Call for public inquiry into the two-and-a-half hour delay in announcing the results of the Sibu by-election last night

The Election Commission has blamed DAP for the delay in tallying the results of the postal voting in Sibu denying that it had wanted to manipulate the outcome in favour of the Barisan Nasional.

However, the Election Commission has not been able to give full and satisfactory explanation for the two-and-a-half hour delay in the announcement of the Sibu results which was the cause of a twitter offensive by me last night, viz:

#P212 #Sibu Told BN leaders left counting centre virtually admitting defeat. Some time b4 off results are known awaiting postal ballot.

05/16/2010 08:44 PM

#P212 #Sibu Majority prob v narrow but its Sibu Miracle if true. Will not update further as results incomplete. Keep fingers crossed n pray.

05/16/2010 08:48 PM

Going over 2Sanyan Bldg w Penang CM PR MPs 2find out from Election Comm what is holding up anncement of #Sibu #P212 results

05/16/2010 09:23 PM

#P212 #Sibu Postalballot counting started @530pm finished 830pm. Y more than hourlong delay holding up anncement of results? Up 2some trick?

05/16/2010 09:42 PM

#P212 Is there any attempt 2steal #Sibu byelection from great ppl of Sibu after a great campaign involving PM DPM n Swak CM?

05/16/2010 09:47 PM

#P212 Ppl of #SibuSwakMsia n world watching whether there is going 2b Election Commission scandal bcos Najib does not want 2admit defeat

05/16/2010 10:06 PM

#P212 Najib shld speak up whether he is party 2extraordinary delay on part of Election Commission 2announce #Sibu byelection result

05/16/2010 10:13 PM

#P212 Does Najib accept verdict of ppl #Sibu 2freely democratically elect WHL as new MP of Sibu?Najib’s credentials as a democrat on d line!

05/16/2010 10:18 PM

#P212 I call on all BN Ministers n parties 2take a stand whether they accept n respect verdict of ppl #Sibu n will not b party 2any fraud

05/16/2010 10:27 PM

#212 #Sibu Returning Officer finally announcing results WHL new MP Sibu w majority 398 – getting 18845 agnst BN 18447 There is Sibu Miracle

05/16/2010 10:56 PM

#212 Tribute 2great ppl of sibu – u have written history created #Sibu Miracle. Umno/BN have no more “fixed deposit” states in SS anymore

05/16/2010 11:42 PM

Beginning of historic political change in Swak/Msia begins w Sibu Hncfrth 516 joins 308 in Msian political lexicon symbolising People Power

05/16/2010 11:57 PM

At about 8.30 pm SUPP and BN leaders knew that from the counting of the votes, they had lost the Sibu parliamentary by-election and this was why SUPP and BN leaders left the Civic Centre Counting Centre – which I tweeted shortly after.

Why was the announcement of the Sibu by-election result held up for two-and-a-half hours, after the postal ballots had been counted from 5.30 pm to 8.30 pm?

Could the Election Commission blame anyone, including the increasing numbers of outraged Sibuans, for their concern and worry that some plans were afoot to disregard their choice of MP after an intensive by-election campaign?

When I went up to the 9th floor of Sanyan Bldg where the postal ballot counting was held, together with DAP Secretary-General Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, Pakatan Rakyat MPs and State Assembly representatives, at about 9.35 pm to find out the cause of the unusual delay, the deadlock seemed unbreakable.

This was when I tweeted first with the query as to the reason for the delay in the announcement of the results and whether somebody was “Up 2some trick?”.

My second tweet five minutes later pointedly asked whether there was any attempt to “steal” the Sibu by-election from the people of Sibu.

It was very difficult to tweet from the 9th floor Sanyan Bldg and I decided to go down to the ground floor (for easier mobile Internet access) to tweet. It was then I found the Sanyan Bldg in darkness as there was a blackout of all times, and the counting centre was operating on standby generator!

In the next 21 minutes, I sent four tweets saying that Sibu, Sarawak, Malaysia and the world were watching whether there was going to be an Election Commission scandal because the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak did not want to admit defeat; asking Najib to speak up whether he was party to the “extraordinary delay” in the announcement; and asking Najib whether he accepted the verdict of the people of Sibu to freely and democratically elect Wong Ho Leng as the MP for Sibu.

I stressed that Najib’s “credentials as a democrat” was on the line. I also asked all Barisan Nasional Ministers and parties to take a stand whether they accept and respect the verdict of the people of Sibu and would not be a party to any fraud.

It was after this tweet offensive that things moved with speed although it was close to 11 pm when the Returning Officer finally announced that Ho Leng had been elected with a majority of 398 votes.

I do not believe that Najib was involved in any attempt to manipulate the Sibu by-election results but he is responsible as Prime Minister and Barisan Nasional Chairman to ensure that his subordinates in SUPP and Sarawak BN do not conduct themselves in any fashion giving rise to such suspicions.

The two-and-a-half hour delay in the announcement of the by-election results should never have happened. I call on the Cabinet on Wednesday to hold a public inquiry on the causes of the two-and-a-half hour delay in announcing the results of the Sibu by-election last night.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 17 May 2010, 4:14 pm and is filed under
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Quality, Quantity, and Equity in Malaysian Education #2

By
M. Bakri Musa

[Second of Three Parts]

[In Part One I discuss the crucial role of workers’ cognitive abilities (language skills, mathematical competency, and science literacy) rather than years of formal schooling in determining and contributing to a country’s economic development.  In this second part, I address quality, quantity and equity in Malaysian education.]

Trinity of Quality, Quantity, and Equity

The UN lauds Malaysia for meeting – indeed exceeding – the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education.  I caution against taking too seriously such praises.  The UN works from the base of such countries as Afghanistan and Sub Sahara Africa; they should not be our reference point.

            The dilemma of quality versus quantity is old and familiar.  Retired Malaysians wistfully remember the old colonial English schools.  Yes, they were good, and when you scored an “A” then, you knew that you were on par with those students in London and elsewhere who also scored an “A.”  It was essentially the same examination.  There was pride of achievement in that.

            However, when you cater only to a tiny fraction of the population, you cannot claim credit for the success.  Natural selection alone would guarantee you that.

            Beyond the quality-quantity dilemma, those excellent colonial schools exposed yet another problem, that of access.  Being only in urban centers, they effectively blocked out those in the villages.  In a country where the urban-rural divide also paralleled (still does) racial and socio-economic cleavages, that was untenable and a recipe for social disaster.

            Thus we have the added problem of equity to the already challenging quality-quantity conundrum.  Again, this is not unique to Malaysia.  America too faces its own equity problem, with well-funded suburban schools on one hand and dilapidated inner city schools on the other.  As with Malaysia, race and socio-economic class compound that cleavage.

            It is imperative that we address the trilemma of quality, quantity, and equity simultaneously; they are not incompatible.  Achieving quality at the expense of quantity or equity is no victory.  Quite apart from the inherent unjustness, it is hard for quality to be consequential in a sea of mediocrity.  And if there is no equity in the system, it is simply not sustainable.

            Equity at the expense of quality is hollow.  That is socialism – yes, we are all equal, but equally poor.  As for quantity without quality, that too is futile.  Besides, it would doubly hard and more expensive to repair a damaged system; better to create a good one right from the very beginning.

             Addressing all three would require a prodigious amount of commitment, an awareness of the obstacles, and a healthy dose of humility.            The commitment would be not only of resources but also and perhaps more importantly, in leadership and political will.

            Resources are necessarily limited; they must thus be expended prudently.  Throwing money at a problem does not solve it; indeed that may spawn even greater problems like graft.

            MARA spends billions to educate Malays through its expensive residential schools.  The initial idea was great.  Gather bright kids from poor rural areas and put them in residential schools where they would get good nutrition, modern living conditions, and superior educational opportunities.  The impact would be greater than had resources been thinly spread through village schools, with each getting only a small fraction and not enough to make a substantial difference.

            Indeed during the first decade or two, these schools worked as anticipated despite obvious leakages as with ministers’ children also being admitted.  One wonders how much more effective it would have been had those children of the privileged been excluded.

            However, good ideas, like good durians, have a shelf life.  Today with urbanization, there are as many urban as rural poor Malays.  As such, fully residential schools make less sense.  MARA could instead have day schools in the towns to cater for those poor Malays in the area and thus save money in not having to house and feed them.  If these schools were to have hostel facility, let it be limited to those living far away

            Scrutinize MARA’s budget for education; the bulk would actually be spent on such non-educational items as feeding and housing the students.  Yet in the statistics, those funds would be classified as expenditures on education.

