Dr M, Melayu mahu bersatu, tetapi di luar Umno

 — Aspan Alias

The Malaysian Insider

Sep 24, 2012

24 SEPT — Saya telah cuba untuk tidak menulis tentang Dr Mahathir Mohamad lagi tetapi tidak dapat saya berbuat demikian kerana beliau masih lagi menyalahkan semua orang di atas perpecahan orang Melayu sebagaimana anggapan beliau sekarang.

Dalam tulisan beliau dalam Mingguan Malaysia semalam beliau menzahirkan perasaan sedih di atas apa yang telah terjadi kepada orang Melayu yang pada beliau akan hilang kuasa politiknya disebabkan perpecahan sesama sendiri.

Tidak susah untuk memikirkan siapa yang dimaksudkan oleh Dr Mahathir sebagai Melayu yang tamak kuasa yang telah memecahkan Melayu itu. Ia tidak lain selain dari Anwar Ibrahim yang telah menjadi duri dalam daging kehidupan sepanjang hayat beliau.

Dr Mahathir masih lagi bercakap tentang Melayu yang beliau sendiri telah pecahkan dan hasil dari perpecahan itu dilontarkan kesalahannya kepada semua orang kecuali diri beliau sendiri.

Utusan menggambarkan yang beliau telah menangis memerhatikan perpecahan orang Melayu sekarang ini. Tetapi Dr Mahathir mesti faham yang orang Melayu telah lama menangis dan tersedu di atas perbuatan beliau memecahbelahkan pimpinan dan premis perjuangan Melayu iaitu Umno selama ini.

Umno telah beliau jadikan sebagai alat permainan beliau dengan menggunakan sentimen Melayu yang menebal dan menggunakan simpati dan sokongan Melayu itu untuk kepentingan peribadi beliau.

Kata perbilangan “sesal dahulu pendapatan, kesal kemudian tiada gunanya”. Inilah yang patut Dr Mahathir rasakan sekarang dan berhenti mengalih dan melontarkan kesalahan kepada orang lain seperti Pak Lah dan Anwar Ibrahim.

Di sini Dr Mahathir perlu merasakan kekesalan di atas permainan politik melampau beliau sehinggakan Umno tidak ada lagi pemimpin yang mempunyai roh perjuangan yang sejati melainkan pemimpin-pemimpin yang datang secara “dubious” yang kita tidak tahu asal usul perjuangan mereka dan keluarga mereka.

Dr Mahathir telah mendapat segala kehendak politik peribadi beliau tetapi “at what cost?” Berapakah harga yang terpaksa dibayar untuk mempertahankan Dr Mahathir itu? Kerosakan tentunya bermula dari suatu masa dan adalah tidak wajar Dr Mahathir untuk menyatakan yang kerosakan itu bermula dari zaman kepimpinan Pak Lah semata-mata.

Kerosakan yang kita lihat sekarang begitu teruk dan tidak mungkin ianya bermula dari zaman Pak Lah yang baru sahaja empat tahun meninggalkan kuasa setelah menjadi PM hanya selama lima tahun. Pak Lah itu sendiri merupakan pemimpin yang dari awal tidak sepatutnya menjadi Perdana Menteri. Begitu juag Najib Razak dan Muhyiddin Yassin yang ada pada hari ini.

Tetapi mereka-mereka ini muncul ke depan kerana ketiadaan dan ketandusan kepimpinan dalam Umno hasil dari penyingkiran pemimpin-pemimpin yang baik oleh Dr Mahathir dahulu. Berjayalah Dr Mahathir memperolehi apa yang beliau inginkan, iaitu barisan kepimpinan yang hanya “mengangguk seperti burung balam” dalam Umno.

Tetapi Dr Mahathir itu adalah makhluk seperti kita semua juga. Sampai masanya beliau terpaksa bersara dan apabila beliau bersara, di sinilah bermulanya masalah yang kita sedang hadapi sekarang. Umno sudah menjadi parti yang kekeringan pimpinan, kosong dan tidak bermaya lagi.

Dr Mahathir tidak menjadikan alam yang terbentang luas ini sebagai guru. Padahal bukan kita tidak nampak jika sesebuah negara itu dipimpin oleh seseorang dengan jangkamasa yang terlalu panjang, negara itu akan kehilangan kepimpinan kerana semua mereka yang berkepimpinan itu akan mati ditelan masa.

Bukan tidak ada contoh yang jelas yang boleh kita lihat dan dijadikan pelajaran. Presiden Tito memerintah hampir tiga dekad, akhirnya apabila beliau tiada Yugoslavia berpecah menjadi lima negara kecil yang berperang tiada kesudahannya.

Presiden Marcos, seorang yang mula pemimpin yang demokratik akhirnya menjadi diktator dan memerintah selama 20 tahun, akhirnya Filipina sehingga hari ini belum lagi dapat bangun ke tahap yang mereka pernah alami dalam tahun enam puluhan.

Begitu juga Indonesia yang diperintah Suharto selama 30 tahun menjadi haru-biru dan baru sekarang sahaja negara tersebut  telah kembali menjadi negara yang disegani dan negara demokrasi terbesar selepas India di Asia ini.

Kita boleh perhatikan di mana-mana negara yang pemimpinnya memerintah sebegitu lama, akan mewarisi negara yang sarat dengan korupsi yang susah untuk dibendung. Ethiopia, Algeria, Indonesia, Filipina, Zimbabwe dan terlalu banyak contoh yang membuktikan yang negara yang dipimpin oleh seorang pemimpin terlalu lama akan menghadapi penyakit politik dan sosial yang besar dan memakan masa yang panjang untuk diperbetulkan.

Tuduhan Dr Mahathir yang orang Melayu telah berpecah belah dan menganggap Melayu mudah lupa, tetapi elok kita ingatkan yang Mahathir sendiri sudah terlalu banyak perkara yang beliau telah lupa.

Beliau terlupa kepada hakikat yang segala perbuatan kita akan diadili oleh rakyat pada masa yang akan datang. Ada di antara penyokong tegar Umno membenci saya kerana saya tidak berhenti-henti menyebut perkara yang lama. Tetapi kalau tidak ada yang lama masakan ada yang baru.

Perbuatan pemimpin akan disebut sampai bila-bila. Apa yang dilakukan oleh Dr Mahathir itu merupakan sejarah yang baru dan masih ramai yang hidup dan mengingatinya. Sejarah tetap diperkatakan selalu walau selama mana pun usia sejarah itu. Abu Jahal telah mati lebih dari 1,400 tahun dahulu, namun namanya tetap disebut dengan apa yang dia telah lakukan.

Firaun tetap menjadi bacaan sejarawan walaupun zaman Firaun tu telah berlalu lebih dari tiga ribu tahun yang lalu. Sesiapa pun tidak boleh mengelakkan sesiapa dari menyebut hal sejarah walaupun sejarah itu telah berlalu ribuan tahun yang lalu. Sejarah tetap sejarah dan ia akan tetap menjadi bahan telaah rakyat di masa yang akan datang.

Dr Mahathir tidak boleh menyalahkan apa yang berlaku kepada orang Melayu kepada orang lain. Dr Mahathir telah membiarkan Umno menjadi reput dan apabila sampai ke tahap Umno sudah tidak dapat diperbaiki lagi ini, beliau masih hangar-bingar menyebut isu ini seolah-olah beliau tidak ada kena mengena dengan keadaan yang berlaku ini.

Orang Melayu sedar yang mereka telah berpecah-belah. Maka mereka (orang Melayu) sekarang begitu “conclusive” mengambil keputusan untuk bersatu di luar Umno dan BN. Jika pemimpin-pemimpin Umno dan BN, termasuk dengan Dr Mahathir sekali inginkan perpaduan, saya mencadangkan supaya mereka-mereka ini turut sahaja kehendak orang Melayu untuk berpadu di luar Umno itu.

Pemimpin Umno harus menerima pandangan banyak pihak yang kali ini pembangkang akan menang secara “outright”. Tsunami politik akan lebih hebat lagi dari tsunami 2008 dahulu. Siapa yang tidak percaya dengan pandangan ini, itu hak masing-masing.

Menganggap Melayu akan selamat hanya di bawah Umno sahaja merupakan satu mitos yang tidak boleh diikuti dan dipercayai. “Enough is enough,” kata seorang pemimpin Umno sendiri kepada saya semalam.

Beliau seterusnya berkata, “selagi kita meyakini Umno selagi itulah pemikiran kita diperangkap. Buat itu tak boleh buat ini tak boleh. Sampai bila kita hendak diperangkap dan perkuda oleh pimpinan yang hanya memikirkan kepentingan mereka semata-mata?”

Kita sudah tidak ada masa untuk mendengar “gelembong” Umno lagi. — aspanaliasnet.blogspot.com

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 26 September 2012, 8:40 am and is filed under
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Lim Guan Eng corrupt? What a joke

 — Penang Man

The Malaysian Insider

Sep 25, 2012

SEPT 25 — Gerakan and Barisan Nasional’s (BN) mudslinging jokers should just give up because their relentless attempts at portraying Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng as corrupt only allows voters to see them for what they are.

And what they are, are a bunch of hypocritical jokers with no integrity that my fellow Penangites threw out of power in 2008.

I urge Penangites, Malaysians and the Penang CM to not take Gerakan seriously.

Gerakan Youth vice-chief Tan Kah Leong, BN Tanjung Youth chief H’ng Khoon Leng and Nibong Tebal MP Tan Tee Beng — all three are jokers, or should I call them The Three Stooges — accused Guan Eng this week of doctoring a tenancy agreement of his rented residence they had demanded to see.

What may I ask was the point of the original demand?

And now that the document has been revealed to show that the house was rented for RM5,000 a month and that the CM tops up the amount of RM1,000 from his own pocket to make up the difference from his RM4,000 a month housing allowance, the three men have no other response but to say they stand by their accusations.

This reminds me of the last attempt to smear the CM’s image by suggesting his son was involved in a sex scandal, before it was proven that the allegation was all lies and fabrication.

So I would like to ask these Three Stooges if any Umno, MCA or Gerakan leader can pass the living-beyond-one’s-means test to prove they are not corrupt?

Ask most Penangites if they feel they are better off today than in 2008 and the answer is likely to be a resounding yes.

So if BN wants to ever rule Penang again, it had better show voters that it has some ideas on what it can offer.

