. The prime minister is also head of the finance ministry, an unusual combination of roles, which has been the norm in Malaysia since the era of Mahathir Mohamad, the long-ruling premier who modernised the country while also holding it in an authoritarian grip.

1MDB was born out of a resurgent appetite for emerging markets following the global financial crisis. Launched in 2009, it benefited, along with other parts of Malaysia’s economy, from capital inflows as central banks in industrialised states took extraordinary measures to rescue the global financial system. Originally a regional wealth fund, 1MDB was taken over and renamed by the finance ministry. It is a project closely linked with the dapper Mr Najib, who still chairs its advisory board.

The official aim was for 1MDB to make investments that promoted economic growth, but with a twist: unlike most sovereign wealth funds, it did not start with a big pile of cash. From the outset, 1MDB’s business model was built on raising debt to acquire assets, ranging from power generation to land, with some of the property being given to it at nominal prices by the government.

Goldman Sachs was heavily involved in the capital raising and arranged three bond sales in 2012 and 2013 for the fund, including a transaction in which it collected a fee worth nearly $300m on a $3bn issue. The Wall Street bank has denied any wrongdoing. 1MDB’s debts ballooned — rising to more than $11bn by March 2014, the last financial snapshot available — amid questions over both the fate of the money and the fund’s ability to pay the interest on its loans.

The Swiss authorities suspect criminal conduct via a “systematic course of action carried out by means of complex financial structures”, relating to five companies linked to 1MDB. Two of the businesses referred to directly or indirectly — Aabar Investments, the Abu Dhabi state investment vehicle, and PetroSaudi, an oil company — had joint ventures with the Malaysian fund. The Swiss did not say that either PetroSaudi or Aabar were themselves under investigation. PetroSaudi has denied any wrongdoing and says it is not being probed. Aabar also denies wrongdoing and is awaiting the results of a review of its 1MDB entanglements by Ipic, its parent company.

Key developments

2009

April Najib Razak becomes Malaysia’s prime minister

September The newly created 1MDB announces launch of $2.5bn joint venture with PetroSaudi International

2012

1MDB issues two $1.75bn bonds to buy power assets from Tanjong Energy and Genting Group

2013

March 1MDB issues $3bn bond to fund a joint venture with Aabar Investments of Abu Dhabi.

May Mr Najib’s United Malays National Organisation retains power after controversial general election in which opposition alleges ballot-rigging

2014

March 1MDB’s debts climb above $11bn

2015

1MDB announces the sale of about $4bn of assets to deal with cash flow and debt crisis

July Reports emerge that Mr Najib received transfers of $680m from unnamed foreign donors in his personal bank account. He denies wrongdoing

2016

January Swiss investigators reveal ‘serious indications’ that $4bn has been misappropriated from Malaysian state companies

The PetroSaudi venture illustrates the opaque nature of the 1MDB money trail. When the venture was ended in 2012, 1MDB used its share of the proceeds to buy investments purportedly worth more than $2.3bn in a Cayman Islands-registered fund that had been incorporated just a month earlier. KPMG, 1MDB’s auditor, raised concerns about the Cayman Islands investment, according to a draft report by Malaysia’s auditor-general completed last year. 1MDB later sacked KPMG. Neither the fund nor the accounting firm have commented on the episode.

International scope

Many of the transactions suspected of being linked to 1MDB that are under investigation are said to have been routed through international banks. A small portion was sent to accounts held in Switzerland by former Malaysian and UAE public officials, according to Swiss investigators.

Singapore is investigating possible money laundering offences and has frozen at least 12 bank accounts. The US justice department is scrutinising New York luxury property sales suspected of being linked to the 1MDB scandal and is also probing the $680m payment to Mr Najib.

The 1MDB affair has come to light at a time when global regulators are taking a sterner view of the theft of state assets. In particular, Switzerland — still criticised by many over the high levels of privacy in its banking system — claims it is now vigorous in tracking down and returning stolen funds.

Domestically, the prime minister’s tight grip on power allows him to defy his foes. His government last year forced a succession of critics and people involved in 1MDB-related investigations from their posts. They included Muhyiddin Yassin, the deputy premier, and Gani Patail, the attorney-general, who retired suddenly on ill-health grounds. Several members of parliament’s public accounts committee were promoted to government jobs, stalling their investigation.

