The 10th Malaysia Five Year Plan : Old Wine in New Bottles – Part 1

Introduction

Malaysia faces formidable economic and social challenges. Both domestic and external.  These are greater than those faced in the past. These have been acknowledged by Ministers, the World Bank and other analysts. Some of these challenges can be attributed to changing global economic circumstances whilst others are due to policy failures, an approach to governance founded upon rent-seeking, and abuse of power and processes that deny accountability and transparency. Overwhelmingly, implementation of policies associated with the NEP has contributed  to the many distortions and a loss of competitiveness, dismal private sector performance, a virtual collapse in the flows of FDI, and sizable capital flight. Overall growth rates are now far below those needed to lift Malaysia out of the middle income trap that it finds itself in. Vision 2020 has become a fast fading dream.

The political Tsunami of March 2008 sent shockwaves across the political landscape. The BN, after an initial state of shock, embraced the rhetoric of change and indulged in notional reforms but the entrenched warlords and power brokers resisted much needed economic reforms as these were seen hurting the self-centered interests of those in power.  The timid attempts by the then Prime Minister were resisted and he was chastised and ridiculed and eventually driven from office.

In the 15 months from the time he assumed the offices of Prime Minister and Ministry of Finance, Datuk Seri Najib has proclaimed on more than one occasion for Malaysia to embrace a New Economic Model to regain competitiveness and strive to attain the status of a developed nation. He has in these statements indicated the need to move away from the constraints of the NEP, to direct assistance to the disadvantaged on a need based approach rather than one that is race based. He has argued that this is central to his vaguely defined 1 Malaysia concept. A second theme that has featured in his pronouncements is related to the need to reduce subsidies and to broaden the revenue base by adoption of a Goods and Services Tax. These measures, he has argued, are essential to eliminating the public sector deficit that has reached an unsustainable level of 7 percent of GDP in 2009.

At the end of March 2010, he launched with great fanfare the NEM proposals. Although the full range of policies and detailed measures were absent from the document, hopes were raised that long awaited economic reforms were on the way and would be incorporated in the 10th Malaysia Five Year Plan. These hopes were rapidly dashed as various Ministers in a divided Cabinet hedged their commitment to the NEM. Indeed, it would appear that the power brokers in UMNO opposed to these reforms outsourced opposition to the NEM to PERKASA. PERKASA then mounted a vociferous campaign opposing the NEM and the reduction of subsidies. It is worthy of note that the Prime Minister  retreated and indicated that the NEM was a set of recommendations yet to be adopted and that the Government’s position would be incorporated in the 10th Five Year Plan. A similar ludicrous retreat took place on the issue of subsidies. In passing, it must be noted that the right hand does not know what the left hand is up to. Witness the dispute over the size of the subsidy bill – Datuk Seri Idris Jala claiming it to be of the order of RM 74 billion whilst the Ministry of Finance claims that the total is in the region of RM18 billion.

The much awaited and anticipated 10th Malaysia Five Plan unveiled on June 10 is a gross disappointment as it contains none of the reforms that the Prime Minister had paraded. It represents a retreat from what was momentarily dangled before the public. It shows that he is not a master in his own house and that he leads a divided Cabinet. It further testifies to the fact that powerful extraneous reactionary forces led by PERKASA are in a domineering enough position to set the agenda. These forces are committed to preserving at all costs their privileges and positions even as these conflict with the nation’s interests and it’s very future. It is indeed most sad that the Prime Minister is unable to deliver upon what he led the country to believe. It is also regrettable that he is now presiding over and implementing policies that put the country on a path to economic decline and stagnation. This is not a Plan that will take us on to developed country status but is almost certain to ensure that Malaysia remains trapped as a third world middle income country. It is pertinent to ask if the Prime Minister realizes that the Plan that he has unveiled may well mark the turning point in his political fortunes and shorten his tenure in office.

Professor Datuk Dr Mohamed Ariff, the highly respected former executive director of the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research (MIER) commenting on the Plan said that the NEP which ended in 1990 appears to have mutated into new policy incarnations including the Najib administration’s New Economic Model (NEM) and is distorting the Malaysian economy. He went on to say: “
Malaysia’s markets are highly distorted. The distortions are related to the NEP and the NEP remains the backbone of the 10MP document. The NEP looks like it is mutating to the NDP and NEM and stands in the way of bringing about serious reforms.
” He further argued that the NEP would have to be rejected wholesale.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 14 June 2010, 11:38 am and is filed under
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Dad: Son ‘beaten like a cow,’ framed of engine theft

By
Joseph Sipalan and Gavaskar Brian Raj
 | Malaysiakini

The father of Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) sergeant N Tharmendran today alleged that his son was tortured and forced to confess to the theft of two jet engines while under remand.

“They beat him like a cow,” said N Nagarajah, 71, after lodging a police report on the matter at the Brickfields police headquarters today.

Nagarajah was accompanied by human rights lawyer N Surendran and three PR members of parliament – DAP’s M Manogaran (Teluk Intan) and PKR’s S Manikavasagam (Kapar) and Low Gwo Burne (Kelana Jaya).

Nagarajah claimed that two RMAF officers, a Major Azam and a Major Ismail, had beaten and mistreated his son over a period of nearly three weeks from July 2 to 17 last year.

He claimed that Major Ismail made Tharmendran wear a crash helmet, which he then proceeded to hit repeatedly using a golf club and cricket bat.

Nagarajah said his son was told by Major Ismail that he wrote the names of all his torture subjects, including Tharmendran’s, on the crash helmet.

Nagarajah also claimed that his son was stripped down to his underwear in a room where the air-conditioning was set at full-blast, and that he was not allowed to sleep, with regular interrogations after midnight.

“All the time, they kept asking him to confess he had stolen the two F5E fighter jet engines from Sg Besi TUDM Base.

“Major Ismail also threatened to shoot my son and (co-accused) Rajandran Prasad,” he said in his report.

Nagarajah also alleged that the officers had told Tharmendran, who is currently held under remand at the Sungai Buloh prison, to also confess to stealing other airplane spare parts and air force property.

Surendran, acting as lead counsel for Tharmendran and his family, claimed the Attorney-General was fully aware of the torture and yet proceeded to charge him with stealing the jet engines.

“The fact that he was tortured to confess suggests that he is not guilty. Why is it that an armed forces personnel can be tortured severely on a military base?,” he asked.

‘No chance to give his side of story’

Surendran added that the RM150,000 bail set by the Sessions Court is highly questionable as Tharmendran has not had a chance to give his side of the story since the incident made headlines last year.

Manogaran said they will demand for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the case, and at the same time present a memorandum to the Inspector-General of Police and raise it in Parliament next week.

“Only through a royal commission can we have a fair investigation. We need to know how many are involved, who is involved, how long it has been going on, who is buying and how much is it all worth.

“Does it go all the way up to the generals? If they can sell spare parts, they can sell information too,” Manogaran said.

Tharmendran and businessman Rajandran were both charged in the Sessions Court in January this year in relation to the stolen jet engines.

Tharmendran was charged with stealing and abetting in the crime while Rajandran faces a charge of handling stolen properties. Both were also charged with conspiring to steal the engines.

Tharmendran was also charged with conspiring in the theft of the two engines with senior serviceman Mohamad Shukri Mohamad Yusop at the material processing shed (Matra 1) of the RMAF base in Sungai Besi.

Tharmendran’s and Rajandran’s trial has been set for July 19 at the Petaling Jaya sessions court.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 17 June 2010, 2:33 pm and is filed under
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Malaysia in the Era of Globalization #19

By
Bakri Musa

Chapter 3:  Lessons From The Past

The European Reformation

The Reformation refers to the religious revolution that took place in Western Europe during the 16th century.  The pivotal event occurred in October 31, 1517, when the German preacher, Martin Luther, publicly posted his Ninety-Five Theses challenging the authority and practices of the Catholic Church.  Needless to say, the Pope was not amused.  Luther’s aim was to reform the institution; instead his protest ended up splitting the church, hence the terms Reformation and Protestant.

            Luther was not the first, nor the only one to protest against the excesses of the Church.  To understand why there was such widespread discontent among Christians then, an account of the behaviors and practices of the church establishment at the time is warranted.

             The Church during Luther’s time was more than a pan-European religious institution.  It was also the unchallenged social, political, and even economic power.  Having wielded unchallenged authority for so long, it was inevitable that corruption, nepotism (or to put it in modern political term, cronyism), and other unsavory practices would emerge among Church leaders.

             A few examples will illustrate the decadent state, both with personnel as well as practices.  The clergy was less concerned with ministering to the spiritual needs of the faithful than being powerful potentates indulging in the material offerings of their followers.  The masses and the educated disliked the clergy class, offended by both their lifestyles and theological practices.  The clergy class reserved unto themselves the sole right to interpret the bible, written as it was in the ancient and dying language of Latin.  Mere mortals need not partake in such intellectual and spiritual exercises.  Suffice for them to listen to the Sunday sermons and pithy wisdom dispensed by the priests and bishops.

             While the peasants were struggling, the Church continued to use its funds to build ever larger and grander churches in Rome and elsewhere.  Egregious abuses of power by the clergy were rampant.  One Cardinal John of Lorraine, for example, received his first religious appointment at the tender age of three!  No less scandalous, his nephew received the archbishoporic of Rheims, a significant position, at age 14.  Church properties and titles became possessions of great families to be dispensed at their pleasure.  One prelate, Albert of Brandenburg, spent his time traveling in style, attended by his mistresses tactfully dressed in male costumes.  Well, at least they were not the choirboys!