Or are these Three Stooges the best they can offer?

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 26 September 2012, 8:25 am and is filed under
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Listen, Malaysians

 — Ali Kadir

The Malaysian Insider

Sep 25, 2012

SEPT 25 — I don’t know about you but I am disgusted with Umno and its sycophants, MCA and Gerakan, and I believe that we have to reject them wholesale for:

1) The culture of idiocy they nurture. There is a difference between BN and Pakatan Rakyat.

Whenever Lim Guan Eng or Khalid Ibrahim is accused of wrongdoing, they don’t hide. They come out with proof, sue to clear their name and even engage international audit firms. In contrast, till today no one knows how Altantuya Shaariibuu’s immigration records were erased or why the RM250 million sweet deal was given to Shahrizat Abdul Jalil’s family or how Cabinet ministers are able to live a life of luxury on RM18,000 a month.

Till today, there has been no rebuttal of the fact that millions of ringgit were paid in kickbacks to the highest offices in Putrajaya from a submarine deal.

2) The dumbing down of Malaysia. Umno newsletter, the New Straits Times, reported that local NGOs had received RM20 million to destabilise the government. These journalists must be as dense as their political masters.

And now we have Gerakan politicians going after possibly the cleanest politician in Penang.

See, this is the new strategy of the desperate: if you feel threatened by any individual or organisation just keep on flinging mud at them and hope that some of it sticks.

What Teng Chang Yeow and gang must understand is this: people are aware of the hypocrisy. For nearly two decades, Koh Tsu Koon and Gerakan did nothing and played dead when the state was being ravaged by Umno thieves.

And now when they are out of power and irrelevant, they are suddenly talking about corruption, etc.

3) The culture of violence. Roughhouse tactics are being used by Umno and their associates to intimidate undergraduates contesting campus elections aligned with the opposition.

There is no longer any sense of decency. They just want to remain in power and want to silence any dissent.

We have a choice: we either put up and shut up OR we kick them out.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 26 September 2012, 1:07 am and is filed under
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Malaysia’s PM to bet on generous budget as election looms

By Siva Sithraputhran and Anuradha Raghu

Sep 26, 2012

Reuters

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak is expected to unveil a voter-pleasing budget on Friday, placing the priority on winning a tough election above addressing the country’s rising debt burden.

Economists say Najib will likely delay much-needed reforms to broaden Malaysia’s tax base and reduce its dependence on oil revenues to at least next year, while announcing measures to help poorer families struggling with rising living costs.

Strong revenues in 2012 mean Najib can afford to be generous in the budget for next year without alarming financial markets, but further signs of fiscal slippage would add to investor concerns over a steady deterioration in Malaysia’s finances.

The Southeast Asian country’s public debt as a percentage of GDP is just short of its self-imposed ceiling of 55 percent – up from 43 percent in 2008 – while its budget deficit of 4.7 percent in the first half of 2012 is the third-biggest in Asia after Japan and India.

Fitch Ratings said in August that Malaysia’s public finances were weak compared with other countries on equivalent sovereign ratings (A minus) and on a par with heavily indebted countries such as Italy and Israel.

“Very plainly this is going to be an election budget. It’s going to be generous,” said Irvin Seah, an economist at DBS Bank in Singapore. “At this point, the need for political support will take precedence over some economic considerations.”

Najib must call an election by next April and has already announced a series of handouts this year, including 2.6 billion ringgit ($847 million) in cash payments to poor families, to shore up support for the long-ruling Barisan Nasional coalition.

Although the coalition is widely expected to win the election, it suffered its worst-ever performance in 2008 polls and faces perhaps the closest-ever election this time as the opposition gains ground.

“PEOPLE-FRIENDLY”

Najib, who is also Malaysia’s finance minister, is widely expected to announce further cash payments to poorer citizens, combining them with steps to ease living costs for low-income households and public servants. That could give a further boost to the country’s buoyant consumer spending.

The economy grew at a brisk annual pace of 5.4 percent in the second quarter, but many lower-income and middle-class Malaysians complain their salaries have not kept pace with rising living costs and surging house prices.

“The budget will be people friendly and will ensure the country will achieve its goal to become a high-income nation by 2020,” Malaysia’s deputy finance minister Donald Lim told reporters on Tuesday.

Helped by strong economic growth, Malaysia’s revenues for 2012 are expected to top 200 billion ringgit, well above the government’s 187 billion ringgit target. But public spending is also growing, raising doubts over whether the government can achieve its goal of keeping the fiscal deficit at 4.7 percent of GDP this year.

Several large infrastructure projects, including the 50 billion ringgit Mass Rapid Transit transport project in Kuala Lumpur, are helping insulate Malaysia from slowing activity around the world but also risk increasing its debt burden.

Rating agencies Standard & Poor’s and Fitch recently warned of rising fiscal pressures in Malaysia that could lead to a downgrade.

“While we are relatively positive about Malaysia’s growth and inflation outlook, we are concerned about its fiscal position,” said Credit Suisse analyst Santitarn Sathirathai in a research note.

The ratings agencies want the government to introduce a goods and services tax to widen its revenue base in a country where only about 10 percent of the workforce pays income taxes and to cut fuel subsidies that are among Asia’s highest. Malaysian policymakers have signaled they plan to implement those reforms, but not before the upcoming election.

Najib is expected to set the deficit target for 2013 lower than the 4.7 percent goal for this year. In one bow to fiscal discipline, he is unlikely to announce any corporate or individual income tax cuts.

Gundy Cahyadi, an economist at OCBC Bank in Singapore, said the government will be hoping that the heavy spending now will pay off in coming years through higher revenues.

“People forget that it’s just like any business decision – you need to invest a lot at the initial stage.”

(Editing by Stuart Grudgings and Neil Fullick)

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 26 September 2012, 5:15 pm and is filed under
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On the secular state controversy

 ― Ahmad Fuad Rahmat

The Malaysian Insider

Sep 26, 2012

SEPT 26 ― Some weeks have passed since the release of our rather controversial call for a secular state. Naturally, we encountered many comments along the way. Many were constructive, while one particularly from HAKIM was nothing short of vitriolic.

In the interest of furthering democratic debate, we shall take the opportunity here to clarify the misconceptions we encountered along the way in hope that our position will be more clearly understood.

Clarity of definition important

Muslims are particularly, and understandably, cautious at the slightest use of the word secular due to its connotations of the French ban of the veil or the Swiss ban of minarets. This has given rise to the wrong impression that secularism is particularly anti-Islamic.

To understand the full meaning of a concept by simply reducing it only to its most negative manifestations is to distort it. Indeed, from our observation, the adverse visceral reaction Muslims tend to have towards the slightest utterance of the word “secular” is not unlike the reaction of those who erroneously associate terrorism only with Islam.

Matters are far more complex than that and in our case, what we have only called for is a secular state. That is to say, the state as a political instrument is not to have any stamp of partiality to any particular religion as far as it is able to as possible.

To be clear, this is different than the call for a secular society or morality, where religion is to be completely removed from all aspects of life and behaviour. The idea behind a secular state is to have a neutral institutional arbiter and enforcer for a complex society where a diversity of views, ways of life, religions, cultures and ideas can be maintained.

Neutrality is a precondition of justice

A common objection against this position is to say that secularism itself is not neutral since it privileges its worldview against the religious one.

An important emphasis is needed here. What is sought after is not neutrality for neutrality’s sake, but neutrality to ensure that a polity remains as inclusive and open to as many divergent views and perspectives from as many segments of society as possible.

Neutrality, in other words, is a necessary condition to ensure justice for all. To be just, is to be fair, open and balanced. This cannot be ensured if the goal is to design a state based exclusively on one religious worldview.

Islam is not a State

In response to this, we have encountered another common objection, this time claiming that Islam itself can ensure neutrality and justice for all without needing to resort to secular ideals. We agree with this claim in a general sense but we also emphasize that there is no contradiction between Islamic principles and participating in a secular political entity.

Abdullah Ahmed an-Naim made this point astutely in his book, “Islam and the Secular State”. He reminds us that the state as the territorial concept we know today is inherited from a particular European vision of nationhood.

The increasing insistence to have Islam absorbed into that state framework then reduces the faith into squabbles on land and population. At best, it is a distraction from other priorities of Justice that Muslims should be concerned with. At worst, it is an outright abuse of the faith.

Furthermore, those who insist that non-Muslims can be protected under Muslim rule also miss the point: Citizenship is not simply about living undisturbed, whereby one’s property and livelihood is protected. That is merely a condition of well-being, not the be-all end-all.

The goal, indeed for any citizen ― Muslim or non-Muslim  ―  is to have one’s aspirations reflected in the nation’s identity. Political participation is not just about being left alone to go about one’s business, but having one’s particular desires, concerns and hopes recognized. In concrete terms, this means allowing as many perspectives to participate in the design and construction of a nation.

The more exclusively the state is defined by a particular religion or culture, the smaller that space would be for others.

Religious knowledge is not political knowledge

Abdullah Ahmed an-Naim made another point that is worth considering and that is the fact that religious expertise is not sufficient to address the complexity of managing a state.

Both forms of leadership obviously require a significant degree of ethical conduct. But the skill set needed to master religious texts is far different than what is required to manage the economics, security, diplomacy and public affairs of a state.

Furthermore, the way in which ethics is evaluated for a politician is different than that of a religious personality. Evaluating the latter, one might say, is a more personal and intimate process than the former. It is built upon conversation and direct impacts on how we live our lives and make everyday choices. The former, in turn, is measured more concretely through matters of public policy.

The desire to confuse the two ― which can be often found in the rhetoric of Islamic statehood ― has given rise to the trend where leaders who otherwise have little to no concern towards religion begin to feign piety to attract public support.

Thus, the increased impulse to see religious leaders take power may satisfy the religious pathos of many, but it may not lead to actual improvement in concrete policy, in which case even Muslims will lose out.

Muslims need a new vision of power

In the age of nation-states, what we have found is the increasing drive among Muslims to seize and concentrate power in state terms. The idea is that the glory of Islam can only be restored through the imposition of Islamic laws by way of state enforcement. Glory and civilisation, in other words, is to be understood primarily in terms of the ability to control, and in more particular instances, ban and repress.