Newspapers were suspended, opposition MPs banned from travel and two people who had been lobbying for foreign investigations of the case were detained and later released. The central bank announced last year it had called for criminal prosecution of 1MDB, only to be overruled by Mohamed Apandi Ali, the new attorney-general.

National security legislation, rushed through parliament in December, allows the prime minister to suspend restraints on police powers under certain conditions. Even social media, one of the few remaining outlets for dissent, is being monitored. Malaysian police recently tweeted a warning to an artist who posted a caricature of Mr Najib in clown’s make-up.

“Najib is like the emperor with no clothes,” says Tian Chua, an opposition MP. “People are afraid that their heads will be chopped off, so they just keep quiet and praise the emperor.”

Arul Kanda, a Malaysian banker who had worked in Abu Dhabi and London, was appointed as 1MDB’s president last year to deal with its cash flow and debt problems. He has launched a multibillion-dollar fire-sale of many of its main power and property assets.

The government and 1MDB insist the allegations are false and politicised while the attorney-general appointed by Mr Najib delivered what seemed to be the coup de grâce against the premier’s enemies. He cleared him of wrongdoing over the case of the payment to his bank account, and Mr Najib urged people to “unite and move on”.

It has not worked out that way. The unusually forthright Swiss statement suggests Mr Najib and his allies may have overplayed their hand. The announcement appears to be a direct response to fears that the Malaysian government was trying to bury the case. Investigators in Bern and elsewhere may have been particularly surprised to hear an elected head of government argue, as Mr Najib did, that a probe into mysterious payments of $680m to him had been an “unnecessary distraction”.

Brutal politics

1MDB’s troubles have added to wider economic problems for Malaysia. The plunging global oil price has forced the government to trim its spending plans, while the ringgit has tumbled and consumer debt has notched regional highs. The next election due by 2018 promises to be a brutal affair, after the opposition won the popular vote in the 2013 poll and claimed it was denied a parliamentary majority only by government gerrymandering.

Speculation about Mr Najib’s future is growing. He has also been named in a French inquiry as a suspected recipient of bribes in a submarine deal he oversaw when he was defence minister in 2002. He denies any wrongdoing.

In the short term, he has a sensitive trip to a summit between the US and Southeast Asian countries in Sunnylands, California which began yesterday. Neither President Barack Obama nor Mr Najib, who played a round of golf together in Hawaii in December 2014, mentioned the 1MDB affair or the payments to the prime minister directly in statements they issued after they met in Malaysia last year. But the case is becoming harder for the US administration to ignore, even if it still has a strong interest in courting Malaysia over the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, antiterrorism efforts and security in the South China Sea.

In the longer term, Mr Najib’s allies dismiss claims that he’s negotiating an exit in exchange for some kind of immunity from prosecution. Many analysts and even opponents echo his supporters’ argument that he is more secure now than he was a few months back.

Ibrahim Suffian, director of the Merdeka Center, a Malaysian polling agency, says the prime minister’s ratings have “tumbled” as a consequence of the 1MDB affair and the weakening economy, but his position has remained robust. “He has strong control over his own party, which allows him to sideline any individual who is critical of him,” says Mr Suffian. “The next election is a challenge for the ruling party, but it has tremendous resources and a fragmented opposition which isn’t able to provide any kind of alternative.”

Mr Najib’s supporters insist he has done nothing wrong and that he will lead the governing party to yet another election victory. The question now is whether he will survive long enough to lead UMNO into the election or will he be overwhelmed by the fallout from a fund whose activities were supposed to drive Malaysia’s continued prosperity — but have instead damaged its reputation and left a fog of suspicion on several continents.

Cast of characters

Mahathir Mohamad

Prime minister of Malaysia between 1981 and 2003, Mr Mahathir has led efforts to topple Najib Razak, who now occupies the position, calling for “people’s power” to oust a “corrupt leader”.

Critics accuse Mr Mahathir, 90, of double standards, as his rule was intolerant of dissent and notable for political patronage and cronyism — as well as strong economic growth.