             The Church was no less ingenious in raising funds.  Apart from the standard solicitation of gold for church appointments and dispensing repentances for the princes and other aristocrats, it initiated other novel schemes of extracting wealth from the masses.  One such practice is “indulgence,” where the clergy would dispense pardons for the presumed sins of the faithful (or their loved ones), all for a fee of course.  We are familiar with the Catholic confessionals, where every Sunday the faithful would confess their sins to and receive repentance from the priest sitting behind the closed curtain.  Presumably the slate would thus be swept clean, ready for the following week’s transgressions.  The only problem was that there was no exchange of cash or coins, but this was soon corrected by the avarice of the clergy.  Enter the “indulgence” box.

             With the tinkling of every dropped coin into these boxes, supposedly the doors to heaven would open for the salvation of a designated soul, or so the faithful were told.  It was a sophisticated theological rendition of the old “wishing well” idea.  The concept was a resounding success, with the rich and poor rushing to deposit their gold coins to save the souls of their departed loved ones.  I can imagine at the end of the day the bishop coming home with the boxful of glittering gold.  If he had not been tempted before, he would certainly be by now.  Besides, he could always blame the devil for tempting him!

             As a revenue-generating scheme, the indulgence box was pure genius.  It certainly beat taxes and tithes where you would be forced to cough up the money.  With indulgence boxes, the faithful willingly parted with their gold.  The ploy was even better and more lucrative than church-sponsored bingos!  With bingo there are eager participants too, but there will only be a few winners; the majority will receive nothing.  With indulgence boxes, perversely all the participants felt that they were winners as they parted with their hard-earned coins.  One could not concoct a better scheme than that!  No wonder it was so popular, especially with the clergy class.

             The indulgence boxes epitomized the corruption and depravity of the church that so enraged Luther and others.  When he nailed his Theses on that church door, he was frontally challenging the establishment.  He enumerated the egregious abuses and outright fraud perpetrated by the priests, a long list eloquently spelled out in a common language understood by the masses, and not in some obscure fancy Latin.  The results were electric:  the masses overwhelmingly supported him.  The Church in turn demanded that he retract his accusations or face excommunication.  Or worse!  Luther did not budge but became even more strident in his denunciations.

             In truth Luther was not the first to be incensed by the excesses of the Church.  Two centuries earlier, England’s John Wycliffe too rebelled against the tyranny of the clergy.  For that, he and his followers were persecuted.  John Huss of Bohemia amplified on Wycliffe’s ideas and ended up by being burned at the stake.  The risks to reformers then, as now, were indeed severe.

             To appreciate why Luther succeeded and did not end up being burned at the stake as others before him were, it is necessary to examine other parallel events occurring at the time.  He was helped considerably by four converging trends.  First, the excesses and abuses of the church had been going on for centuries and that sooner or later they had to end, to implode.  Luther appeared when conditions were just ripe, resentments and anger had reached a critical stage.  Second, there appeared throughout Europe universities that were outside the influence of the church.  At such centers like Oxford there emerged the new movement of humanism that emphasizes the centrality of man and his ideas.  This directly challenged the hegemony of the church that hitherto felt it had the final and sole authority to interpret everything.

             Third was the ready availability of the printing press that enabled ideas to spread far and wide, and very quickly too.  Luther took full advantage of this new medium to disseminate his ideas.  With the masses now able to read and reading materials widely available, the clergy no longer had the monopoly on knowledge or information.  Last, with the emergence of the political idea of nation-state, Luther was able to capitalize on the national sentiments of the Germanic people against those of Latin Europe, in particular, Rome.  Luther was greatly helped when the local bishops shipped off the gold (after their have taken their generous portion) to Rome for building yet another monument there.

             What are the relevant lessons from the Reformation?  The first is that institutions and people with entrenched and unchallenged power will inevitably be corrupted; the greater the power, the worse the corruption.  It matters not who these individuals are, for even the most pious are not immune.  Second, the more entrenched the power, the more difficult it would be to eradicate the abuses without dismantling the whole structure.  The European Reformation resulted not only in the formation of many breakaway Protestant sects but it also spawned a counter reformation within the Catholic Church.

             Third, Luther had been through and excelled in the system; thus he had great credibility when he challenged the existing order.  Fourth, he personified the very opposite qualities for which he criticized the Church.  Where the clergymen were ostentatious, Luther was modest; while they hid behind their obtuse Latin, Luther used the language of the common folk.  Being highly educated, Luther was facile with Latin but he chose to communicate in the language of the masses.  Additionally he had a complete and viable alternative program ready.  He had written not only his Ninety-Five Theses but also a whole set of sermons, hymns, and catechisms for his new church so that when he was expelled from the Catholic Church, he had a ready alternative.  Luther did not have to scramble from scratch.

             By far his most important strategy was to align his movement with the emerging new ideals.  He shrewdly capitalized on the burgeoning nationalism, effectively exploiting the “us versus them” theme – the “them” being the distant church in Rome and the Italians.  Similarly, he aligned himself with the growing humanist movement of the day.  All these convergences helped him succeed.

             When I compare Luther’s reformation with the Malaysian reformasi, (at the risk of flattering Anwar Ibrahim, its leader, by comparing him to Martin Luther!) a number of glaring differences emerge.  Like the Catholic Church in the Middle Age, Malaysia’s ruling party is also burdened by corruption and cronyism, a consequence of being in power for so long.  Like an overripe jackfruit that was still hanging, UMNO is ready to fall anytime.  Unlike an overripe jackfruit which gives off a sweet smell, an overripe ripe gives off, well, an overripe smell!

             Anwar however, is no Luther.  For one, his reformasi forces aligned themselves with foreign elements rather than domestic ones.  It was as if Luther was trying to co-opt the Italians for support instead of his own German followers.  For another, reformasi activists did maximize the use of the new medium of the Internet to galvanize support and to discredit the ruling Barisan government as Malaysians generally were not quite savvy with this new medium.  At least not yet then!  [Note:  Things changed materially by the time of the 2008 general elections with Internet penetration reaching a critical mass.  No longer having control of information, the ruling coalition suffered its greatest loss.]

             While Luther’s Theses was detailed, articulate, and down to earth, Anwar’s Permatang Pauh Declaration (its “Mission Statement”) was brief, pompous, and pretentious.  Luther’s views were well known as he had articulated them well and often.  He even put down details of his church services right down to the hymns and sermons.  He wrote voluminously.

             In striking contrast, reformasi and the political party it spawned, Keadilan was not quite ready for prime time.  Undoubtedly, Anwar’s jailing took the momentum away from the movement.  Without him, the party was fumbling with such pivotal issues as the role of religion in a plural society, inequities within and between races, and special privileges for Bumiputras.

             But the most critical lesson is how to prevent the government and other institutions in Malaysia from degenerating into a medieval Catholic Church.  Distressingly Malaysia today is acquiring many of the unsavory characteristics of the medieval church.  Malaysian institutions are under tight government control.  Additionally, the government is a significant player in the economy, controlling many major corporations.  As a result corporate decisions are influenced less by market factors than by political calculations. The most glaring example is Malaysia Airlines, which stumbles from one major crisis to another.  Despite that it continues to be led by less-than-competent political appointees.  Current political leaders in Malaysia are control freaks, unable or unwilling to relent.

             The differences between the medieval Catholic Church and the Malaysian political establishment today are merely quantitative, a matter of degree.  Unchecked, Malaysia too will meet the same fate as the medieval Catholic Church.

Next:   The Meiji Restoration

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 17 June 2010, 11:51 am and is filed under
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Tian Chua’s status as MP

Tweets
:

Arr in Labuan w @tonypua 4DAP Labuan dinner/crmh @tianchua disqualified by RM2k fine but he has 14 days 2appeal under Art 48 of Constitution

06/18/2010 01:39 PM

Position pertaining 2 @tianchua’s parliamentary position is laid down in Art 48(4)(4) of Msian Constitution

06/18/2010 01:49 PM

As I read Art 48 Constitution it makes no difference whether fine paid or not, so long as appeal is exercised within 14 days RT @PuteraPedang @tonypua @tianchua TC didn’t bother to appeal. He already paid the penalty in full.

06/18/2010 03:26 PM

Whatever legal status or outcome of @tianchua’s appeal Art 48(4)(4) which grants him 14 days leeway will govern his qualification as MP RT @thomas_su @edmundbon Appeal avenue exhausted when Hct made decision. Further appeal not as of right. Whether fine paid, sentence stays.

06/18/2010 04:18 PM

Art 48(4)(4) provides dat disqualification of an MP fined “not less than RM2k” shall take effect upon expiry of 14days from sentence but this is deferred if he appeals within these 14days or initiates any other court proceedings re conviction/sentence – which then depends on final outcome

06/18/2010 04:40 PM

                This entry was posted on Friday, 18 June 2010, 6:12 pm and is filed under
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SIME DARBY: A Conglomerate Gone Awry

By
Tunku Abdul Aziz

There is a place for conglomerates in the business world. However, as with everything else, some are good, but mostly they invariably become unwieldy and difficult to manage effectively. Many come unstuck, leaving behind a trail of miserable examples of management failures, human greed and frailties. As always, there is a lot of cleaning up to do after the party is over. The sad truth is that we do not as yet have what it takes to run a complex business successfully, and a conglomerate is hellishly difficult to keep on a straight course because the temptation to wander off into the unfamiliar is often irresistible, and most conglomerates find themselves up a creek.