            Visit Malay College; the biggest building there is not the library or laboratories, but dormitories.  The college will soon open its multimillion-dollar IB center.  Again here, the bulk of the space and resources are not for education but simply to house and feed the students.  Imagine if the center were to be a day facility (like the old Taylor College), it would be considerably cheaper to build and operate.  You could then have three or four similar IB centers for the same cost, and benefiting that many more students, thus achieving both quantity and quality.  And if we spread those centers around the country, we would also increase access, thus enhancing equity.

            We could further increase quantity without sacrificing quality if we were to restrict entry only after Form III.  Taking in students at Form I (the current practice) not only wastes scarce resources but is also psychologically unhealthy.  Children should not be taken away from their families at such a tender and formative age.

            On a smaller scale but in the aggregate quite large, if we restrict admission only to students in the immediate vicinity, we could save considerable transportation costs.  Right now those ‘education’ costs are actually spent on chartering buses to transport students at the beginning and end of the school term.  Think of the many library books and laboratory equipment that could be had if the money were not spent on those buses and train vouchers!

            It is wasteful to have students from Kelantan attend MARA schools in Johore, while those in Klang Valley have to go to Kota Baru.  A generation ago that was a good idea.  Malays were parochial then and lacked a national identity.  Thanks to the mobility of today’s society, that is no longer the case.  So why persist on a resource-wasting practice that no longer serves its purpose?

            Returning to Malay College, you would cry seeing the decrepit facilities.  This is true of all the residential schools, even relatively new ones.  Some MARA schools are now asking parents to take their children home during weekends to spare feeding expenses!

            Query the stakeholders and their reflex answer would be to ask the government for more money.  A typically Malay response!  Yet there is one obvious and ready solution.  Charge the parents, on a sliding scale based on taxable income.  Even back in my days in the early 1960s there were quite a few who afford the full fare.  A few of Mahathir’s children attended these expensive residential schools for free when he was Prime Minister.

            With the extra revenue these schools could enhance their curricular offerings and physical facilities.  More importantly, the thought of having to fork out those expenses might prompt rich parents to think twice about enrolling their children, thus freeing up slots for children of the poor.

            Similar more efficient allocation of resources could be had at our universities.  Currently the bulk of the new students have only SPM.  The university thus wastes academic and other resources catering to those doing essentially Form VI in the first year.  If we were to expand Form VI and restrict university admission only to those from there, the students would not only be better prepared but they would also get more out of the same number of their undergraduate years.

            The universities’ matrikulasi and diploma programs are also a colossal waste as these could be undertaken more cheaply and effectively elsewhere, as at schools and polytechnics.  Yes, there was a time when concurrently running the diploma program represented the optimal use of scarce campus facilities, but those days are now long gone.  Today, our universities should focus only on academic activities that could not be done elsewhere, that is, education at the undergraduate and graduate level.

            Scrutinize the typical university budget; the bulk (both operating as well as capital) is for non-academic purposes, as in feeding and housing the students, faculty quarters, and vice-chancellor’s residence.  Today’s university is not only an academic institution but also a major hotel with long-term ‘guests’ in the thousands.  This of course is a necessity but there is no reason why such non-academic activities could not be ‘out-sourced,’ thus freeing the university of the onerous burden.  Marriott, the giant hospitality company, feeds and houses students on many American campuses.  If Malaysian universities were to do the same, they could then send their deputy VCs in charge of housing back to teaching and doing research.

            Malaysian universities also have extensive housing units for their staff.  Again this is a waste.  Some American universities also provide housing, but to attract young faculty members who otherwise would go elsewhere.  In contrast, housing on Malaysian campuses are for established staff members who are not necessarily academics.  Often they stay on long after they have retired!

            There is waste at another albeit lower (cost-wise) level.  I once met a Malaysian dean at a scientific convention in America.  He had first class air ticket and stayed at a five-star hotel.  Had he traveled economy and stayed at a more modest facility, he could have taken three or four of his fellow faculty members to that meeting.  Imagine the good that would do to his staff and institution!

            His excuse was that per civil service code he was ‘entitled’ to first class treatment.  There we go again, that entitlement mentality!  You cannot get rid of it even after you become dean and vice-chancellor.

            Effectively addressing quality, quantity and equity would require efficient allocation of resources.  That however, would require another commitment – from the leadership.  This is desperately lacking.

            Prime Minister Najib exhorts our graduates to discard their budaya menuggu dan pasif (culture of waiting and passivity), yet he is blind to the onerous and highly intrusive rules that govern our students.  It is like challenging them to explore the wider world but at the same time keeping them on a tight leash.

            Our leaders also keep reminding us of the importance of English, yet they shy away from making that a requirement for university entrance.  They decry the lack of qualified workers in science and technology, but examine our public universities and the bulk of the resources are devoted to other than those fields.  To reemphasize, effectively addressing quality, quantity and equity would require the commitment of not only resources but also and more importantly, leadership and political will.

Next:   Part Three:  Clinical Trials in Educational Initiatives

                This entry was posted on Monday, 17 May 2010, 3:15 pm and is filed under
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Malaysia’s Ruling Coalition Loses a Sarawak Race

Asia Sentinel

Chinese voters refuse blandishments of school and development money, go for the opposition

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s 1Malaysia campaign, designed to bring the country’s three main ethnic groups back together and abate racial tension, suffered a setback Sunday when Chinese voters in the Sarawak town of Sibu deserted the national ruling coalition to narrowly elect a candidate to Parliament from the opposition Democratic Action Party.

Najib had made three trips to the town of Sibu, some 50 km up the Rajang River from the coast, and offered a cornucopia of goodies including RM18 million in financial assistance to 65 Chinese schools in what was called the most intensive campaign in the district’s history as the Barisan sought to win back the seat. That included RM10 million for Chinese primary schools, RM5 million for Chinese independent secondary schools and RM3 million for Christian missionary schools. Government workers repaved roads in an attempt to woo voters.

Najib promoted his 1Malaysia slogan as being “the only spirit and philosophy that can hold this country together.” He added that, “There is no reason why Muslims and Christians cannot work together under the spirit of 1Malaysia.” One blogger, however, wrote that Najib should just have abandoned the Chinese voters in Sibu and spent the education and development funds on poor rural voters, who are mostly other ethnic groups than the majority Chinese.

Indeed, on Monday Najib was asked about a controversial bid he had made for Sibu voters, saying he would deliver RM5 million in flood mitigation money for the city, which is perennially subjected to floods, if they would vote for the Barisan candidate, Robert Lau. That kicked off an uproar in the district, with the opposition charging Najib with attempting to “blackmail” voters with the offer and asking the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate,

On Monday, asked by a flock of reporters if he would refuse to deliver the flood control funds, he answered: “We’ll have to see first because we haven’t made a decision on that.”

In the end, despite the efforts by Najib and a host of other major Barisan leaders, the voters picked DAP chairman Richard Wong Ho Leng by 398 votes over the Sarawak United People’s Party’s Robert Lau, whose family is linked to timber, oil palm plantations, printing and newspapers of the KTS group. The National Front has now lost eight of 11 by-elections since national polls in March of 2008 cost the coalition its two-thirds majority in the parliament for the first time since the country became independent.

Both parties in Sibu are predominantly Chinese. Well-to-do Chinese voters, however, appear to have abandoned the SUPP en masse. The SUPP appears to have done relatively well in rural, poor areas and among other ethnic groups. The constituency has 54,695 voters, of which 66 percent are predominantly Foochow settlers. The other groups are Malay/Melanau (17 percent), Ibans (15 percent) with the remainder from the Bidayuh, Orang Ulu and Indian communities. Turnout was relatively low, with only 69.32 percent of the voters turning up at the polls.

The Barisan Nasional had been expected to win the seat, which would have brought the coalition closer to reclaiming its two-thirds majority in the Dewan Rakyat, or national parliament. But, combined with a narrower-than-expected win on April 28 in a northeastern Selangor by-election, which split along racial lines with Malay votes going to the Barisan candidate and the Chinese largely abandoning him, the two elections appear to mean Najib is having problems not only healing racial divisions in the country but pulling voters back into the ethnic parties that make up the components of the Barisan. It takes 148 votes and the Barisan now has 136 but the allegiance of several undecided members against 77 for the Pakatan Rakyat opposition coalition.

The DAP was said to have made major headway in Sibu by giving widespread publicity to a controversy unleashed in Kuala Lumpur last year when the government banned the use of the word “Allah” by the Catholic Christian Herald as a substitute for the Christian word for God. Despite a threat by Sarawak police to charge them with sedition, DAP campaign workers used the affair to devastating effect, SUPP leaders claimed.

SUPP President George Chan Hong Nam told reporters that the issue, plus claims by the opposition that Bibles had been burned in Peninsular Malaysia, played a major role the DAP win.

“The tide turned against us because the opposition used such controversial and sensitive issues,” Chan was quoted as saying in the Kuala Lumpur-based daily The Star, “We (the SUPP) were not prepared to answer such allegations because we never encountered such religious problems in the state. We were overwhelmed by the issues they brought up.”