Jho Low

Malaysian financier and socialite who has faced increasing questions over his role, if any, in helping broker 1MDB’s multibillion-dollar joint ventures with companies from Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi. Mr Low has denied wrongdoing and said he was never an adviser to 1MDB. New York property deals suspected of being linked to Mr Low and Riza Aziz, Mr Najib’s stepson, are being probed.

Tim Leissner

The driving force behind Goldman Sachs’ expansion in Malaysia, during which the bank arranged $6.5bn of bond deals for 1MDB in 2012 and 2013. It emerged last month that Mr Leissner, who is married to Kimora Lee Simmons, the US model, has taken “personal leave” and moved from Singapore to Los Angeles.

Mr Leissner has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Najib Razak

Malaysia’s prime minister and chair of 1MDB’s advisory board. The son of a former premier, aged 23 he became the youngest parliamentarian in the country’s history. That was the start of a rise through the ranks of the dominant United Malays National Organisation, including spells as defence minister and deputy prime minister.

He has denied any wrongdoing.

Riza Aziz

Mr Najib’s stepson and the co-founder of Red Granite Pictures in the US, which has produced films including The Wolf of Wall Street . US investigators are probing New York property deals suspected of being linked to Mr Aziz and his friend Jho Low as part of a wider inquiry. Both men deny any wrongdoing. Red Granite says there has “never been anything inappropriate” about its or Mr Aziz’s business activities.

Khadem al-Qubaisi

The former head of Ipic, the Abu Dhabi state investment fund, stepped down in April without explanation, after overseeing ventures with 1MDB worth billions of dollars. Ipic is seeking to clarify what happened to more than $1.4bn that 1MDB said it had paid out, but was never recorded as received in the Abu Dhabi fund’s accounts. Mr Qubaisi has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 16 February 2016, 11:37 am and is filed under
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Missing Malaysia Jet MH370 Weeks Away From Keeping Secrets Forever

Angus Whitley

Bloomberg

February 16, 2016

The man leading the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is showing the strain after almost two years of fruitless toil.

Martin Dolan, head of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, said he struggles to sleep at times, gnawed by thoughts that wreckage from the Boeing Co. 777 may have slipped through the sonar net scanning 120,000 square kilometers (46,330 square miles) of the southern Indian Ocean.

MH370 is weeks away from becoming aviation’s biggest unsolved mystery since Amelia Earhart disappeared in 1937. Of the 3 million components in the jet, only one has turned up — a barnacle-encrusted wing flap — on Reunion Island, thousands of miles from the search. There have been no traces of the 239 people on board, their luggage or even the life jackets that were supposed to float.

“There’s always this question: Have we missed something?” Dolan, 58, said at his office in Canberra. “That’s the sort of thing that will occasionally keep me awake at night.”

Some of the world’s most experienced search-and-rescue experts increasingly accept that the A$180 million ($130 million) search may fail. Without fresh clues, the hunt should end about June, when four ships are due to finish combing the seas off western Australia, Dolan said. Within a rectangle the size of North Korea, vessels have scoured most of the patch believed to be the likely impact point — and come up empty.

Failure Possible

Nor are investigators any closer to ascertaining what happened inside the plane after it took off from Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014, for Beijing.

“We were ready for most things, but MH370 has been unpredictable all the way through,” Dolan said. “It’s a possibility we will not succeed.”

In the aftermath, the International Civil Aviation Organization is pushing for commercial aircraft to report their positions every 15 minutes. And the underwater locator beacons inside their black boxes will have to last for 90 days instead of the current 30, under European Union proposals. But neither rule takes full effect before 2018.

Asia’s aviation industry, meantime, is expanding at a breakneck pace with 100 million new passengers taking to the skies every year, according to Boeing. In the next two decades, the world’s fleet of 22,000 aircraft is set to double.

Larry Stone, chief scientist at Reston, Virginia-based consultant Metron Inc., has tracked missing aircraft and ships for half a century. Stone mapped out the resting place of Air France Flight 447, which was found two years after plummeting into the Atlantic Ocean with 228 people aboard in 2009.

The location, size and characteristics of the underwater search for MH370 make it the toughest he’s ever seen. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t find it,” Stone said.