There have been many instances of major failures in the Sime stables. There was the case of the insurance business in the UK in the eighties, a member of Lloyds, which was in such a bad shape because of mismanagement that it had to be bundled with a very profitable money broking company into an attractive package and sold for a song. Sime Darby naturally had to be responsible for all the liabilities resulting from claims on policies transacted up to the time of the sale of the company. For the next several years after the sale of the company to the new owners, Sime Darby continued to send out to the UK enormous sums of money to cover the claims.

Then there was the Sime Bank debacle. Banking was a business in which it had no expertise and had to rely on the management that came along with the bank when it was acquired. The integrity of the many of the top executives running Sime Bank was questionable. What happened to the bank should have been a lesson to the board of Sime Darby about sticking to what it was good at. I well remember in Windsor, England, saying jocularly to Tunku Tan Sri Ahmad Yahaya, then Group Chief Executive, when he told me Sime Darby had acquired a bank that he would be better off getting a casino licence. Later he admitted that I was right.

I also recall the factory ship fiasco in the early eighties. The Sime Darby-owned vessel operating in the North Atlantic off the coast of Africa found itself in rough seas financially.  Sime Darby decided to sack its two British employees claiming that they had got into this business with the approval of the board in Kuala Lumpur. This was patently untrue. The Brits would not be bullied into submission, and they sued Sime Darby and its Chairman, then Tun Tan Siew Sin, for wrongful dismissal, and won a very substantial sum of money in an out of court settlement. Zubir, the dismissed Group Chief Executive should not have allowed the board of Sime Darby to treat him so shabbily.

I personally believe that with a loss of this scale of magnitude, an honourable board would have resigned because obviously it has failed to discharge its fiduciary and other related responsibilities of stewardship. Zubir has been used as a scapegoat in the Anglo-Malaysian corporate tradition. If Sime Darby had been an American company, the chair would have accepted responsibility and resigned or been forced to go without ceremony. I find Musa’s logic for staying put, saying that he would resign if required to do so by the shareholders, disingenuous and self-serving to say the least. He must know he has failed as chairman, and based on the principle of collective responsibility, his board must exit with him. This is the honourable thing expected of a responsible board, and this is what I expect the much trumpeted Sime tagline, ‘Developing Sustainable Futures’ to be all about. My advice to Zubir is to consider taking Musa and his board to the cleaners. Sue them. We need in this country boards that are principled, and we can also do with a little honour and integrity in our business leadership.

Sime Darby in the meantime must take a good, hard look at itself to see if operating on the present model is sustainable. It is obvious that Sime Darby has become largely unwieldy, unmanageable, and unsustainable. It is showing all the signs of having become a conglomerate in the worst possible sense. The worst is not over yet.

(
The write is a former Group Director of Sime Darby, 1979-1985
)

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 19 June 2010, 5:00 am and is filed under
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Ku Li on corruption and Exocet missiles

Below is an extract of the speech by Umno veteran politician
Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah
 at the launch of ‘The Shafee Yahaya Story – Estate Boy to ACA Chief’, a book written by Shafee’s wife Kalsom Taib.

The word ‘corruption’ comes from a Latin word meaning ‘to break’ or ‘to destroy’. Corruption is a cancer that steals from the poor, eats away at governance and moral fibre, and destroys trust.

Although corruption exists in both the private and public sector, the corruption of the public sector is a more fundamental evil. This is because the public sector is the enforcer and arbiter of the rules that hold us together, the custodians of our common resources.

It is time we recognise corruption as the single biggest threat to our nation. In our economy, corruption is the root of our inability to make the economic leap that we know we are capable of. There is no other reason why a country so blessed with natural resources, a favourable climate and such immense talent should not have done a lot better than we have.

In our political system, corruption is the real reason why our political parties refuse to reform. Some people say the party I belong to has debased a once noble nationalism and a concern with the welfare of marginalised people into a rush for the gravy train.

They also said that the economic development we must bring our people is reduced to nothing more than patronage, and patronage is inflated into a right.

Everyone takes a cut

Therefore, it appears that the root cause is in our political parties. It is an open secret that tender inflation is standard operating procedure. Within the parties and among politicians, it is already an understood matter that party followers must be ‘fed’. Politics is an expensive business, after all. Where else are we to get the funds?

Thus, theft of public goods is normalised and socialised among an entire community, and what we had planned to attain by capability is seen by some as something to be attained through politics.

Politicians are the villains in this piece, but they themselves are also trapped. The leadership is trapped because they are beholden to political followers who demand that they are looked after. They demand patronage, and turn the party’s struggle for the welfare of a community into their sense of entitlement to that patronage. So they take their slice of the project.

By the time they and each person down the line all the way down to the contractor takes a lot and there is not enough left to do a decent job, bridges collapse, highways crack, stadiums collapse, hospitals run out of medicine, schoolchildren are cheated in their textbooks. Corruption may look to its perpetrators like a crime without victims, but it leaves a trail of destruction.

No domain seems safe. Some say that the humble school canteen is the domain of party branch chiefs. The golf course becomes a favoured way to pass the cash over. We can place bets for RM5,000 a hole. For some reason, one party keeps losing. And there are 18 holes. Money thus obtained is legal. It can be banked in.

We spend billions on the refurbishment of defence equipment; on fighter jets, frigates and submarines. When a supplier lays on an exorbitant commission to some shadowy middleman, that commission is built into the price the government pays. That money comes from the ordinary Malaysian.

Military toys

Military toys are very expensive. I remember from my time in the Finance Ministry. Even then, patrol craft cost about RM280 million each.

We loved Exocet missiles. As minister, I had to sign each time the military fired an Exocet missile for testing.

Every time, we test fired one of them, RM2 million literally went out with a bang.

When the UK went to war against Argentina, the UK government tried to borrow them from us because outside of the UK, we had the most of them in the world. We must have been under some extraordinary military threat which I did not understand.

The list is long: procurement of food and clothing for the military, medicine for hospitals and so on. In all these things, the government has been extraordinarily generous. And paid extraordinarily high prices.

Government servants have to face pressure from politicians who expect to be given these contracts because they need money for politics. This corruption is justified because the party’s struggle is sacred. The civil servants can either join the game or be bypassed.

For every government job big or small that goes down, someone feels entitled to a slice of the pie, not because they can do the job, not because they have some special talent or service to offer, but because it is their right.

They do not realise that what they demand is the abuse of power for the sake of personal gain, or party gain. They elect those leaders among themselves who are most capable of playing this game.

So we get as our leaders people who have distinguished themselves not by their ability to serve the public but at their long proven ability to be party warlords, which is to say, distributors of patronage. And that is a euphemistic way of saying that because of corruption the old, stupid and the criminal are elevated to positions of power while young, talented and honest individuals are frozen out.

Game over

Corruption destroys national wealth, erodes institutions and undermines character. And it also destroys the process by which a community finds its leaders.

The consequence of this is that the majority are marginalised. Government contracts circulate among a small group of people. Despite all attempts at control and brainwashing, the majority soon catch up to the game.

This game cannot last forever. The longer it is played the more people hate the government and the governing class. They vote against the government, not for the opposition. They resent the government of the day. In 2008, we saw how the Malaysian people feel about the abuse of power and incompetence caused by corruption.

Since party funding has become the excuse and the vehicle for wholesale corruption, any measure we take to fight it must include the reform of political funding.

It is time we enact a law regulating donations to political parties. Donations must be capped. No donor is to give more than a specified limit, on pain of prosecution. This is to prevent special interests from dominating parties. Such money is source of corruption.

Let us limit political donations by law. On top of that, let the government set up a fund to provide funding to registered political parties for their legitimate operational needs. This money can be distributed based on objective criteria and governed by an independent panel. This would close off the excuse that the parties need to raise political funding through government contracts.

Another idea is that we should freeze the bank accounts of people who are being investigated for corruption. Public servants and politicians are by law required to be able to demonstrate the sources of their assets. Those with suspiciously ample assets should have these assets frozen until they can come up with evidence that they have accumulated them legally.

This may sound harsh, but only because we live in a country in which almost no one ever gets nabbed for corruption. In China, those found guilty are shot.

Impotent MACC

In Malaysia, we read about Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) investigating this and that but there are no convictions. No one has been punished. We are the nation with no consequences. The MACC finds no fault. The courts do not convict. And our newspapers do not have the independence and vigour to follow up.

We have an MACC with no results. It was a good idea to model our anti-corruption agency after one of the most successful in the world, Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC). However we have taken just bits and pieces of that model. So really this will be no more than PR exercise unless we adopt the model wholesale.

We should repeal the Official Secrets Act (OSA) so that people can go to the MACC and the authorities with documentary information on corrupt practice. As things stand, any document which might be incriminating to corrupt public officials is stamped an official secret. A whistleblower risks seven years jail for being in possession of such documents.

We need to identify rot eating through our roots as a nation. It is corruption. We cannot expect the corrupt to embrace reform. It is time for our citizens to stand up and call corruption by its name, and demand reform.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 20 June 2010, 12:24 pm and is filed under
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PJ’s University Hospital – A Traffic Disaster

Letter

by
ROAD 10

Have you been to the University Hospital recently? If you haven’t, try it and join the jam and queue which stretches out to its traffic-light junction entrance at Jalan University. And God help you if you have a loved one or friend with a smashed leg or heart attack. If you are indeed at that junction and stuck in the jam, you might just as well read out the last rites as there is a large likelihood of the patient going up to meeting God directly from that traffic junction itself. No way will you be able to approach its oddly built and placed Accidents and Emergency Unit (the signboard mysteriously mentions Trauma but the building itself looks like a giant car park).