Despite Chan’s assertion that the DAP was bringing race into the election, the SUPP itself attempted to use religion as an issue,  accusing the DAP of condoning the formation of an Islamic state with Parti Islam se-Malaysia, and termed them “strange bedfellows” with opposing ideologies.

One of the big questions is what the loss means for the long-serving Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud, who has been accused for decades of looting the state’s plentiful timber and other resources. The DAP has set its sights on Taib in the next state general election, which must be held in Sarawak in 2011. Thus the Sibu race has been regarded as a barometer for the state race.

————

Borneo Surprise
 | The Wall Street Journal

Malaysia’s voters want more than just cash handouts.

Malaysia’s ruling National Front coalition has a time-tested campaign strategy: Promise voters steady leadership and direct development funds their way. The problem is that tack does little to allay mounting concerns over the country’s endemic corruption and lack of real economic reform.

That’s the lesson of the opposition Democratic Action Party’s win in a Sunday by-election in the Borneo Island state of Sarawak. Four-time candidate Wong Ho Leng beat a ruling party candidate backed by Prime Minister Najib Razak by a sliver. The win was such a surprise that one DAP leader dubbed it a “miracle.”

Given that the National Front has had an iron grip on Sarawak for decades, it was. No DAP candidate has ever won in the Sibu constituency. The government also wasn’t taking any chances: Mr. Najib personally traveled to Borneo three times in the past two weeks, and promised 5 million ringgit ($1.6 million) for infrastructure upgrades plus 15 million ringgit for Chinese-language schools. Ethnic Chinese voters compose around 67% of the local voting base.

Yet according to initial reports, Chinese voters flocked in numbers to the DAP, an ethnically Chinese party. Even more significantly, the opposition picked up Malay votes too. In part, that’s because the DAP and its coalition partners are getting smarter about cooperating to physically reach more voters and explain their platform. But it’s also because voters are getting tired of the same National Front strategies they’ve been fed for years as they watch investment capital and jobs go elsewhere in Asia.

That’s why the opposition coalition, led by Anwar Ibrahim, has won eight out of the 11 by-elections held since the March 2008 national election. Even in the tightly contested Hulu Selangor last month, which the opposition lost, Chinese voters swung by almost 20 percentage points to the opposition.

Mr. Anwar attributed Sunday’s victory to a maturing electorate that’s ready to vote on issues rather than on ethnic groupings. If that’s indeed what is happening, that’s a positive sign for Malaysia, if not for its current government.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 18 May 2010, 8:54 am and is filed under
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Call for clear Cabinet position tomorrow: whether Najib’s promise of RM5 flood mitigation project for Rejang Park in Sibu made on eve of Sibu by-election will be honoured or not

The Cabinet meeting tomorrow should come out with a clear position – whether the RM5 million flood mitigation project promised to the voters of Rejang Park in Sibu on the eve of the Sibu by-election polling on Saturday night will be honoured or not.

This is the Sunday Star report
“
PM woos ‘black area’ folk
’ – Najib elicits cheers from voters in Rejang Park”
:

Sibu: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak elicited cheers from residents Rejang Park when he announced an allocation of RM5 mil to solve its perennial drainage problem.

The poor drainage and sewerage system in the housing estate are among the reasons why it is a “black area” for Barisan Nasional in past general elections.

This is one example of Najib’s infamous “I give you what you want, you give me what I want” style of campaigning.

Yesterday, however, Najib said he is rethinking his RM5 million campaign promise to Rejang Park, adding that he has yet to decide if he will approve the RM5 million flood mitigation project promised to Sibu voters if Barisan Nasional (BN) won yesterday’s by-election.

Najib offered a “deal” to the people of Rejang Park on the  last of  his four recent visits to Sibu on polling eve:

 “If Robert Lau becomes the MP on Sunday, on Monday I will ask 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.”

With whom did Najib strike this RM5 million “deal”? With the voters of Rejang Park and Sibu or with the SUPP leadership in Rejang Park and Sibu?

Is it right, proper, responsible in keeping with the politics and governance of accountability, transparency and integrity for the Prime Minister to act in this fashion?

It was clearly wrong for the Prime Minister not only to act like a public auctioneer but to attempt to buy votes through any form of inducement.

It is doubly wrong for Najib now to renege on the RM5 million undertaking to mitigate the drainage and sewerage problem at Rejang Park, Sibu, as if the RM5 million is his personal money when  it is taxpayers’ money to be expended in a responsible and accountable manner in keeping with the precepts of integrity and good governance.

In fact, the only way for Najib to demonstrate that he was not trying to “buy” votes in the Sibu by-election is for Najib to announce that the RM5 million allocation for Rejang Park, Sibu to mitigate long-standing drainage and sewerage problems would be made, regardless of the outcome of the by-election.

Najib is dead right when he admitted that the DAP/Pakatan Rakyat was more creative and energetic in the Sibu by-election campaign than the SUPP/Barisan Nasional – and one such example is the hamfisted and dishonourable tactics of Barisan Nasional leaders using “goodies in exchange for votes”, not far from corrupt practices.

I am glad that the  Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has said that the Barisan Nasional will fulfil its campaign pledges to the Sibu electorate despite losing the seat by 398 votes.

But does this include the honouring of Najib’s RM5 million pledge for the mitigation of Rejang Park’s flood problems?

What is the stand of the SUPP leadership on this issue – do the SUPP state and Sibu leaders want Najib to immediately issue a RM5 million cheque for mitigation of drainage and sewerage problems in Rejang Park, Sibu or do the SUPP leaders want Najib to punish the Sibu voters for electing Wong Ho Leng as the MP for Sibu?

I call for a clear Cabinet position tomorrow: whether RM5 million flood mitigation project for Rejang Park in Sibu  made by Najib on eve of Sibu by-election will be honoured or not.

Najib had promised to sign the RM5 million cheque for Rejang Park flooding problem yesterday – why has this not been done?

Let there be a clear “yes” or “no” as the people of Sibu, Sarawak and Malaysia are entitled to know, one way or another.

If Najib reneges on the RM5 million pledge to the Rejang Park for flood mitigation problems, then it will feature prominently in next month’s Parliament in the debate on the 10th Malaysia Plan as it encapsulates what is wrong with the national leadership and the governance crisis afflicting Malaysia.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 18 May 2010, 11:31 am and is filed under
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DAP/PR victory in Sibu sparks new hopes for a PR Federal Government in next general election

The Sibu by-election result has triple far-reaching implications for Sibu, Sarawak and Malaysia.

Most important of all, the DAP/PR victory in the Sibu parliamentary by-election on Sunday sparks new hopes for a Pakatan Rakyat Federal Government in the next 13th General Election in Malaysia.

In one fell swoop, the Sibu Miracle achieved triple national impacts: viz:

Steadied parliamentary democracy and strengthened Pakatan Rakyat’s parliamentary position  to ensure that the Barisan Nasional does not steal back its previous unbroken two-thirds parliamentary majority;

Sent a clear and unmistakable signal that Sarawak and Sabah are no more Barisan Nasional “fixed deposit” states which had saved the Barisan Nasional federal power in the 308 political tsunami of the 2008 general election and Umno and Putrajaya cannot continue to take the people of Sarawak and Sabah for granted in disregarding their legitimate grievances and discontents.

Demonstrated growing maturity and effectiveness of the Pakatan Rakyat political alliance. The Sibu by-election is the first foray of Pakatan Rakyat Sarawak comprising PKR,PAS, DAP and SNAP. The campaigning by all Pakatan Rakyat leaders including Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, Datuk Seri Azizah  Ismail, Azmin Ali, Saifuddin Nasution, Zuraida Kamaruddin, Fuziah Salleh, Nurul Izzah, Zaid Ibrahim (PKR) and Datuk Seri Hadi Awang,
Nasharuddin Mat Isa, Salahuddin Ayub, Mahfuz Omar, Mustapha Ali, Datuk Seri Nizar Jamaluddin, Mat Sabu, Datuk  Wan Abdul Rahim, Dzulkefly Ahmad (PAS) have demonstrated not only to Sibuans but also to Sarawakians and Malaysians of the quality and nature of the  New Politics for a New Malaysia.

What is most promising is the support Pakatan Rakyat received from both voters (including voters who had voted for BN in the by-election) and the young generation who are not registered voters, showing that the  future is one that holds great promise provided Pakatan Rakyat parties are prepared to work from now onwards on Sarawak state.

There was a swing of some 6.4% of the Chinese voters from 63% to 69.4% (there would have been a greater swing to probably 75% if not for the Najib factor).

There was interestingly a 2.7% increase of Malay/Melanau vote for Ho Leng as compared to 2008.