The waters in the search area are up to 6 kilometers (4 miles) deep and peppered with trenches and submerged peaks. Last month, a towed sonar vehicle collided with a volcano rising 2,200 meters (7,200 feet) from the seabed. The device was severed and sank to the bottom.

Vessels still have to scan about 35,000 square kilometers — an area bigger than Belgium. The newest reinforcement is a Chinese ship with high-definition sonar. The Dong Hai Jiu 101 will focus on areas of the ocean floor that are difficult to scan with conventional sonar when it arrives this month, Dolan said.

Radar contact then was lost, but an orbiting satellite picked up pings from the plane. Analysis of those hourly check-ins indicates MH370 cruised south over the Indian Ocean for about six hours.

“They’ve done a remarkable job to get anything useful out of it at all,” said Vaughan Clarkson, a specialist in radar and tracking at the University of Queensland, Australia who helped calculate the flight path. “You’re trying to track a fast-moving aircraft with updates only about once an hour.”

The extent of human intervention in the silent disaster isn’t known. The last recorded words from MH370’s pilots, at 1:19 a.m. on March 8, were: “Good night Malaysian Three Seven Zero.” In a world where a $100 smartphone can be tracked for free, the $250 million jet vanished.

Malaysia Prime Minister Najib Razak has said the plane was deliberately steered off course, and the homes of the pilot and co-pilot were searched. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation also analyzed the pilot’s personal flight simulator to no avail.

“All the evidence says classic autopilot flight,” Dolan said, emphasizing that other authorities are trying to reconstruct events inside the cabin.

Mathematical Probability

The disaster was the beginning of the end for Malaysia Airlines as a listed entity. Four months after MH370 disappeared, Flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine. A Malaysian government investment company bought out the airline the same year as passenger traffic slumped and losses widened.

A failed search “would leave a bad impression on the industry as a whole, but particularly on Malaysia Airlines,” Christoph Mueller, the chief executive officer, told Bloomberg Television on Monday.

Back in Canberra, the ATSB is investigating about 130 incidents in total — ranging from a freight train derailment in Queensland to a seaplane crash off northeast Australia.

Yet Dolan says he’s consumed by MH370. He speaks mostly in a soft, low tone, pausing often as he chooses his words. At a table in his office, he refers to a map of the search zone in front of him as he outlines the analysis of the plane’s final moments:

The right engine runs out of fuel first, and within 15 minutes so does the left. There’s just enough fuel remaining for the satellite data unit to reboot and beam a final message. Then the plane probably banks left and spirals into the ocean.

Based on that sequence, searchers are prioritizing an area within 20 nautical miles of the aircraft’s last transmission.

Last Chance

Investigating the other possibility — that someone was steering the plane and glided it without power until it hit the water — would mean tripling the search area. That’s a very unlikely scenario, and it risks overwhelming investigators, Dolan said.

“Governments are just not willing to put the resources into that sort of potential extension,” he said.

Ships scanning the seafloor already collected about 20 petabytes of imaging data. That’s enough to house the entire digital collection of the U.S. Library of Congress — several times over.

Even after acknowledging the difficulties of searching a massive, remote and deep area of the ocean, Dolan said he was confident the plane will be found.

“Every morning I wake up and check what’s going on, and I hope that today’s going to be the day,” he said.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 16 February 2016, 6:35 pm and is filed under
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I never said Muhyiddin is my “latest recruit – “University of UMNO graduates” who are UMNO cybertroopers should polish up their English and general comprehension

Late last night, I was quite tickled by a flurry of headlines in news portals like “Muhyiddin says not Kit Siang’s latest recruit in ‘Save Malaysia’ campaign” (MMO); “I’m my own man, not your recruit, Muhyiddin tells Kit Siang” (Malaysiakini); “I’m nobody’s recruit, says Muhyiddin” (TMI) and “‘I am not Kit Siang’s recruit’, says Muhyiddin” (FMT).

I never said that the former Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyddin Yassin was my “latest recruit” in my speech at the Johor Pakatan Harapan Chinese New Year Open House on Sunday night.