Justice and equality, the cornerstone of the Islamic mission, has somehow been obscured in all this. Hence, Muslims today have little to say or offer in terms of reducing the widening global wealth gap, or the worsening environment, or how migrant workers, religious, cultural or racial minorities are mistreated even in Muslim majority countries.

Put in more straightforward terms: The world is falling apart, but what matters most for many Muslims is that the state is won.

But what if, instead of imagining Islam as a force for intimidation and control, it is communicated and lived in ways that would inspire and enlighten, whereby Muslims organise themselves to reclaim the inclusive and compassionate thrust of Islam, in which the elevation of suffering for the marginalised and vulnerable is placed at the core.

Perhaps the day will come we can hold on to power in a way that we are no longer afraid of others, when love is what lies at the heart of all motivations. This is indeed a tall order, but Muslims can begin by slowly letting go of their scramble for the state and find new ways of boldly facing the complex world in which they inhabit.

* Ahmad Fuad Rahmat is a Research Fellow with the Islamic Renaissance Front

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 26 September 2012, 11:53 pm and is filed under
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Pakatan Rakyat 2013 Budget pledges a New Deal for Sabah and Sarawak

The Pakatan Rakyat’s 2013 Budget recognises and  addresses the three “Cs” of corruption, crime and competitiveness – the trio of problems which are the bane of the Malaysian economy and if unresolved, will condemn the country to  mediocrity and even towards the direction of  a failed state.

The PR 2013 Budget is also a pledge for a New Deal for Sabah and Sarawak, comprising five elements:

(1)	Reaffirmation of the Kuching Declaration of Pakatan Rakyat of 16th September 2012 to fulfil the hopes and aspirations of the people of Sabah and Sarawak in terms of infrastructure development and protection of their fundamental rights in forming Malaysia 49 years ago in 1963;

(2)	Pakatan Rakyat pledge to honour the increase of petroleum royalty to Sabah and Sarawak (as well as to Terengganu and Kelantan, the other  oil producing states) from 5 to 20%;

(3)	Establishment of state-owned second-tier oil and gas companies for Sabah and Sarawak (as well as Terengganu, Kelantan and other oil producing states) to benefit from the financial investments made into marginal fields through risk-sharing contracts (RSCs). The state-owned oil and gas companies will be nurtured to be able to compete internationally in the future in anticipation of reduced reserves in Malaysia;

(4)	A complete and upgraded Pan-Borneo Highway connecting Kuching to Kota Kinabalu and the east coast of Sabah to bring development in Sabah and Sarawak to be at par with Peninsular Malaysia; and

(5)	Assess the financial impact and viability of upgrading and extending the rail network in Sabah and Sarawak.

(Comment in Parliament House on Pakatan Rakyat 2013 Budget presented by Parliamentary Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim on 26th September 2012)

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 26 September 2012, 6:30 pm and is filed under
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Umno’s Nation of Traitors

By Martin Jalleh

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 26 September 2012, 7:41 pm and is filed under
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2013 Budget tomorrow  – not whether there will be 2nd payment of BR1M but whether it would more than double RM500 and benefit more people than just 4.2 million households earning less than RM3,000 a month?

The single question all Malaysians are asking about the 2013 Budget to be presented by the Prime Minister-cum-Finance Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak in Parliament tomorrow is not whether there will be a second payment of BR1M (1Malaysia People’s Aid) but whether the second BR1M will be more than double the first BR1M of RM500.

Furthermore, whether the second BR1M payment would benefit more people than just the 4.2 million households earning less than RM3,000 a month as provided for under Budget 2012 . i.e. households earning up to RM4,000 or RM5,000 a month.

The Barisan Nasional government, through their representatives at various levels in the country, have led Malaysians to expect these second BR1M benefits from Budget 2013 tomorrow, and if the second BR1M payment is not more than double the first BR1M payout of RM500 or does not benefit more than the 4.2 million  households earning less than RM3,000 a month, Najib and the Umno/BN government should expect an adverse backlash from the Malaysian people.

Najib has himself to blame that the country’s annual budget presentation in Parliament  has become an annual Santa Claus occasion, all because of Najib’s indecisiveness and obsessive fear of the 13th General Elections, causing him to transform his 42-month premiership into an prolonged and unending electioneering campaign.

When Najib presented his 2012 Budget on 7th October last year with the RM2.1 billion allocation for the first BRIM payment of RM500 per household, his sole  consideration was to use it as his primary weapon to win votes and a thumping mandate for his premiership in the 13th General Elections.

Unfortunately, as the saying goes, “Man proposes, God disposes”, and Najib’s plans went awry following the breakout of the RM250 million “cow/condominium” scandal after the presentation of 2012 Budget.

Najib’s new rescheduled timetable for the 13th General Elections in June/July this year also went kaput  after the disastrous government/police mishandling of the Bersih 3.0 rally on April 28.

Instead, Malaysians see Najib’s desperation when the Umno/BN government had to hijack the 55th Merdeka Day/49th Malaysia Day celebrations by imposing the BN election theme of “Janji Ditepati” for the two national celebrations – which further provoked negative backlash among independent-minded and discerning Malaysians.

The recent survey by Universiti Malaya Center for Democracy and Elections (UMCEDEL) which found a three per cent drop in the people’s support towards the Prime Minister five months between early April and early September bears out a slide, though slight, of  Najib’s popularity.

The survey also found a decline in confidence that a Najib-led BN would retain Putrajaya following the 13th general election.

The earlier survey done found 49 percent were confident that BN would defend Putrajaya, while the latest survey found that figure had dropped to 44 percent.

In the meantime, the people’s confidence that Pakatan Rakyat would win Putrajaya has increased from 21 percent in March to 30 percent in its survey ending Sept 15, while the number of those uncertain has declined by 26 percent.

The survey further noted a decline in support for the PM’s transformation programmes focusing on three key reforms – the RM500 given to families (BR1M) who have less than RM3,000 in wages, the Kedai Rakyat 1Malaysia (KR1M) and also the 1Malaysia clinics.

For example, for the BR1M program, there was a decline in support by five per cent from 66 percent, while KR1M, which recorded a 68 percent support in the previous survey, dropped to 56 percent.

The 1Malaysia clinic also recorded a decline in support to 65 percent from 74 previously.

Can a second payment of BR1M which  more than double the first BR1M  of RM500 and benefiting more than 4.2 million households, as well as a cornucopia of other goodies to various sectors in the 2013 Budget,  restore Najib’s popularity and the electoral fortunes for Umno/BN for the 13th general elections?

Only the results of the next general elections, whether held at the end of the year or early next year, can provide the answers.

It is undoubtedly a major setback for good governance in Malaysian when the primary question that is asked about the annual budget is not how the country could become more competitive and better positioned to achieve the goal of a developed and high-income nation but what is the best formula to fortify UMNO and Barisan Nasional’s position in the next general elections to save Najib’s premiership!

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 27 September 2012, 5:03 pm and is filed under
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BFM interview Koon Yew Yin

Follow Koon Yew Ying’s BFM interview. Koon said: “There are hundreds of big buildings and structures, can you tell me which buildings or structures are won by Bumiputera contractors through open tender? There are hundreds of K. meter of highway, can you point out the stretch of highway awarded through competitive tender?

“Record shows that it is easy to produce doctors, surgeons, lawyers, engineers and other professionals but it is very difficult to produce competent contractors or entrepreneurs.

“Bumiputeras must be willing to start from the bottom and learn the business. Tan Seri Yeoh Tiong Lay started as a small time contractor. Tan Seri Lim Goh Tong started as a scrap iron dealer in Sungei Besi.

“I, Koon Yew Yin and 3 other small time contractors started with Rm 200,000 capital in 1966. As a result, I was one of the founders of IJM Corporation Bhd.

“I am completely retired from business and I hope you are not offended by what I have expressed here. I trust we will elect politicians who will not simply give out large contracts or concessions without open tenders.”

Video:

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 27 September 2012, 12:57 pm and is filed under
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Di antara bajet BN dan bajet Pakatan Rakyat

 — Aspan Alias

The Malaysian Insider

Sep 27, 2012

27 SEPT — BN dan Pakatan Rakyat memperagakan bajet 2013 masing-masing. Pihak Pakatan Rakyat telah membentangkan bajet bayangannya dua hari sebelum Najib membentangkan bajet pihak BN. Najib akan membentangkan bajetnya pada Jumaat ini dan dijangka bajet itu adalah bajet pilihanraya. Tanda-tanda bajet itu akan memasukkan banyak peruntukan pemberian tunai kepada rakyat itu adalah jelas dan telah pun diakui oleh beberapa orang pemimpin-pemimpin BN.

Itu tidak memeranjatkan sesiapa kerana Najib begitu popular dengan membeli hati dan jiwa rakyat dengan wang ringgit. Bagi Najib bayar sana, bayar sini adalah cara yang beliau selalu lakukan baik dalam kerajaan mahu pun didalam kegiatan parti. Najib mentadbir kerajaan seperti beliau mentadbir Umno bahagiannya  di Pekan.

Dalam pada itu PR juga mengemukakan bajet pihaknya untuk membezakannya diantara bajet yang selalu di bentangkan oleh BN. Beberapa pemimpin kerajaan termasuk menteri-menterinya telah mengkritik bajet Pakatan Rakyat dan menuduh PR sedang cuba untuk menarik undi dan bajet anjuran PR itu adalah bajet yang tidak realistik.

Saya hanya hendak memberi komen tentang isu realistik atau tidaknya bajet PR yang di katakan oleh pemimpin samseng BN seperti Nazri Aziz dan beberapa “hulubalang” BN itu sebagai bahan lawak itu. Nazri membuat komen yang tidak beretika sehinggakan dia mengatakan bajet anjuran PR itu adalah bajet bodoh. Bagi saya hanya orang bodoh sahaja yang mengenali si bodoh yang lain.

Entah mana letak cerdiknya pemimpin BN seperi Nazri ini tidak pula kita ketahui kerana jika benar mereka itu cerdik masakan rakyat memberontak terhadap BN dan hanya menunggu masa untuk menunjukkan perasaan mereka dalam peti undi nanti. Pemimpin yang bodoh akan sentiasa menganggap pihak lain itu sama bodoh dengan mereka.