The SUPP/BN campaign in the Sibu by-election was most successful in locking up the Iban long houses with the twin politics of money and intimidation, resulting in the DAP/PR candidate suffering a marginal loss of 2.6% of Iban votes.

However, the favourable support the DAP/PR campaign received among both Iban and Melanau/Malay voters demonstrated that both the Iban and Melanau/Malay constituencies are fertile grounds for making inroads for the forthcoming Sarawak state and federal elections.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 18 May 2010, 1:08 pm and is filed under
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Sea change in Sibu

By
Bridget Welsh

The moment I sensed a sea change in the Sibu by-election campaign was during the Friday ceramah, two days before polling. The event reminded me of a similar mood on the eve of the Sarawak state polls in Kuching. The momentum was clearly moving in the opposition’s favour.

The votes are now counted and the opposition managed to pull off an extremely close victory of 1% majority in the final tally. Coming after the defeat in Hulu Selangor and without expectations, this victory was especially sweet for Pakatan Rakyat and bitter for BN, particularly those with personal stakes in the contest, namely Prime Minister Najib Razak and Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud.

The blame game has begun within the BN camp as the shock has yet to subside. The reasons for this close victory are multiple and cannot be boiled down to specific individuals or communities. This piece focuses on the factors that were decisive in the campaign for both sides.

My final piece on Sibu tomorrow will showcase an analysis of the results and flesh out the political implications of these results.

What went right for Pakatan

Pakatan’s victory was really a combination of factors, from the fairer electoral process to effective machinery cooperation.

1) Fairer electoral process

In rural areas such as Sibu in Sarawak, the BN is used to being able to control the election process. This is especially the case in areas where parties with weak machinery such as DAP, which lacks the manpower to staff polling stations.

This time around, working with PAS and PKR, the DAP was able to enforce greater accountability, calling BN to task over inadequate documentation (by sending 12 unauthorised polling agents back to search for the candidate for their papers) and verifying the eligibility of the voters.

When the final tally was counted, the Election Commission eventually agreed to reject 208 of the postal votes (with some tense moments), and in their normal checking at the polling stations ensured that all voters who did vote had proper documentation. Affecting hundreds of voters, the impact of this routine checking, which was unprecedented in Sibu, was more than the final majority.

From their unprecedented presence in the longhouses to the watchful eyes on the postal votes, Pakatan’s strength on the ground machinery was one of the most decisive factors shaping the outcome. On its part, the Election Commission deserves recognition for following their overall professional adherence to the law.

It is important to understand that the Sibu seat has been constructed to be a safe seat for the BN, as it includes 2,571 postal votes and is significantly gerrymandered to include Malay/Melanau villages (some relocated from the city centre) and quite a number of remote Iban voters. The fact that the process was fairer helped offset some of the inherent inequalities in the uneven playing field.

2) Lesson on cooperation from Hulu Selangor

This campaign was perhaps the best oiled campaign for Pakatan, even stronger than Permatang Pauh of August 2008. What made it so effective was a combination of commitment to Pakatan on the part of the campaigners and teamwork.

Unlike the massive numbers of volunteers in Hulu Selangor and presence of many leaders (some of whom chose to languish in resorts rather than actually go to the ground), those that flew across the South China Sea were there to work.

Fewer in number, they concentrated their efforts early on and focused on targeted areas – with PAS in the Malay areas, PKR concentrating in Iban longhouses and DAP walking the urban Chinese town. Gone (well almost gone) were the egos that undermine cooperation, as the coalition interests surpassed personal and party interests.

They began early, with a strategy and game plan in place before nomination day. This allowed the opposition to use every day of the campaign to its advantage. Remember that this was a BN safe seat, and the opposition had to win over about 10% of the electorate.

The hard knocks of working together in Hulu Selangor made Sibu easier, and this showed in the allocation of counting agents, ceramah composition and collegial camaraderie. All the opposition campaigners wanted to move beyond the last painful loss in Hulu Selangor.

3) More focused DAP rerun

The messaging of the DAP-dominant campaign echoed that of March 2008 – a focus on change – with the presentation of the team choreographed along the lines of that adopted in Penang. The script had been rehearsed before and the politicians knew their part.

They brought in new players this round – with PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang greeting the crowd in Mandarin – and honed in on the Sarawak chief minister and the issue of corruption. The openly public campaign coincided with substantive dialogue sessions in closed-door sessions with key local actors in the areas of religious freedom and land rights.

While many in Sibu found some of the national issues alienating, notably the issue of GST (Goods and Services Tax), the ability of the DAP to sharpen a practiced message to a relatively non-politicised electorate worked to its advantage. The messages were focused, sharp and largely consistent.

The reason Pakatan could play a rerun was that they did not have to face the issues of multiple sovereignty. They are in opposition in Sarawak, unlike in Hulu Selangor where they had to address their record in office. This made for an easier and more familiar pattern of campaigning for Pakatan, and contributed to sharp contrasts for voters.

4) Easy Sarawak targets

The terrain was also much easier to sow politically for the opposition. Taib Mahmud’s 29-year tenure has created considerable antipathy among voters, with his popularity very low, especially among urban Chinese voters (who I will argue in my next piece were the critical swing voters).

It is not just Taib himself, but the perceptions of corruption and cronyism. These are core issues within the reformasi agenda of the opposition and thus reinforced the focused messaging. While Taib was more of the opposition’s focus, the local component party of the BN, the SUPP, was also seen as weak as its leader’s personal ties to the CM spilled over to the Sibu polls.

Consistently, voters spoke angrily about white elephant projects, unfair contract allocations and unequal distribution of resources. The call by BN that the opposition were “liars” only backfired as many Sibu voters believed that “enough was enough” and sent a protest vote back to Kuching and Kuala Lumpur.

What went wrong for the BN?

6) Najib’s tactics, not persona

The BN has established a well-honed practice of using goodies in exchange for votes. Sometimes it is effective, such as in Ijok just before the 2008 general elections, and it is more effective in some communities than others, e.g. Iban areas.

It is expensive and does not engender long-term growth in the economy, and in most cases, fails to bring development to communities although some projects are useful and valued, including the funding for schools.

This use of patronage is common globally, but it is often tied to corruption and cronyism. These were coincidentally the negative push button issues for many voters in Sibu. As such, a campaign based primarily on this strategy has limited traction.

More fundamentally, patronage is based on the fact that you know the person giving you the reward. Reciprocity is tied to trust. Many of the “givers” from West Malaysia were unknowns, and the rerun of promising development for issues such as flooding that have been around for more than a decade just did not seem adequately believable for many. They know that election “fire fighting” with money does not address the underlying causes of the fire.

What weakened the effectiveness of “money” further was its delivery. In Rejang Park, Najib threw his last ‘Hail Mary’ hoping to entice voters on the eve of the polls with an offer of RM5million (for a problem that needs RM1 billion to solve properly). It was crude, as many expressed concerns about the blatant politicking of the “offer”. Voters in Rejang Park spoke, as support for the opposition in this Chinese-majority area increased from 62% to 68%.

The disdain was with the method, not the man delivering the message. Najib’s popularity was the strongest feature of the BN campaign. It is thus not surprising that he visited Sibu four times this year, thrice during the campaign itself.

Instead of deal making and throwing mud, he could have discussed his model for the economy and recent economic successes. Instead of pointing to recognition of his leadership of Malaysia by China and the United States (which is, considering its successes, a given for Malaysia), he could have pointed to his plans of how these countries fit into Malaysia’s future.

Voters want leaders who have ideas. These ideas give them hope for the future. The crowd that attended this event genuinely expressed a desire to support their PM, and felt disappointed with the offer of money to fix their drains rather than tap into their dreams.

More broadly, this highlights a consistent pattern in BN campaigning. It speaks to the tendency to talk down to voters, to essentialise their interests as purely material. Sibu voters may seem simple – due to their straight-forwardness and focus on key priorities such as family and education – but they were not simpletons and many recoiled in anger from this form of this engagement.

7) BN shoddy campaign

The last-minute offers were part of an overall poor campaign, arguably the worst BN campaign since March 2008.

The campaign brought over a few of the posters from Hulu Selangor, but they did not fit into a coherent message. One message was notably missing – ‘Mampu Berubah’ (Able to change). None of these themes were substantively engaged in the BN ceramah. The messages were confusing and boiled down to ‘vote for us because we will actually pay money and we are the government’.

Frankly, this just isn’t enough to win votes in a close race and stands in sharp contrast to the efforts of Hulu Selangor.

What compounded the incoherency was SUPP’s own rerun. It returned to the issue of the Islamic state that was part of the 2001 state campaign (yes, nine years ago). What the SUPP has failed to appreciate is that the contestation over religious issues in Malaysia is no longer simply about opting for Umno instead of PAS.