Let me reproduce the relevant part of my speech about the three messages the Johore Pakatan Harapan wanted to send out from the  Chinese New Year Open House in Muar:

“Thirdly, the message we want to send out to Johorians and Malaysians is that the greatest objective in the 14th General Election is not whether Pakatan Harapan can replace UMNO/BN in Johore State and Putrajaya Federal Governments, but whether Malaysians, regardless of race, religion, region and even politics are capable of uniting on a common national platform to ‘Save Malaysia’ from becoming a failed state because of rampant corruption and widespread socio-economic injustices and a ‘rogue state’ where there is no Rule of Law and those in power can abuse their powers with impunity.

“’Save Malaysia’ from becoming a failed and rogue state must now be the rallying cry for all Malaysians, starting from Johor, and I am glad that more and more Malaysians are taking up this patriotic call before it is too late.

“The latest recruit to the ‘Save Malaysia’ agenda is none other than the former Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin whose message at the Chinese New Year Open House in Pagoh was the urgent and imperative need for Malaysians to unite to ‘Save Malaysia’ from becoming a ‘failed state’.

“Muhyiddin lamented that the biggest problem facing Malaysia today is an absence of the spirit that ensures that its leaders hold fast to good values and dare to speak up truthfully and honestly.

“He called for ‘the start of the struggle’ for Malaysia to recover its greatness, to make Malaysia a great nation, and not a country heading in the direction of a ‘failed state’ because of rampant corruption and widespread socio-economic injustices.

Only the dumbest and those grossly deficient in the  English  language and  general comprehension would use what I said in  my speech in Muar on Sunday to mount an attack on Muhyiddin on the ground I had had claimed the Deputy Prime Minister is my “latest recruit” in the “Save Malaysia” campaign – which I had never done so, especially as “Save Malaysia” is not my monopoly but  the responsibility of every patriotic Malaysian.

“University of UMNO graduates”, whether Ministers, national bureau chiefs  or cybertroopers, should attend English language lessons and polish up on their levels of comprehension so that they would not continue to make howlers like the UMNO Information Chief claiming that the RM2.6 billion donation deposited into Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s personal banking account is “not a big sum” to face one general election and having to run away from the media when asked to elaborate on the matter; or a Deputy Minister who wanted action to be taken against food outlets which mislead Muslims with their “pork-free” labelling to mean halal when “pork free” simply means what it says and says what it means that it does not supply pork meat, nothing more nothing less.  The term “pork free” does not mean “halal”.

But is the Attorney-General,  Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali’s exoneration of Najib from any criminal wrongdoing in the RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM42 million SRC International scandals intended to mislead Malaysians and the world into believing  that the Najib  government is one of integrity, accountability and good governance?

Finally, let me reiterate that I never claim monopoly to the “Save Malaysia” campaign, which must be the responsibility and challenge of every Malaysian, including patriotic UMNO leaders, the  three million UMNO members and 21,000 UMNO branches.

Whether the “Save Malaysia” campaigns  whether inside or outside UMNO, can find a meeting point, only time will tell.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 17 February 2016, 12:07 pm and is filed under
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DAP at 50: Where do we go from here?

― Lim Kit Siang

Malay Mail Online

February 19, 2016

FEBRUARY 19 ― I don’t think anybody ever asserted  that the DAP should sacrifice its principles for justice, freedom and democracy. What we need to change is our modus operandi to enable us move on to become a more inclusive party in Malaysia, especially in Sabah and Sarawak, for all Malays, Ibans and Kadazans ― in keeping with our founding vision to be  a Malaysian party for all Malaysians by all Malaysians.

Let’s examine where we are today. When we were formed 50 years ago ― and I’m one of the few who can talk about the DAP 50 years ago ― none of us ever thought about becoming a Member of Parliament or a State Assemblyperson or even forming a government. We believed in the ideals of social democracy, justice, freedom, good governance, and we were for all races to come together.

All these 50 years ago. Now the question is: Quo vadis, DAP? Where do we go from here?

We started as the party for all Malaysians. We never thought that we were a party for Chinese or Indians only. Of course when we started we were focused only in  Peninsular Malaysia, but later we became the first Pan-Malaysian party in the country when we began operating in Sabah and in Sarawak.

As a truly Malaysian party, in the first three by-elections that we contested before the 1969 General Elections, we went into Umno strongholds. If we were a Chinese party, we would never have contested these by-elections.