Di atas kebodohan pemimpin-pemimpin kerajaan inilah yang membezakan bajet BN yang kita lihat setiap tahun yang tidak pernah tercapai seperti apa yang mereka (BN) bajetkan selama ini. Jika bajet mereka benar-benar berjaya selama ini berjaya di laksanakan, keadaan keresahan rakyat seperti yang kita semua rasakan pada hari ini tidak akan berlaku kerana dalam pembentangan bajet selama ini semuanya adalah pembentangan yang baik-baik belaka. Tidak ada yang tidak baik tetapi hasilnya kita sama-sama saksikan sekarang.

Oleh yang demikian yang sudah terbukti tidak berjaya ialah bajet BN dan tentulah apa yang dibentangkan oleh kerajaan dalam bajet setiap tahun itu adalah bajet yang tidak realistik dan tidak boleh dilaksanakan dengan sempurna. Janji-janjinya di dalam pembentangan bajet-bajet tersebut tinggal hanya bajet dan tidak pernah terlaksana dengan baik.

Tetapi apa yang saya hendak tekankan ialah dari segi sikap pemimpin-pemimin BN dengan reaksi mereka terhadap bajet yang dibentangkan oleh Pakatan Rakyat petang semalam itu. Satu perkara yang nyata kita lihat apa sahaja yang dibentangkan oleh Pakatan Rakyat itu tidak elok kepada BN. Jika pembentangan dari PR itu baik tentulah ianya tidak baik bagi BN kerana ia akan memberikan saingan dan mengecilkan serta merendahkan pandangan rakyat terhadap BN yang “ego” dan “arrogant” BN itu.

BN tidak mahu mengaku yang apa yang mereka tidak mampu melakukannya tidak semestinya tidak mampu dilaksanakan oleh pihak lain, dan dalam isu ini pihak Pakatan Rakyat. Pemimpin melakukan “equation” kemampuan Pakatan Rakyat itu sama lemahnya seperti kemampuan BN.

Bajet yang di unjurkan oleh PR itu jika di serahkan kepada BN untuk melaksanakannya tentunya tidak termampu untuk mereka (BN) melaksanakannya kerana kemampuan BN sangat terbatas. Justeru mereka (BN) menganggap apa yang dibentangkan oleh Pakatan Rakyat itu tidak realistik dan tidak boleh dilaksanakan mengikut tahap kemampuan mereka (BN).

Apa yang lebihnya dalam bajet bayangan Pakatan Rakyat itu ialah ia mengandungi elemen moral yang tidak akan ada di dalam bajet BN itu. Pakatan Rakyat dengan keyakinan tinggi memasukkan elemen pembersihan pentadbiran kerajaan dengan membasmi segala ketirisan yang berlaku dalam kerajaan sekarang dan ianya merupakan salah satu dari sumber perolehan untuk mengisi bajet yang telah dibentangkan semalam.

Mengelolakan ketirisan yang sebanyak RM28 billion setahun itu merupakan jumlah yang besar yang kerajaan Pakatan Rakyat boleh memunafaatkannya untuk rakyat jelata. Ia nya lebih mengutamakan “efficiency” yang merupakan satu perkara buruk yang sangat ketara dalam pentadbiran BN sejak dua tiga dekad yang lalu.

Apa yang dibentangkan di dalam bajet bayangan ini amat menakutkan pihak BN dan ianya telah memberi bayangan kepada rakyat yang apa yang terkandung di dalam bajet itu merupakan perkara-perkara yang boleh dilaksanakan jika ada kemahuan dan ketekunan untuk melaksanakan apa yang telah dibentangkan itu.

Tetapi pihak yang mengamalkan rasuah yang sampai keperingkat ketagihan itu tidak akan dapat menerima bajet bayangan yang telah dibentangkan itu. Sememangnya bajet bayangan PR ini tidak ada ruang untuk pihak yang berkuasa untuk melakukan rasuah dengan sewenang-wenangnya dan sememangnya akan dianggap tidak realistik oleh pihak BN.

Bagi BN semua yang dibajetkan itu mesti ada “variables” yang membolehkan mereka mendapat bahagian dalam semua perbelanjaan kerajaan dalam bentuk komisyen atau sebagainya. Kalau tidak ada elemen yang membolehkan mereka membuat “duit luar” akan dianggap tidak realistik. — aspanaliasnet.blogspot.com

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 27 September 2012, 6:12 pm and is filed under
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Kepercayaan Umno adalah segala-galanya adalah pemikiran usang

 — Aspan Alias

The Malaysian Insider

Sep 26, 2012

26 SEPT — Kenyataan Dr Mahathir terhadap apa yang beliau katakan sebagai ‘Melayu tidak berterima kasih’ dan ‘tidak bersyukur’ memberikan reaksi yang sangat besar terhadap kewibawaan BN dalam menghadapi PRU yang akan datang. Bagi Mahathir Melayu yang tidak menyokong Umno itu adalah Melayu yang tidak bersyukur dan Melayu yang tidak berterima kasih.

Kenyataan Dr Mahathir itu telah memisahkan ramai Melayu diantara dua pihak yang bertentangan dengan lebih dalam lagi dan kata-kata Dr Mahathir itu sangat menyentuh ramai Melayu yang sedang dalam pencarian sekarang ini. Mengatakan Melayu tidak bersyukur dan tidak berterima kasih itu adalah kenyataan yang tidak bertanggungjawab kerana adalah tidak wajar untuk menuduh Melayu yang betul-betul Melayu itu tidak bersyukur. Hanya orang Melayu yang benar-benar Melayu sahaja yang tahu isi hati orang Melayu sendiri.

Jika benar Umno telah berjuang dan berusaha untuk menyatukan orang Melayu tidak akan berlaku perpecahan seperti yang kita alami sekarang ini. Enam puluh enam tahun mengaku sebagai parti yang menyatukan orang Melayu tetapi apa yang kita sekarang ini hanya menunjukkan kegagalan Umno untuk melakukannya. Bagi Mahathir dan pemimpin Umno yang lain bersatunya Melayu itu ada beberapa cara:

Pertamanya Melayu mesti menyokong Umno bulat-bulat dan jangan mengambil kira samada Umno itu jujur atau tidak. Mereka menganggap Melayu mesti dipenjara dan diberi makan sikit-sikit untuk mengelak orang Melayu dari berfikir dan bertindak mengikut kehendak zaman dan waktunya. Kalau pemimpin rasuah di tabur benih-benih nilai yang membunuh orang Melayu sendiri seperti ada setengah Melayu yang berkata, “kalau Melayu rasuah itu Melayu, orang Melayu juga yang kaya. Apa yang hendak di cemburukan?”

Apa sahaja yang pemimpin mereka buat jangan dipersoalkan. Yang Melayu mesti lakukan ialah menyokong sahaja dan jangan berbuat apa-apa.  Terima sahaja bantuan rakyat 1 Malaysia (BRIM) dan bersyukurlah sampai mati. Terima sahaja bantuan dua batang gigi palsu dan terus mengundi Umno sampai mati. Itu adalah sifat berterima kasih. Kalau tidak menyokong Umno pulangkan balik gigi palsu itu kepada kerajaan.

Pemandu teksi diberikan empat tayar percuma dan dengan empat tayar percuma itu Umno mesti disokong tanpa berbelah bagi. Apa yang pemimpin buat di atas jangan dipersoalkan kerana mereka dah dapat empat biji tayar. Banyak lagi pemberian kerajaan yang kecil-kecil ini diperguna untuk menambat jiwa dan hati orang Melayu dan di harap terus menyokong parti itu. Kalau tidak menyokong kononnya orang Melayu akan hilang di dunia ini, tetapi mereka tidak sedar perlakuan pimpinan kita akan membuatkan orang Melayu hilang dunianya.

Cara keduanya ialah dengan membina perasaan benci terhadap bangsa bukan Melayu untuk dijadikan sebagai fakta yang boleh menyatukan orang Melayu. Pakatan Rakyat jika memerintah akan menghilangkan kuasa Melayu dalam politik dan merendahkan martabat agama Islam. Isu ini dimainkan dengan begitu hebat di kampung-kampung dan desa-desa bagi menakutkan orang Melayu untuk memberikan sokongan kepada parti-parti selain dari Umno.

Umno itu adalah segala-galanya kepada orang Melayu. Tidak ada Umno tidak akan selamat orang Melayu itu dunia akhirat. Itulah yang Umno cuba tanamkan dipemikiran orang Melayu.  Itulah yang telah diyakini oleh orang Melayu sebegitu lama. Tetapi kepercayaan itu tidak lagi kekal dalam pemikiran orang Melayu kerana Umno sendiri telah menunjukkan yang itu hanyalah satu mitos yang usang.

Janji Umno untuk membina masyarakat bersatu padu sebagai matlamat yang ‘ultimate’ telah gagal samasekali malahan Umno pula yang menyuntik perasaan curiga- mencurigai diantara kaum dan agama. Memperbaiki kedudukkan ekonomi orang Melayu juga merupakan satu yang dijanjikan oleh Umno kepada rakyat tetapi orang Melayu tetap berada ditahap yang lama setelah Umno melalaikan dasar-dasar yang telah terbentuk sebelum Mahathir mengambilalih kepimpinan. Hanya segelintir orang Melayu yang mendapat segala-galanya dan tidak payah kita ulangi acapkali.

Umno tidak lagi mempunyai ‘attribute’ sebagai parti yang memerintah dengan sikapnya yang sama seperti parti-parti yang memulakan kejatuhan seperti yang kita lihat dimerata-rata negara didunia ini. Umno menampakkan sangat rasa ‘desperado’nya untuk kekal berkuasa dan itu tidak lagi ada sifat seperti parti pemerintah yang ‘magnanimous’ yang berlaku adil kepada semua rakyat jelata.

Umno gagal untuk memperbaiki diri mereka. Mereka tidak tahu ‘priority’ dalam penyelesaian kemelut politik hari ini. Mereka gagal untuk mengakui bahawa yang paling utama untuk di selesaikan ialah imej dan stigma rasuah yang telah melekat begitu ketara kepada Umno. Rakyat yang berfikir tahu jika rasuah tidak dapat dihapuskan tidak ada penyelesaian terhadap masalah mereka. Kita tahu jika kerajaan itu kerajaan rasuah tidak akan ada dan terjumpa lagi mereka (kerajaan) membuat keputusan dengan betul.  Rasuah itu adalah pembunuh kepada tamaddun manusia dan jika rasuah berluas-luasa, percayalah negara tidak akan menjadi betul lagi sampai bila-bila.

