A momentum yes, monumental shift not yet

by
Sakmongkol AK47

The Malaysian Insider

November 07, 2010

We need to distinguish between a crass propagandist and a sober politician. Ahmad Maslan fits into the former category it seems.

Ahmad Maslan, the Umno information chief cited 4 reasons for the victory in Galas. The acceptance by the people, of the national leadership of Najib and Muhyidin. The influence of Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and Mustapha Mohamad, the acceptance of the people of the various initiatives thought of by our great leader which will be implemented by the ruling government and so on. He was referring to such initiatives like 1 Malaysia, ETP and so forth. Finally, and here is the earth shattering observation- people are fed up of the politics of the opposition to the ruling BN. It’s a triumph of moderation over extremism. One writer puts as the alarm bell for the 13th GE.

For whom does the bells toll?

People in Gua Musang and Galas in particular must be the most intelligent people in Malaysia. There must be something in the pristine air and the physical terrain of the area. Or maybe something in the diet of Gua Musangians. The nasi kerabu and berlauk at Restoren Kak Zah or the stalls near Fully Inn?

They understood the concept of 1 Malaysia when the same concept baffled Tun Mahathir and misunderstood by other Malaysians. The people eating at Restoren Kak Zah in Bandar Lama Gua Musang talking politics and cock understand and embrace the various initiatives by the national government. The people in Sungai Terah and Batu Papan are waiting for their ETP, GTP and whatever P’s we can think of.

Gua Musang should be made the administrative capital of Kelantan then or perhaps be made a federal territory and developed into the east coast Putrajaya. There is so much good talent here.

In Galas, the people are roughly divided between Pas and Umno. The Umno candidate secured some 54 per cent of the vote while Pas commanded the balance. I can’t read this as a monumental shift in preference. Pas lost 265 votes from what they got through the late Che Hashim. Umno gained 1571. Umno was able to capitalise on the larger turnout of voters.

In order to wipe out the 646 vote deficit, Umno had to effectively secure 1800 votes. I had predicted Umno to win by around 2300 to 2500 votes. My detractors were jubilant I was wrong here but curiously silent on my prediction that Umno will win. The effective 1800 vote is close enough to 2300. Indeed Umno could have garnered more than that, had the meddling by outsiders and internal sabotaging were minimised.

So to come back to what Ahmad Maslan said. I see no evidence of the validity in these assertions. What was at work in Galas last week was pure retail politics not wholesale politics. When Muhyidin came the first time around, he was astonished at the muted and subdued air about the election.

Retail politics involve the articulation and championing of purely local issues. This is opposite to wholesale politics where, national issues not directly related to local situations are aired. Perhaps Ahmad Maslan should direct his mind to these concepts.

The Chinese in Desa Pulai were not more motivated by people distributing leaflets on the circumstances leading to the death of Teoh Beng Hock. I suspect they were remotely interested in the issue surrounding the shooting of the late Amirul in Shah Alam. Of course, these are indeed important issues to those immediately concerned but hardly in resonance with people in Galas. The loss of loved ones is not light matter.

Chinese in Desa Pulai were more interested in the security of their land tenure. They were more concerned about the affairs and future of their Chinese school. The Chinese and homeless people in Gua Musang are more interested in getting housing faculties. The fence sitters in Gua Musang are more interested in seeing Kesedar managed more efficiently and corruption weeded out.

If PAS and the other opposition parties to Umno rule had been more vigilant and had paid keener attention to local issues, they could have made a big impact. Like raising the issues on the management and abuses of Kesedar. But they didn’t. Gua Musangians are interested in this issue.

People in Gua Musang were more amused and probably entertained by the sight of Theresa Kok and her coworkers carrying DAP flags and banners around Bandar Lama Gua Musang.

My point is this. If we can and are eager to dismiss these attempts to foist national issues into ones of concern to local voters as useless irrelevance, the same ruling should be applied to the big idea, that this win in Galas is an endorsement of national leadership. No such thing.

This Galas by election is won on the influence of Tengku Razaleigh simpliciter and we are thankful he is an Umno man. The majority of Umno members in Gua Musang understood this and gave their all out.

The people in Gua Musang in general understood the strategic advantage of giving a win to Umno this time. Gua Musang is the only election area in Kelantan to have 100 per cent Umno/BN representation. PAS may grumble for a few days, but in the end sobriety will take over. Only permanent interests matter. — sakmongkol.blogspot.com

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

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 7 November 2010, 4:39 pm and is filed under
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Fraud, voter intimidation mar Burma vote

By
South-East Asia correspondent Zoe Daniel
, wires
–

ABC/Reuters

Updated 2 hours 34 minutes ago

Allegations of fraud and voter intimidation are overshadowing Burma’s first election in 20 years.

The allegations are not unexpected. Burma’s military leaders may have resigned to become civilians ahead of the poll but the lead up to the election has been rife with manipulation to make sure the junta’s party wins.

Election laws have banned the key opposition, ruled out some ethnic groups and quarantined a quarter of the parliament for the military.

Now there are allegations that voters have been threatened with job losses or even loss of citizenship if they do not vote for the ruling party.

Foreign media and observers have been banned from Burma for the election so its unclear how many people are voting.

Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s banned opposition has urged people to boycott the poll.

About 40,000 polling stations opened early this morning across Burma.

Three parties have made complaints about fraud, including one of the pro-military parties.

Britain’s ambassador in Burma, Andrew Heyn, says he does not think the elections are a sign of real change.

“There’s nothing in these elections themselves that could give us grounds for optimism,” he said.