Sadly, and perhaps incorrectly, Umno has now been seen as the agent of removing religious rights of minorities in areas such as the Bibles and identity cards. More fundamentally, the engagement over these issues has broadened to civil society, making the debates of the role of religion in Malaysian politics more complex and intense.

The debate also connects into controversial discussions of ethnic identity, as concerns were raised about Perkasa. So, as SUPP showed clever posters of kampua mee and Pakatan leaders sleeping together, they showed limited understanding of the current complexities and, more importantly, an appreciation of ordinary voters’ understanding of these complexities.

The SUPP was not ready for this contest as its machinery was poor and its engagement with the more modern campaigning now honed on the Semananjung took hold. Distance from online media, a failure to develop a decent website for the campaign and more, showed a leadership of a party out of touch with its voters, and even more damning, an arrogance that alienated.

They needed to go beyond urging voters to support a man of the past and effectively build up the image of the party candidate as a person of the future.

8) Inexperienced candidate

Beyond the dichotomies I have mentioned earlier before the campaign in an earlier piece, what became clear is that the BN candidate Robert Lau Jr had limited engagement with the electorate.

This is common for a new candidate, and where the party and more experienced politicians come in. The candidate is a respected professional from a successful family. He under-utilised the media and his own insights on the development of Sibu.

For some, he seemed standoffish, and for others, uncomfortable on the campaign trail. He was at a disadvantage to the DAP candidate, Wong Ho Leng, who is a seasoned politician and as comfortable in a coffee shop as he is in the courtroom.

Mentorship in politics is crucial, and this was lacking on the part of the SUPP.

9) SUPP party infighting

The reason was simple. The party remains in a crisis, provoked by their loss in the 2006 state election and inability to effectively regenerate and connect to Chinese Sarawakians. It is a party at war with itself.

The divisions between Wong Soon Koh (right) and others in the party were discussed openly by the electorate, with considerably antipathy towards Wong. This was especially strong in his own state seat where the flooding issues and neglect of infrastructure are shameful.

Rumours circulated that the battle among the tycoons over the direction of SUPP spilled over into the campaign, with claims that workers did not come to vote due to a lack of encouragement by one of the major tycoons. These lack evidence.

What was clear, however, was that by comparison, SUPP lacked the team spirit of the DAP in this campaign. This extended to the cooler relations with component parties within the BN camp, particularly the relationship with the West Malaysian partners. The sense was that SUPP was unable to effectively move beyond its own concerns to connect with the electorate and its BN partners.

10) The man with the silver hair

In part, this by-election had much to do with the ‘white hair’ in the room, or rather the campaign trail. The SUPP’s own transition, divisions and regeneration are linked to the issue of Taib Mahmud and the leadership succession.

The proud history of the SUPP as a fighter for Sarawak has been overshadowed by the long tenure of the CM and alleged concerns with corruption. The CM’s presence in the campaign serves as a lightning rod and gives fodder to the opposition. As the next Sarawak elections loom, this issue perhaps weighs the most on the BN’s political future in the state.

As I left Sibu yesterday morning, the sun was coming up with glorious shades of red, paralleling the rich colours of the Rajang River. Sibuans have already moved on to continue their normal lives, many with some extra money in their pocket in what was an expensive election campaign – estimated over RM50 million in allocations and ‘grants’.

Yet with the Pakatan victory, voters have sent a message that they want change, but arguably from observations of the Sibu campaign, most of the anger of change is focused on the state of Sarawak itself.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 18 May 2010, 9:18 pm and is filed under
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Sibu the “Sifu”

Sixteenth of May a date to remember

In Sarawak a history was created

The people awaken, tis the signal

In her fortress BN was defeated

It is historical, this month of May

A tragedy in nineteen sixty nine

Never should it be repeated, we pray

And that’s your wish and mine.

The youths had a grand celebration

And the teachers day too did follow

Whilst Pakatan was in jubilation

Barisan Nasional plunged in sorrow.

It was the bye-election in Sibu

The spirit that we shall nurture

Little Sibu became the “SIFU”

Giving hope to Malaysia’s future.

The BN team had almost everything

Whilst PR had only grit and guts

Government machinery in full swing

Till the end from an early start.

Undoubtedly they had tons of money

Main-stream media was far from fair

Happily flashing carrots and honey

But Sibu made them to despair

My tribute to the work-horses in DAP

Not forgetting PAS and PKR too

It is in this spirit, it shall be

Facing BN in the “battle of Waterloo”.

The people of Sibu, we salute thee

Glad to say you really made our day

You taught us that little word “dignity”

Towards victory, you’ve led us the way.

(Fauzp Abdul Rahman)

Kuantan

Pahang

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 18 May 2010, 6:30 am and is filed under
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Sibuans on why they created the Sibuan Miracle

Letter from Gabriel

Dear Kit,

After the recent election in my hometown, Sibu, a lot of my former schoolmates have been storming the internet and started voicing their grievances online, especially in social network portal like Facebook. Just a while a go, one of my ex-classmates showed me a link where people post feedback to SUPP
Robert Lau’s status
 and one of the feedback is as follows and myself being a local Sibu, do totally agree with this Adam’s point of views :

Adam Tang

Let’s go down to the bottom. State down at least 3 to 7 reason why you vote or not vote Mr. Robert. Let Mr. Robert analyze himself. Fair?

I didn’t vote Mr. Robert Lau because

Perkasa said our grandmother came to Malaysia just to sell their body last time. (Those who voted Wong Ho Leong are those who are willing to sacrifice Sibu to tell BN from the other side that if BN continue mess with Perkasa, we will vote PR again. Respect please for the people who vote DAP).

Have a look on
this youtube
.  This is what BN have given us.

After few years promising voters that SUPP will solve Sibu flooding issue. No effective action has been taken. I have friends whose house half inside the water. Car under water. Furniture all destroyed. Before election, you did mention there are progress for drainage system right? How come all place still flooding on the day of voting?

Sibu has almost no development this few years. Development has private, public essential and public extending. A lot of housing or shoplot built, that is private. A lot government building or other basic infrastructure has been built, that is public essential. But in my eyes, no development to bring more revolution to technology, education and career to Sibu. In public session, Sibu’s development are more towards spending money than helping Sibu resident earning money. For example, the tanglung festival, spending too much just to show off.

SUPP can’t really manage well UCS and sell it RM 1 to Taib yayasan makes me think that SUPP can’t really manage well Sibu. Even no open discussion with Public to find a better resolution for the whole case. This is the most saddest thing I have seem.

Car parking fees are the most expensive in Sarawak while Sibu are behind Kuching, Miri, Bintulu, Mukah and Serian. Another weird logic is if renovate the road needs fund from Government, then where is the money from car parking gone since you only draw line on the road infront of premises?

Land lease renewal fees are bullshit. Sarawak has so many land, yet Sarawak government already thinking to recycle the land which we work so much to buy it. The first revised version even worst. Big unit and small unit pay the same. You make it auto renew with RM 999 per acres. I sure vote you next turn.

Regards

Gabriel

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 18 May 2010, 5:50 pm and is filed under
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Call on Rais Yatim to lift all RTM restrictions on Chou Z Lam’s Bakun Dam documentary and ensure that the remaining episodes of the television documentary is aired

The Information, Unity, Culture and Arts Minister Datuk Seri Dr. Rais Yatim should intervene to lift all RTM restrictions on producer Chou Z Lam’s television documentary on the Bakun Dam.

There had been unacceptable political interference in RTM’s TV2 resulting in Chou’s documentary on the Bakun Dam being taken off the air because of Barisan Nasional concerns over it chances in the Sibu by-election during the campaign period.

The documentary was taken off the air under the direct instruction of RTM’s chief broadcast executive Ibrahim Yahya.

RTM’s newsroom chief executive Jumat Engson had said the documentary was taken off the air because it had sensitive elements that could be harmful for BN in the ongoing Sibu by-election.

Now that the Barisan Nasional had lost the Sibu by-election even without the Bakun Dam television documentary, this rigmarole of political interference with media freedom should be stopped immediately.

Diplomatic claims by the authorities that the documentary would be postponed to ‘a more appropriate time’ is not acceptable.

Are the RTM authorities waiting for the Barisan Nasional governments in Sarawak and Putrajaya to fall before airing Chou’s documentary?

This is the second recent episode of blatant media censorship and interference – the previous instance being the award-winning journalist and producer Joshua Wong  who quit his position in ntv7 following constant political interference in his current series talk show, the last straw being a ban on discussing the then ongoing  Hulu Selangor by-election.

This morning, a four-point memorandum of protest to RTM was submitted by a pro-media freedom lobby group demanding:

RTM should air all the remaining episodes of Chou’s television documentary

RTM should publicly affirm that it will adhere to standards of professionalism and fairness

RTM should terminate the services of Yap Shy Chuan, a MCA member overseeing the Chinese-language programmes

Parliament should enact laws to ensure the impartiality of RTM as a public service broadcaster.