Dengan keadaan ini ‘mindset’ rakyat sudah berubah dan ianya telah memadamkan segala kerja baik yang terdahulu kerana politik ini berkisar kepada keadan terkini dan masa depan negara.

Jika ‘mindset’ Melayu sudah berubah maka perubahan sebanyak 5 peratus sudah mencukupi  untuk mengalih dan menganjakkan siapa yang akan memerintah negara selepas ini. Orang Melayu bukannya sesuka hati untuk menganjak dan mengalih atau mematahkan BN ini. Mereka bukan mematahkan semata-mata untuk mematahkan. Ianya bersebab dan penyebab ini telah wujud sejak hampir tiga puluh tahun dahulu.

Pilihanraya kali ini merupakan pilihanraya yang amat kritikal dan ia akan menentukan samada negara akan masih ditadbir oleh mereka yang tidak boleh dipercayai atau oleh mereka yang akan melakukan perubahan dalam segala-galanya semata-mata untuk menentukan Malaysia kekal sebagai negara yang mempunyai ‘consequence’ di mata masyarakat antarabangsa. Kaum bukan Melayu sudah menentukan sikap mereka. Jika ada perubahan sebanyak 5 peratus dikalangan orang Melayu maka Umno wajar menerima kenyataan yang sekarang adalah giliran mereka untuk duduk di kerusi pembangkang.

Inilah yang membuatkan Dr Mahathir bercakap tidak berhenti-henti untuk menyelamatkan kuasa yang berada di tangan BN pada masa ini. Segala kritikan beliau terhadap orang Melayu sekarang ini adalah kritikan kepada dirinya sendiri. Kekuatan yang bertambah yang dibentuk oleh pihak pembangkang sekarang telah diperkuatkan lagi oleh Mahathir sendiri.

Kata-kata Dr Mahathir kini merupakan kata-kata yang ‘counter productive’ bagi Umno dan BN. Lagi banyak Dr Mahathir bercakap lebih mudah lagilah Pakatan Rakyat untuk meneruskan perjalanan ke Putrajaya itu. Orang Melayu mempunyai ‘alternative’ yang banyak, di antaranya PAS akan menjadi pilihan kepada perjuangan orang Melayu bersama dengan Islamnya dan DAP pula telah mengakui yang mereka (DAP) bahawa orang Melayu merupakan tonggak kepada politik dan siasah orang Melayu.

Tiada parti yang selamat tanpa sokongan orang Melayu dan itulah juga sebabnya Umno merasa tidak selamat kerana kehilangan sokongan Melayu yang agak mendadak sekarang ini.

Sesungguhnya Umno sedang menghadapi masalah yang tidak dapat digambarkan besarnya dengan kata-kata. Umno bermasalah dan akan terus bermasalah… Jika sesebuah parti menghadapi masalah yang besar ia akan meruntuhkan lagi keyakinan rakyat yang akan mengundi. — aspanaliasnet.blogspot.com

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 27 September 2012, 12:09 am and is filed under
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Marks of a good Malaysian leader

By
Ooi Kee Beng
 | September 26, 2012

The Malaysian Insider

SEPT 26 — There is an anecdote told among close acquaintances of the late Tun Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman, Malaysia’s feared and respected deputy prime minister and home affairs minister in the early 1970s, that he once in confidence said that he felt he was at heart a greater racist than in his actions, unlike most of his politician colleagues, who were more opportunistic and were racists in words and deeds, but not at heart.

And yet, he was the Malay leader that Chinese Malaysian leaders of his day trusted. In fact, even Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore has often reiterated that Tun Dr Ismail was the only Malaysian leader he had faith in.

As a reflection of the Malaysian culture prevalent during his time perhaps, many of his best friends throughout his life were non-Malays. When Tun Dr Ismail was growing up in Johor Baru, among his family’s closest friends were the Cheahs, the Kuoks and the Puthuchearys.

Dr Cheah Tiang Eam was a medical doctor who was very close to Ismail’s father, Abdul Rahman Yassin. Ismail’s elder brother, Suleiman, later a member of Malaya’s first Cabinet, was sent to the Cheah home to learn English manners from Mrs Cheah, who was an English lady. Ismail was especially fond of the youngest Cheah daughters, who later married the Kuok brothers, Philip and Robert. The Kuoks would be among Ismail’s closest friends in adult life.

The painful process of securing independence and negotiating a workable path of nation building in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s seared the ever-present issue of race onto the political foreground, where it has stayed until today.

Racial issues submerged consciousness of the inter-ethnic exchanges and cultural hybridisation, which continued nevertheless. Understandably, in many Malaysians, strong ethnocentric emotions were stimulated for a time, something that the ensuing politicking would not allow to dissipate.

What went wrong, of course, when we look back over the last few decades, was that they allowed themselves to be manipulated into seeing themselves exhaustively in racial terms and not in citizenship terms. The political establishment grew to depend on this discourse, and turned it into a chronic pathological state.

The golf handicap

Where policy making was concerned, Tun Dr Ismail saw racialism as a technical issue, and not a matter of rights. An unhappy and unacceptable historically given socio-economic condition had to be rectified for the country to move on — and that condition happened to have an extremely strong ethnic element to it. That was the reason why Malaysian politics had to have such a strong racial slant. It was a historical contingence.

One of his more memorable ideas was his famous use of the golf handicap metaphor to explain affirmative action for the Malays — the NEP. Having the handicap system is meant, firstly, to allow those weaker in the sport to participate, and secondly to provide these newcomers with opportunities to improve their game and to lessen their handicap successively. The aim is for as many players as possible to have as low a handicap as possible.

Realising the danger that the NEP could devolve into an exercise in Malay entitlement if not properly handled, he pushed for a twenty-year limit to be put on it.

The poignant point in Tun Dr Ismail’s admission about his feelings — and it is one that forces all of us to be sincere at least to ourselves — is that what makes a man good and a leader great is not what his innermost feelings are but how he rises above them. As the celebrated scholar Prof Wang Gungwu once told me: “We are all racially biased in our feelings at some level; but what is essential is how we rise above them in our actions”.

This attempt at rising above his feelings was what enabled Tun Dr Ismail to reach across ethnic divides. It was also well-known that he strongly disliked the term “Bumiputera” and feared that it would disunite Malaysians. He felt it best not to confuse the issue by lumping Malays with other groups.

Tun Dr Ismail enjoyed widespread respect from all who knew him and instilled awe in his subordinates because he could not stand fools. That trait is more important than one might think. If one takes the duties of leadership as seriously as he did, then subordinates or peers who did not feel a sense of urgency in what they did actually undermined his labours.

In fact, he was feared as a medical doctor as well, never tolerating patients who showed signs of self-pity and who were psychosomatic. As his Johor Baru neighbour Robert Kuok would later say, “Doc would not have fared well running a medical clinic”.

Politics became Ismail’s calling instead, and self-discipline, practical wisdom, and a strong ethical sense would mark his career. He could not stand corruption either, as was seen in how he with a shouted threat of prosecution sent away a Chinese vendor who had delivered vegetables and other goods to his home as gifts for his family.

Despite being home affairs minister, it was nevertheless Tun Dr Ismail’s vision of a neutral Southeast Asia which came to define the country’s foreign policy that has remained so successful and consistent till this day.

As Tun Abdul Razak’s main confidante, he exerted a greater influence over the early years of Razak’s premiership than is normally assumed. When news of his demise in September 1973 reached Razak in Ottawa where the prime minister was attending a Commonwealth meeting, the latter practically collapsed and had to be medicated. Tun Razak later lamented: “Whom shall I trust now?”

Tun Dr Ismail has been dead for 40 years now, and Malaysia has changed greatly. But his legacy of inclusion and moderation, and honest and honourable leadership, is unforgettable and can yet inspire new generations of Malaysians from both sides of the political divide to lead with wisdom.

Perhaps we will yet see a Malaysia that strives to unite its people; that spontaneously celebrates its diversity; and that acts on universal human principles instead of demeaning opportunism.

I would venture that that was the Malaysian Dream from the very start. —
New Mandala

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 27 September 2012, 11:40 am and is filed under
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Mengundi Umno itu bukan wajib hukumnya! (Bhg. 1)

Oleh
Sakmongkol AK47
 | September 26, 2012

The Malaysian Insider

26 SEPT — Rakyat sudah bertanya, kenapa kita mesti mengundi Umno? Ye — kenapa mesti? Why at all? Adakah orang Melayu akan mati jika tidak menyokong Umno?

Umno guna 3 isi — bangsa, agama, raja Melayu. Bangsa Melayu akan terancam jika Umno kalah. Agama Islam akan tergugat jika Umno kalah, dan Raja Melayu juga akan musnah jika PR jadi kerajaan.

Jika Umno bercakap kepada rakyat bodoh, mungkin pembohongan mereka akan berjaya. Jika semua orang baca Utusan Malaysia sahaja dan tonton TV3 sahaja, mungkin juga penipuan mereka akan berjaya.

Tapi ini zaman, rakyat yang bijak. rakyat terdedah kepada internet. Mereka baca harakah, Roket dan Suara Keadilan. Orang tak baca Straits Times yang tidak ada kredibiliti. Orang tak baca Utusan Malaysia atau Berita Hairan yang jadi saluran propaganda murahan Umno.

Zaman ini, rakyat ada pilihan. Dan essence atau pati amalan demokrasi ialah kebebasan membuat pilihan. Demokrasi sebenarnya adalah kaedah yang rakyat boleh pilih untuk menyekat konsentrasi kuasa. Kerana bila konsentrasi kuasa berlaku, rakyat di sombongi, di picit, ramas dan kena tindas.

Itu sebab ada suara alternative yang berani dan lantang. Kerana keberanian dan kelantangan menghasilkan lapuran dan pencabaran merupakan senjata terbaik yang rakyat ada untuk melawan konsentrasi kuasa.

Apa pasal orang tak baca akhbar arus perdana? Kerana akhbar-akhbar arus perdana mengamalkan mediakrasi — yakni propaganda yang bertopengkan objektiviti kewartawanan. Ya — mereka mahu tawan minda orang Melayu melalui propaganda murahan. Dan pendukong propaganda murahan ini adalah pelacurwartawan murahan yang puji memuji antara satu sama lain tentang kehebatan mereka!

Kini rakyat sedar bahawa mediakrasi mewakili jiwa pengecut dan kekomanan. Mediakrasi menyokong kejahatan dan salahlaku.