The first by-election that we contested was Kampung Baru. Imagine a Malay majority Kampung Baru seat in Kuala Lumpur, where the Umno candidate was Ahmad Razali who later became the Mentri Besar of Selangor in 1982, and he was the brother-in-law of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

The second by-election we contested was Tampoi, Johor where Daeng Ibrahim was our candidate. And the third by-election was Segamat Utara, also in Johor, where the Umno candidate was Musa Hitam who went on to become the deputy prime minister.

We were not afraid to contest in Umno seats because we believed in fighting and winning the hearts and minds of all Malaysians regardless of race.

The 1969 General Elections were the first general elections DAP contested, and we had Malay candidates in Parliamentary and State Assembly seats, and we won one in Perak by Ibrahim Singgeh and another one in Negeri Sembilan in Si Rusa seat.

That has always been our creed, our belief and our mission ― that we are a party for all Malaysians.

It was not easy because we were demonised, we were attacked but these were the problems that we had to face. In Malaysia the dominance is in the politics of race, followed by politics of religion, and the politics of class is a poor third, and that was why Parti Rakyat Malaysia had not been able to make a serious impact in politics in Malaysia, despite the fact that it was led primarily by Malay intellectuals.

Are we satisfied with what we are today?

Today we are at a very critical juncture. Are we satisfied with what we are today? Undoubtedly in some areas, we are an established party because we are the country’s second largest party in terms of the number of seats. We are the party of choice in the urban areas, whether in Peninsular, in Sabah and Sarawak. But is that all that we want? Are we content with that? Is that our main mission? Is that what the DAP stands for?

We are for Malaysia, for all Malaysians. That’s why we must be able to reach out, to reel in the support of not only from the Chinese and the Indians but also the Malays, Ibans and Kadazans; that is our responsibility, that is our job. Otherwise what are we in DAP for? To be champions of the Chinese only? Or Indians? No!

And how do we move on to the next step? We must face reality. Like it or not, we have our own limitations on how we function, on how we operate. But certainly not in terms of our ideology and our belief. Our belief in social democracy is for all Malaysians. We have the right ideology. But in terms of practicality we are limited in the urban areas, mostly to non-Malays. We have to reach out to the Malays, Kadazans, Dayaks, Orang Asli.

The primary reason I moved to Gelang Patah, Johor in the 13th General Elections from my constituency Ipoh Timur was because of such a need. We have to move out and reach out to all Malaysians.

It was a risk. I did not know whether I was going to win, and a lot of people thought it was a foolish mistake. But that is why we are in the DAP and Malaysian politics; to take risks. Luckily I survived, but that was not the end of the journey, that was only the beginning of a second journey of the Malaysian Dream: Impian Malaysia, Impian Sabah, Impian Sarawak, Impian Kelantan, Impian Kedah, Impian Perak and Impian Johor. That is our second stage.

This Impian process is a post-2013 effort. There were high hopes of the people to see change in the 13th General Elections but it failed to materialise because the election process was not just and fair. Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s Barisan Nasional despite having only 47 per cent of the votes, received 60 per cent of the parliamentary seats, and he became the country’s first minority Prime Minister.

Later, Pakatan Rakyat was dissolved, and here we are today. On the ruins of Pakatan Rakyat, Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah) was born, and then a new coalition, Pakatan Harapan was also born. We are able to register new hope, and that is as far as the larger Pakatan Harapan is concerned.

But what about the DAP? Considering that our mission has always been a party for all Malaysians, we want to be a party that all Malaysians regardless of race, religion and region can look forward to. This continues to be our dream and our objective.

But the reality at present, at least for the foreseeable future, shows that the DAP will not be able on its own to form the Federal Government, not even a state government. It will have to be a coalition of the present opposition versus the Umno-led Barisan Nasional coalition.

It’s not ‘Malays versus Chinese’

We should not fall into a position or trap to allow Umno propagandists to present our battle as “Umno versus DAP” because it is so easy for them to say therefore it is a battle between the Malays and the Chinese. It is not a battle between the Malays and the Chinese despite all the talk about  if Umno loses the next election, Najib loses his position, then the Malays will lose political power. Therefore the DAP and the Chinese will grab political power. This is untrue and baseless of course, but it is a powerful political propaganda. We must somehow be able to debunk and break these lies and falsehoods.