Pakatan Rakyat support these four demands and DAP MP for Puchong, Gobind Singh Deo stands ready to provide all necessary legal assistance to Chou to defend media freedom and human rights undermined by the RTM and relevant authorities.

Rais Yatim should lift all RTM restrictions on Chou Z Lam’s Bakun Dam documentary and ensure that the remaining episodes of the television documentary is aired.

Furthermore, he should act on the four-point memorandum and in particular present a Bill  to Parliament to enact legislation to ensure RTM”s impartiality as a public service broadcaster.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 19 May 2010, 4:08 pm and is filed under
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‘Deal or no deal’ falls flat

By
Mariam Mokhtar

As they say, politicians are like nappies – they should be changed often and for the same reasons. Yesterday, the people of Sibu made history when they elected DAP and rejected BN.

Days earlier, at Rejang Park, the prime minister convinced me that BN does not have the interests of the people of Sibu at heart.

1. He said: “I don’t have to come here…..to Rejang Park……This is not the place for a prime minister to come.”

2. He insulted the intelligence of the people by making deals in exchange for public service.

3. He lowered the tone of his speech by saying “Bull Shine”. Is vulgar slang accepted speech by a prime minister?

Without the involvement of money politics, DAP’s majority could easily have been in the thousands rather than just 398 votes.

Nevertheless, this win has caused a tiny seismic shift in the Malaysian political landscape. Once again, politics has become interesting and dare I say it, fun too?

DAP’s victory is well-deserved but it must be under no illusion, for if the electoral dice had fallen differently, politics in Sarawak and Malaysia would have been business as usual.

Was there one single factor for the swing away from BN? Or was it a combination of factors? There was more money available last week than at any single time over the past 47 years. Was it divine intervention, in retribution for the PM’s fleeting visit to the Tua Pek Kong temple?

During this campaign, only a person with a heart of stone would not have been troubled by the poverty that sits uncomfortably beside the wealth in Sarawak. The state is blessed with an abundance of natural resources. Why then is a sizeable portion of its people living in shanty towns devoid of running water and electricity?

My single defining reason to tick the box for DAP, had I been a voter, would have been Najib Abdul Razak’s speech at Rejang Park.

Who could forget that ‘speech’? Some people have called it ‘You help me, I help you’ talk. Those present witnessed the display of arrogance of condescension; how he talked down to people; and disgracefully made the public gesture of money in exchange for votes.

He showed us how NOT to demean people and thus get the backs up of those whom we wish to help us. Surprisingly, Najib overlooked how the Internet beamed his unflattering comments worldwide.

Najib also showed the political elite how NOT to treat the electorate or to make empty promises. To a lesser extent, it revealed how his spin doctors, who stage-managed his campaigns, failed to register the suffering of the Sibu people.

The PM joked about solving the flooding, saying: “Can we have deal or not? Can we have an understanding or not? You help me, I help you. It is quite simple.”

I recall how a policeman once stopped me for apparently going through a red light, even though I had not. He also used similar phrases like, “We got deal or not? We have understanding, yes? I can help you. Easy-lah.” These phrases sound very familiar don’t they?

Needs long neglected

Najib told the crowd he would have a cheque ready to help solve the flooding, only if Robert Lau Jr was elected. He wasn’t aware of the actual cost for the flood defences, but guessed it to be RM3 million.

He insulted the intelligence of the crowd by believing they could be easily seduced. Equally, Lau’s credibility was given little value. If he (Lau) had any pride, he would have been angered that his selection as candidate was not because of integrity, hard work and public service, but only because Najib was feeling generous.

Sibu’s flooding problem is not new and it is impossible to imagine there were never discussions about this at cabinet meetings – RM 3 million or even RM5 million is a fraction of the total cost.

The whole scenario is reminiscent of an auction with shouts of ‘lelong! lelong!’. Have we stooped as low as this?

Then came the shock declaration: “’I don’t have to come here…..to Rejang Park……This is not the place for a prime minister to come.”

I am sorry, Mr Prime Minister but your statements have done you and BN untold damage. What sort of place is suitable for a PM then? We are sorry if Rejang Park is not as luxurious or exclusive as Belgravia in London or the White House, which you visited last month, in Washington DC.

Rejang Park is often flooded, but it is still home to thousands. They live, work and play here. And for the past 47 years, the government has neglected to serve them.

When the PM told us about the security concerns of his visit, he said: “My security boys say there are back alleys…..”

Yes. Sibu is infamous for its gangs. Civil law and order is included in the long list of Sibu’s problems. If the PM was advised to stay away, then it speaks volumes about the law and governance of the place.

Stupefying effect

People will recall how when Princess Diana died, the British premier – then Tony Blair – captured the mood of the nation’s grief and called her the “People’s Princess”.

When Najib amused us with his visits to the Sibu pasar, the people thought he was “really friendly”. He used the term “People’s Prime Minister”. I am sorry, but three trips to Sibu’s pasar does not make him the “People’s Prime Minister”. If only it were that simple.

He then said that his government would “fight for the people”. So, why does it hold the people to ransom? Sibu’s problems include flooding, lack of basic infrastructure, land issues, poverty and economic malaise. Offers of help should not come with a proviso. That is not responsible government. That only creates mistrust in an already maligned political system.

The PM claimed that “people come first” and “people really matter”. However, these ideals are not addressed in Sibu. Withholding peoples’ rights does not win the battle for hearts and minds.

The repeated use of “I never fail to deliver my promises…we honour our commitment” throughout the speech has the same stupefying effect as someone saying, ‘I never tell a lie’ or ‘Honestly speaking’. The opposite effect is achieved.

Body language relays important signals. The regularity with which the PM wiped his mouth with his handkerchief during the speech is disturbing. What is his subconscious trying to wipe off his lips?

Now that the electorate has shown BN the door, what lies ahead for the people of Sibu?

Will Najib’s compassion shine through? Will he solve the flooding and other problems in a calculated move to win back the trust of Sarawakians for the upcoming state elections?

Or will he punish Sibu and cancel the cheques for the schools and leave the people to drown their sorrows, in the floods that wreck their lives?

If he does that, the state elections and GE-13 would create another massive tidal bore, just like the ones the Sungei Rejang – and now Sibu – is famous for.

MARIAM MOKHTAR is a non-conformist traditionalist from Perak, a bucket chemist and an armchair eco-warrior. In ‘real–speak’, this translates into that she comes from Ipoh, values change but respects culture, is a petroleum chemist and also an environmental pollution-control scientist.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 19 May 2010, 9:16 am and is filed under
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Election Commission’s professionalism, credibility and integrity plunged to its lowest point

The Election Commission’s professionalism, credibility and integrity plunged to its lowest point in its 53-year history in the Sibu by-election unless it could satisfactorily explain the two-and-a-half hour delay in announcing the results on polling night and the 9.37% or 5,172-voter mistake in voter turnout.

Counting for postal ballot ended at around 8.30 pm on polling day and almost instantaneously, Barisan Nasional and SUPP leaders left the Counting Centre at the Civics Centre – a sign to all that they knew at that time that the BN had lost the by-election.

The mystery remains three days after the by-election as to why the Election Commission delayed for two-and-a-half hours before announcing the results.

DAP leaders did not “storm” the Sanyan Building where the postal ballots were counted, but we went over there from the DAP Sibu Ops Centre to find out what was happening.

When I arrived there with DAP Secretary-General and Penang Chief Minister, Lim Guan Eng, as well as a battery of DAP MPs and State Assembly representatives from all over the country at about 9.30 pm, counting of postal ballots had already been completed for an hour but there was a “standoff” as there was no Election Commission official to issue Form 15 to certify the final tally for the postal ballots counted.

It was then that I decided to launch a tweet offensive to ask the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak whether he recognized the democratic choice of the voters of Sibu to elect Wong Ho Leng as the new Sibu Member of Parliament and raising the question whether there was any attempt to steal the Sibu by- election from the voters of Sibu.

The incredible bungling of the Election Commission about the voter turnout defies belief. It is something that should never have happened – and up to now, the Election Commission has not bothered to explain how it could make such a colossal blunder.

I had on my twitter on polling day tracked the hourly announcement of the Election Commission on the voter turnout and I was very concerned about the low-turnout from the very start, causing me to compare the high voter turn-outs in the recant Hulu Selangor by-election with comments, viz:

9 am – 6.33% or 3,310 voters. Very low!

10am – 20.61% or 11,270 voters.

11am – 28.83% or 15,767 voters. In HuluSelangor, 38.21% voter turnout by 11 am.

12noon – 37% or 20,241 voters- in Hula Selangor 49.04% turnout by noon.

1pm – 42.24% or 23,103 voters. HuluSelangor had registered 56.82% at 1 pm. Ten polling stations closed @ 1pm.

