Does Malaysia need democracy?

 — Dennis Ignatius

The Malaysian Insider

Jun 28, 2012

JUNE 28 —
“Government of the people, by the people and for the people would result in a stalemate, in no government at all, in anarchy.” — Dr Mahathir Mohamad

In the Philippines recently to accept an honorary professorship by the University of Santo Thomas, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, in his usual provocative style, drew attention to some of the weaknesses of democracy and warned that we should not put too much stock in democracy to solve our problems.

If his goal was to highlight the difficulties inherent in a democracy, we will all do well to pay careful heed. If, however, his objective was to make the case that democracy, because of the weaknesses he highlighted, is not suitable for developing countries like Malaysia, which I suspect is his intent, then I must respectfully beg to disagree.

Democracy — a recipe for disaster

Dr Mahathir complained that people don’t understand that freedom must be balanced with responsibility, that they are too divided to agree on anything, too incompetent to elect good leaders and that they invite instability by constantly changing governments.

In other words, people are basically too irresponsible, too incompetent, too poor a judge of character and ability, and too fickle to govern themselves. Quite a damning judgment of the common man.

It is not a novel idea and neither is it the first time that Dr Mahathir has made the case for greater executive power and stronger government at the expense of democratic rights and institutional checks and balances, a kind of benevolent dictatorship, if you will.

To prove his point, he quoted the example of an unnamed democratic country where successive governments have been brought down by strikes and demonstrations which have resulted in paralysis, instability and economic stagnation.

He might have been referring to one of the Arab countries though his description might well fit the very country he was speaking in.

It is interesting that he should choose to rest his case against democracy on this unnamed and admittedly poor advertisement for “government of the people, by the people and for the people.” Why take the worst-case scenario when there are so many good examples of successful democracies in the world? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to take a broader perspective and judge on the basis of overall results?

The thesis of Mahathirism

It is hard to escape the conclusion that at the heart of his political thesis is the notion that the Malaysian model, the model he essentially created and bequeathed to us, an illiberal democracy as he admitted, where untrammelled authority and power is basically vested in one man who knows what’s best for the nation, is far more effective than the liberal democracy that so many Malaysians are clamouring for these days.

And, he seems to be saying that the proof is in the pudding — just look at Malaysia today and the amazing transformation that took place under his leadership.

His unspoken message is that if we want to keep on growing rapidly and enjoy the good life, we ought not to press for greater freedom and minority and human rights, which he deems subversive and counterproductive.

His idea of a good democracy then seems to be one in which the people elect a leader and then get out of the way and let him do whatever he wants for as long as he wants to. Respect for fundamental human rights, accountability, transparency, constitutional checks and balances, separation of powers between the executive, the legislative and the judiciary, etc, have no place in this scheme of things. Indeed, they are a hindrance to effective and productive governance.

Are the alternatives any better?

There is no doubt that democracy has many flaws and is admittedly a difficult system to manage because it tries to balance the rights of the individual with the common good. It is true that citizens are sometimes unmindful of their responsibilities and, yes, people do not always make the right decisions and, as a consequence, straddle themselves with mediocre leaders. Dr Mahathir is also right when he points out that frequent changes in government do not make for continuity and long-term planning.

Winston Churchill famously declared that “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” And really that is the issue. What are the alternatives? Is a more authoritarian governance system, the kind that Dr Mahathir seems to favour, a better alternative to liberal democracy?

I suggest, for any number of reasons, that it is not.

One has only to survey the political landscape of much of the developing world, for example, to see the utter folly of non-democratic systems of governance. Many Third World leaders have near absolute power to govern but how have they used their power? Which autocratic leader has been able to meet, on a sustainable basis, the expectations of his own people for a good and decent life?

Dr Mahathir quoted Lord Acton’s famous dictum that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” If he saw its application at work in so many of the Third World countries he visited during his long tenure in office or suspected that it might have been at work even in his own backyard, he doesn’t say.

It’s true, of course, that some nascent democracies continue to struggle politically and languish economically. One Filipino commentator enthusiastically said that Dr Mahathir’s assessment of democracy was an accurate description of the situation in the Philippines and went on to lament the paralysis and ineffectiveness of democratic government there. But with a long history of dictators and quasi-dictators, is the Philippines really a good example of a working democracy? What the Philippines needs is not less democracy but more democracy.

The other thing that should be noted is that democracy, unlike tyranny, cannot be imported wholesale from abroad. It takes time to grow roots of its own, adapt and evolve. The Americans like to say that their democracy, more than 230 years in the making, is still a work in progress. It is not an argument to curtail democratic governance but rather an exhortation to keep pressing on.

The fact remains that democracies, while not perfect, are overwhelmingly better than autocracies at providing the kind of political, social and economic environment that is necessary for sustained stability, prosperity and social harmony. It is not for no reason that hundreds of thousands of migrants leave their own non-democratic societies each year and head for democratic ones. They are voting with their feet because they cannot vote with their hands.

Democracy and mediocrity

Dr Mahathir’s comment that democracies tend to throw up mediocre leaders is also puzzling. Seeing as how he himself was elected to office, is he proving his own point about the mediocrity of elected leaders or is he suggesting that somehow we got it right when we elected him to office?

And if citizens in Malaysia and other developing countries make poor choices, perhaps it might have something to do with the system of censorship, control and manipulation of news and information. The answer to an ill-informed citizenry is education, discussion, debate, and the dissemination of ideas and viewpoints that help citizens make informed decisions and choices. As Hubert Humphrey noted: “Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent and debate.”

Leaving that aside, the law of averages would suggest that mediocrity will be found in equal measure in both non-democratic and democratic systems; the only difference is that the citizens in one are stuck with mediocrity for a lifetime while in the other there is at least the prospect of peaceful change in the not too distant future. And that makes all the difference in the world especially if you are stuck with a Mugabe or a Mubarak, or, worse still, a Kim Jong-Un.

Even great leaders are not infallible

And even if we were so fortunate as to find a great, wise and benevolent dictator to lead us to the Promised Land, what guarantees are there that the dictators that come after will be as wise and benevolent? Greatness, unlike tyranny, cannot be inherited or passed along.

More to the point, even great leaders are not infallible and neither do they have a monopoly on wisdom.

Dr Mahathir, for one, despite his many successes and innovative ideas, left behind a nation in deep disrepair — poorly managed, corrupt, disunited and divided, and uncertain of its future.

Many Malaysians will also argue that he was a serially poor judge of character. Several of the men he handpicked or endorsed to lead national projects turned out to be either corrupt or incompetent, or both, and the nation lost billions upon billions of ringgit in the process.

Even his choices of political successors were, by his own admission, huge mistakes. He later found them to be either inept or unfit for office and felt compelled to oppose them in varying degrees of intensity. So much of the political instability that we face today is a direct consequence of the political choices he made.

What price progress?

Sure, we made huge strides economically, but at what price? In the process of Malaysia’s own “Great Leap Forward” corners were cut, corruption flourished, national institutions were weakened and checks and balances on executive power diluted. And now the chickens have come home to roost. We might be better off economically but we are certainly poorer in the things that make a nation truly great.

And besides, what might have we been able to achieve if not for all the corruption, mismanagement, the abuse of power and the stifling of different viewpoints and ideas? My guess is that we would, today, be one of the most dynamic and prosperous nations in the world — strong, stable, more democratic and at peace with itself.

Lessons of the Arab Spring

The reality is that non-democratic regimes, because they are unaccountable, have little or no checks and balances, and are essentially closed systems, tend to quickly degenerate into corrupt, abusive and inefficient governance systems that are simply unsustainable.

Take the case of Egypt, which is so much in the news today. President Hosni Mubarak took power at a chaotic and difficult time in his country’s history. He promised reform and offered hope to his people but his government succumbed to the corruption of power, and Egypt soon became synonymous with instability, stagnation and oppression. While the people struggled to make a living, he and his cronies lived in pharaonic splendour.

As Robert Heinlein noted: “A managed democracy is a wonderful thing… for the managers.”

In the end, with nothing to lose, desperate people rose up and overthrew him. And who can blame them?

The Arab Spring has certainly been disruptive and people are arguably no better off today than they were before, at least in economic terms. Those who favour the status quo are quick to play up this aspect of the Arab Spring and rail against street demonstrations.

Of course, evolutionary peaceful change is always preferable to revolutionary upheaval. It would have been nice if leaders like Mubarak and Ben Ali, and their foreign backers, had had the common sense to see that their regimes were unsustainable and worked to effect peaceful transformation and change but dictators rarely do so. Don’t blame the people of Egypt or Tunisia for the messy situation they are in today as a result of revolution; blame the dictators who gave them no other option.

In the wake of the Bersih demonstration last April, accusations have been made that opposition and other civil society groups are conspiring to overthrow the government through Arab-style protests. That is a gross misrepresentation of the situation. The tens of thousands of people who turned out to demand free and fair elections were not trying to foment an Arab Spring in Malaysia but were trying to avoid one through democratic reform and peaceful change.

Not great men but great institutions

In the end, when it comes to governance, the lessons of history over the last few centuries are simply these:

● First, people are, on the whole, better off governing themselves; when they surrender this right to the wise men who claim to know what’s best for the rest, they invite disaster upon themselves and their nation.

● Second, universal values of freedom, equality and justice are an important prerequisite for progress and prosperity. It is also morally right and reflects our highest and noblest aspirations. We can argue about details but we must never compromise on the principles.

● Third, our best hope rests not in the infallibility of great leaders but in the sanctity of great institutions — a fairly and freely elected Parliament, an independent judiciary, an accountable and non-political police force and civil service, and a free press — rightly founded upon just laws.

Though the challenges ahead of us are many, there is no doubt, not any more, that we the people of Malaysia have it in us to rise above our differences, to overcome misunderstanding and prejudice, to marshal the talents and skills of all our people to build a better nation and a better democracy.

* Dennis Ignatius is a retired diplomat. He was with the Malaysian foreign service for 36 years. This included postings to Beijing, London and Washington. He also served as Malaysia’s ambassador to Chile and Argentina, and High Commissioner to Canada.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 28 June 2012, 9:09 am and is filed under
Mahathir
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Kita gantung pembunuh, bukan gantung yang berbeza pendapat!

 — Sakmongkol AK47

The Malaysian Insider

Jun 28, 2012

28 JUN — Kita gantung yang membunuh Altantuya. Kita gantung pengedar dadah. Kita gantung yang menjual kad pengenalan. Kita gantung yang menjual rahsia tentera laut. Kita gantung yang menjual kerakyatan. Kita tak gantung orang yang berbeza pendapat dan pandangan. Hanya untuk sekali sahaja — pemimpin Umno gunalah otak kamu.