The University Hospital or now glamorously termed University Malaya Medical Center has an infrastructure and layout that is well…for a lack of a better term…truly cocked up. For those who are old enough to remember the early years of this Hospital when even the Jalan Gasing/ Federal Highway intersection at EPF was nothing more then a traffic light junction instead of an interchange, this hospital used to be numero uno in its almost ergonomic layout for especially the general public and patients. Whoever the original founders and designers were, they had paid great attention to detail and many a time all that we PJ residents had to do when there was an emergency was just drive up directly to its A&E Department located just after the traffic lights.

Wikipedia states that the Hospital was founded by a Dr. Danaraj during the period when Tunku was the Prime Minister and the foundation stone was actually laid by Jibby’s dad, Razak in 1965. It opened officially in 1968. I remember it was so well designed that anyone running up to its A&E got everything done almost immediately including emergency surgery rather fast. The University Hospital used to have large, rather therapeutic, meticulously maintained lawns that covered much of its open space. I remember still its large open car park off Jalan University. There used to be a mamak shop on the ground floor that sold for 10 cents these large curry puffs. Today you have to fork out RM6 for a piece of cake at its Secret Recipe outlet at its lobby. A chat with the sundry outlets there complain of outrageous rentals.

But like many things in Malaysia, with the passing of its old guard, the University Hospital like almost every other institution in this country appears to be undergoing rather rapid or is it “rabid” development? The chaos is truly astonishing! One has to be actually there to experience the utter traffic nightmare and mayhem as a result of what looks like very haphazard development taking place at the hospital grounds. Looks like Malaysia’s lethal corrupt piratisation program and Ketuanan culture has not spared even this Hospital. A massive so called Primary Care building or RUKA has emerged out of no where blocking its initial main entrance and its original A&E.

To compound matters, its A&E has moved to the main carpark which is quite a distance from its main tower building. As an engineer, I cannot for the life of me, understand how the new A&E was allowed to be built on its open car park space located hardly a few meters from the edge of Jalan University. Patients have to fight their way through traffic to reach its emergency unit. And after having done that, relatives will have to run around in circles looking for a parking space. If you are lost they will eventually direct you to this giant, dimly lit car park right above the A&E building which will truly test your driving skills as you try to negotiate its narrow lanes and super low ceilings.

And if you happen to get a parking space on the 5th floor or something, you will need to grope around to find out where the lifts are. And if you indeed find the lifts (most of the patients were taking the staircases including the mak ciks who could hardly walk), they don’t tell you where you need to get off to get to the tower building. Not only is the ergonomic design gone, the run around can give any patient a coronary. That such a well organized hospital could have been transformed to such pandemonium and haphazardness could only have happened in Bolehland.

But apparently there is worse to come. According to the security guards there, more towers or “menaras” are coming up with no one having any idea where the staff to manage them are going to come from or where the public car parks are going to be. Looking at the signboards and his story, it sounded like another scam “submarine cannot dive “or “jets without engine” story. But to be fair, the nursing standards at this hospital are still much better then one gets in a general hospital I suppose.

However, patients trying to get to this hospital get a very raw deal indeed. Its entrance is literally unapproachable. All the hospital’s open spaces seem to have been replaced with concrete multistoreyed car parks with even more towers being built without any solutions to its current unending traffic and parking problems. Its roads have become extremely narrow from the very outset at the University Road Junction causing traffic to backup to the highly congested Jalan University. Its emergency department is literally sitting on Jalan University. It will be a real miracle if a patient can actually get there except if you are in an ambulance. Its new specialist, pediatric and maternity towers promise to only add to its traffic nightmare.

The Vice Chancellor, who reportedly is a qualified engineer should “turun padang” to see the havoc himself and see how patients, especially the elderly struggle daily because of the poor planning. He should first try making the turn into the badly architectured multistorey car park complex. If he is bringing his grandmother in his MPV, he should get prepared to get a few scratches on the MPV when he tries to maneuver into the entrance of the carpark.  He then should try to get to the main tower from the car park complex. And if he is lost at the lifts or find them too slow, he should then take the steps without tripping on the many potholes on its floor. If he misses taking the link bridge because of poor signages, then I would recommend that he takes the steps all the way down and cross the road at the zebra crossing without getting knocked over by the heavy traffic there. For patients, caught in this chaotic environment, it is truly intimidating.

The VC must identify who is responsible for this haphazard development of Malaysia’s best known hospital. For residents in PJ, this is the only General Hospital they know and even if they have to pay a small amount for treatment but it doesn’t matter because it used to be known for its quality care. But now with all its roads choked and car parks literally unapproachable, patients literally risk dying getting to the hospital’s door. A neighbor of mine was referred to the UH for a hormonal problem but after being unable to find a parking space for one hour, she skipped the hospital and kept driving all the way to Putrajaya where she was treated quite promptly.

If the VC or whoever is in charge of this hospital is not going to find a remedy for its traffic nightmare, the UMMC is going to end up a ghost hospital as patients will not be able to get there. In fact, this may already be happening as the A&E Department looks rather deserted for a hospital this size. If the University Hospital doesn’t solve its traffic and parking woes soon, all that building that is being carried out there using tax payer’s money is going to go to waste. The simultaneous rapid building rampage on almost every open space this hospital used to have is highly suspicious, especially if the no staff story is true. I do hope someone is not making money from needless projects

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 20 June 2010, 5:25 pm and is filed under
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Melayu Bangkit, Cerdek, And Celek!

(Malays Awake, Smart, and Eyes Open!)

By
M. Bakri Musa

 It is commendable that Gertak, the Malay NGO, would have as its mission
Melayu Bangkit
 (to awaken Malays).  It should go further and ensure that we Malays are also
cerdek
 (smart), and
celek
! (eyes wide open!)  That would ensure that we would not be forever
pelek
 (puzzled), unable to comprehend events around us and be left behind.

             It is not enough for Malays to be awake, for if we still keep our eyes closed (even if we close only one eye!), then we might as well go back to sleep.  At least then we could benefit from its recuperative powers.  And if we are awake and have our eyes wide open but we remain dumb (not cerdek), that would be no improvement either.

             Once we are
bangkit
,
cerdik
 and
celek
, only then would Ketuanan Melayu be a reality, and not as now, merely a hollow slogan.  Then Article 153 of our constitution would no longer be contentious as it would be of interest only to historians, as its provisions would have become irrelevant.

             Now that would be a worthy goal!  At least one worth shouting about!

Predictable Behavior

 The
Melayu Bangkit
 organizers’ choice of the keynote speaker at their “massive” rally in Kuala Trengganu on June 14, 2010 was revealing.  If Mahathir could not awaken Malays when he ruled the country for 22 years and had all the powers of the state at his disposal, there is little hope that he could do so now when he is so much older and without power, especially the power to bestow favors.

             The behaviors of those leaders were predictable, culturally.  They hewed closely to our aphorism,
Bila hilang aleh ka pangkal
 (When you are lost, revert to the source).

             Malays today are at a crossroad; we are lost.  However, instead of bravely assessing the choices and moving forward on a course that would best meet those challenges, we have retreated in the hope of reaching the starting point and beginning afresh.  That is, to reboot, in computer language.

             Alas there is no reboot or reset button.  What we should do instead is extract the wisdom of our culture that had stood us well in our daily kampong life and apply that to our current predicament.  Those pithy, catchy sayings are just that; they do not help us comprehend our problems, much less solve them.

             If we reflect on our days back in the
belukar
 (jungle), when we were lost we would move on, hacking the path forward as best as we could determine.  There was no turning back for we knew that the path back would have been overgrown.  We would just as likely to get lost in going back as in going forward.

             By choosing Mahathir, Gertak leaders were going back.  They were clearly counting on him to be the big draw.  Just as obvious, they did not have the confidence in the pulling power of their own ideals and mission.

             They were half right.  They were wrong in thinking that Mahathir would bring in the crowd, but they were right in that they could not sell their ideas, not even in the heartland of Malays.

                There are two ways at looking at the poor attendance.  One is that Malays were still
tidor
 (asleep), literally, what with the World Cup soccer series going on.  If we were not asleep literally, then perhaps we were figuratively.  After all it was not that too long ago when we were being led by that sultan of slumber, Abdullah Badawi.  Perhaps we have not yet awakened to the fact that the nation now has a new leader.  Or it could be that our new leader is no different from the old sleepy head he replaced.

             To me, the low attendance was due to more practical reasons.  It was a Monday, a working day, and those Malays, like other Malaysians, were busy working.  What with the government withdrawing subsidies for such essentials as sugar and cooking oil, Malaysians have to work doubly hard.  They do not have time much less inclination to listen to frustrated politicians ventilating.  The rakyats are fed up with hot and foul air; the country is sweltering and fetid enough already.  Besides, they have heard those promises before.

             To the organizers however, Monday is no different from any other day.  Being from the rent-seeking class, they do not have to work and thus have plenty of time for
berseminar
 and
berkongress
.

             Contrary to the perception of those
Melayu Bangkit
 boys, we Malays have not been asleep.  We have been alert and awake, with our eyes wide open.  It is just that we do not like what we have been hearing or seeing.