2pm – 46.29%  or 25,319 voters. HS had registered 63.74% at 2pm Prospect looks grim unless there is high turnout

3pm – 53.02% or 29,000 voters. HS had registered 67.18% at 3pm. Sibu Miracle?

At 3.48pm I tweeted :

Rantau Panjang closed 1pm 82.5% voter turnout. 1hr 2 end polling. Some urban areas turnout 50%. Not enuf 4 Sibu Miracle

4pm – 56.9% or 31,119 voters. At 4pm HS byelection had 73.82% turnout. 1 hr left. Election commission forecast 80%

At 6.52pm, I tweeted:

5pm – 59.86% or 32,742 voters. The total in postal votes are 2,537.

When making the announcement of the final voter turnout of 59.85 per cent or 32,742 voters, the Election Commission Chairman Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof publicly expressed disappointment over the low turnout – a far cry from the Election Commission’s earlier estimate of 80%.

Mysteriously at around 9pm, Abdul Aziz sent out word that the voter turnout “may actually be more than 60 percent” and when the official results were announced at about 11 pm after a mysterious two-and-a-half hour delay, the voter turnout proved to be a total of 37,919 voters or 69.23 per cent of the 54,895 registered voters.

What was the cause of the 9.39% or 5,172 vote discrepancy in the voter turnout between in a matter of hours, and why was the Election Commission’s hourly tally of the voter turnout completely wrong and utterly useless?

Who must take responsibility for these two colossal errors of the Election Commission, not to mention other irregularities and improprieties whether on polling day or during the eight-day campaign?

As Election Commission Chairman, is Abdul Aziz prepared to accept full personal responsibility for such colossal errors In the Sibu by-election?

Or is Abdul Aziz going to bury his head under the sand and pretend not to hear or know of demands for responsibility and accountability for the Election Commission’s scandalous mistakes on polling day in Sibu by-election?

Is Aziz prepared to accept full responsibility and recommend to the Prime Minister the establishment of a full public independent inquiry into the two-and-a-half hour delay in the announcement of the Sibu by-election result, the 9.37% or 5,172-voter discrepancy in the voter turnout, the abuses of the postal ballots and other electoral irregularities to demonstrate that the Election Commission is truly Independent and professional and wants a tree, fair and clean electoral system?

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 19 May 2010, 12:16 pm and is filed under
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Iban vote remains elusive for Pakatan

By
Ong Kian Ming

COMMENT Last Sunday was an eventful day for me personally. I took part in my first 15km pacesetters run which took me through the rolling hills and grand mansions of Bukit Tunku. I dropped by a friend’s church in a refurbished part of Petaling Jaya which looked very different compared to three years ago.

I played basketball in the evening at a friend’s apartment just off Jalan Ipoh complete with its own private park. I then had dinner at a newly-opened restaurant in nearby Kepong with a few newfound friends. Finally, I returned home, fired up my computer and checked the Sibu by-election results.

It turned out that it was also an eventful day for the voters in Sibu. For the first time since the 1982 general election, the parliamentary seat of Sibu fell into the hands of the opposition, by a narrow margin of 398 votes.

Someone asked me if I was surprised by the result and I answered in the negative. After all, I had predicted that the DAP would win this seat by a margin of 500 votes.

While my prediction of a 500-vote majority was not too far off from the actual result, an analysis by polling station and stream shows that not all my pre-polling day assumptions were correct.

Firstly, I had taken a more conservative route of predicting a 68% to 69% share of the Chinese vote for DAP. Instead, the actual figure was 70%. This additional one percent or so turned out to be the deciding factor since the anticipated swing in the Iban vote did not take place.

In fact, not only did the Iban vote not swing in favour of the opposition, it actually increased in BN’s favour by approximately 2% – from 80% in 2008 to 82% in 2010. This was somewhat negated by the approximately 1% fall in the level of BN support among the Melanaus.

Furthermore, my prediction was based on BN winning a 2,500 majority among the postal votes. The actual postal vote majority for the BN was closer to 2200, probably due to the increase of spoilt postal votes from 103 votes in 2008 to 208 in 2010 and a smaller overall number of postal votes cast (3,000 votes in 2008 compared to 2,600 in 2010).

The counting of the postal ballots would have been even more controversial if the BN’s majority from these votes was sufficient to swing the seat in favour of the BN candidate.

The devil is always in the detail when it comes to evaluating the individual components on which the overall prediction is based. In this case, I was off by a little in almost all of these components but these factors cancelled each other out in such a way as to preserve the overall accuracy of the initial prediction.

Next stop, state polls

I won’t try to evaluate the relative importance of the different factors which can explain the fall in BN’s popularity among the Chinese voters (or the inability of the opposition to make gains among the Ibans and Melanaus). This task cannot be confidently undertaken without collecting individual level data using survey methodologies.

What I will try to do instead is to gauge the effects of this by-election on the upcoming Sarawak state elections.

Sibu has shown that it is more than likely that the Chinese voters in Sarawak will swing against the BN in the next state election, which must be called by May next year. The DAP can probably go into these elections confident in its ability to command a majority of the Chinese vote, especially in the urban areas in which the party is likely to contest.

But what should be troubling for the opposition coalition, which includes the DAP, is their inability to significantly swing the Iban and Melanau vote in its favour. Any talk of denying the BN a two-thirds majority in the Sarawak state elections has to start with a discussion of making at least some gains among the non-Muslim and Muslim bumiputera voters. As Sibu has shown, this possibility has not yet materialised.

It is still possible for BN in Sarawak to take stock of the lessons learned from Sibu and regroup itself in time for the next state election. But it is also possible that other issues may occupy the electorate centre stage in ways which can affect the BN’s significant advantage over the non-Chinese voters in the state.

The most important issue, arguably, is the issue of leadership succession. The lack of a clear succession plan at the chief minister level may result in the anti-CM sentiment spreading beyond the confines of the Chinese voters. Or a badly managed succession plan may result in the fractionalisation of the leadership of the PBB with possibly significant electoral consequences.

The worst possible outcome here would be some sort of a split within the ruling elites similar to the one which resulted in the formation of Permas, which together with PBDS, gave BN a run for its money in the 1987 state elections.

The uncertainties associated with the electoral outcomes in Sarawak probably mean that there is little chance that Prime Minister Najib Razak will call for a concurrent general election to be held together with the Sarawak state election. It is much better to use the state election as a ‘temperature gauge’ before calling the general election.

Pakatan Rakyat/DAP has scored a significant and morale boosting by-election victory in Sibu. This was a much needed victory especially given the defeat in Hulu Selangor, the string of high-level defections from PKR and the continued rumours of the impending fall of the Kedah state government.

The opposition can, and should, celebrate this victory. But the celebration will be short. As the DAP leaders depart for Peninsular Malaysia and the rest of Sarawak, the daunting challenge of holding back the BN tide in Peninsular Malaysia awaits them as does the equally challenging task of trying to win a larger share of the non-Chinese vote in the upcoming Sarawak state election.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 19 May 2010, 9:14 am and is filed under
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Najib’s infamous Sibu campaign speech – Seeing is Believing

I read Mariam Mokhtar’s article “
‘Deal or no deal’ falls flat
” in Malaysiakini this morning dismembering Prime Minister Najib Razak’s RM5million-for-offer speech at Rejang Park, Sibu in the final hours of the Sibu by-election campaign Polling Eve on Saturday.

I knew about Najib’s dishonourable RM5 million offer to the people of Rejang Park to mitigate their flood problems – a drop in the ocean as Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin had admitted that it would cost at least RM1 billion to resolve Sibu’s long-neglected  floods problem –  in return for BN candidate Robert Lau elected as MP for Sibu.

But I had not seen the video of Najib’s infamous speech  and I did not fully believe what Mariam wrote – as I just could not imagine the Prime Minister of the country saying, doing and behaving the way she has written.

This is why I started on the hunt for the video on the Internet. It was not difficult to find. The Malaysiakini video had been put up on many sites, including other electronic websites.

I was just astounded  that Mariam was 100% right and Najib did say, act and behave as she has described and rightly castigated him.

It is indeed “Seeing is Believing”.

Mariam’s was a Must Read article.  This is a Must View video!

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 19 May 2010, 4:44 pm and is filed under
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Radzi doing the nation a grave disservice in down-playing  the public crisis of confidence facing MACC

The Chairman of the Special Parliamentary Committee on Corruption, former Home Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Radzi Sheikh Ahmad is doing the nation a grave disservice in downplaying  the crisis of confidence facing the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).

Radzi said in Parlimanet after the meeting of the Special Committee on Corruption that MACC’s image has suffered  after Teoh Beng Hock’s death and loss of several court cases.