Pemimpin-pemimpin United Munafik National Organisation(Umno) bersikap macam burung ostrich yang menyorokkan kepala dalam lubang tanah. Dia ingat kalau dia tak nampak musuh pemangsa, maka musuh pemangsa atau binatang lain tidak nampak akan dia. Hendak kita ketawakan dan kritik mereka, kita serba salah, maklum sahajalah, mereka berotak burung. Kita jadi pandir jika melayan puak Umno. Tak setuju tarik kerakyatan! Tak setuju kita gantung. Tak setuju kita jel! Inilah kualiti pemimpin Umno. Hendakkah kita amanahkah negara kepada orang bermutu rendah dan selekeh otak macam ini?

Dr Mahathir sendiri yang kata memang pemimpin Umno yang sekarang ini orang-orang bodoh dan half-past six. Yang cerdik sudah masuk PAS, yang bijak sudah masuk PKR dan yang pandai dah masuk DAP. Yang tolol dan bahlul dan mengeluarkan bahan yang patut keluar dari dubur, di keluarkan ikut lubang mulut sahaja yang tinggal dalam Umno. Sebab itu Dr Mahathir kata, Umno sudah busuk sampai ke usus. Kalau kita hendak selamat, maka kita amanahkan negara kepada Pakatan Rakyat. Bukan saya cakap, Dr Mahathir yang suruh.

Mahukah kita amanahkan pentadbiran negara kepada barisan pemimpin yang tolol lagi bahlul, perasuah dan pembuli? Bagaimana negara hendak maju dalam tangan orang Umno yang tolol wa bahlul? Rosak dan punah negara kita.

Orang tolol dan kurang akal sahaja yang mengatakan kalau Umno tidak ada, orang Melayu akan mati, kalau Umno tidak ada, agama Islam akan hancur dan kalau Umno tidak ada, Raja Melayu akan lenyap.

Takde orang Melayu mati di Kelantan bila Umno kalah. Tidak ada orang Melayu yang sengsara bila Umno tewas di Pulau Pinang; bahkan orang Melayu lebih sengsara di bawah pemerintahan Umno dan geng jahatnya Gerakan di Pulau Pinang dahulu. Islam tidak hancur ketika PAS memerintah Kelantan dan Kedah. Raja Melayu adalah raja keatas SEMUA rakyat bukan raja untuk Umno sahaja. Jika Raja Melayu berlagak sebagai Raja untuk Umno sahaja, maka nanti jika Umno tiada, Raja Melayu lenyaplah. Bersikaplah sebagai raja untuk SEMUA rakyat, baharulah Raja Melayu akan kekal. Bergantung kepada Umno bererti pendek umur untuk semua orang Melayu.

Mari kita lihat lagak pemimpin berotak burung ostrich ini. pemimpin gerombolan Umno rasa memadai dan mencukupi hanya dengan mengeluarkan penafian. Bila di tuduh ada skendal rasuah dalam pembelian kapal selam Scorpene, maka pak menteri yang bertangung jawab merasakan cukup dan padan hanya dengan mengeluarkan kenyataan menafikan nya. Orang kata ya dia kata tidak. Ini kualiti pemimpin Umno yang mengatakan “come on give him some humanity”.

Yang terlebih bodoh antara pemimpin Umno ialah mereka yang enggan menggunakan bahan yang ada antara dua telinga mereka. Dan saya tidak bercakap mengenai hidung mereka. Jadi apabila otak tidak di gunakan( sebab mungkin tidak ada lansung), pemimpin Umno menganjurkan jalan pintas.

Bila Ambiga menjuarai suatu aliran yang menyusahkan Umno, maka mereka berteriak tarik balik kerakyatan Ambiga. Habis Ambiga hendak di hantar di mana? Bukankah kerakyatan itu sesuatu yang di jamin dan di lindungi oleh undang undang negara bukan undang-undang Umno? Ambiga itu lahir di mana?

Yang lebih dasyat, ada wakil rakyat Umno yang terkurang cerdik di Malaysia menyarakan agar Ambiga di gantung. Bukankah ini suatu ugutan bunuh dan jika ugutan bunuh, polis kita nanti report di buat kah? Satu Malaysia dah baca ugutan bunuh ini, maka polis patut tangkap siapa yang bercakap mengenai perkara itu. Undang2 kita ini mob rule kah?

Apabila isiu demi isiu di timbulkan pemimpin Umno merasionalkan ia sebagai cubaan mencermarkan imej pemimpin negara? Hendak cemar apa jika sememang dan sebermula nya imej sudah tercemar?

Jika isiu yang di timbulkan terhadap semua pemimpin Umno adalah usaha memburukkan nama orang Umno menjelang PRU, maka apa pula kita hendak klasifikasikan isiu-isiu yang di timbulkan terhadap pemimpin pembangkang? Rakyat Malaysia khususnya orang Melayu jangan di perbodohkan oleh Umno lagi. Jika kita bersedia mengutuk isiu-isiu yang di timbulkan terhadap Umno sebagai mainan politik semata-mata, maka kesediaan serupa mesti di beri keatas segala isiu terhadap pemimpin parti pembangkang.

Semua isiu terhadap Anwar Ibrahim misalnya adalah gimik politik Umno yang kian terdesak. Pengkudaan institusi Raja-raja Melayu adalah gimik politik Umno. Hanya kali ini sahaja Umno menunjukkan merekalah yang menjuarai Raja-raja Melayu terhebat dari orang lain. Di masa yang lain, Umno lah yang hendak gantung Raja-raja Melayu.

Saya sarankan, kalau kita nak gantung, kita gantung semua pegawai imigresyen, pegawai jabatan pendaftaran yang membiarkan orang asing mendapat kad pengenalan dan kerakyatan segera. Ini terang-terang pengkhianatan dan pengkhianatan terhadap Raja dan negara di hukum gantung. Kita gantung orang yang menjual rahsia tentera laut Malaysia. Komisyen yang dia dan sahabat-sahabat pengkhianat nya terima adalah hasil pengkhianatan dan pengkhianat semua nya mesti di gantung.

Kita gantung semua yang mencuri perbedaharaan negara. Yang membawa lari duit gelap sebanyak RM1.3 trillion dalam tempoh 10 tahun, di tangkap semua dan di gantung. — 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, 28 June 2012, 8:52 am and is filed under
Mahathir
,
UMNO
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


No more damning admission of double failures – Mahathir’s Bangsa Malaysia in Vision 2020 and Najib’s 1Malaysia policy

Former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad today chalked up a new record of sorts when his speech at a forum on business and politics could not be a more damning admission of double failures – firstly of his concept  of Bangsa Malaysia in his Vision 2020 announced 21 years ago in 1991 and the current Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 1Malaysia policy proclaimed just more than three years ago.

In Vision 2020, Mahathir envisioned having only one “Bangsa Malaysia” in 2020 with the people “ethnically and territorially integrated, living in harmony and full and fair partnership” while Najib’s 1Malaysia envisaged a Malaysian nation where every Malaysian regards himself or herself as Malaysian first and his or her race, religion, region or socio-economic status second.

Both visions and objectives have been smashed into smithereens when Mahathir said that the next general elections, the second last to be held before the expiry of the 30-year Vision 2020, will centre on race as “Malaysia has become more racial than ever”.

Mahathir said:

“In this country, we are very racist, even more than before. The next election is going to be about race. Who gives what, who gets what based on race.”

Ever since the political tsunami of the 2008 general election, UMNO leaders and strategists have increasingly become more and more blatant and unscrupulous in playing the race and religious cards to try to wrest back political power, making a total mockery of the Vision 2020 concept of “Bangsa Malaysia” and Najib’s 1Malaysia objective.

This is why Najib’s dismissal of “pendatang” slur against non-Malays because they emanate from “one or two lunatics” is completely unacceptable, as they are the poisonous result of decades of racist brain-washing by UMNO leaders and key government agencies like Biro Tata Negara (BTN) which were totally at variance with concepts like Bangsa Malaysia and 1Malaysia.

In contrast, it is the Pakatan Rakyat parties of PKR, PAS and DAP in the past four  years which are pioneering the Malaysian patriotic movement to unite Malaysians, regardless of race, religion, class, region, age or gender into one overarching national consciousness and identity.

One good example is the Bersih 3.0 rally on April 28 which brought out hundreds of thousands of Malaysians, regardless of race, religion, class, region, age or gender to support a common national and patriotic cause for a clean election and a clean Malaysia.

Although it was marred by incidents of violence and brutality, which is deplorable and which is why Malaysians want a meaningful inquiry to find out who were the culprits, Bersih 3.0 nonetheless stands out as the best example and expression of Bangsa Malaysia and even 1Malaysia in the 54-year history of Malaysia.

Irresponsible UMNO leaders and strategists would want to put the clock back by placing race and religion as the dominant issues in the next general elections, totally eclipsing the great issues of good governance, economic justice, democracy, human rights and national unity.

Patriotic Malaysians must not allow these irresponsible UMNO leaders and strategists to succeed.

Patriotic Malaysians in the next general elections must prove Mahathir wrong as they not prepared to be the playthings of the politics of race and religion of UMNO leaders and strategists as they want a new Malaysia where all Malaysians, regardless of race, religion, region or class could fully develop their human potentials in unity and harmony and  restore Malaysia’s competitiveness, greatness and rightful place in the international community.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 28 June 2012, 6:24 pm and is filed under
1Malaysia
,
Bersih
,
Elections
,
Mahathir
,
Najib Razak
,
nation building
,
Pakatan Rakyat
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


The Malay middle ground: Pakatan has most to gain

 — Liew Chin Tong

The Malaysian Insider

Jun 27, 2012

JUNE 27 — Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is writing Barisan Nasional’s political obituary by focusing on micro electoral targets while refusing to confront macro policy matters.

The window to call election before the month of Ramadan has come and gone. The next possible window, which starts from September, is small and very much constrained by the Hari Raya Haji celebration on October 26, Deepavali festival on November 14, and the subsequent annual year-end floods.

Having sounded the war drums for at least two years since 2010 and making it very loud since late last year, Najib was visibly scared to pull the trigger at last, to the chagrin of many Umno leaders who want to get over it and done with.

As Najib calibrates his perfect moments, which I believe have long gone and will never return again, the nation was left in a lurch with numerous policy paralyses, flip-flops, and stalemates.

Lately, we were told that a consolidated intelligence report shown that Barisan Nasional has 80 seats in the bag and was close to winning another 50 seats, giving it 130 seats or a majority of 18 seats.