             Mahathir must have an inflated sense of his influence post-retirement, especially after his success in bringing down his successor.  I do give him credit in breaking down our taboo of criticizing leaders.  However, before he crows or claims credit for Abdullah’s downfall, we need to remind Mahathir that Abdullah was no great trophy.  To claim credit would be akin to the weekend hunter bragging of his shooting prowess on bringing down a lame caged
kancil
 (mouse deer).  Abdullah would have stumbled anyway, on his own lameness.

             It was pathetic to see Mahathir frittering away his still considerable reservoir of goodwill, and soiling the prestige of his former office by associating with the lunatic fringe of Malay extremists and losers.  Surely it would not be too difficult for him to find a more select audience to exercise his intellectual and other faculties.

             It was also disappointing to see a former prime minister and once the leader of all Malaysians indulging in the same old tired “us” versus “them” rhetoric.  Mahathir lamented that while Malays constitute the majority, our political power is divided, with Malays now also supporting PAS and Keadilan.  Yes, there was a time when UMNO and Malays were synonymous.  What did we get for that?  An arrogant, rent-seeking class – the UMNOPutras – grown glutton on the nation’s riches which they think belong to them, and only to them.  They are the ones now presuming to “lead” us.

             These are not the leaders who will take us to the Promised Land.  Judging from the abysmal attendance at the rally, the average Malay is also very much aware of that.

Granting Us Our Merdeka

 If these leaders are truly interested in awakening and liberating Malays, in short, granting us our
merdeka
, then I suggest they focus on two critical areas:  education and information.

             Good education means equipping us with the necessary language and mathematical skills, as well as the capacity for critical thinking.  Make us
cerdek
!  Giving good education is like waking us up (
bangkit
) and then lighting the
pelita
 (candle).  With us now wide awake, the candle would lift the darkness, and with our eyes wide open (
celek
), we could then find our way out.

             You can tell much about a society and predict its future by looking at the schools.  When I look at our national schools, especially those in rural areas catering to Malays, I need not bother with the national statistics to tell me about the fate of our people.  Yet in those “
kongresses
” I hear little on how to improve our schools or enhance the educational achievements of our people.

             Instead what are often recommended would result in the closing of Malay minds, as with discouraging our young from learning English, deeming it to be the language of oppressors.

             Superior education alone is not sufficient, for if we close the world on our people we would succeed only in creating the worse possible combination:  a mass of highly educated but deeply frustrated citizens.  That would not be good for the ruler or the ruled.

             Removing censorship would go a long way in opening the world of ideas to our people.  We should do away with such archaic practices as banning books and requiring special permits for publications.  Nor should we restrict who can preach our faith.  Such restrictions are futile in this digital age.  Nations can no more control the flow of information then they could of air.

             In this regard I applaud Mahathir’s decision not to sue his critics.  Leaders should be willing to accept criticisms, even blatantly unfair ones.  Leaders should not abuse the court system to intimidate or silence their critics.  Likewise, I applaud UMNO Youth’s Khairy in calling for repeal of the Printing Press Act.  My only regret is that he did not pursue that when he had access to the highest power in the land.

             The
Melayu Bangkit
 folks should influence us through their ideas, not threats, intimidations, or gertak.  Impress us with the brilliance of your brain and the innovativeness of your ideas.

             I have been trying to get copies of the papers presented at this and earlier seminars but to no avail.  Those presenters are not proud of or keen to have their ideas disseminated.  The organizers should have at the very least videotaped the proceedings and posted them on the Web for a wider audience; likewise with their papers.  Those folks should not be content only with submitting those ideas “to the authorities.”  God knows, that had been done umpteen times before, and we know what the results were.

             We should demand more of our leaders beyond their shouting of old slogans, resurrecting of phantom enemies, or fantasizing the good old days under the coconut tree.  For them to be leaders, they must first be
bangkit
,
cerdek
, and
celek
.  We have no wish to be led by
Pak Tidor
 (Sleepy head),
Si Bodoh
 (Moron), or
Mek Mato Tup Soboleh
 (The one-eyed).

                This entry was posted on Monday, 21 June 2010, 10:33 am and is filed under
Bakri Musa
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Tenth Malaysia Plan: Long Live NEP –  RIP NEM

The signature theme of Datuk Seri Najib Razak on his accession as Prime Minister in April last year was the national transformation of Malaysia, which is anchored on four critical pillars:

1st pillar: “1Malaysia, People First, Performance Now” concept to unite Malaysians.

2nd pillar: the Government Transformation Programme (GTP) to deliver the outcomes defined under the National Key Result Areas (NKRAs).

3rd pillar: the New Economic Model (NEM) resulting from the ambitious Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) to transform Malaysia by 2020 into a developed, competitive and high income economy with inclusivity and sustainability.

4th pillar; the 10th Malaysia Plan 2011-2015 as the first policy operationalisation of both the government and economic transformation programme.

The Prime Minister unveiled the New Economic Model on 30th March  and the presented the Tenth Malaysia Plan in Parliament on 10th June.  A sea-change took place in the intervening two months, with  Najib retreating from his  national transformation programme when he  succumbed to pressures from extremist groups making baseless and incendiary claims such as that  the Malays are under siege and that the Chinese would take over the economy and country.

As a result, instead of the first policy operationalisation of the NEM, the Tenth Malaysia Plan is a funeral requiem for the NEM.

The NEM admission  that “the excessive focus on ethnicity-based distribution of resources has contributed to growing separateness and dissension” is completely absent in the Prime Minister’s presentation of the Tenth Malaysia Plan.

This prepared the way for the Tenth Malaysia Plan’s abandonment of the most important of the eight Strategic Reform Initiative (SRI) – described as “fundamental to achieving the NEM – on “Transparent and market-friendly affirmative action”.

As stated in Chapter 6 of NEM (p. 117):

“Existing affirmative action programme and institutions will continue in NEM but, in line with views of the main stakeholders, will be revamped to remove the rent seeking and market distorting features which have blemished the effectiveness of the programme. Affirmative action will consider all ethnic groups fairly and equally as long as they are in the low income 40% of the households.  Affirmative action action programmes would be based on market-friendly and market-based criteria together taking into consideration the need and merits of the applicants. An Equal Opportunities Commission will be established to ensure fairness and address undue discrimination when occasional abuses by dominant groups are encountered.”

The promises of the NEM of a needs-and-merit based transformation of the affirmative programme, to promote building of capacity and capability, which will mean a dismanting of ethnic quotas, preferences, APs, closed tenders and other non-competitive processes, were very short-lived  – all because of failure of political will and leadership.

I call on the Prime Minister, all MPs and all stakeholders in the country to revisit the warning of NEM on the dire consequences of failure of political will and leadership to carry out far-reaching national political, economic, social and government transformation.

As Chapter 7 of NEM warned: “The time for change is now – Malaysia deserves no less.”

The NEM rightly identified the most important enablers of the NEM are political will and leadership to break the log-jam of resistance by vested interest groups and preparing the rakyat to support deep-seated changes in policy directions.

It called for political will and leadership to put emphasis on coherent explanation of the vision and agenda of the NEM and transformation process and “to put in place a critical mass of bold measures” to “create an unstoppable wave of support from all segments of society for this vision”.

It warned:

“The government must take prompt action when resistance is encountered and stay the course”.

This is where the Najib administration has failed for when it faced resistance to the NEM proposals, it failed to stay the course.

Cabinet Ministers should explain why they fail to ensure that the NEM is adopted as official policy if the government is serious that it should be the third critical pillar of the far-reaching national transformation programme?

As it is, the message of the Tenth Malaysia Plan is – Long live NEP. Rest in Peace (RIP) NEM!

In fact, the lack of the political will and leadership to defend the NEP and to stay the course when encountering any resistance is manifestly clear when the Bahasa Malaysia version of the NEM is still not available online up to now. In fact, is there a  Bahasa Malaysia version of the full NEM report?

When the NEM was unveiled just some two months ago, the country was warned of the dire consequences of the failure to undertake a major economic transformation.

The NEM said:

“Our shortcoming are preventing us from getting out of the middle income trap. Almost all economies of South East Asia are poised to achieve high economic growth in this decade. But Malaysia runs the imminent risk of a downward spiral and faces the painful possibility of stagnation.”

The NEM warning and the sense of urgency  that “There is a serious risk that the economy may regress if fundamental changes are not made” is still to be discerned in the introductory chapter of the Tenth Malaysia Plan when it was distributed under embargo to MPs on the first day of the present meeting of Parliament on 7th June 2009.

It stressed: “We need to see the reality for what it is: we are on a burning platform.”

But this dire warning that Malaysia is on “a burning platform” was conspicuously omitted in the Bahasa Malaysia version of the Tenth Malaysia Plan and by the time of Najib’s presentation of the Tenth Malaysia Plan speech, the sense of urgency that Malaysia has no choice but to opt for a New Economic Model has disappeared.

1Malaysia  and GTP – Great deficit between proclamation and reality

In a matter of two months, one of the four pillars of the Najib national transformation programme had been removed. But the other two pillars are not in better shape.

For instance, 1Malaysia concept.  Many have forgotten as to the overriding objective of National Economic Policy – which is to promote national unity.

There is one rare admission of the dismal failure  of the NEP in the 1Malaysia GTP Roadmap, of the “unintended outcome of the NEP” –  a sense of deprivation, discrimination and even resentment felt by the non-Bumiputeras. (This was accompanied by the admission of  “a widening of the income gap within the Bumiputera community “leading to rising discontent amongst certain segments of that community”).

It is sad and tragic that 53 years after Merdeka and 47 years after the formation of Malaysia with Sabah and Sarawak, the country is even further away from the 1Malaysia objective than ever.