Apa yang berlaku dalam zaman rakyat bijak hari ini? Anak-anak mereka pergi ke kolej dan university dan balik rumah beritahu ibu bapa apa yang terjadi. Rakyat setuju bahawa Umno guna segala tipu helah ini kerana kedudukan mereka dan bukan orang Melayu yang terancam.

Mari kita musnahkan tahyul yang dijaja oleh Umno.

Masa depan Melayu. Rakyat Kelantan sudah membuktikan mereka terus hidup tanpa Umno jadi kerajaan. Tidak ada orang Melayu mati bila DAP memerintah Penang. Kenapa baru sekarang Umno sedar KM Pulau Pinang itu seorang Cina, sedangkan sejak dari Perikatan sehingga BN tewas tahun 2008, semua KM Pulau Pinang adalah orang Cina. Ada kita tengok orang Melayu mati apabila PAS memerintah Kedah? Ada kita tengok orang Melayu bergelimpangan mati bila PR memerintah Selangor? ada kita tengok Raja-Raja Melayu dihina dan diaibkan dalam negeri-negeri yang di perintah PR?

Apa pengajaran yang rakyat lihat bila PR memerintah Kelantan, Pulau Pinang, Kedah dan Selangor? semua rakyat boleh lihat bahawa mereka boleh ada masa depan yang lebih baik dari apa yang Umno janjikan. Dan janji Pekatan Rakyat didasari oleh rekod baik mereka, manakala janji Najib dan Umno dicemari oleh pencabulan dan kejahatan keatas rakyat. Jadi Najib akhirnya hanya boleh buat janji yang rakyat tidak percaya dan hanya mampu menunjukkan jari telunjuk ke udara? Dato Seri- satu jari sahaja cukup ke?

Dr Mahathir menulis panjang lebar mengenai bahaya Melayu berpecah. Sayang nya penyebab Melayu jadi cair dan lunyai ialah angkara Dr Mahathir sendiri. Dr Mahathir tidak percaya kepada orang Melayu. Sebab itu dia lakukan persempadanan dan dilute konsentrasi pengundi Melayu. Siapa yang dia bawa untuk mencairkan konsentrasi orang Melayu? Orang Cina dan India. Konsentrasi Melayu dipecah pecahkan. Jadi kepaduan Melayu jadi cair. Arkitek kepada pencairan ini ialah Dr Mahathir dan hari ini, penyebab luntur nya orang Melayu mahu bercakap mengenai perpaduan orang Melayu?

Kebenaran nya ialah orang Melayu mahu bersatu dibawah PR terutama PAS. Mereka tidak mahukan Umno, parti syaitan yang bergelumang dengan rasuah dan salah guna kuasa. Zaman dimana pemimpin Melayu berkerja dengan penuh dedikasi untuk mencapai seruan hari ini diganti dengan gerombolan pemimpin yang mengejar kepentingan peribadi dan keluarga. Setiap pemimpin Umno yang berkuasa adalah korap dan rasuah. Mengapa orang Melayu mesti menyokong mereka?

Jadi apa yang dirisaukan oleh orang Melayu kalau Umno dibuang? Masa depan orang Melayu lebih terbela dibawah PAS dan PR daripada duduk dibawah Umno. Umno memperjuangkan orang Melayu yang istimewa dan terpilih. —
sakmongkol.blogspot.com

*
Sakmongkol AK47 is the nom de plume of Datuk Mohd Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz. He was Pulau Manis assemblyman (2004-2008).

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 27 September 2012, 1:00 pm and is filed under
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Can there be a SPM trial exam question: Is it appropriate for police to use tear gas, water cannon or physical violence against peaceful demonstrators?

Would the Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and his two deputies, Puad Zarkashi and Datuk Wee Ka Siong give their tacit approval  or close their eyes and shut their ears if any of the  following questions had appeared in a SPM trial examination paper for Moral Education:

•	Is it appropriate for the police to use tear-gas or chemically-laced water cannon or used physical violence against peaceful demonstrators comprising all races, religions, age and gender who merely wanted to send a clear and unmistakable to the government that they want free, fair and clean elections?

•	Is it appropriate for any government to misuse public funds for political party purposes especially in the run-up to a general election?

•	Is it appropriate for voters in a general election to support candidates from  a political coalition which is responsible for Malaysia having the lowest Transparency International Corruption Perception Index ranking of No. 60 as well as lowest CPI score of 4.3 in 2012?

•	Is it appropriate for any Minister or MP to go against national unity efforts as publicly dissociating from the 1Malaysia policy, declaring that he or she is Malay first and Malaysian second?

Of course not. There can be no shadow of doubt that if such questions had appeared in any school SPM trial examination paper, there would be an orchestrated howl of protest and condemnation in the mainstream mass media of Utusan Malaysia, New Straits Times, Berita Harian and the Star as well as on government/Barisan Nasional radio and television channels, followed by a witch-hunt to expose, penalise and even criminalise those responsible for setting the questions.

Surely, Puad would not say: “As long as it does not affect the racial or religious sensitivities or malign any individual, I feel (the question) is not a problem…It is up to the rakyat to decide”.

This is what Puad said when commenting on a question in a school SPM trial examination on Moral Education in Johore Baru, which featured two photographs of the Bersih 3.0 rally on April 28, and asked:  “Is it appropriate for a citizen to participate in an illegal assembly?”

A photograph of the question referring to the Bersih 3.0 rally from a an SPM trial examination paper at a school in Johore  Baru appeared on Facebook, which showed that the  answer given by the student – “tidak wajar (not appropriate)” – was ticked as correct.

Would Muhyiddin, Puad and Wee take the position that there is nothing wrong with the setting of questions like the four above for students, just as they now strike the posture that its “not a problem” for such a Bersih question to be posed in the SPM school trial examination?

In fact, in another trial examination for STPM General Paper in a school in Johore Baru, there is a clear insinuation that those who supported the Opposition could have their citizenship revoked?

Would Muhyiddin, Puad and Wee agree and approve if STPM General Paper school trial examination poses the question whether a person who supported corrupt political leaders have failed their citizenship responsibilities?

Clearly the politicisation of education has reached a new low with the Education Minister and his two deputy Ministers failing to condemn in the strongest possible terms the setting of these tendentious and misguided questions – which amounts no less to an irresponsible attempt to indoctrinate and brainwash schoolchildren to parrot the views of the ruling coalition.

With such continued politicisation of education, there can be very little

public  confidence that under continued UMNO/Barisan Nasional government, the education system could  unite rather than divide Malaysians or that the Malaysian Education Blueprint 2013-2025 recently launched by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak would be able to make any fundamental difference to the problems of politicisation and deterioration of educational standards in Malaysia.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 28 September 2012, 1:34 pm and is filed under
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2013 Budget hides a very unconfident Najib who is haunted and hounded by the phobia that his fourth budget speech may be the last Umno/BN budget in Parliament

Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s barefaced denial yesterday that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 2013 Budget was an “election budget”  illustrated what is wrong with the UMNO/Barisan Nasional government after 55 years in power – that the Umno/BN government leaders suffer from the dual terminal ailments of  denial complex and unprecedented credibility gap.

Even UMNO/Barisan Nasional Ministers, MPs and members would not believe Muhyiddin’s brazen denial that Najib’s 2013 Budget was not an “election budget”.

Why then is the Deputy Prime Minister making a denial that is completely bereft of credibility, whether in Pakatan Rakyat or Barisan Nasional camps?

The only answer is that UMNO/BN leaders continue to suffer from the false sense  that they could transform Malaysian politics into a world of make-believe and get ordinary Malaysians to believe what the UMNO/BN leaders decreed, although  totally divorced from the world of reality.

It is because of this misguided and misplaced complex that caused  UMNO/BN leaders to continue to deny that the growing fear of crime among Malaysians as well as rampant corruption in the country are major problems in the country, falling back on discredited GTP and NKRA statistics and claims of falling crime index and progress in the war against corruption.

But this is false sense of make-believe and denial is not sustainable in the real world, especially in the era of Internet and information technology where information travels at the speed of light and could no more be buried by the BN mainstream media.

Najib had  put his finger on the pulse of the problem when he became Prime Minister in April 2009, when he declared that “the era that the government knows best is over”, but the tragedy is that Najib had demonstrated in his 42 months as Prime Minister that he could diagnose the problem afflicting UMNO/BN government but he could not act on the diagnosis, either for lack of political will or personal convictions.

Najib made dubious history yesterday when he transformed his  2013 Budget – which had goodies for almost every sector of the electorate – into a brazen electioneering speech.

Despite Muhyiddin’s post-budget claim that the 2013 Budget is not an “election budget”, Najib devoted more than 10 per cent of his budget speech in a  blatant electioneering appeal for continued support for Umno/BN while launching a most improper  attack on Pakatan Rakyat.

Najib took MPs and the listening Malaysian public by surprise when he devoted  the first six paragraphs of his 2013 Budget speech appealing to Malaysians for continued electoral support for Umno/BN government after 55 years, and hurled  charges and insinuations against Pakatan Rakyat.

But he outdid himself at the end of the  budget speech when he devoted the last 14 paragraphs of his 174-paragraph budget speech on a unashamed glorification of Umno/BN rule and condemned Pakatan Rakyat, causing many on  both sides of the political divide to shake their heads with the common complaint that the 2013 Budget presentation was a poor reflection on the “class” and “standard” both on the Prime Minister and the annual budget.

It is evident that the 2013 Budget hides a very unconfident Najib who is haunted and hounded by the phobia that his fourth budget speech as Finance Minister may be the last Umno/BN budget in Parliament in the nation’s history.

This is why despite all the chest-thumping and braggadocio of supreme confidence that Malaysia will witness six more budgets to be tabled by the Umno/BN Government to transform Malaysia from middle to a high-income developed country, Najib has  continued to play the role of Shakespeare’s Hamlet,  “To Be or Not To Be”, agonizing over whether “To dissolve or not to dissolve Parliament” since last year.

The reason is simple – Najib has no confidence that he would not be the last Umno Prime Minister in Malaysia or that he would not be toppled as UMNO President and Prime Minister  in a repeat scenario like what happened to  Tun Abdullah in 2009, becoming the latest “trophy” of Tun Mahathir with the scalps of  three DPMs and two PMs!