The police’s Special Branch, we were told, puts the figure at 118, which is a bare six-seat majority. To form the federal government, 112 out of the lower house’s 222 seats are required.

The numbers have clearly spooked the ruling party, especially Najib’s inner circle.  For the rest of Umno, as long as Barisan Nasional remains in power, their high society lives go on.

But for Najib, a victory is not enough. He has set for himself a high bar — to win with a two-thirds majority or at least to win back the state of Selangor for Barisan Nasional; preferably both.

He doesn’t want to be remembered as the worst-performing PM — a record held by his predecessor Tun Abdullah Badawi, who lost Barisan Nasional’s two-thirds majority in Parliament and five states to Pakatan Rakyat.

It is, hence, amusing to see Najib talking about “14–0″ — that Barisan Nasional would win all 13 states plus the majority of Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur.

Najib is obsessed with micro electoral targets to the extent of trying to keep “winnable” retirees such as Abdullah Badawi and former MCA Presidents Ong Ka Ting from retirement.

He visits each and every one of the swing seats in an attempt to rub some of his perceived popularity onto BN candidates there.

And all government resources are channelled to buy favours from voters of various “swing” segments of the population. But he is just seeing the trees and missing the beautiful Malaysian rainforest altogether.

Malaysia is a multiethnic nation. Any coalition that fails to take the centrist posture to convince sufficient number of non-Malay and non-Muslim voters would face defeat.

Allowing Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Utusan Malaysia, Perkasa as well as other instantly-formed racist groups a free hand to set the agenda and hold the government hostage will only alienate more voters, including moderate Malays.

Failure to deal with the aspirations of Malaysians to see a more open, fairer and democratic society will dissipate middle class urban supports. The tear gas and water cannon at Bersih 2.0 and 3.0 are turning passive concerned citizens into frontline activists against Barisan Nasional.

Finally, it is clear that in most of the opinion polls over the past three years, 60 per cent of the Malays are aware of how corrupt Umno is, but only around 45 per cent are ready to vote for Pakatan Rakyat.

If only the mass media stops behaving like the Soviet-style propaganda machine.

There exists at least a 15 per cent middle ground among the Malays that will either be pushed to Pakatan Rakyat if Umno is seen as totally hopeless in reforming itself or be pulled by Pakatan Rakyat if it comes up with credible alternatives.

Those are fundamental issues determining the next election but Najib’s obsession for his personal legacy somehow misses them completely. — The Rocket

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 28 June 2012, 10:53 am and is filed under
Elections
,
Najib Razak
,
Pakatan Rakyat
,
UMNO
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Ambiga ‘ayam tambatan’ kepada transformasi pilihanraya negara

— Aspan Alias

The Malaysian Insider

Jun 28, 2012

28 JUN — Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan, Pengerusi bersama Bersih 3.0, sudah menjadi seorang yang paling popular dan beliau sudah pasti menjadi seorang yang “of consequence” dalam politik negara kini. Ambiga bukan seorang ahli politik dan beliau tidak bercadang dan terfikir untuk berkecimpung dalam arena yang beliau tidak pandai untuk turut serta.

Beliau merupakan ketua kepada sebuah NGO yang inginkan pilihanraya diadakan dan dilaksanakan secara bersih. Sebagai warganegara yang bertanggungjawab, beliau bersama rakan-rakan beliau dan disokong oleh majoriti rakyat yang inginkan satu pilihanraya bersih, secara tidak langsung beliau merupakan seorang yang paling berpengaruh dalam negara kita.

Perjuangan beliau di dalam NGO Bersih itu mendapat pengiktirafan antarabangsa dan beliau telah mendapat beberapa anugerah di atas peranan beliau dalam membina sebuah masyarakat yang “civil”. Beliau mendapat penghormatan untuk bertemu dengan Presiden Obama dari Amerika Syarikat yang tidak mudah di perolehi oleh ramai pemimpin negara kita. Dr Mahathir sendiri terpaksa menggunakan “lobbyist” ternama dan terpaksa membayar ber”million” ringgit untuk bertemu dengan Presiden Amerika Syarikat suatu ketika dahulu.

Tetapi oleh kerana Ambiga adalah rakyat Malaysia dan ditadbir oleh Umno Baru pula, Ambiga menjadi sasaran dan kecaman dari pihak pemerintah negara kerana di Malaysia ini, sesiapa yang tidak sehaluan dengan tindakan kerajaan, berpotensi untuk dihina dan dinesta. Yang terakhir sekali, seorang ahli Legislatif Umno Baru, Mohamad Aziz, telah meminta Ambiga digantung kerana bertindak mengadakan perhimpunan Bersih 3.0 pada 28 hb April yang lalu.

Di negara kita membuat tuntutan yang asas bagi membina demokrasi yang sebenarnya akan dianggap sebagai petualang. Pihak pemerintah telah melakukan banyak perkara yang tidak senonoh tetapi mereka tidak boleh dipanggil petualang. “Superlatives” yang buruk-buruk itu hanya untuk pemimpin pembangkang dan individu yang tidak bersetuju dengan kerajaan. “Saying right things is totally forbidden under BN rule,” kata seorang sahabat saya yang agak “learned” orangnya.

Kenyataan seorang ahli Legislatif dari Sri Gading yang mahu Ambiga digantung dua hari yang lepas, mendapat reaksi yang hangat dari banyak pihak termasuk dari MIC, parti komponen BN sendiri. Presiden MIC sendiri telah membidas Mohamad Aziz kerana kenyataan beliau itu. Tingkah laku Mohamad Aziz itu amat buruk sekali dan tidak sepatutnya keluar dari mulut seorang yang menjadi ahli kepada dewan legislatif yang mulia itu.

Tetapi di dalam Dewan Parlimen itu bukan Mohamad Aziz sahaja yang mempunyai moral rendah seperti beliau (Mohamad) tetapi memang kita nampak beberapa orang lain yang duduk di dalam Parlimen untuk menunjukkan ketololan mereka. Mereka-mereka ini mempunyai mulut yang terlalu cepat dari keupayaan berfikir. Sikap dan perangai mereka itu sedikit sebanyak telah merendahkan martabat ahli-ahli Legislatif dari BN itu sendiri kerana BN lah yang mencalunkan mereka untuk duduk dalam Dewan Parlimen itu dalam pilihanraya yang lalu.

Saya sendiri begitu “conclusive” dalam memberikan persepsi yang agak “drastic” tentang budaya dalam Umno Baru itu. Di dalam Umno Baru itu bukan tidak ramai yang bertaraf bijak pandai. Ada peguam yang bertaraf PhD dan ramai lagi yang setaraf dengannya. Tetapi jika kita lihat sepandai mana pun mereka atau setinggi mana pun kelulusan mereka itu mereka akan menjadi lesu dan kadangkala menjadi bodoh apabila bergiat di dalamnya.

Seorang yang berfikiran tajam akan bertukar menjadi seorang yang mempunyai daya pemikiran yang tumpul apabila menyertai Umno Baru dan diberi pula jawatan-jawatan yang besar-besar di dalam kerajaan.

Tetapi pemikiran rakyat telah berkembang jauh kehadapan dari pemikiran ahli-ahli Umno Baru lebih-lebih lagi kepada pemimpin-pemimpin mereka. Umno Baru selama ini tidak berusaha untuk mencari kepimpinan yang bersih kerana pimpinan yang bersih tidak akan membenarkan mereka melakukan perkara-perkara yang berbentuk jenayah terhadap rakyat yang terus-menerus berlaku sehingga kehari ini.

Di dalam sanubari rakyat sekarang mereka berkata-kata, “enough is enough. And let’s go for a change, a complete change”. Rakyat dahagakan perubahan. Dalam rakyat mahu melihat perubahan maka adalah “natural” seseorang yang telus dan berani seperti Ambiga itu akan menjadi termasyur dan menjadi contoh kepada mereka (yang inginkan perubahan).

Jika ada ketidakadilan yang dilakukan terhadap Ambiga, penentangan rakyat terhadap pihak yang berkuasa akan terus bertambah dan bercambah. Selagi Ambiga masih bertegas untuk mendapatkan pilihanraya yang adil dan saksama, orang ramai akan tetap menyokong beliau. — aspanaliasnet.blogspot.com

                This entry was posted on Friday, 29 June 2012, 3:00 am and is filed under
Bersih
,
Elections
,
UMNO
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Bad start Mr Chief Secretary

— Lim Teck Ghee

The Malaysian Insider

Jun 29, 2012

JUNE 29 — In his first public interview since assuming the position of Chief Secretary to the Government, Dr Ali Hamsa said all the politically correct and bland things that one expects from someone eager to show Malaysians that he is up to the challenge of a big job.

From being a cheer leader attempting to rouse the morale of his troops (according to him, the performance of the civil service has been “excellent”) to sounding patriotic and humble (“We need to continuously raise the bar to be among the best…”; “we can’t treat what we do as a job as what we do must benefit all Malaysians”), the orchestrated and carefully calibrated interview with the New Straits Times was clearly meant to impress and get Malaysians on his side.

Unfortunately, it failed to address the two most important failings of the civil service.

Lying in bed with the corrupt

The endemic and systemic corruption that Malaysia is suffering could not have taken place without the collusion of the country’s civil servants. Closing one eye or acting as facilitators to businessmen and political leaders is standard operating procedure for more than a few in the upper reaches of the bureaucracy.

Everyone knows that doing business in the country has to pass through a thicket of civil servants. This includes big-ticket multi-million dollar projects often given out under the pretext of so-called “national interest” where the opportunities for massive corruption and kickbacks are especially prevalent.

Besides grand corruption, there is also low-level and petty corruption by enforcement and other officers preying on ordinary citizens including the poor or marginalised.

Whether it is getting a licence to operate a restaurant or securing a multi-million dollar contact for the ongoing “Cowgate” scandal, the public is fully aware that knowing the right “jalan” can hasten the path to approval or delay or doom a business proposition. It appears that the businessmen and political leaders engaged in activities that have brought windfall and undeserved gains know who the “right” civil servants are.

The fact is that few high-level corruption cases ever see the light of day. Government officials living beyond their means and official income are not hauled up to answer for their unexplained wealth. This inertia has encouraged a culture of corruption to be deeply embedded within the bureaucracy.

Ethical and clean civil servants have suffered in silence fearing that their opposition to hanky-panky would result in setback to their career advancement prospects. It must be disappointing to them that the Chief Secretary did not say a single word in his interview about reforms to clean the civil service of corrupt and unethical practices, especially at the highest levels of the civil service.