I had posed a question on 1Malaysia on the first day of Parliament on 7th June – ‘minta Perdana Menteri menyatakan berapa Menteri (dengan nama-nama mereka) dalam Jemaah Menteri yang menganggap dirinya rakyat Malaysia dahulu dan kaum masing-masing kemudian, selaras dengan dasar 1Malaysia.”

I asked this question because the 1Malaysia GTP Roadmap released in January by the Prime Minister had defined the goal of 1Malaysia ultimately a greater nation – a nation where every Malaysian perceives himself or heself as Malaysian first and by race, religion, geographical region or socio-economic background second.

But this question was disallowed on the ground of running afoul of Standing Order 23(1) (h) in seeking an expression of opinion, the solution fo an abstract legal case or the answer to a hypothetical proposition.

What credibility and legitimacy can there be for  the Prime Minister’s 1Malaysia objective when he is unable and unwilling to answer such a simple and straightforward question as to how many and who are the Cabinet Ministers who regard themselves as Malaysian first and their race second?

Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has declared that he is Malay first and Malaysian second, while no other  Cabinet Minister whether from Umno, MCA, Gerakan, MIC or the Sabah and Sarawak BN parties had dared to declare his or her position.

This goes to the very root of credibility and legitimacy of the Prime Minister’s 1Malaysia signature theme – for if after 53 years of nationhood and 47 years of formation of Malaysia, there is not a single Minister who regard himself or herself as Malaysian first and race second, what is this 1Malaysia campaign which is the centerpiece of the Najib premiership?

Is it just an empty slogan?

As for the GTP, NKRAs and PKIs, the government has claimed success although with little credibility.

This is another illustration of the great deficit between proclamations and slogans of the Najib administration and reality.

How can the government convince Malaysians that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has turned the tide against corruption, in particular in the war against “grand corruption”:

When Malaysia’s ranking on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index has been undergoing a free-fall – from No. 23 in 1995 to No. 37 in 2003 and No. 56 in 2009;

when the MACC is more obsessed with declaring war against Pakatan Rakyat than against corruption, to the extent of causing the death of DAP aide Teoh Beng Hock (whose death anniversary will be less than a month away on July 16) in the MACC headquarters in Shah Alam involving constituency allocations amounting to RM2,000 while oblivious of how a former Selangor Mentri Besar could afford to build a RM24 million palatial home; and up to now, there is no closure for Teoh’s family as to the cause of Teoh’s death;

When there has been no prosecutions of “big fish” in the RM12.5 billion Port Klang Free Zone scandal despite assurances by the Big Three last December, Attorney-General, Inspector General of Police and MACC Chief Commissioner, that the charging of four executives for PKFZ scandal were only “tip of the iceberg” and “big fishes” would be arrested;

The total failure of MACC to nab “big fishes”.  MACC was  not shy to go public about the “car and cows”  investigations against the Pakatan Rakyat Selangor Mentri Besar, but why are they so reticent about corruption investigations involving Barisan Nasional leaders – in particular about blog postings that MACC has detained Christopher Barnes, senior lawyer and confidante of Sabah Chief Chief Minister Musa Aman and several others related to the Sabah Chief Minister, in particular involving the  RM16 million money laundering case in Hong Kong  and whether it is true that Musa Aman has been served with notice with MACC to declare all his assets.

The Prime Minister, the Home Minister and the Inspector-General of Police have all claimed success for the police in the NKRA to reduce crime index and street crime, but are they aware that the Malaysian public do not feel that they are comparatively safer from crime or from the fear of crime as more guarded-and-gated communities are mushrooming in the country rather than the reverse. Coupled with the inability of the police to keep the streets, public places and homes free from crime and free Malaysians from the fear of crime, there is the grave problem of police accountability and integrity highlighted by the high rate of deaths caused by police, like the cases of Kugan and 14-year-old Form II student  Aminulrashid Amzah shot to death near his Shah Alam home in April.

DAP MP for Sibu Wong Ho Leng in his maiden speech last Tuesday had spoken not only for people of Sibu, but also Sarawak and Sabah about their grievances and feelings of being treated like colonies by West Malaysia 47 years with their complaints of development neglect and not being given rightful place under the Malaysian sun, despite the Inter-Government Committee (IGC) and London Agreements providing equality to Sabah and Sarawak with the states of Malaya in the formation of the nation.

Do the Barisan Nasional MPs from Sabah and Sarawak agree with the MP for Sibu and the MP for Kota Kinabalu, who had also spoken during the debate?

I just visited Labuan,  Pitas and Kota Marudu and such sense of frustration and alienation which are prevalent in Sabah and Sarawak must be given serious attention if the 1Malaysia concept is to have any real meaning.

There should be a Royal Commission of Inquiry on 1Malaysia, which should not only investigate as to why 53 years after nationhood, no Minister is prepared to declare that he or she is Malaysian first and race second; progress in  building a united nation after 53 years of Merdeka; and thirdly,  specifically address the sense of alienation and discontent of the people of Sabah and Sarawak at not being given a rightful place under the Malaysian sun in the past 47 years.

Umno and Barisan Nasional have taken Sabah and Sarawak for granted, regarding them as “fixed deposit” states, for too long.

The political tsunami of the 2008 general elections, which saw the fall of another four states apart from Kelantan  to Pakatan Rakyat in Peninsular Malaysia, and the end of the Barisan Nasional two-thirds parliamentary majority, did not really cross South China Sea.

Thanks to the support of the parliamentary seats in Sabah and Sarawak, Najib is today the Prime Minister or he will be the Parliamentary Opposition Leader.

It was only then that Umno and Barisan Nasional woke up to the critical importance of Sabah and Sarawak in holding on to power in Putrajaya.

This is why there is a Foreign Minister from Sabah. The Parliament Speaker and a deputy speaker is from Sabah while another deputy speaker is from Sarawak. The Barisan Nasional BBC Chairman is from Sarawak and deputy chairman from Sabah.

This state of affairs would have unthinkable before the March 8, 2008 general elections.

Undoubtedly,  in the past two years, Barisan Nasional leaders have benefited considerably from this new awareness of the importance of Sabah and Sarawak to Umno/BN hold to power in Putrajaya. But have the people of Sabah and Sarawak really benefited.

Sabah was even promised RM1 billion special allocation by the former Prime Minister, Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, after the 2008  general election but has this allocation been released to Sabah and directly benefited the people of Sabah?

In  Pitas and Kota Marudu during the weekend, the native customary rights of some 23,000 people were trampled upon in a land grab involving a state government crony company.

A 1Malaysia Royal Commission of Inquiry should hear these issues as this was not the purpose for which Sabah and Sarawak joined 47 years ago to form Malaysia.

[Speech prepared for Parliament on the 10th Malaysia Plan on Monday, 21st June 2010 but partly delivered in view of 10 minute limit]

                This entry was posted on Monday, 21 June 2010, 6:44 pm and is filed under
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Early Polls: Will the winds of change finally blow in Sarawak?

Malaysia Chronicle

Pakatan Rakyat leaders are raring to go in Sarawak, where there is red-hot speculation that snap state elections will be held in July.

“Today, there is a news report of another BN meeting this weekend. Last week, there was also a whole day meeting. This is a sure sign for an early election,” Bukit Assek assemblyman and newly-elected Sibu MP Wong Ho Leng told Malaysia Chronicle.

Ironically, it was Wong’s shock victory in Sibu last month that convinced many pundits to change their forecast of a July state-polls to early 2011.

Salvaging an eroding support base

The buzz on the grapevine was that long-serving but unpopular Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud had agreed with Prime Minister Najib Razak to hold the 10th Sarawak state elections at the same time as the 13th general election for the entire nation.

“It looks like there has been a change of plans. I believe Taib is worried the longer he delays the greater the erosion of support for him and his government,” PKR chief strategist Tian Chua told Malaysia Chronicle.

“Both he and Najib may have decided to take the bull by the horns. They probably believe that this way, they can still retain control of the Sarawak state government even though with a much reduced majority. It also shows that Najib is not as confident about the timeline for 13th general election despite blowing his trumpet about his 72 percent approval rating.”

Najib, who was appointed prime minister in April 2009, must hold nationwide polls by March 2013. However, he is under pressure to do so much earlier as he has failed to push through any of his economic or social development programs for the country due mainly to his inability to curb internal politicking within his Umno party.

But will the winds of change blow in the Land of the Hornbills

There are 71 state seats in the Sarawak legislative assembly. At the moment, 63 of these are held by the BN and BN-friendly representatives. Pakatan holds a total of 7 seats – through DAP six and PKR one seat.

“To be frank, Pakatan has been playing it safe and we have based our strategy on a snap poll taking place towards the end of this year. We are confident and we are ready and I would say to Sarawakians – it is now or never. Let’s make the change together,” Tian said.

Nevertheless, it remains to be seen if Sarawakians will take to the Pakatan’s message of reforms. They did not do so in the 9th Sarawak state elections held in 2006 despite being ravaged by poverty after three decades of Taib’s political dominance.

Then in 2008, together with Sabah, they helped Najib’s BN coalition hold onto the federal government with a simple majority in Parliament. In Peninsular Malaysia, Pakatan had swept 81 parliamentary seats versus BN’s 84.

“Yes, we lost the federal government in 2008 because of Sabah and Sarawak. But sometimes the pangs for reforms are delayed. The thing is … better late than never,” PKR Youth Chief Shamsul Iskandar told Malaysia Chronicle.