How do we prevent Najib from deflecting all these attacks on him for corruption and abuse of power, nation building policy failings by turning the whole issue into a communal and religious warfare between the Muslims versus the non-Muslims, the Malays versus the Chinese? This is why it is important that the DAP must continue our mission to transform ourselves into a Malaysian party accepted by all racial groups in the country. The question of compromising or selling out our beliefs and ideals does not arise at all. But I think we must change our modus operandi.

We tend to fall into the trap of those who want to pigeonhole us into communal slots. I want to be frank and quite critical. We fell into this trap in Perak in the last general elections. For two general elections we did not put any Malay candidates because some people said that this would offend our friends in PAS at that time. They were worried that we would compete for the position of mentri besar. Since the mentri besar post was never our aim, we did accommodate them, but I think that was a mistake because voters saw that we had no Malay candidates at all in Perak. We should have fielded Malay candidates in Perak while making clear that it was not our intention to go after the mentri besar’s post.

I had expressed my strong views to our Perak state leadership, and I do not think we should make the same mistakes again. Now we hear the same thing from our coalition partner Amanah in Johor. They think the DAP should not field any Malay candidates in the state assembly seats in particular in Johor because of the attack on DAP as a Chinese party. This is the communal trap of politics. We must address this seriously.

The need for a coalition

We must co-operate with Amanah and PKR. We must make a success of Pakatan Harapan in Malaysian politics. Our first test is going to be in Sarawak, with the state elections to be held in the next two months as to  whether we can keep the promise we had announced to all Malaysians: the Pakatan Harapan declaration that there will be a one-on-one contest. It is not going to be easy, it is going to be difficult ― a task being handled by Sarawak DAP chief, Chong Chieng Jen.

I think what is more important is: how do we operate from here, and how do we change drastically our modus operandi? This is something which all of the DAP state leaderships must discuss in great detail and consider the ways and means including innovative ways of political reaching out which we have never done before in the next two and a half years.

My tour of the country as a result of my six-month suspension from Parliament for the “Mana RM2.6 billion?” movement should be used as an opportunity to reach out into the new territories for the DAP. As I said, I hope to visit some 150 parliamentary constituencies out of the 222 parliamentary constituency by the time I return to Parliament sometime in May. I hope all the states can help in drawing up such programs and for leaders to come along because this would be a useful way to reach out to areas that we have not been able to do so in the past.

Battling lies and dirty propaganda

We must be very sensitive to malicious attacks alleging that we are a “Chinese party” or an “evangelical Christian party”. There are allegations that a meeting was held in Penang to formulate the  objective of a Christian Malaysia, there are people who put up a picture of the DAP as an evangelical party, there is a new book entitled “Sang Nila Utama and the Lion of Judah” which is very serious and wicked attack that there is a conspiracy in the country to evangelise Malaysia, and the DAP is somehow part of it. These are all lies. These are all untrue. But these are fodder for the Umno propagandists, to demonise the DAP and mislead the Malays with the false picture that  this as a battle of Malays versus Chinese, and Muslims versus Christians. These are not true at all but how do we debunk these lies?

I have been a victim of many of these lies in the last 50 years. Starting with May 13 riots where I was accused of being responsible for the May 13 riots, leading the street demonstrations in Kuala Lumpur, making anti-Malay and anti-Islam epithets although I was never even in Kuala Lumpur on that day because I was in Sabah.

The latest lie on the DAP was the allegation about the  RM1.2 billion offer by Israel in return for a naval base in Port Dickson. Why they want a naval base in Port Dickson, a resort area, I also cannot understand. But such lies and falsehoods are very powerful. How do we debunk it? How do we break it?

There is a new word in the world of politics, “disintermediation”, the dumping of the middleman. In the internet age, the dumping of the middleman does not only occur in commercial and industrial sectors but also in politics. Who are these middlemen? They include the political parties, the press, and the pollsters. What we need to do? We have to reach out directly to the people because we do not want to depend on the media alone, because we do not want to depend on opinion polls alone.

Reaching out

How do we bring about this process of disintermediation in Malaysia? These are the new challenges we have to face, to go down to the people in the Peninsular rural areas and to the people of Sarawak and Sabah. The question is the modus operandi.