Lying in bed with BN

Another major failing of the civil service is that it has been successfully co-opted by Barisan Nasional to act as the tool of the ruling party. Far from being a politically neutral actor, the civil service has failed to observe strict administrative impartiality.

Especially in developments related to the political life of the country, key bodies such as the judiciary, the Attorney-General’s Office, the police, the Election Commission, and the official media have helped to strengthen Barisan’s political grip. They have also been instruments used to undermine democratic rights and freedoms.

Instead of untying the umbilical cord between the Barisan and the civil service, the Chief Secretary gave a pointed hint that he is likely to reinforce it.

In response to a leading question whether “some civil servants are being influenced by promises made by the opposition”, his reply was that “they should know better. Don’t be taken in by empty promises.”

Although he qualified this reply by stating that “[a]s civil servants we must be loyal to the King and serve the government of the day”, the intent of his reply was clear.

A string of lacklustre Chief Secretaries

Datuk Seri Dr Ali Hamsa may prove to be the latest in a series of lacklustre and mediocre Chief Secretaries in the country.

Mediocrity breeds mediocrity. Because of their poor leadership, the civil service has seen few reforms. Today we have a fat and bloated 1.4-million-strong body that has been victim as well as accessory and beneficiary to the abuses and misrule of the country.

The new Chief Secretary has the opportunity to begin the difficult process of cleansing the civil service and making it efficient and trustworthy. For this to happen, he must focus on removing the two principal obstacles which stand in the way of a rejuvenated and clean civil service.

Can he do it or is he like many others before him having his eye on his post-retirement benefits?

                This entry was posted on Friday, 29 June 2012, 4:09 pm and is filed under
Corruption
,
Lim Teck Ghee
,
public service
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Implications of rebasing and revising our national accounts

— Ong Kian Ming

The Malaysian Insider

Jun 27, 2012

JUNE 27 — Something interested happened to our national economy in May 2012. Our per capita Gross National Income (GNI) increased from RM29,094 to RM29,661. Our GDP increased from RM853 billion to RM881 billion and our GNI increased from RM831 billion to RM859 billion.

And all of these are nominal figures for the year ending 2011. Did we suddenly grow richer without actually realising it? Did we discover some hidden loose change in the deep recesses of the nation’s glove compartment or underneath the car seat?

Sadly, we’re not going to find an extra RM567 in our bank accounts, BR1M notwithstanding. These revisions occurred as part of a larger “rebasing” of our national accounts, a regular exercise undertaken by the Department of Statistics, due to improvements in data collection methods and conceptual innovations in the way we measure economic activity.

For this particular exercise, the base year to measure real economic activity was changed from 2000 to 2005 (hence the term “rebasing”). Previous base years were 1970, 1978 and 1987. This means that data for real economic activity such as GDP and GNI have been revised upwards as has nominal economic data, as indicated in the opening paragraph.

There are a few reasons why these statistical revisions are important, especially for the readers of this paper.

Firstly, they constitute important measures for policy makers who want to achieve certain economic targets. For example, the 2 per cent upwards revision in GNI per capita means that the nation is that much closer to the RM48,000 GNI per capita by 2020 goal set by the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP). The upwards revision in nominal GNI by RM28b or 3.4 per cent also means that the goal of an RM1.7 trillion economy by 2020 is closer to being achieved.

With these revisions, it also means that some of the intermediate and longer term targets set by the ETP may have to be revised. For example, using the ETP’s linear projection method of calculating its GNI targets, the nominal GNI target for 2012 will be RM894.

This means that nominal GNI only has to increase by 4.1 per cent from 2011 to 2012, and this target will surely be exceeded by a large margin, not necessarily because of the success of the ETP but more to do with the calculation method and the recent statistical revisions.

In addition, it may make sense for the RM1.7 trillion by 2020 target to be revised upwards given that it only requires an average nominal growth rate of 7.9 per cent from 2012 to 2020 in order to reach this target which is less than the 8.2 per cent average growth rate achieved from 2001 to 2010.

A more ambitious goal of a 10 per cent nominal GNI growth rate and a 6 per cent real GNI growth rate (assuming a more realistic 4 per cent GNI Deflator rather than the 2.8 per cent inflation rate which the ETP uses) would give us a target of a RM2 trillion economy with a GNI per capita of RM64,000 by 2020.

This revision also affects the government debt to GDP ratio. With the upwards revision in nominal GDP, our debt to GDP ratio at the end of 2011 has decreased from 53.5 per cent to 51.8 per cent, which means that the possibility of breaching the 55 per cent government debt to GDP statutory limit has been decreased, temporarily at least.

Investors and rating agencies then have to decide if this decrease in government debt to GDP ratio is economically significant or just a statistical “gimmick”, especially in terms of the government’s ability to continue to finance an increasing debt level and to raise tax revenue.

Secondly, these revisions are also important to economists, especially those who do more serious economic analysis and forecasting based on past data. They must, for example, make sure that they are comparing like to like, such as comparing real GDP in 2011 in 2005 constant prices to GDP in 2006 using 2005 as the base year rather than the GDP figure calculated using 2000 as the base year.

They must also understand how the individual components of the national accounts have been changed as a result of the rebasing exercise. The devil is in the detail and there are many details within our national accounts which tell us different things about the underlying structure of our economy.

For example, private investment or private gross fixed capital formation (GFCF), which is a component of national income using the expenditure method of calculation, increased by 19.4 per cent and 14.4 per cent in nominal and real terms respectively from 2010 to 2011 before the rebasing exercise.

After rebasing, calculations show that private investment grew by a smaller percentage, 16.6 per cent and 12.2 per cent in nominal and real terms, respectively. The astute economist would want to dig deeper and find out the explanation for this difference.

Economists would also want to understand some of the major changes in methodology in compiling our national accounts. For example, expenditure on weapons systems has been reclassified as capital formation or public investment whereas previously it was categorized as government or public consumption.

This may skew the picture of how much public spending is going into capital investment which is more likely to yield long term positive knock on effects such as roads and other physical infrastructure as compared to public investment in military systems and weapons, which has a much smaller long term multiplier effect, if any.

Thirdly, understanding these revisions is important for basic economic literacy. While some of the more technical aspects of this revision such as methodology and data sources may be too esoteric to be of interest to those who are not data geeks, a basic understanding of the nation’s economy is necessary for the average professional.

Once one is equipped with an understanding of real versus nominal GNI and GDP, measured in 2000 or 2005 constant prices or current prices pre or post 2005 rebasing, one can easily evaluate if statements concerning the larger economy coming from politicians, economists and analysts actually make economic sense. And a higher level of economic literacy will, hopefully, keep politicians, economist and analysts honest, at least when it comes to speaking and writing about the state of the nation’s economy.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 29 June 2012, 2:41 pm and is filed under
ETP
,
Ong Kian Ming
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Kingmakers in GE13 are not the Chinese voters but all Malaysian voters, whether Malays, Chinese, Indians, Kadazans or Ibans to unite and bring about peaceful transition of federal power to end corruption, cronyism and abuses of power

Former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad is up to his past mischief yesterday when he played  the race card to create racial suspicion, mistrust and fear in his effort to save UMNO and Barisan Nasional from being voted out of Federal power in the 13th general election and replaced by Pakatan Rakyat.

Saying  that the Chinese voters are the kingmakers for the 13th general election, Mahathir said the Chinese voters will decide who forms the government after the general election as the Malays are divided among three parties.

He claimed that “the Malay majority has split itself into three and become the minority”  and the opposition PKR, PAS as well as UMNO have  “to cede to Chinese demands”.

As a result, “these three small Malay parties need the support of the Chinese in order to win the elections”.

He said:  “Whichever party gets the support of the Chinese will win the elections.

 “The fact is today all three Malay parties are trying to butter the Chinese electorate. So they become racial and cater to racial demands.”

What Mahathir said yesterday must rank as among his most irresponsible and mischievous statements, making nonsense of his Vision 2020 and concept of Bangsa Malaysia which envisioned Malaysians “ethnically and territorially integrated, living in harmony and full and fair partnership” by 2020.

Mahathir raised three issues with his latest playing of the race card.

Firstly, is he completely writing off the MCA, Gerakan and SUPP as capable of securing a modicum of Chinese votes in the 13GE? And do the MCA, Gerakan and SUPP leader agree with Mahathir?

Secondly, the Malaysian Chinese are not and do not want to be the “kingmakers” in the 13 general election.

The  harsh reality is that the electoral arithmetic does not allow the Chinese voters to be the “kingmakers”.

In any event, what the Chinese voters want is to be able to exercise their fundamental citizenship rights as guaranteed under the Malaysian Constitution to enjoy an equal place under the Malaysian sun, instead of being forced into a Malaysian Diaspora worldwide  totally some two million Malaysians in the past four decades because of corrupt, unjust and undemocratic policies and governance.

Incidentally, the Malaysian Diaspora is not confined to Malaysian Chinese but is very multiracial, including an increasing percentage of Malays as well.

Thirdly, the real kingmakers in the 13th general election are not the Chinese voters but all Malaysian voters, whether Malays, Chinese, Indians, Kadazans or Ibans to unite and bring about peaceful transition of federal power for the first time in the 54-year history of the nation to end corruption, cronyism and abuses of power.

Yesterday, Mahathir said  that the next general election will be about race.

This is what Mahathir and the UMNO leaders and strategists want the next general election to be about so that they could play the race and fear cards to effect.

Malaysians, regardless of race, religion, class or region must prove Mahathir and the UMNO leaders and strategists wrong, that although Mahathir has himself rubbished the “Bangsa Malaysia concept” just  as the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak has made a mockery of his 1Malaysia concept, Malaysians have the chance to show that they have become more Malaysian-minded and patriotic than the UMNO and Barisan Nasional leaders and will respond and rally to Pakatan Rakyat call to vote as Malaysians than just as Malays, Chinese, Indians, Kadazans or Ibans.

The next general election is not a battle between Malays and non-Malay voters but between racialists who want to continue to keep Malaysians in their separate communal compartments and Malaysian nationalists and patriots who want good governance, economic justice, democracy, human rights and national unity and not race to become the dominant election issues.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 29 June 2012, 1:25 pm and is filed under
1Malaysia
,
Elections
,
Mahathir
,
Najib Razak
,
nation building
,
Pakatan Rakyat
,
UMNO
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Najib out-flip flops Abdullah with window for July GE closed after scuttling of polls date by Bersih 3.0 rally despite the bravado confidence of “14-0” BN  thrashing for PR

Confirmed!

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has out-flip flopped his predecessor Tun Abdullah Badawi.