“Sabahans and Sarawakians must be responsible for their future because as the saying goes – you deserve the government you vote in. No point complaining about NCR land rights, identity cards that never get processed and so forth but you don’t do anything about it.”

————

Sarawak BN To Meet For Early Election?

The Malaysian Insider

June 23, 2010

KUALA LUMPUR, June 23 — An unannounced Sarawak Barisan Nasional (BN) meeting this weekend has given rise to speculation that the state is possibly gearing up for an early election before its term ends in July, next year.

Several BN leaders, when contacted, confirmed that a meeting called by Chief Minister and state BN chairman Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud would take place this weekend.

But they remain tight-lipped on the agenda of the meeting.

“Yes, we have a meeting this weekend but sorry, it’s not for media coverage,” a state leader, who did not want to be identified, told Bernama.

Party insiders said the meeting was mainly to discuss preparations in the event of an early state election this year, after the Parti Pesaka Bumiputra Bersatu (PBB), the biggest state BN component, completes its five-day retreat session in Mulu on Friday.

PBB holds 34 state seats, followed by Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) with 11, Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) nine and the Sarawak Progresive Democratic Party (SPDP) eight.

Only SUPP and PRS have lost the seats they contested to the Opposition, in the last state election in 2006, while PBB and SPDP won all.

SUPP was allocated 19, but lost eight seats to the opposition, particularly DAP, while PRS, which was allocated 10 state seats, lost the Ngemah seat to an independent.

The state has 71 constituencies.

According to the grapevine, of late, the state election might be held this year, despite the BN’s recent setback in the Sibu parliamentary by-election where its SUPP candidate failed to defend the seat which was won by DAP.

Such talk became intense after Taib last week openly said that he had decided the next state election would be held on “a Saturday”. “I have decided that the state election will be held on a Saturday,” he

said, without providing any other hint when asked by a reporter during a function at his office.

However, Taib dismissed speculation that the state election will be held in October, following suggestions from Fengshui experts who believed that 10/10/10 (Oct 10, 2010), a Sunday, was an auspicious day for the election.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 23 June 2010, 5:58 pm and is filed under
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MACC gets a dirty dozen sacked in 2009

The Malaysian Insider

KUALA LUMPUR, June 23 — Only 12 out of the estimated 1.2 million civil servants were sacked rather than disciplined in 2009 in graft-related cases investigated by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) in its first year of operations.

According to documents made available to The Malaysian Insider, the MACC had forwarded 235 reports to the heads of government departments and agencies for disciplinary action in 2009.

However the MACC received feedback for only 182 cases, of which 90 or 49 per cent were given administrative warning.

And only 12 or 6.6 per cent of the public officials under probe were dismissed in 2009 although the MACC’s prosecution unit had sought disciplinary action be taken against the perpetrators.

MACC had also recommended that the government take a more proactive approach in its crusade against any breach of conduct in the country’s bloated public service.

MACC also criticised department and agency disciplinary boards for imposing penalties that were not specified in the Regulation 38 of the Public Officers (Conduct and Discipline) General Orders 1993.

The documents also revealed that only 404 MACC officers have declared their assets even though it was stipulated by the Service Circular No. 3 of 2002 for all public officials to declare their assets.

From the 404, only four from the Top Management Group has revealed their assets.

The documents also revealed that the federal government had approved infrastructure development projects worth more than RM600 million for the MACC in 2009.

The allocation was to fund 12 MACC complexes throughout the country as the MACC believes that it would better facilitate public complaints and ensure confidentiality of information.

The fund also include RM24 million set aside for procurement of computers and the development of MACC’s broadband infrastructure in the country.

According to the documents made available, the largest project is the RM58 million construction of Phase II of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Academy Complex which began in May last year.

While the RM19 million MACC Pahang State Office Complex, which began construction in November 2008, had to be reapplied under the 10th Malaysian Plan as the appointed contractor had failed to complete the project according to schedule.

The government has approved RM14 million for land acquisition in Sarawak, Sabah and Perlis. While MACC engaged in a land swap deal with Royal Malaysian Navy and the Ministry of Defence for their office complex in Labuan.

The rest of the projects include the construction of staff quarters worth in Penang (RM12 million), Kelantan State office (RM25 million), Pahang State office (RM19 million), Perak State office (RM23 million), Kuala Lumpur MACC complex (RM25 million), Malacca state office (RM23 million) and Johor state office (RM32 million.)

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 23 June 2010, 2:11 pm and is filed under
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DAP wants parliamentary probe on Najib’s Sibu ‘promises’

By
Shazwan Mustafa Kamal
 | The Malaysian Insider

June 24, 2010

KUALA LUMPUR, June 24 —The DAP demanded today that Datuk Seri Najib Razak be referred to the parliamentary rights and privileges committee over “inconsistencies” concerning money promised by the prime minister during the recent Sibu by-election campaign.

“Najib, through a written reply yesterday to Sibu MP Wong Ho Leng and Bandar Kuching MP Chong Chien Jien, had said that the government had not promised any projects to Sibu folk during the by-election in Sibu.

“This is a clear lie. We have the recording on Youtube, which has now attracted over 90,000 views. It shows Najib, during a speech in Rejang Park, promising RM5 million if people voted for BN,” said Chong.

During a last-minute pitch on the eve of the by-election, Najib announced an allocation of RM5 million for flood-mitigation projects in Rejang Park provided the BN candidate was elected.

“If Robert Lau becomes the MP on Sunday, on Monday I will ask [for] the cheque to be prepared. Do we have a deal or not? We do! You want the RM5 million, I want Robert Lau to win,” Najib told the crowd.

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has also agreed to investigate claims that the prime minister committed an election offence during the Sibu vote, with his pledge to solve flash floods there if Barisan Nasional retained the Parliamentary seat.

The DAP had earlier today in Parliament moved to refer Najib under Standing Orders 36(12) to refer to him to the parliamentary rights and privileges committee for “misleading Parliament.”

Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin said that he would look into the matter first before deciding any further action.

“This money was an assurance given by the PM. I want the money. The Sibu people want the money. He (Najib) should be responsible for this,” said newly-minted MP Wong.

The Najib administration revealed yesterday that it had approved 107 projects and programmes collectively worth RM37.7 million during the recent Sibu by-election.

However, the government denied that the approval for the projects was done because of the Sibu by-election to attract voters to vote for Barisan Nasional (BN).

“The projects which have been approved for the Sibu parliamentary seat have been planned by the government long before the by-elections had been called, same as every parliamentary and state seat throughout the country,” said the statement.

“We want to know if the RM5 million promised by PM is part of the RM37.7 million used for projects in Sibu. If it is not, where is the money promised by PM? His denial contradicts what he said in Sibu,” added Chong.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 24 June 2010, 4:17 pm and is filed under
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Malaysia in the Era of Globalization #20

By
M. Bakri Musa

Chapter 3: Lessons From The Past

The Meiji Restoration

Japan of the 18th Century was a feudal society ruled by a series of territorial warlords, the shoguns. The society was also rigidly stratified, with the samurai or warrior class on top, followed by peasants, artisans and, way at the bottom, the merchants. Surprisingly the peasants were regarded higher than the merchants because those peasants, being farmers, at least produced something useful and tangible.

The foreign missionaries that had come to Japan were preaching to an increasingly receptive mass, a development that threatened the established social order. The Japanese were only too aware that in nearby countries, in particular China, the foreigners were becoming very assertive. The shoguns rightly viewed the mounting activities of foreigners around and within Japan with increasing alacrity.

The shoguns may not have cared about the British in China, but they had to deal with the foreigners within Japan. To control what the Japanese regarded as the “menace of the White man,” the shoguns decided to suddenly seal off the country. The missionaries were forcefully expelled, and those remaining were massacred. The sentiment of the time was encapsulated by the popular slogan, Sonno joi (Revere the emperor, expel the barbarians). This sealing of Japan lasted until the late 19th Century.

The Japanese may have thought that they had dealt effectively with the issue of foreigners by getting rid of them. The Japanese though that the only solution was simply to cocoon themselves. Unfortunately the world around Japan carried on with its own pace. The imperial powers of the day continued their activities in the region. To them Japan is no different from the other Asian countries, to be colonized or at least plundered through trading. Being dismissed as mere barbarians by the Japanese did not stop them from meddling with Japan.

Despite the sealing of the country, the Japanese were not totally unaware of the happenings around them. Nearby China had been “opened up” by the British through the Opium Wars. These developments further strengthened the arguments of the Japanese nationalists to keep foreigners out at all costs. The few realists among the Japanese knew however, that Japan must deal with the inevitable forces around them. Thus they advocated accommodation before Japan would be completely overwhelmed.

Others suggested the blending of Japanese and Western values, and coined the slogan Toyo no dotoku, Seiyo no gakugei (Eastern ethics, Western science), but these moderate voices were drowned out by the fierce nationalists. Those who advocated reform or opening up Japan to the West were ostracized and forced to commit suicide in shame. Those who failed to do so were assassinated. Thus the opposition forces were effectively neutralized.

Despite that, by the 1830’s the shoguns were clearly losing control, and with it the loss of respect. Their failure to deal with the concomitant internal crises of drought and crop failure, and the subsequent famine further undermined their authority. And with rampant corruption and incompetence in the ruling class, the stage was set for a revolution.