MACC’s image was already on the nosedive before Teoh Beng Hock’s tragic death at the MACC headquarters in Shah Alam on July 16 – as the MACC did not act as an independent, professional and fearless fighter against corruption but conducted itself as a shameless catspaw of Umno/Barisan Nasional to further  their ulterior political agenda against the Pakatan Rakyat – but Teoh Beng Hock’s death sent MACC into a tailspin into the abyss of infamy from which it had not yet been able to redeem itself.

This was why nobody shed any tears when the first MACC Chief Commissioner Datuk Seri Ahmad Said Hamdan retired early under a cloud  for MACC under him had ended its first year with lower public confidence and esteem than  when it started – actually fulfilling the worst fears of former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

Abdullah had warned at the belated launching of MACC on 24th February last year that the MACC should not end up as just pretty window-dressing of its predecessor the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA).

The then Prime Minister had admitted the public perception of the ACA as “not being independent, of being a toothless tiger, of practicing selective enforcement, being late in taking action and not being professional in its investigations has damaged its image and credibility”.

Abdullah had announced at the launch of the MACC that the new anti-corruption body was to mark “the beginning of a very important chapter in Malaysia’s agenda to strengthen integrity and fight corruption” with the MACC able to stand up to scrutiny.

It is sad, tragic but true that in its first year of operation, the MACC was guilty of all the sins of the ACA and more.

What has the second MACC Chief Commissioner Datuk Abu Kassin Mohamed done to arrest and reverse the collapse of national and international confidence – powerfully  illustrated by the shameful plunge of Malaysia’s ranking in Transparency International Corruption Perception Index 2009 to an unprecedented low, No. 56,  which is 33 rankings lower than 15 years ago, No. 23 in 1995,  the first  Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perception Index?

Radzi and the Special Committee on Corruption that he heads should be addressing these nettlesome issues.

Instead, he has evaded them and is helping to find excuses for MACC, saying that the MACC should be given time to find its footing because it’s so new – just formed one-and-a-half years ago.

Hey, Radzi, are you sleeping?  MACC cannot claim to be only one-and-a-half years old – when it is in fact the successor to Anti-Corruption Agency, and together, is  now with a history of 43 years!

MACC was established to begin a new chapter in the history of corruption-fighting – to start with a bang as Malaysia’s version of  Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) from Day One, and not to further deteriorate and degenerate until the Chairman of the Special Committee on Corruption has to plead for more time for MACC on the ground that it has only been established one-and-a-half years ago!

Parliament enacted  the MACC Act 2009 and entrusted the Special Committee on Corruption to advise the Prime Minister on any aspect of the corruption problem in Malaysia; to examine the annual report of the MACC; examine the comments of the Anti-Corruption Advisory Board and to  seek clarifications and explanations on the annual report of the Commission and the comments of the

Anti-Corruption Advisory Board.

Under the MACC Act, the Special Committee shall make an annual report on the discharge of their functions to the Prime Minister who shall lay a copy of that annual report before each House of Parliament.

The MACC Act did not provide that the Special Committee on Corruption must meet the Prime Minister to get guidance on how to submit its annual report and recommendations for tabling in Parliament, as is suggested by Radzi.

Why should the Special Committee on Corruption, comprising Parliamentarians from both Houses act as if it is subservient and beholden to the Prime Minister when writing its annual report – which goes against all principles of parliamentary independence and sovereignty as well as the doctrine of separation of powers.

In fact, to make the point that the Special Committee on Corruption is not subservient and a creature of the Prime Minister, it should not meet the Prime Minister before it has completed and signed off  its Annual Report on the MACC.

The Special Committee on Corruption should  only ask for a meeting with the Prime Minister after it had completed its Annual Report and not before!

Parliament is reconvening on June 7 for a six-week meeting. Radzi must see to it that the first annual report of the Special Committee on Corruption is tabled in Parliament by the first sitting or he would be failing in his duty – both to Parliament and the nation.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 19 May 2010, 3:22 pm and is filed under
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Call on Najib to suspend UUCA for five years to demonstrate he has the political will to implement NEM priority to “retain and attract talent”

Congratulations to the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak that Malaysia has broken into the top 10 list of the world’s most competitive countries, taking the 10th spot on the Switzerland-based IMD’s World Competitiveness Yearbook for 2010 – up from 18th placing last year.

Malaysia, however, has still a long way to go if we are to break away from the decade-long economic stagnation, escape from the middle-income trap and take our rightful place in the international community of nations, catching up with nations which have overtaken us economically although we were ahead of them when we achieved Merdeka 53 years ago – like South Korea,  Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

For a start, has the Najib premiership the political will to break the logjam of resistance by vested groups represented  by former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad and various interest groups  which have been outsourced by Umno to champion rightwing, extremist and racist views like Perkasa and Gertak?

As a test whether Najib has the political leadership and will to implement New Economic Model (NEM) reforms, I call on him to suspend for five years the Universities and University Colleges Act which acts like a suffocating blanket stifling creativity, innovation and excellence among university lecturers and students, reducing the public universities into second class universities not only in the world but also in the country.

During my schooldays in the fifties, students do not think about foreign universities unless their results were not good or their parents have a lot of money. This was because University of Malaya, which had just separated from its Singapore campus to spawn two separate universities with University of Singapore, was recognized internationally as one of the world-class universities.

Today, the first option of Malaysian students  is to get places in foreign universities and local placing in Malaysian public universities is their last choice, because of the drop and decline of standards and prestige of Malaysian universities.

It will not be long when public universities will be regarded as inferior to private universities in the country.

This is not progress but going backwards.

Today the Deputy Minister for Higher Education Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah lamented at the poor response to Speakers’ Corners created at higher education institutions.

He called on undergraduates to make full use of the space available within their campuses to speak their minds.

He complained that in some of the universities, “there is no activity at all at the Speakers’ Corner since the launch four months ago”.

Lets have the name of the public universities where the Speakers’ Corner are active and alive  and those where they are no different from  Graveyard Corners, because of  the silence prevailing in both places.

Should the Deputy Higher Education Minister be surprised that the Speakers’ Corners in the public universities are as dead as a dodo?

Why are they a far cry from the vibrant and sometimes electrifying Speaker’s Corner in the University of Malaya in the sixties before the advent of the stifling UUCA?

What does Saifuddin expect when the UUCA is used to victimize the handful of more idealistic, activist and conscientised university students, like the political science students from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia who have been given notice that they would be charged next month under the UUCA for allegedly campaigning in the Hulu Selangor by-election?

Why the double standards with UMNO forming UMNO Clubs for overseas university students all over the world and  yet prohibit students in  local public universities from showing any interest in politics?

The Barisan Nasional government is doing the very opposite of what the NEM has advocated – and the question is whether the Najib government has woken up to the stark fact that globalization has created a fierce competition for talent and the ability of Malaysia to compete on a regional and global scale will depend on the government’s capability to retain and attract talent.

I therefore urge Najib to ask the Cabinet next Wednesday to take two policy decisions, viz:

To suspend the UUCA for five years; and

To withdraw all charges against UKM students and other students in the same category in public universities so that the UUCA ceases as  a Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of university students stifling their creativity, innovation and excellence.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 20 May 2010, 10:27 am and is filed under
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Is Utusan Malaysia capable of paradigm shift to be true standard-bearer of a 1Malaysia concept or will it continue like Canute to spearhead the resistance to  the tide of change in Malaysia?

In his speech at the ground-breaking ceremony for the new Utusan Malaysia headquarters in Kuala Lumpur this morning, the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak urged the 72-year-old Utusan to transform itself if it is to stay relevant.

He said Utusan must be more than Umno’s mouthpiece and must be a medium to build an intellectual culture and a critical society.

He said that the groundbreaking ceremony must coincide in a paradigm shift for the newspaper – going beyond “race, Islam and country” to play a pivotal role in helping the government achieve its transformation plan.

But is Utusan capable of being Najib’s “partner to government” in forging a 1Malaysia and to implement the New Economic Model (NEM) reforms to overhaul the Malaysian economy to break away from the decade-long economic stagnation and middle-income trap to take the quantum leap to become a high-income developed country?

In the past year, Utusan has positioned itself as the biggest enemy and critic of Najib’s 1Malaysia as well as NEM.

In fact, in my 44 years of political life, I have never come across Utusan Malaysia which had been  more irresponsible, communal and  unMalaysian than in the past 24 months after the March 8 “political tsunami” of the 2008 general elections.

Never before had more Malaysians turned away from Utusan Malaysia – and I for one had stopped being a daily reader of Utusan, first time in 44 years!

Can the biggest enemy and critic of Najib’s 1Malaysia and NEM undergo a paradigm shift as to become their true standard bearer?

Or will it continue like Canute to spearhead the resistance to the tide of change in Malaysia?

I am prepared to wait and see.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 20 May 2010, 1:55 pm and is filed under
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