The window for July for the 13th General Election has closed as Najib’s earlier plans for June or July to get his own mandate as the sixth Prime Minister of Malaysia has been completely scuttled by the disastrous government misjudgment and mishandling of the Bersih 3.0 rally on April 28.

In fact, public alienation over the government’s misjudgment and mishandling of the Bersih 3.0 had intensified and  aggravated over time with the series of irresponsible and insensitive developments post-Bersih 3.0, including:

•	Najib’s wild and baseless allegation that the Bersih 3.0 rally was an opposition coup attempt to topple the government;

•	the ridiculous and unacceptable establishment of a purported  “independent advisory panel” headed by former Inspector-General of Police Tun Hanif Omar who had publicly expressed his prejudicial views to find out what went wrong on April 28 when a peaceful gathering of hundreds of thousands of Malaysians regardless of race, religion, class, region, age or gender for a common national cause for a clean election  could be marred by incidents of violence and brutality after 3 p.m that day;

•	the shocking statement by the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz in Parliament that “salt and plastic mineral water bottles” – which were all that some of the Bersih 3.0 protestors were “armed” with to defend themselves from reckless police firing of teargas and chemically-laced water cannon – could topple the Najib government; and

•	the continued targeting, victimization and demonization of Bersih 3.0 organisers and Pakatan Rakyat leaders, in particular the Bersih co-chairperson Datuk Ambiga Sreenivasan – even to the extent of the demand in Parliament that Ambiga be “hanged” as a traitor when what had motivated her, the Bersih 3.0 organisers, the Pakatan Rakyat leaders and the hundreds of thousands of Malaysians who responded to the Bersih 3.0 rally were the highest and noblest sense  of love and patriotism for Malaysia.

Although Najib went to great pains after the Barisan Nasional supreme council meeting last night to deny that he was deliberately delaying the date of the general election, claiming that there was no lack of confidence in the Barisan Nasional, the Prime Minister “doth protest too much”!

In fact, Najib sounded as if he was taking the case for the greatest flip-flop of his political life to close the window of the 13GE in July to a larger national audience because he sensed that he had not been able to fully convince the Barisan Nasional leaders  at the BN Supreme Council with his argument that “the BN was given the mandate by the people for five years” and that “If we call for a snap elections, it means that we have shortened the period given to us by the people”!

Does Najib really believe his own reasoning?

If so, he is saying that his predecessors Tun Mahathir, Tun Hussein and Tun Abdullah were all wrong because the trio did not complete their full parliamentary  five-year term before seeking their own mandate as Prime Minister by calling an earlier general election – in the case of Mahathir, the March 1982 general election was held one year and seven months before the completion of the government’s five-year tenure in October 1983.

Whatever Najib’s protestations, the fact and the truth cannot be hidden – that his earlier plans to hold the 13th general election in June or July this year has been completely scuttled by the Bersih 3.0 rally despite his recent  bravado confidence of a “14-0” BN thrashing for Pakatan Rakyat  early this week  and his pretence of supreme confidence at a Felda settlement in Pahang on May 8 when he said: “If this is the kind of support that we are getting, then I think we can dissolve Parliament tomorrow”.

But Najib knew in his bones that there is no reason for him to feel any such confidence, what with the Malaysian eminence grise, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad (with some even calling him the “de facto Prime Minister”) constantly drumming home the point that the Najib government is still weak and not ready for the 13 General Election until after the fasting month.

Time is however running out for Najib for he has less than 10 months left – as under Article 55(3) of the Malaysian Constitution, Parliament stands automatically dissolved on April 28 next year, five years from the date of  the first meeting of the present Parliament.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 30 June 2012, 2:55 pm and is filed under
Bersih
,
Elections
,
Mahathir
,
Najib Razak
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


PM’s elegant silence on BN sniping

— Jaleel Hameed

The Malaysian Insider

JUNE 30 — Mr Prime Minister, sir, where is your sense of fair play and Malaysian-ness?

Why are you, sir, so limp-wristed in giving a rap on the knuckles of your Barisan Nasional colleagues who think they can say anything and get away with it?

Is this a sense of entitlement, sir? Because your government has been our only government since Merdeka?

Sir, I am referring to your wishy-washy, lukewarm comment asking BN people not to hurt other races.

Sir, is it any wonder that the likes of Sri Gading MP Datuk Mohamed Aziz are tempted to attack others, as he did with his comment to “hang” Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan? There is little downside for any Umno politician becoming unruly or thuggish because no action is taken to shut down such nonsense.

At no point, sir, did you say that his comment should not have been made against a Malaysian.

“We will continue these efforts and remind members not to make statements that will hurt the feelings of other races or BN component parties,” you said last night.

What does that even mean? No reprimand, sir. You call this 1 Malaysia, sir?

Please, sir. At least have some decency and call a spade a spade.

Mr PM, if the roles were reversed and a Pakatan Rakyat politician had suggested that you should be charged with treason for sale of sensitive info during your tenure as defence minister, you can bet that the MP would have been referred to some Parliamentary committee for censure.

But not a BN MP; they are all untouchables.

Sir, I had high hopes for you when you took office. A man trained to be the PM, who learnt under three PMs in over 30 years, should be a better leader.

Your elegant silence, sir, and your lax attitude to the constant sniping and thuggish behaviour of your colleagues will be your downfall.

I suggest you shape up, sir, or ship out. We need real leaders, sir. Not those who are there because they think they are entitled to the job.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 30 June 2012, 4:26 pm and is filed under
1Malaysia
,
Bersih
,
Najib Razak
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Why the electoral arithmetic in Malaysia does not allow the  Chinese voters to  be “kingmakers” in 13GE

Former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad seems to have reverted to his early years in politics when, to use his own words, he was fighting for the Malay cause per se when  he was young and his thoughts were that of an inexperienced politician.

Mahathir made this open admission in a dialogue with the Malaysian Student Executive Council of the United Kingdom in September 1995, when making the case for a Malaysian rather than a Malay approach, arguing that to  realize the goal of Bangsa Malaysia, Malaysians should start accepting each other as they are regardless of race or religion.

This was the fourth year of his promulgation of Vision 2020 and Bangsa Malaysia in February 1991.

Now Mahathir seemed to have gone full circle, repudiating not only Bangsa Malaysia and Vision 2020, but fighting only for Malay rather than Malaysian cause.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak called on Barisan Nasional members not to make statements that will hurt the feelings of other races or BN component parties.

But how many in UMNO will listen to Najib?

Mahathir is in  the forefront among those who have been making irresponsible, insensitive and even provocative statements – all to save UMNO and Barisan Nasional from being defeated in the next general election.

Who believes that Najib could caution or check Mahathir?

Only on Thursday, Mahahir made the highly mischievous statement that the Chinese voters are the kingmakers for the 13th general election as the Malays are divided among three “small” parties and that the Chinese voters will decide who forms the government after the general election.

I had rebutted this statement, stating that the Malaysian Chinese are not and do not want to be the “kingmakers” in the 13 general election.

I also pointed out that “the  harsh reality is that the electoral arithmetic does not allow the Chinese voters to be the ‘kingmakers’”.

Let us look at the “electoral arithmetic” in Malaysia to understand why the Chinese voters cannot be the “kingmakers” in the 13th general election.

There are only 34 parliamentary seats out of 222 where the Chinese comprise a majority of voters. Even if Pakatan Rakyat (PR) wins all of the Chinese votes in these seats, it will only yield 15% of total parliamentary seats.

There are another 55 parliamentary seats where Chinese voters constitute between 30% to 50% of the voters. Even if PR is able to win 80% of Chinese votes in these seats, it would still need between 35% to 40% of support from the other communities in order to win these seats.

In total, this means that there are only 89 parliamentary seats where the Chinese comprise more than 30% of total voters. Even if PR is  to win all these seats, this would only constitute 40% of total parliamentary seats, which is not enough for a majority of parliamentary seats.

Instead, what we are increasingly seeing is the rejection of the Barisan Nasional (BN) by voters of all races, including in many Malay majority as well as ethnically ‘mixed’ seats which were previously ‘impregnable’ BN strongholds.

For example, in the 2008 general election, a majority of Malay and non-Malay voters voted against the BN in Malay majority seats such as Pokok Sena and Kuala Kedah in Kedah, Parit Buntar and Bagan Serai in Perak, Shah Alam and Kota Raja in Selangor and Titiwangsa in Kuala Lumpur.

A majority of Malay and non-Malay voters also voted against the BN in ethnically mixed seats such as Padang Serai in Kedah, Bayan Baru and Nibong Tebal in Penang and Bandar Tun Razak in Wilayah Persekutuan.

More recently, in the 2011 Sarawak state elections, a majority of both Chinese and non-Chinese voters in the state seat of Kidurong voted against the BN leading to a historic 7,000-vote majority for the DAP’s incumbent candidate Chew Chin Sing.

By playing up racial fears, Mahathir is resorting to an old and outdated form of fear-mongering and politicking which is becoming irrelevant for Malaysians all over the country who are sick and tired of the corruption, cronyism and abuses of power of the Barisan Nasional government.

The next general election is a historic opportunity for all Malaysians to unite to send a clear message that they want to end the 54 years of misrule by the BN and put in place a new Pakatan Rakyat government which will protect the rights, freedom and welfare of all Malaysians, regardless of whether they are Malays, Chinese, Indians, Ibans or Kazadans.

The real kingmakers in the 13th general election, therefore, are not the Chinese voters but all Malaysian voters, whether Malays, Chinese, Indians, Kadazans or Ibans to unite and bring about a  peaceful transition of federal power for the first time in the 54-year history of the nation to end corruption, cronyism and abuses of power.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 30 June 2012, 5:55 pm and is filed under
Elections
,
Mahathir
,
Najib Razak
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Attacks against Guan Eng intensify ahead of GE13

By Shazwan Mustafa Kamal

The Malaysian Insider

Jul 01, 2012

UALA LUMPUR, July 1 — All eyes are now on the DAP’s Lim Guan Eng as the Penang chief minister struggles to fend off concerted attacks against him ahead of general elections due within a year.

The pro-Barisan Nasional (BN) mainstream media today published lopsided reports of the federal opposition leader’s run-in with members of Perkasa, a right-wing Malay organisation, at the Teluk Bahang market in Penang yesterday.

The reports, which related the incident from the viewpoint of the Perkasa members, appear to indicate a concerted effort by the ruling federal coalition to reclaim Penang, a key economic state under BN control until four years ago.

“The failure by police to immediately arrest Perkasa members involved in violence not just against members of the public and reporters but also make direct threats against my personal safety has only confirmed fears that Perkasa can do no wrong because they are supported by Umno and BN,” Lim said in a media statement today.