At about this time, in July 1853 the American steamship US Commodore under Matthew Perry steamed into Edo Bay with four other escort ships. His mandate was clear: to open up Japanese ports for provisions, fuel, and trade. He impressed upon the Japanese that, sealed or not, Japan had to accede to his demands. Having presented the ultimatum, he abruptly left, with the promise to return the following year to hear the answer. Such confidence and arrogance!

The Japanese were totally confounded by this brazen breach of their shield. They thought that they had effectively protected themselves against those evil foreigners. When Perry returned later in February of 1855, this time with nine ships in case his earlier message had not registered, the Japanese were powerless to resist. This show of power by Perry was so overwhelming that the Japanese had no choice but to agree to the terms dictated.

Having sealed their nation from the outside world they suddenly realized how far behind and backward they were. The Japanese door was not merely pried but smashed wide open. Emboldened by the American success, other foreign powers quickly forced Japan to sign similar treaties with them, with each nation seeking even greater concessions. The Japanese were forced to sign lopsided treaties. One galling aspect of those treaties was the extra territorial rights granted to foreigners. Foreigners who broke Japanese laws were to be tried by their own consul and not Japanese courts. This humiliated the Japanese.

Perhaps the shogunate would have crumbled anyway even without the foreigners greasing the skids. There were attempts at change from within; alas those reforms were too little, too late. With the shogunate weakened from within and without, supporters of the emperor (who hitherto had been shunted aside) seized power under the pretext of “restoring” the monarchy.

Thus began the Meiji Restoration in 1868; the emperor was only 15 years old when installed. The shoguns had ruled for over 700 years, and in the end they could not deal with the internal changes brought by their own corruption and incompetence as well as by the external challenges posed by the foreign powers.

It was unlikely that the “restored” Emperor Mutsuhito (only later called Meiji, the Age of Enlightenment), being only a teenager at the time, could have masterminded his own comeback. He was obviously the front or agent for his court officials or those who wanted to institute changes in Japan. Surprisingly, most of the emperor’s advisors were young men too. They were consumed with their desire to do good for their country and also of course, for themselves. Getting rid of the shogunate was their first objective, but unable to do that by themselves, they used the convenient banner and authority of the emperor.

Perhaps it was a blessing that the emperor was so young; he did what he was told by his equally young advisors. Or perhaps, advisor and advisee, being of the same generation, were more or less in sync in their thinking and attitude.

Next: The Reformers’ Charter Oath of Five Articles

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 24 June 2010, 9:14 am and is filed under
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First, DPM Muhyiddin should tell us what is going wrong in our education system?

by
N K Khoo

Many Malaysia generations are made guinea pigs by our flip-flopping

education policies after independence such as teaching medium from

English to Malay, 3M, bahasa Malaysia to bahasa Melayu, teaching maths

and science in English and vice versa, SRP to UPSR, grading system,

etc.

The trend is when a new education minister clinches to this important

post, they will propose new policies hastily. No doubt change is

constant for us to keep abreast the outside world. But we have to know

the problem first before proposing a change of policy or solution.

I have a question to DPM Muhyiddin and his Education Ministry, what

are the actual problems in our education system before you simply

throw a proposal (a bomb!) to public members.

I and many educationists can propose a hundred possible or plausible

solutions to any hypothetical problem, but nobody knows are we

addressing the root causes.

The list of problems can be

– Rote learning

– Too examination orientated

– Poor in arithmetic skill

– Poor in English/mother tongue/languages

– No participation in sports and co-curriculum

– Too many grade A scorers

– Too many homeworks

– Too many textbooks

– Too many learning hours

– Too many tuition classes

– Obsolete syllabus

– Poor teaching standards

– Poor in comprehension skill

– Plagiarism

– Lack of analytical skill

– Lack of problem solving skill

– Lack of creativity

– Lack of IT skill

– Malnutrition

– Moral decay

– etc.

Let define the problem, its scope and magnitude first before DPM

Muhyiddin proposes something like abolishing UPSR and PMR to rakyat.

Such as proposal causing more confusions than solutions by itself.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 25 June 2010, 5:52 pm and is filed under
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Sports betting: Guan Eng wants MCA, MIC to apologise

FreeMalaysiaToday

Sat, 26 Jun 2010

By
Hawkeye

GEORGE TOWN: Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng is demanding an apology from MCA and MIC over the latter’s apparent move to roundly criticised him over Penang’s contentious decision to ban sports betting.

The retraction by Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak had liberated Pakatan Rakyat which had earlier condemned the move to legalise sports betting and took action when Penang and Selangor ban any gaming outlets from offering betting packages.

He said that he together with Pakatan became victims of baseless and wild accusations when Penang was the first state to ban sports betting.

With Najib’s decision, “it is only fair that the detractors such as MCA and MIC apologise to the Penang government including me”, Lim said.

Najib yesterday revoked an earlier decision by the Finance Ministry to legalise sports betting in the country, which was approved on the pretext of controlling illegal gaming activities which had reportedly ballooned to RM10 million in the underground economy.

“It is an unprecedented move. A shocking move! Najib seems to support Pakatan on this matter. It is a good decision. We (Pakatan) did not see this coming as earlier MCA, MIC and former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad had supported the move to legalise sports betting,” Lim told a press conference.

On how to reign in the lucrative illegal betting industry, Lim said the only answer is through enforcement.

“We cannot simply legalise something which is wrong. We have a sand-mining issue recently where some folk had illegally exported sand to Singapore from Johor. Should we legalise sand mining then? We have some Umno leaders who speak from one side of the mouth but think another thing. These are double standards and we cannot condoned this,” Lim said.

He hopes Najib’s move would put an end to the issue as it is clear that majority of the people do not support the move to legalise sports betting.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 26 June 2010, 5:55 pm and is filed under
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Political Parties Race To Register New And Young Voters

Bernama

June 27, 2010

By Alan Ting

KUALA LUMPUR, June 27 (Bernama) — With more than four million eligible voters yet to be registered, political parties are now in a hurry to get them on the electoral rolls ahead of the next general election due in 2013.

Most of them are young Malaysians who have reached 21 years and are eligible to become voters but many have not done so as they usually do not bother to register.

Malaysia currently has 11 million registered voters out of a population of about 27 million.

Political analyst Ong Kian Ming said overall, between 25 and 30 per cent of Malaysian voters are expected to be below 35 years old by the next general election.

“This is significant when one considers the larger number of unregistered but eligible voters in Malaysia. There would also be two million Malaysians who would be eligible to vote for the first time in the next elections.

“This is in addition to the four million eligible voters, many believed to be under 30 years old, who did not register in time for the March 8, 2008 polls. In total, we are talking about six million potential voters who are most likely, to be opinionated, Internet-savvy and idealistic,” he added.

According to Khaw Veon Szu, executive director of the Socio-Economic Development and Research Institute (SEDAR), young and first-time voters played a decisive role in the last general election and caused Barisan Nasional to lose its two-thirds majority in Parliament. SEDAR is Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia’s think tank.

“If we are flooded with another wave such as the one in 2008, it would change Malaysia’s political landscape. If political parties ignore these young and unregistered voters, it would be at their own peril,” he said.

Khaw said Gerakan had adopted several strategies, including getting the young and eligible to register as voters, irrespective of their political leanings.

“Each component party tries to reach out, to say something to the young. They go on the offensive in the cyber world. From feedback we had gathered, it is still a daunting task for us (to reach out to them),” he said.

It is not surprising, therefore, that most political parties have stepped up efforts to register new voters because statistics from the Election Commission showed that last year alone, UMNO registered the highest number of new voters at 24,818, followed by DAP with 17,756 and PAS with 16,987.

As this gathers momentum, some political parties have doubled their endeavours such as PAS, which has set to get 500,000 new voters registered under the EC’s year-round registration programme.

The DAP, on the other hand, is targeting about a 10 per cent increase in the number of voters in every constituency by carrying out registration exercises even at night markets and shopping complexes.

“For example, in a constituency where you have 50,000 voters, we should get at least 5,000 new voters,” its youth chief, Anthony Loke, said.

The race to register more voters is getting more intense, especially in states currently controlled by the Opposition or “Pakatan Rakyat”.

The reasons are pretty obvious — each of these political parties are hoping to register more voters to work in their favour.

Selangor executive councillor Ronnie Liu revealed that in Selangor alone, there are more than 700,000 eligible but unregistered voters while Kedah and Penang, the two other states controlled by Pakatan, have more than 300,000 and 200,000 unregistered voters respectively.

“That means that whichever party that manages to register their supporters will make a lot of difference,” he said.

Another Selangor executive councillor, Datuk Hasan Ali, who is also Selangor PAS commissioner, admitted that the Pakatan-controlled states could fall back to BN if the Opposition failed to attract enough new voters.

However, other political analysts such as Dr Sivamurugan Pandian pointed out that although the young and new voters had been crucial in deciding the results in the last general election, not all the six million unregistered voters would get themselves registered for the coming general election.

“The current political landscape plays a role in their thinking because some of them are of the view that the alternatives are still the same,” he said, adding that there may not be a strong enough push factor to make them register as voters.

“As long as these unregistered voters do not see politicians as role models, it would still be very hard to convince them to register and vote in next general election,” he added.

In fact, Dr Sivamurugan cautioned political parties to also focus on older voters, especially those who had cast protest votes in the last general election.

“For example, they must understand that there are two different types of voter groups — urban and rural.

“You just can’t rely on the young voters alone. Political parties must also engage with NGOs (non-governmental organisations) and other groups who call themselves the ‘third force’ that play a decisive role,” he said.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 27 June 2010, 2:17 pm and is filed under
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