Of course we can say this is all very hard work. Some of us may say that because we are what we are today, people can either accept us or reject us. Some may say that because we believe in a social democratic Malaysia, we believe in justice and democracy, and all our principles are clear and very well proclaimed, we leave it to the people to decide whether accept us or reject us. That  whether you are a Malay, Iban, Kadazan, Indian, Chinese, when it come to the DAP, you either take it or leave it. I don’t think this is the right attitude.

I don’t think we can take such an attitude because we will be running away from our responsibilities. We must be aware that in our plural society today, there are still Chinese who are living completely in the Chinese world, Malays who are living in a completely Malay world, Indians who are living in a completely Indian world, and the same goes with the Ibans and the Kadazans. It is our duty to reach them, to share with them a larger Malaysian picture. We want them to share our ideals that this beloved Malaysian nation belongs to all of us, that this is our shared destiny.

It is our responsibility as their political leaders to lead the Chinese who live in their purely Chinese world to see a Malaysian perspective, and this applies to  Indians living in the Indian world too, as well as  Malays living solely in the Malay world, and the Kadazans and Ibans too. Are we prepared for such a challenge to reach out to them?

It is not easy, it is going to be difficult, and we may even fail. But if we do nothing, are we going to succeed? If we are content with what we are today, are we going to achieve any real success? Will we be successful in our efforts to reach out to those in the rural sectors of the country, in Sabah, in Sarawak, in Peninsular Malaysia? Or are we going to continue forever and ever to be able to hold the support of urban voters of today?

We must not forget that people support us because they believe we can lead them to a better Malaysia. However, we cannot lead them to a better Malaysia unless we are a part of a coalition to be able to govern, formulate and implement policies for the whole country.

Let me reiterate that we are in need of change and we must dare to reach out, and to do that, we must dare to transform the DAP into a truly Malaysian party, with the support of all Malaysians including Malays, Ibans and Kadazans as well as Chinese and Indians.

Nobody is suggesting that we betray or compromise or sell out our principles, ideals and objectives. What we need to change drastically is our modus operandi, and not our ideals and principles, to be more inclusive to appeal to all Malaysians.

Note from Liew Chin Tong, DAP national political education director: This is an excerpt of a speech by DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang at the DAP National Retreat’s party transformational debate at the Dorsett Grand Subang Hotel, Subang Jaya, Selangor on January 16, 2016. Kit, as he is affectionately called, is celebrating his 75th birthday on 20th February 2016.

His 70th birthday five years ago was a celebration of his past contribution to Malaysian politics. This occasion is interestingly, all about the future as Malaysia enters into uncharted waters of great risks yet great potentials to reshape the nation for the better. As always, Kit is at the forefront providing leadership, ideas and actions.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 19 February 2016, 3:16 pm and is filed under
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Lim Kit Siang (In Honour Of His 75th Birthday)

by Allan Goh Chay Foo

Class of ’59

When you answer the country’s urgent call

To help build a nation for one and all,

You dedicate your whole life for the quest

Of making Malaysia the very best!

You have never flinched from this steadfastness

In your tireless crusade for righteousness.

Though threatened endlessly with dark prisons,

And bedeviled with crude verbal poisons,

You soldier on for the best Malaysia,

Full of real fairness and sweet ambrosia,

With none standing as a diminished son,

Under Malaysia’s benevolent sun.

You dream of a country in harmony,

Where justice is in great testimony,

Where all folks are equal before the law,

None sacrificed to senseless legal flaw;

Where people pull in the same direction,

Making Malaysia the greatest nation:

Free of the vile, destructive racism,

And those dastardly communalism;

A nation without hints of corruption,

Never fettered by discrimination;

A country of one nation, one people,

With high principles writ on the steeple.

Since you first appeared in public notice,

Working selflessly in people’s service,

You have shown political dignity,

Truthful of values and integrity.

Labouring, never for personal gain,

You fight on despite many failures’ pain.

Yours has remained the most principled name,

With full personal honour as your mane.

Today you celebrate your big birthday.

May God bless you always, fulfill your days

With love from your family and friends dear;

Grant you the best health in the coming years.

Class of ‘59

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 20 February 2016, 7:00 pm and is filed under
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