“[The] Police should review their hands-off approach towards Perkasa to avoid public perception that they condone the violent tactics by Perkasa to intimidate PR leaders,” he added, referring to the opposition Pakatan Rakyat pact formed in 2008 after their landmark win in the polls.

The DAP-PKR-PAS pact swept nearly 29 out of the total 40 state seats there in Election 2008, wiping out Penang BN’s controlling party, Gerakan, in the process.

The first-term Penang CM had told a news conference in George Town yesterday that Perkasa members had threatened his safety during the walkabout.

But the country’s major newspapers including Umno-owned Mingguan Malaysia and New Sunday Times (NST) headlined reports that blamed Lim’s entourage for “roughing” up a Perkasa man.

“I was brushed so suddenly from behind and the situation is like (he) wanted to threaten my safety. Somebody brushed me and my bodyguard pushed me to the car.

“This is not the first time they acted violently. You are not supposed to rush in the close confines of Chief Minister in a threatening manner,” Lim told reporters yesterday.

An audio recording of Lim’s news conference in George Town was made available to The Malaysian Insider.

Today, Miggguan Malaysia, the weekend edition of Malay daily Utusan Malaysia, appeared to give a very different account of the marketplace clash, faulting Lim’s administration for oppressing the minority Malay residents in the island state.

Lim’s account of the ruckus was conspicuously missing from the newspaper’s reports.

Reports of the ruckus, headlined “Penduduk bantah kehadiran Guan Eng” (Residents oppose Guan Eng’s presence)”, the Malay-language paper highlighted allegations that a PR supporter who was part of Lim’s entourage had attacked a Perkasa demonstrator in the market.

In similar reports carried on the English-language NST, Mohd Rizuad was quoted saying that Lim’s entourage had purposely “created” the incident to paint picture of the Malay movement.

Lim’s relations with the mainstream media has been tumultuous at best in the past fours since helming Penang.

It worsened after he banned all Umno-linked papers, notably Utusan Malaysia and NST from covering official state functions, saying they gave him unfair coverage and did not give him the right of reply in allegations against him.

The DAP secretary-general had won a couple of defamation suits against Utusan and had recently filed another RM15 million suit against two mainstream newspapers and Perkasa leaders over unsubstantiated reports that he had leaked national secrets to Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party. In his statement of claim, Lim suggested that the allegation was part of an agenda to help BN recapture power in Penang.

He pointed out that Umno, the leading component party in BN, has a substantial shareholding in both papers through Media Prima Sdn Bhd and was therefore able to “politically manipulate news items for its benefit”.

The Penang High Court had on June 22 found Utusan Malaysia guilty of defaming Lim, he second such ruling in six months, and ordered the Umno daily to pay him RM200,000 in damages and RM20,000 in costs. The Penang chief minister had claimed a March 12, 2008 article headlined “Tiada Lagi DEB (No More NEP)” in the Malay-language newspaper which said he would abolish the New Economic Policy was inaccurate.

The DAP secretary-general said he had merely said his administration would be free from the “cronyism, corruption and systematic inefficiency” stemming from the policy.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 1 July 2012, 3:57 pm and is filed under
Elections
,
Lim Guan Eng
,
Media
,
Penang
,
Perkasa
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Guan Eng: Cops failed to protect me from Perkasa

Malaysiakini

Jul 1, 2012

Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said the police have once again failed to protect him from Perkasa activist, who often hound him in public.

Refering to the incident at the Teluk Bahang markets yesterday, Lim said the police took action too late, thus allowing Perkasa members to hurl projectiles at him.

“The inaction by the police probably emboldened a Perkasa member to suddenly charge up behind me and succeeded in brushing hard against me.

“I escaped injury. But if not for a PR local leader bravely dragging the Perkasa member away, I could have been injured,” said Lim in a press release today.

Lim said that while it was bad that the police failed to protect him, it was more disappointing that the police did not arrest the would-be assailant.

“Just imagine how harsh police reaction would have been if this had involved the Prime Minister and not the Chinese Pakatan Rakyat chief minister,” said Lim.

Record of violence

Lim said that the police have been duly informed about the Teluk Bahang visit and should have provided adequate protection.

He lamented that despite Perkasa’s record of violence against the public, reporters and Pakatan leaders, the group appears to have absolute immunity.

The incident at Teluk Bahang saw about 50 Perkasa supporters  holding a small gathering while Lim was conducting a walkabout.

According to The Star, at least one shop was pasted with dozens of anti-Lim Guan Eng posters.

As Lim was about the leave the area, it was reported that one Perkasa supporter charged at him and a scuffle ensued. Nearby police personnel intervened later.

At least one Perkasa supporter claimed in his police report that he was manhandled.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 1 July 2012, 3:53 pm and is filed under
DAP
,
Lim Guan Eng
,
Penang Government
,
Police
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Malaysia after regime change

— Ooi Kee Beng

The Malaysian Insider

June 30, 2012

JUNE 30 — A dialogue about something as serious as regime change in Malaysia must examine at least two vast subjects.

Firstly, a thorough and open discussion about the historical conditions under which the Federation of Malaya, and then Malaysia, was constructed is vital to any deep and practical understanding of the strengths and failings of the political structure as it exists today.

Political solutions in times of inevitable change — as was the case in the region in the 1940s and 1950s — are about settlements between those wishing to cut losses and those seeking to maximise benefit. Those less able to make their voices heard were, simply put, left unheard. In such times, negotiations happen under threat, stress and duress; and the solution is a mixture of ad hoc measures and meticulous planning; and a blend of concession and conflict.

In Malaya in the decade after 1945, major actors included shell-shocked British colonial masters recently returned to a scene they did not and could not recognise; the Malayan communists; emergent independence movements stretching from far left to far right led by leaders surprised at their own daring and intoxicated by their apparent historical role; the sultans and rajas, and many more.

The main issues were: The Cold War; the status of the sultanates; the status of immigrants; the nature of the emerging country; the future of British power; and the timing of the transfer of power and to whom. Equally important and often forgotten is the role ideas coming out of neighbouring Indonesia played, and the impact that momentous political events happening in the former Dutch colony — especially the republican revolt in culturally related eastern Sumatra which culminated in the summary execution of aristocrats and others — had on the course of events on the peninsula.

Cutting losses for the British meant giving up the ill-fated Malayan Union almost as soon as it was announced, for fear of a social revolution also taking place in Malaya at a time when the Cold War was heating up. This, the British could not afford.

With the Federation of Malaya in place — an agreement between the British and the Malay leadership, which was highly conservative and supportive of the status quo in comparison to the Malayan Union — the war with the communists could be effectively fought.

At the same time, the related issues of immigrant rights and indigenous rights were solved through the construction of the Alliance, to which independence was given.

When this structure broke down in 1969, the diagnosis was that Malay poverty had not been alleviated and democratic practices had been too extreme. The post-May 13 regime was thus built upon a neutered parliament and a comprehensive nation-building programme fixated with issues of race. By 1990, religion had also become a major political discourse riding on the formidable back of the New Economic Policy.

The Alliance also transformed itself into the Barisan Nasional, which in many essential ways was a totally different creature from its predecessor. The power the United Malays National Organisation (Umno) gained through the new power structure, the new ideology, and the new laws could only grow excessively, and lead to economic and political excesses.

The second requirement in discussing regime change is to understand what the situation is like today, given how past cures to past ailments became addictions, and have locked political discourses into a fixed and shallow pattern, and given how global and national socio-political and socio-economic conditions have developed. In truth, had the latter not changed radically, the need for change that so many feel today would not have been as significant or as intense.

Wishing for change is one thing, but the country’s ability to handle that change is something else. It must be broadly admitted that the need for change was precipitated by the excesses of recent decades that also left the country with weaknesses that it must now remedy if it is to take full advantage of situation in order to leap into a new stage of national development.

Here, there is no need to reiterate socio-economic changes that many believe explain the socio-political processes that have occurred since 1998. It is more cogent instead to identify where effort must now be expended to ensure that a more united and happy country grows out of this transitional period.

Policy-making competition is the new game in town and throughout the country. And it is this that explains why the accelerating call for decentralisation seems so important. Too much centralisation is logically anathema to policy-making competition, simply put.

Aside from decentralisation measures, be these fiscal or not, certain trends need to be enhanced which are necessary if good, clean and effective governance is to be the long-term result. Here, I shall mention two of them.

First, Malaysia needs to continue developing a trustworthy and professional journalist culture that keeps an engaged citizenry informed about what is going on in the country and stimulates in citizens a sense of ownership in the governing of the country. Information technological advancements are already pushing things inevitably in that direction, but raising journalism to a higher professional level is an ethical imperative and a necessity that requires concerted and conscious effort from all involved.

Second, experts and intellectuals need to be brought back to the centre of policy making. Policymaking is too important to be left only to politicians. Politicians need the help of the various types of experts. For expertise to be brought to bear on policy making, you need institutions created for that purpose, either as think tanks, or advisory units within ministries and universities. Outsourcing of thinking to produce political spin is a practice that is demeaning to the citizenry and should be stopped.

What Malaysians need to realise when pushing for change is that the process will require them to discard what they are used to. They will have to rise above lowly feelings of envy, greed and racialism that the past encouraged in them, and instead call upon their nobler sentiments to build a country all can be proud of. — New Mandala

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 1 July 2012, 1:37 am and is filed under
Elections
,
Media
,
Politics
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Paying the price for a fiasco

— The Malaysian Insider

Jul 01, 2012

JULY 1 — Tan Sri Abu Bakar Abdullah is paying the price for the government’s New Remuneration Scheme that caused an uproar earlier this year. The ambitious scheme to reward the 1.4 million-strong civil service crumbled when unions pointed out that they were getting pittance while some 5,000 senior officers were getting stratospheric pay rises.

Putrajaya was forced to scrap the scheme, and in the process, also the move to get top people from the private sector to join the civil service at the top levels. After all, the new pay for the senior officials was benchmarked at the wages given for top white-collar professionals and managers.

While the Cabinet had approved the scheme and even announced it in Budget 2012 last year, they didn’t go through the proposals line by line. The resulting kerfuffle, to put it mildly, was squarely blamed at three men and one of them was Abu Bakar who is the Public Services Department (PSD) director-general.

It is understood the other two were former Chief Secretary to the Government, Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan, and Treasury secretary-general Tan Sri Dr Wan Abdul Aziz Wan Abdullah.