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 29 September 2012, 3:12 pm and is filed under
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Budget 2013 showdown: BN vs Pakatan

Review by Lee Wei Lian

The Malaysian Insider

Sep 29, 2012

SEPT 29 — Now that both Budget 2013 from the ruling coalition and the shadow budget from the opposition have been presented, let’s take a look at how the two budgets stack up against one another.

This is the last budget before the general election and the stakes are high. Barisan Nasional (BN) has had a lot of experience in crafting budgets and surprised no one when it dished out cash and other goodies, particularly to the younger generation who are a significant chunk of the newly registered electorate and are an unknown quantity in terms of their voting inclinations.

It scored some points however for not going overboard with spending as expected by some economists and still managed to pare down its expected budget deficit to four per cent from an estimated 4.5 per cent this year.

Pakatan Rakyat (PR) is a relative novice when it comes to federal budgets and presented one that appears to be much more geared toward reforming the economy than the one from the Najib administration which appeared to have more-of-the-same type policy tinkering rather than sweeping fundamental changes.

Najib gives the thumb’s up to Budget 2013 which he presented in Parliament on September 28, 2012. — Picture by Choo Choy MayYou can’t really blame Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak for not wanting to rock the boat too much and going back for more of the same approach that delivered impressively higher than expected GDP growth this year despite economic slowdowns elsewhere in the world.

But PR’s budget, on the other hand, is more exciting as it really shows teeth when it comes to tackling things like monopolies, cartels and downsizing the state’s involvement in business.

Not everything in the two budgets can be compared directly but one of the things that can be put side by side is the fiscal numbers. So we start off with:

The Balanced Budget Category

Budget deficit

BN: 4 per cent

PR: 3.5 per cent

Winner: PR

BN managed to cut the projected deficit from 4.5 per cent this year to 4 per cent in 2013 but it wasn’t enough to beat PR. BN can say of course that PR can promise anything since it is less accountable as it is not in power.

PR meanwhile has talked a lot about eliminating corruption, leakages and wastages but all that effort appeared to yield only a slightly better deficit number than BN’s. Still, the slight improvement is enough to give it an edge over BN in the eyes of ratings agencies and economists.

Economic Development

BN’s approach appears to be via a sprinkling of incentives based on wish lists from industry groups while PR’s approach looks to be tackling things at the fundamental level by boosting the country’s intrinsic competitiveness.

BN advocates incentives such as tax relief for R&D, a RM1 billion fund to boost domestic investments, incentives to take over foreign firms, incentives for the tech industry such as income tax relief for Angel investors and recognising intellectual property as collateral, and a RM10 billion Working Capital Guarantee Scheme for SMEs.

PR has gone for the reform route for development, saying that it will seek first to purify the economy of toxicities and flush out rent seeking, corruption, cronyism by dismantling cartels, abolishing monopolies so that the economy can more easily flourish free from the scourges of distortions and inefficiencies. By aggressively reducing state capitalism by reforming the role of GLCs, it also promised to make entrepreneurship the bedrock of the economy.

Winner: Both approaches have their merits. BN’s incentive-based approach is safe but boring and PR’s reforms are more exciting and have the potential to send the economy to first-world status. A hybrid approach would be best as SMEs shouldn’t have to choose between a working capital guarantee scheme and a business environment free from cartels and rent-seeking. But based on the potential value that the approaches will bring over the long term, PR wins this one.

Education

A country’s future is won or lost in its schools. BN recently launched an education blueprint devised with input from experts but surprisingly cut its education budget drastically from RM50 billion in the last budget to RM38.7 billion in 2013. The prime minister did say that they wanted to “look at the outcome of each child per ringgit spent” during the blueprint launch so maybe they found ways to cut out wastage and increase efficiency.

PR, on the other hand, had little to say about education in the budget and the most noticeable thing was that it wanted to abolish the National Higher Education Fund (PTPTN). While the intention is good and some restructuring of PTPTN might be in order which includes a certain degree of debt forgiveness, and its proposed fee subsidies for private education is a good idea, wiping out PTPTN debts could backfire as it would give students a sense of entitlement and increase their reliance on the government. Many ex-students who paid back their PTPTN loans are already complaining that they should have waited.

Winner: BN admitted Malaysia’s poor showing in international testing and vowed to improve it via the new blueprint. The apparent cut in education spending is puzzling but PR’s move to wipe out PTPTN debt smacks of populism and vote-buying. What kind of message does that send to students? That they don’t have to pay back debts? Based on this and its recent blueprint which drew mixed reviews but was nevertheless a step in the right direction, BN wins education.

Personal Income

BN has once again committed to direct cash transfers to the low income to help with the rising cost of living. PR, on the other hand, says that it will increase money in the pocket indirectly by making cars cheaper via excise duty reductions, toll abolishment, waiver of PTPTN and savings from lower fuel and transportation charges.

BN also cut income tax rates for taxable income up to RM50,000 but tax experts expect that this is just in preparation for the introduction of GST.

Winner: Both have their pros and cons. Direct cash transfers can help in times of economic slowdown as it boost domestic consumption. It however can also be perceived as a vote-buying tactic and is one-off so it is not sustainable. A one-percentage point cut in income tax is not much when you consider that other countries have income tax as low as 11 per cent for RM300,000 in taxable income or have higher income tax than Malaysia but offer better public services in exchange. PR’s approach by increasing income by removing economic distortions is more sustainable so it wins this one although it’s a hold-your-nose winner as it includes PTPTN waivers as part of its income boost.

Housing

Housing is a big issue as many have complained that putting a roof over their head has become more unaffordable.

BN’s approach has been via increasing real property gains tax (RPGT) by five per cent in the first two brackets to combat speculation and also to spend RM1.9 billion to build 123,000 low-cost houses.

It would also make it easier for young people earning less than RM5,000 to get loans for a house.

PR proposed to build 100,000 affordable homes within the price range of RM130,000 to RM300,000 to be built by a National Housing Board with an injection of initial seed capital of RM5 billion in 2013.

Winner: Both advocate more public housing but BN tackles the issue of property speculation via RPGT while PR does not. BN though could be setting the stage for financial problems by making it even easier for people earning less than RM5,000 to own their own homes without coming up with so much as three months’ instalments in savings, let alone a downpayment which really appears to promote irresponsible lending. I call this a tie with no clear winner.

Public Transport

Both said they are committed to improving public transport.

BN didn’t have much new to say about it other than discounts for KTM for those earning less than RM3,000.

PR, on the other hand, vowed to decentralise transport planning and make it a more local issue and said it would review the MRT in favour of BRT (Bus Rapid Transit).

Winner: Both are for public transport. PR’s fetish for BRT however is worrying as it looks to cities like Bogota and Johannesburg rather than cities like Zurich and Tokyo which are world leaders in public transport and use rail as their backbone rather than buses. Buses are OK for short hops but nobody likes to sit on a bus for long durations. PR’s push for more local transport planning is good but BN wins this as while it admits BRT has its place in some situations, it is less ideological about BRT.

Verdict

PR wins in more categories overall — Balanced Budget, Economic Development and Personal Income.

BN wins in Education and Public Transport with Housing being a Tie.

BN has a more cautious and Santa Claus-like approach in its budget with more policy tinkering, incentives and goodies and the conservativeness could be a reflection of its status as an incumbent.

PR has a bolder, more progressive and reform-minded approach to the budget which could be reflection of its challenger status.

Which do you prefer?

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 29 September 2012, 12:09 pm and is filed under
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Buying love on a Budget

 — Gomen Man

The Malaysian Insider

Sep 29, 2012

SEPT 29 — Is this it? This is not a Budget, what was announced yesterday by Finance Minister Najib Razak was vote-buying through the liberal use of taxpayers’ funds.

Yesterday was making Malaysians more addicted to handouts, the opiate of the masses.

Idris Jala, aka the salesman, can talk all he wants about GST and Malaysia’s readiness to wean itself of subsidies and Najib can go on about cutting the budget deficit but this government did this country a great disservice yesterday: it mortgaged the future for short-term gain.

And it also did the virtually impossible: it cut taxes, gave out more money and said that it would still cut the deficit. Najib should bottle this miraculous potion and sell it to the US.

The finance minister unashamedly said later that Malaysian should vote BN for more of WHAT WE HAVE TODAY! No talk about high-income economy; reducing dependency on foreign workers, etc.

This is WHAT WE HAVE TODAY:

1) A completely corrupt political and civil service elite. The only difference in these two groups is that it appears only the civil servants are being charged in court. Ministers wantonly flaunt their wealth, their wealth accumulation usually the result of kickbacks from privatisation awards to their cronies.

2) A country divided. The mainstream Malay media and Umno have positioned the Chinese as ungrateful. Under the veneer of unity, this is a country fractured and in dire need of rehabilitation and reconciliation.

3) The country’s debt is rising and is at an all-time high. And it is not 53 per cent of the GDP as announced in the Budget but 67 per cent. This includes government guarantees. The red flag should be raised when debt ratio to GDP is 55 per cent. It is now 67 per cent and you can bet that a government which does not know anything apart from spending will make our grandchildren pay dearly.

4) Rent-seeking has always been a feature of privatisation in Malaysia. Now the leaders of this country offer us liars and award contracts to companies which have no track record for billion ringgit deals. The inflated cost will be borne by you and me and our children.

Yesterday’s Budget was very much in keeping with a BN government which has tried to paper over cracks and gaps in this country by money.

It is like a parent who, devoid of any ideas of proper parenting, has decided to buy the affection of his children.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 29 September 2012, 1:21 pm and is filed under
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Candied Budget unlikely to sweeten GE13 for BN, say analysts

By Amin Iskandar, Hafidz Baharom, Md Izwan and Nomy Nozwir

The Malaysian Insider

Sep 29, 2012

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 29 — Voters have grown more discerning and are unlikely to be swayed by cash incentives and other one-off perks into casting their ballot for the Barisan Nasional (BN) government at national polls due soon, pundits said in weighing in on the impact of Budget 2013.

Political observers interviewed by The Malaysian Insider wholly agreed that the RM251.6 billion announced yesterday, which promised a slew of cash handouts and tax cuts spread across the board, was trained to appeal to key demographic groups in the run-up to the 13th general election, but said voters had become increasingly shrewd and capable of weighing the short-term personal gains against the long-term fiscal impact on the national economy.