Yet, Abu Bakar is the biggest loser. He was tipped to replace Mohd Sidek but the new pay scheme’s failure cost him that job. And he refused to go away quietly, sources said, insisting that if he was to be blamed for the salary fiasco, then so to must Sidek as it takes two to tango. And Wan Abdul Aziz for agreeing to the scheme.

Instead, Sidek is now Petronas chairman and Wan Abdul Aziz has had a three months extension to his contract.

But the blames goes beyond this trio.

The salary fiasco is a reflection of the mediocrity in government, for not ensuring that all parties are consulted and everyone is happy before the Prime Minister or the Finance Minister makes the grand announcements to keep everyone happy.

The Cabinet members were only interested in the headline numbers during the presentation, and failed to ask questions about the rest of the civil service. They thought everyone would be happy but only when Cuepacs jumped did the Najib administration realise that something was amiss and they had a hot potato in their hands.

It took them a few months to resolve the problem, and everyone to be apparently happy. Yet, senior officials who had at least a RM5,000 pay rise and pensioners who received a fair amount of money saw it all being taken back.

And Abu Bakar finally losing his job, three years before he is due to retire at the new pensionable age of 60. But should he be the only one loser in this shambolic turn of events?

Of course, it easy to fire a civil servant for such mistakes.

However, in the interests of justice and fair play, all those who had a hand in turning the New Remuneration Scheme into a disaster for the government and the civil service should also be equally punished — be they civil servants or politicians. After all, this is 1 Malaysia. People First. Performance now.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 1 July 2012, 6:38 pm and is filed under
public service
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Should we continue paying taxes?

— Lucius Goon

The Malaysian Insider

Jun 30, 2012

JUNE 30 — My wife and I pay our taxes on time and we are assessed at the highest tax bracket. We never avoided or evaded taxes and viewed it as a moral duty.

But let me put in a caveat. I believe the time has come for us taxpayers (and this excludes 90 per cent of civil servants, Umno politicians and their nominees as well as rent-seekers) to consider a campaign of civil disobedience against paying taxes until the government of the day can show that it can utilise this revenue in a responsible way.

I am not talking about the world record holidays/trips abroad taken by the prime minister and the first family or his cabinet ministers. I am referring to the over-the-top spending by the Barisan Nasional government to stay in power.

It seems like every day is Christmas for this prime minister. Tyres for taxi drivers, cash for Malaysians, a few million for this group and another few million for that group.

And then there is the never-ending slush money for BN MPs, the latest being RM1.5 million for every one of those jokers in Parliament. Yes, you and I are sponsoring Mohamed Aziz of Sri Gading.

If that were not enough, we have an MRT project that seems to get more expensive by the day and which is being parcelled out to the rich and connected.

Oh, I forgot, we have an LRT that also gets more expensive by the day and which is being parcelled out to the rich, unqualified and connected.

And then are the billions being spent on infrastructure projects that the country does not need, just so that Najib can make some powerful Umno politician happy.

Basically, my wife and I are working like crazy to pay taxes, which are then used by a corrupt, racist and morally-bankrupt regime to stay in power. Not only that, our hard-earned money is being lavished on people who are allergic to work: Umno politicians and cybertroopers.

I am interested to hear from right-minded Malaysians on whether the time is right for a campaign to stop paying taxes until we can put in place a government that understands it is a steward of our money.

At present, the people in Putrajaya are behaving like feudal lords, “taxing their subjects and spending as they see fit.”

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 1 July 2012, 1:44 am and is filed under
Corruption
,
Elections
,
Good Governance
,
Najib Razak
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Utusan Malaysia living up to its reputation as “lies-paper” when its Awang Selamat alleged that “LKS adalah antara orang kepercayaan Kuan Yew ketika dalam PAP” and that I was Kuan Yew’s press secretary

Utusan Malaysia is living up to its reputation as “lies-paper” when its Awang Selamat in Mingguan Malaysia today alleged “Lim Kit Siang adalah antara orang kepercayaan Kuan Yew ketika dalam PAP. Beliau juga adalah bekas Setiausaha Akhbar Kuan Yew sewaktu zaman muda nya.”

These are downright lies, as I was never ever involved in PAP during my years as a reporter in Singapore from 1961-1964, although I was active in Singapore National Union of Journalists, serving as its Secretary-General 1962-1963.

Furthermore, I was never press secretary to Kuan Yew although I worked for a period in the press section of the Ministry of Culture.

But more pertinent than Utusan Malaysia again proving itself to be a “lies-paper” instead of being “newspaper” is the intensification of the unscrupulous and unprincipled campaign of lies, falsehoods and demonization against DAP and Pakatan Rakyat leaders, especially with the realization by the UMNO leaders and strategists that UMNO/Barisan Nasional are  not as confident of facing the 13th general election as they had once thought despite the recent boast by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak of a “14-0” BN thrashing for PR!

This has resulted in Najib further putting off the 13th general election date because of his worry that the “RAHMAN” political prophecy might come true – that RAHMAN stands for the first six UMNO Prime Ministers, namely Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Abdul Razak, Tun Hussein Onn, Tun Mahathir, Tun Abdullah and “N” for Najib also signifying  the last and  “the end” of the UMNO line of Prime Ministers.

Will the 13GE see the beginning of a new line of Malaysian Prime Ministers, starting with Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim?

Najib is neither confident nor certain that this will not be so, or he would have already called for  the 13GE.

In desperation, UMNO leaders and strategists including Tun Dr. Mahathir have now resorted to a two-prong offensive – firstly, playing the race card to create racial suspicion and distrust to win the Malay heartland in utter disregard of Mahathir’s Bangsa Malaysia and Najib’s 1Malaysia concepts; and secondly, a vilification and demonization campaign against DAP and Pakatan Rakyat leaders.

The 13GE is going to be the dirtiest general election in the half-century history of the country.

Already, all sorts of lies and falsehoods have been hurled against DAP leaders and this is only the beginning.

For instance, among the terrible and atrocious lies told about the DAP on the Internet and social media when there is no ounce of truth whatsoever include:

• DAP wants to create a Christian Malaysia and make Christianity the official religion;

• Appoint a Christian Prime Minister; and

• Abolish the Sultanate system and establish a republic.

Through the Internet, UMNO/BN cybertroopers spread the vicious lie that I was responsible for the May 13 riots in 1969 and that I had roamed the streets of Kuala Lumpur after the 1969 general election results, hurling anti-Malay abuses resulting in the May 13 riots.

In actual fact, I was never in Kuala Lumpur on May 10, 11, 12 and 13, 1969, something which could be easily verified in the media at the time and by the police records.

I was standing for parliamentary election in Bandar Melaka in 1969 and on the morning of May 13, 1969, I had taken the morning flight to Kota Kinabalu to help in the election campaign of Sabah Independent candidates as polling for Sabah in the 1969 general election was staggered for two weeks after polling in Peninsular Malaysia.

But what is even more monstrous is the accusation by UMNO/BN cybertroopers that Lim Guan Eng was also responsible for the May 13 riots of 1969 on the ground that Guan Eng was the DAP Youth leader at the time and was in the forefront of anti-Malay attacks.

This is a triple lie.

Firstly, the DAP was never anti-Malay but was fully committed since our formation in 1966 to be a Malaysian party representing the legitimate rights and interests of all races in the country.

In fact, in 1969 DAP fielded several Malay candidates for parliamentary and state assembly elections and two Malay State Assemblymen were elected on DAP tickets, one in Perak and the other in Negri Sembilan.

Secondly, there was no DAP Youth in l969 as DAPSY (DAP Socialist Youth) was only formed in 1973, and the late P.Patto was the first DAPSY leader.

Thirdly, Guan Eng was only eight years old in May 1969 – and it illustrates how dirty, unprincipled and unscrupulous  politics has degenerated in Malaysia in the run up to the next general election that such a despicable and contemptible accusation could be leveled against an eight-year-old child!

Is Najib prepared to fight a clean, free and fair election campaign in the 13GE?

Utusan Malaysia is the official newspaper of UMNO. When is it going to stop being a “lies-paper” and revert to its role as a newspaper as in the first three decades of its history?

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 1 July 2012, 5:20 pm and is filed under
Elections
,
Mahathir
,
Media
,
Najib Razak
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Felda listing: A ‘house of lies’

Mohd Ariff Sabri Aziz | July 2, 2012

Free Malaysia Today

Felda Global Venture is a rush job and has all the hallmarks of becoming a minefield for Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak.

COMMENT

With a bottomless pit of scandals and irregularities, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak must be off his rockers when he says he will win 14-0 in the next election.

But I know, the only time he has to say something like that, is when he knows the chips are down.

We know when Najib says he will win 14-0, it means Umno and Barisan Nasional are finished. Otherwise, with a score of 14-0, Najib should have declared election yesterday.

Let’s talk about the Felda Global Venture (FGV) which was listed on June 28.

Najib wants to rake in RM6 billion to pay his way through the next general election.

But did you know that know that only 20% of Felda top management supported the idea of FGV’s initial public offering (IPO)? Some 65% of the FGV staff thought FGV simply isn’t ready to list.

This is obviously a rush job and we must keep asking, why?

From the beginning we have been saying: if settlers’ welfare and economics are the prime concern, then allow KPF (Koperasi Permodalan Felda) to buy out FGV. Then KPF will own 100% of Felda holdings and all the assets therein.

Then what is to stop KPF from forming or hiring a first-rate management company to run its business?

KPF as the settlers’ keeper will then look after settlers’ welfare directly. Felda doesn’t even have to list FGV as it’s out of orbit completely.

But that would be the honest road to walk.

Felda, a ‘minefield for Najib’

Najib’s current world, however, is pretty much constructed by consultants. They provide him with the idea and he goes out there to promote what he thinks are earth-shattering ideas.

And if readers are interested to read about the make-believe world consultants construct, they may want to read House of Lies.

Now, lets see the initial idea. The idea of a listing was mooted by CIMB.

Ethos Consulting was brought in as global project coordinator. They brought in the calvary – Hay Group, Boston Consulting, Aeon Hewitt and maybe more.

Their advice: Don’t touch KPF, treat it like a leper.

The way I see it, the FGV listing has all the hallmarks of becoming a minefield for Najib.

What is the immediate effect of the FGV IPO?

The listing will allow 94.5 % of the subscribers who are not even Felda settlers ride on the broken backs of Felda folks.

Felda settlers get 91 million shares while 1.3 billion shares are taken up by state governments, government-linked companies (GLCs) and cornerstone investors – PNB, EPF and Tabung Haji (each have been asked to take up 20%).

Five state governments, including my home state of Pahang, are also being arm-twisted into taking up 30% shares.

Meanwhile, 420 million shares are set aside for rich individuals who must show they have a least RM3 million in assets and companies worth RM 10 million.

No future

An increasing number of Felda people are becoming more sceptical by the day.

The FGV prospectus is fast acquiring the stature of the bikini version of statistical information – what it reveals is suggestive but what it hides is vital.

For instance, we have not been told that only 3% of Felda landbank is RSPO certified (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil).

This means in future, we may find it difficult to sell CPO (crude palm oil) to the world market because much of the landbank from where the CPO comes from is not RSPO-certified.

Also, because we haven’t shown commitment to RSPO, FGV’s plan expansion of plantations in places like Indonesia and Africa may not progress as fast as FGV wants.

Where are the fundamentals to support the business? The productive trees? The market? The price? The industry?

Over 50% of the trees in Felda plantations need to be replanted. That translates into higher costs.

The cost of cultivating a new field is about RM15,000. If 53% of 355,864 hectares need to be re-planted, it will cost RM2.8 billion on replanting alone, spread over five years.

And if you find additional planting areas, you can only reap what you sow in three to four years.

New areas to be planted means more cost and a waiting period.

Dropping demand

Demand from big buyers is slowing down. China and India, for example, are cutting back their purchase of CPO. Malaysia is not the only supplier of CPO.

Indonesia is becoming more competitive and can unload its CPO onto the market, dampening the price of Malaysian CPO.

The fundamentals are not favourable to Malaysia. That being the case, you can’t sustain the price post-listing for long.

This rush job is likely to see Felda and FGV in the same position as ailing MAS (Malaysia Airlines System).

The writer is a former Umno state assemblyman but joined DAP earlier this year. He is a FMT columnist.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 2 July 2012, 9:21 am and is filed under
Felda
,
Najib Razak
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Rebahnya BN kerana salah sendiri, bukannya kesalahan orang

— Aspan Alias

The Malaysian Insider

Jul 02, 2012

2 JULAI — Insiden yang mengasari Ketua Menteri Pulau Pinang di Telok Bahang semalam membuktikan yang Barisan Nasional amat sengsara apabila kalah di dalam pilihanraya 20008 yang mengakibatkan BN  jatuh tersembam di Pulau Pinang dalam PRU yang lalu.

Kerajaan Pakatan Rakyat yang di ketuai oleh DAP itu telah melakukan yang terbaik dan telah pun membuktikan yang sesebuah kerajaan itu boleh ditadbir dengan baik jika pimpinannya telus, jujur, dan sebenarnya rasuah boleh dielakkan.

Jika Pulau Pinang kini mempunyai pentadbiran yang hampir sama dengan prestasi BN, tentulah BN mempunyai peluang untuk kembali berkuasa di Pulau Pinang selepas pilihanraya yang akan datang.

Tetapi Lim Guan Eng dan barisan pimpinan kerajaan Pulau Pinang telah menunjukkan perbezaan ketara dengan membuktikan yang PR memang lebih berkemampuan untuk mentadbir dari BN yang telah menguasai Pulau Pinang dari 2008 dahulu.

Justeru kata-kata pemimpin-pemimpin BN yang mengatakan mereka (BN) akan mengambilalih Pulau Pinang di dalam PRU 13 ini hanyalah merupakan kenyataan untuk menyedapkan hati sendiri dan tindakan psikoloji sahaja.  Keputusan PRU 13 sebenarnya sudah ditentukan. Pulau Pinang akan tetap berada ditangan PR, malahan lebih kuat lagi selepas PRU itu nanti.

Oleh kerana itulah nampaknya pihak BN melalui Perkasa telah melakukan perkara-perkara yang mengaibkan dengan mengasari pemimpin yang telah dipilih oleh rakyat dan sikap kurang ajar pihak yang mengasari Ketua Menteri itu merupakan “reflection” yang jelas tentang nilai dan budaya pihak yang dalam keadaan “desperado” di negeri itu. Kejadian yang menimpa Ketua Menteri itu merupakan kejadian yang sangat tidak bertamaddun yang dilakukan oleh kumpulan dari Perkasa itu.

Jika BN hendak menang dalam pilihanraya tunjukkan kelakuan yang baik, kerana kekalahan BN dalam pilihanraya yang lalu itu adalah di sebabkan BN khususnya Umno tidak mempunyai budaya yang baik yang secocok dengan zaman dan waktu ini.  Budaya kasar mengkasari ini hanya berlaku di zaman batu dahulu. Di zaman batu dulu siapa yang mempunyai lengan dan penumbuk yang besar merekalah yang berjaya.

Zaman sekarang manusia mahu dipimpin oleh pemimpin yang menggunakan otak dan pemikiran,  bukan menggunakan buku lima atau dengan lengan yang berotot besar. Tetapi nampaknya pihak polis masih lagi tidak mengambil tindakan terhadap penjenayah itu kerana penjenayah itu datangnya dari pihak atau dari penyokong BN khususnya Umno.

Sesiapa boleh menyokong sesiapa, tetapi jika BN disokong oleh kaki gaduh dan samseng, bagaimanalah rakyat yang berfikir akan menyokong mereka. Rakyat tidak mahu pimpinan yang menyerupai pimpinan Iddi Amin dari Uganda suatu ketika dulu.

Tetapi apa yang kita harapkan agar LGE bersabar dan teruskan kerja baik yang anda telah lakukan di Pulau Pinang selama empat tahun  ini sehinggakan negeri tiu menjadi sebuah negeri yang premium jika dibandangkan dengan kerajaan negeri-negeri yang ditadbir oleh BN. Jagalah keselamatan anda dengan baik kerana nampaknya pihak polis tidak begitu “magnanimous” dalam menjalankan tugas sebagai pengawal keselamatan rakyat dan negara.

Sikap ganas pihak Perkasa dan penyokong BN sekarang ini bukannya kerana apa: ia adalah kerana BN akan tersungkur kerana sikapnya sendiri. Bukannya salah sesiapa yang lain. — aspanaliasnet.blogspot.com

                This entry was posted on Monday, 2 July 2012, 8:59 am and is filed under
Elections
,
Lim Guan Eng
,
Penang
,
Perkasa
,
UMNO
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Under Najib, Malaysia is not only more corrupt than under the two previous Prime Ministers but is heading towards the dubious honour of being the only Asian-Pacific  country to slip in both TI CPI ranking and score since 1995

The CIMB Group chief, Datuk Seri Nazir Razak and younger brother to the Prime Minister hit the nail on the head when he told Financial Times that Malaysia must overcome corruption if it is to move up from being a middle-income economy.

In fact, Nazir could be faulted for erring on the side of caution and holding his punches for Malaysia, under Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s premiership for 39 months, is not only more corrupt than under the two previous Prime Ministers Tun Dr. Mahathir and Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, but is heading towards the dubious honour of being the only Asian-Pacific country to slip in both Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index(CPI)  ranking and score since the introduction of the annual assessment 17 years ago in 1995.

In the first TI CPI in 1995, Malaysia was ranked No. 23 out of 41 countries or the 6th highest-ranked nation in the Asia-Pacific after New Zealand -1, Singapore – 3, Australia – 7, Hong Kong – 17 and Japan – 20, with a CPI score of 5.28. (10 stands for “highly clean” and 0 for “highly corrupt”)

Seventeen years later, after numerous anti-corruption campaigns, two major anti-corruption legislation, the “elevation” of the former Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) into Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), the National Integrity Plan, the 1Malaysia Government Transformation Programme with massive infusion of public funds and increase of staffing, Malaysia has now fallen to the lowest TI CPI ranking in 17 years in 2011, viz: No. 60 with the lowest CPI score of 4.3.

Malaysia has also fallen to No. 11 for country placing in the Asia-Pacific. The top TI CPI 2011 Asia-Pacific ranking are:

1.	New Zealand (1) 9.5

2.	Singapore (5) 9.2

3.	Australia (8) 8.8

4.	Hong Kong (12) 8.4

5.	Japan (14) 7.8

6.	Taiwan (32) 6.1

7.	Bhutan (38) 5.7

8.	South Korea (42) 5.4

9.	Brunei (44) 5.2

10.	Macau (46) 5.1

11.	Malaysia (60) 4.3

Even more serious, other countries which had been down on the list of the TI CPI ranking are fast catching up while Malaysia is fast falling down!

China, Thailand, India and Indonesia are such examples in Asia.

China was ranked No. 40 with a CPI score of 2.16 in 1995. In 2011, China is ranked No. 75 with a CPI score of 3.6.

At the annual average rate of China’s improvement and Malaysia’s regression of their CPI score in the last 17 years, China will not only catch up but will leave Malaysia behind in the TI CPI, both in ranking and in score in a matter of four years – come 2015!

Other Asian countries like Thailand, Indonesia and India are making major strides in the battle against corruption. Thailand, which was ranked No. 34 with CPI score of 2.79 in 1995 (out of 41 countries) is now ranked No. 80 (out of 183 countries) with an improved score of 3.4. India was ranked No. 35 with CPI score of 2.78 in 1995 is now ranked No. 95 with an improved score of 3.1.

Even Indonesia is making significant strides in the anti-corruption front. Ranked at the very bottom of No. 41 in 1995, with CPI score of 1.94, Indonesia is now ranked No. 100 with an improved CPI score of 3.0 in 2011.

Is there any other Asia-Pacific country to keep Malaysia company of being hit with a double whammy of a lower TI CPI ranking and score in the past 17 years?

Yes, there is another country – the Philippines whose TI CP ranking was  No. 36 with a score of 2.77 in 1997 and both indices fell 17 years later in the 2011 TI CPI being ranked No. 129 with a score of 2.6.

But the Philippines is optimistically looking forward to great improvements in its CPI score if not CPI ranking next year with the catching of several “big fishes” in the anti-corruption campaign of President Aquino, most notably the sacking of Chief Justice Renato Corona by the Philippines Senate impeachment court and the indictment of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, former Transportation Secretary Leandro Mendoza, former Commission on Elections Chair Benjamin Abalos and Local Water Utilities Chair Prospero Pichay.

If Philippines join the  queue of other Asian-Pacific countries with the political will to fight corruption, particularly “big fish” or “grand corruption” , with improvement in its TI CPI score, what is Najib doing to ensure that Malaysia is not  stuck with the dubious honour of being the only Asia-Pacific country to slip both in TI CPI ranking and score since 1995?

Otherwise, Malaysia will literally be the “sick man” in Asia-Pacific in the war against corruption – with other countries making progress while Malaysia going backwards in the war against corruption.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 2 July 2012, 4:22 pm and is filed under
Corruption
,
Najib Razak
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.