“There are only two words to describe it — election budget,” said Monash University’s political science lecturer James Chin.

He noted that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has “pulled out all the stops and given the voters their sentiments, to let them think twice about voting for the opposition” in elections that must be held by next April when BN’s five-year mandate won in March 2008 runs out.

“People will compare the budget to Pakatan Rakyat’s and will also see how the second round of Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M) will fuel inflation,” Chin added.

The fledging Pakatan Rakyat (PR) opposition pact, formed just four years ago in the wake of landmark wins in Election 2008, has promised to raise the disposable income of Malaysians in an alternative set of Budget proposals just two days before the Najib administration unveiled its official proposals for spending and taxes.

Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim had said disposable income would rise through fiscal reform measures such as cutting the triple import taxes on foreign-made cars, abolishment of tolls and waiver of student loans, as PR sought to pre-empt Najib’s Budget announcement.

Anwar said a PR government would be able to pay for the proposed measures not through raising taxes but by plugging leakages that arise as a result of inefficiencies and corruption.

Arnold Puyok, a political scientist from Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) in Sabah, said the goodies announced for the young and singles “is an indication that the ruling party is set to win the hearts and minds of first-time voters in the upcoming election”.

He said it was still too early to tell if such sweeteners will tilt the hotly-contested elections in BN’s favour.

“Young people are not easily attracted to monetary incentives especially when they are related to electoral politics. They may consider the goodies as a form of government assistance. But whether this is translated into votes remain to be seen,” Arnold said.

But another analyst, Faisal Hazis, believes voters have smartened up since Election 2008.

“Voters today are smarter, not so easy for them to fall for sweet deals as before,” said the head of political science and international relations at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas).

“Cash handouts like BR1M do not promise permanent support as shown in the Merdeka Center’s earlier survey some months back where support for Najib rose several percentage points after the first round of BR1M, but dropped not long after it was handed out,” Faisal said.

According to independent pollster Merdeka Center, the PM’s personal approval score dipped four percentage points in the last survey in May from 69 per cent to 65 per cent in February, following a repeat in April of last year’s violent clashes between police and civil society demonstrators lobbying for the electoral roll to be cleaned up.

Herizal Hazri, deputy country representative for Asia Foundation, a US-based NGO working to improve governance, law and civil society issues through policy, said the people-friendly budget geared towards low-income earners was a positive move to raise the disposable income and spur domestic growth, but highlighted the lack of controls to monitor government spending.

“What’s worrisome in this budget is that there is no discussion of methods to monitor the implementation of the Budget, whether it will truly be carried out in a transparent manner or otherwise,” he said.

Professor Jayum A. Jawan, who lectures on politics and government in Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), shared a similar view with Kuching-based Faisal, describing the “one-off handouts” as a populist stunt to fish for votes among the less politically-aware groups who are usually based in rural areas, notably the interior of Malaysia’s two easternmost states across the South China Sea which are still largely forested.

“The allocation for transport, public infrastructure, fishermen, farmers and those in Sabah and Sarawak are very welcome. The one worrisome thing is how will all these be delivered? Will all the proposals reach the man in the interior there?” asked the deputy dean of post-graduate studies in UPM’s Faculty of Human Ecology.

“The ‘one-off’ handouts are only temporary and will have a limited impact on some people,” he added.

Jayum said he was concerned that the budget was too heavily concentrated on operational costs and cautioned that the government needed to ensure increased productivity levels among the civil service force to balance out the high operating costs.

Like Jayum, Monash University’s Chin was also hesitant to say that the people-friendly proposals to cut rocketing costs of living that Najib put forward in Budget 2013 would result in voters paying back the favour to BN at the ballot box where it most matters.

“The ultimate test of the budget will be the stock market reaction on Monday; it will surely go up and will also effect the Astro initial public offering (IPO). It all fits in.

“If he (Najib) does not call for an election now, he’s crazy,” Chin said.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 29 September 2012, 7:28 am and is filed under
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Budget 2013: Same old formula, with no solutions

Tony Pua

MP SPEAKS

Malaysiakini

Sep 28, 2012

Over the past few years, the government has been able to increase its budget tremendously to achieve record expenditures annually.

This has allowed the government to prop up the economy as we face challenges in attracting private investments, as well as a drop in our trade contributions.

However, Budget 2013 has projected an increase of only 0.7 percent (2012: 11.8 percent; 2011: 16.1 percent) in projected revenues from RM207.2 billion to RM208.6 billion in 2013.

This is the slowest projected increase in the tabled budget since 1999, barring the global financial crisis in 2009.

Consequently, the government is forced to table a smaller budget than the prior year. The proposed operating expenditure has been reduced by 0.3 percent from RM202.6 billion to RM201.9 billion, while the development expenditure is also reduced from RM46.9 billion to RM46.7 billion or 0.4 percent.

The marked decline in revenue growth will have a very significant impact on the government’s ability to impact growth in the Malaysian economy through fiscal means.

The fact that we have not been able to reduce our budget deficit below four percent over the past few years reflects the years of wasted opportunities, where we have failed to curb our expenditure through reduced wastage, abuses and corruption.

Consistent decline in development expenditure

Of concern is also how the government has consistently reduced its emphasis on Development Expenditure, which will create greater multiplier effects on our economy.

The proportion of the budget expenditure dedicated to Development Expenditure has reduced from 31.5 percent in 2003 to 27.1 percent in 2007 to 21.3 percent in 2012. The worrying trend continues in 2013 where the proportion is reduced further to only 18.6 percent, a record low in Malaysia’s history.

This represents lower investment by the government with its current revenue, which will result only in lower returns to the economy in the years ahead.

Our federal government debt has increased rapidly from RM242 billion in 2004 to RM363 billion in 2009 and to RM456 billion in 2011. For 2012, it is projected that our debt will hit RM502 billion. That represents a marked 107.4 percent increase in debt over the past eight years.

More worryingly, the debts have increased our structural debt service commitments significantly.

The rate at which our debt servicing commitments are growing will severely constrict our future operational and development expenditure. This, together with a much slower rate of growth in government revenue, as shown in Budget 2013, will have a major impact on our economy, given its current heavy reliance on public spending and investments.

From 2003 to 2008, our debt servicing obligations increased by 21.9 percent from RM10.5 billion to RM12.8 billion. However, in the next five years from 2008 to 2013, the annual commitment has increased by a whopping 73.4 percent!

Federal debt will increase

The official federal government debt is also expected to increase as a proportion of our GDP from 51.8 percent to 53.7 percent, staying marginally below the 55 percent legal federal government debt limit.

However, even the 53.7 percent is an artificial figure as it fails to take into consideration the government’s contingent liabilities and hidden debts, which amounted to RM117 billion as at December 2011.

What is frightening is the government’s contingent liability is expected to increase exponentially in 2013 due to the expenditure on the RM53 billion MRT project as well as other mega-infrastructure projects.

These debt-driven expenses are completely off the balance sheet or not considered part of the official federal government debt, despite it ultimately being funded by the federal government.

In Europe, Spain, which is facing a major financial crisis that requires hundreds of billions of euro bailout, has an “official” debt to GDP ratio of 68.5 percent. But due to various contingent liability and bank bailouts, the “real” ratio, which is significantly higher, has caused a near collapse of its economy in a crisis that is still evolving.

We must not allow ourselves to get entangled in a similar crisis.

No political will

Based on the Economic Report, the government was able to keep its deficit below five percent at 4.7 percent for 2012 only because of an unbudgeted increase in revenue by RM21 billion for the year. If not for the above, based on the government’s expenditure in 2012, our deficit would have increased to 6.7 percent.

The government has announced its plan in Budget 2013 to keep the deficit at four percent. However, it has become clear that the government’s original target as late as 2011 to reduce our deficit to 2.5 percent by 2015 is no longer achievable.

The steep decline of growth in the government’s revenue will make the task seemingly impossible.

The budget demonstrates no political will on the part of the federal government to make the necessary structural changes to the way we manage our budget. We see a decline in the proportion of funds spent on development expenditure. We also do not see a serious effort to tackle federal government debt, both “official” and “hidden”.

Budget 2013 reads like a repeat of budgets in the previous years, using the same formula without taking into consideration the changing circumstances and the increasing economic challenges we face today.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 30 September 2012, 10:36 pm and is filed under
Budget Debate
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Finance
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If Najib really believes  that PR’s Buku Jingga is “not worth the paper it’s printed on”, he should stop shying away from a debate with Anwar and agree to have one within a  fortnight

At the 44th Gerakan national delegates conference in Kuala Lumpur today, the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak made two remarkable statements, viz:

•	That the Pakatan Rakyat’s Buku Jingga is not worth the paper it is written on; and

•	That Pakatan Rakyat is not a credible alternative to Barisan Nasional.

Both assertions are easily disposed of, viz:

Firstly, if PR’s Buku Jingga is not worth the paper it is written on, then why is Najib shying away from a public debate with Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim which would give him the  opportunity to tear both Anwar and PR’s Buku Jingga “to pieces”?

Secondly, if Pakatan Rakyat is not a credible alternative to BN, why he keeps postponing calling for the 13th General Election, keeping the country on an election-mode for the longest period under any Malaysian Prime Minister – even to the extent of gaining the dubious record of being the Prime Minister without an elected mandate of his own for the longest period when compared to all the previous four Prime Ministers after Tunku Abdul Rahman, including his father Tun Razak, Tun Hussein Onn, Tun Mahathir and Tun Abdullah?

I am sure Najib is fully conscious of such a dubious record and given a choice, would not want to have it cited in his c.v. that he is the PM without an elected mandate of his own for the longest period.

But what he feared most is not be known as the Prime Minister without an elected mandate of his own for the longest period, but to end up as the last UMNO Prime Minister in Malaysia!

As a result, his survival instincts have got the better of him and he is still agonizing over the decision as to when is the best time to hold the 13 General Election, despite two election budgets, two BR1M payments and all the bragging about going onto the offensive and flaying the PR  as not a credible alternative to BN and the PR’s Buku Jingga as  not worth the paper it is written on.

Najib should tell it to the marines unless he is prepared to stop shying away from a public debate with Anwar and agree to have one within a fortnight, and to forthwith dissolve Parliament and call for the 13th general election to secure his own mandate as Prime Minister.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 30 September 2012, 6:29 pm and is filed under
Anwar Ibrahim
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Elections
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Najib Razak
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