“That doesn’t mean we turn our backs and walk away. We continue to press for progress after the elections and if that progress happens, we will of course welcome it. But in and of themselves, these elections don’t mark a step for progress.”

In Australia for ministerial talks, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton says the elections again expose the abuses of the country’s military rulers.

Ms Clinton says the people of Burma deserve better.

“We hope that perhaps out of these elections some leaders will emerge who know that Burma has to take a different track, that they cannot continue to do the same thing, and realise the potential of their people,” she said.

The election is the first since 1990, when pro-democracy candidates won by a landslide, a result ignored by the military junta which has ruled Burma for almost 50 years.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 7 November 2010, 6:18 pm and is filed under
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Hypocrisy of Ministers – appeal to rescind PPSMI policy

Letters

from
Sheela R

I am a mother with three school going children. My children who have greatly benefited from the PPSMI (policy for teaching Science and Maths in English) are alarmed at the impending switch to Bahasa Malaysia.

They have been in school for some years now and the prospect of changing a language midstream is “nothing short of disastrous” to them. (I have quoted them verbatim).

There has been a great hue and cry on this issue but the government has continued to maintain a maddening silence.  The reasons for continuing the PPSMI have been well elucidated in other websites and it is not my intention to reproduce them.

Instead, could you please highlight through your blogs or other means, the Ministers and politically connected persons’ children who are being educated at international schools and overseas, who have access to quality education in English?
Why must our children be victimised by this retrogressive move while their children continue to enjoy the advantages of a superior education?

Let the people realise the hypocrisy of our government’s policies once and for all.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 7 November 2010, 1:10 pm and is filed under
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Lim Kit Siang’s blog tops in number of hits

(Thanks to “Ewe Paik Leong, The Wordslinger ” for forwarding the following
blog
):

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Lim Kit Siang’s blog tops in number of hits

“Cubestat [cubestat.com] is a free and perfect tool for website value calculation, estimations and information. How does it work? You simply enter the domain url [in the box], our unique algorithm will calculate and estimate the website worth, daily pageviews and daily ads revenue of the present domain.”

Out of curiosity, one evening, I reckoned the number of hits for the blogs of our country’s more vocal politicians selected at random. Here are the results in descending order of pageviews:

No. 1

Name: Lim Kit Siang

Website Address: limkitsiang.com

Site age: 4 years

Website Worth: $44,472.33

Daily Pageviews: 20,307

Daily Ads Revenue: $60.92

No. 2

Name: Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad

Website Address: cedet.co.cc

Site Age: N/A

Website Worth: $26,028.15

Daily Pageviews: 11,885

Daily Ads Revenue: $35.66

No. 3

Name: Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahin

Website Address anwaribrahimblog.com

Site Age: 4 years

Website Worth: $25,699.65

Daily Pageviews: 11,735

Daily Ads Revenue: $35.21

No. 4

Name: Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak

Website Address: www.1malaysia.com.my

Site Age: N/A

Website Worth: $13,210.08

Daily Pageviews: 6,032

Daily Ads Revenue: $18.10

No. 5

Name: Tuan Guru Datuk Seri Haji Abdul Hadi Awang

Website Address: presiden.pas.org.my

Site Age: N/A

Website Worth: $5,337.03

Daily Pageviews: 2,437

Daily Ads Revenue: $7.31

No. 6

Name: Nurul Izzah

Website Address: nurulizzah.com

Website Worth: $3,120.75

Site Age: 4 years

Daily Pageviews: 1,425

Daily Ads Revenue: $4.28

No. 7

Name: Teresa Kok

Website Address: teresakok.com

Website Worth: $2,122.11

Site Age: 4 years

Daily Pageviews: 969

Daily Ads Revenue: $2.91

No. 8

Name: Tony Pua

Website address: tonypua.blogspot.com

Website Worth: $1,559.28

Site Age: N/A

Daily Pageviews: 712

Daily Ads Revenue: $2.14

No. 9

Name: Tuan Dato’ Haji Nik Abdul Aziz bin Nik Mat

Website Address: blogtokguru.com

Site Age: 8 months

Website Worth: $1,465.11

Daily Pageviews: 669

Daily Ads Revenue: $2.01

No. 10

Name: Lim Guan Eng

Website Address: limguaneng.com

Site Age: 3 years

Website Worth: $1,373.13

Daily Pageviews: 627

Daily Ads Revenue: $1.88

No. 11

Name: Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar

Website Address: http://www.rembau.net.my/

Site age: N/A

Website Worth: $1,314.00

Daily Pageviews: 600

Daily Ads Revenue: $1.80

No. 12

Name: Hannah Yeoh

Website Address: hannahyeoh.blogspot.com

Website Worth: $1,053.39

Site Age: N/A

Daily Pageviews: 481

Daily Ads Revenue: $1.44

No. 13

Name: Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek

Website Address: drchua9.blogspot.com

Site Age: N/A

Website Worth: $1,029.30

Daily Pageviews: 470

Daily Ads Revenue: $1.41

No. 14

Name: Elizabeth Wong

Website Address: elizabethwong.wordpress.com

Website Worth: $558.45

Site Age: N/A

Daily Pageviews: 255

Daily Ads Revenue: $0.77

No. 15

Name: Fong Poh Kuan

Website Address: pokuan.blogsome.com/

Site Age: N/A

Website Worth: $363.54

Daily Pageviews: 166

Daily Ads Revenue: $0.50

No. 16

Name: Dato’ Sri Dr Ng Yen Yen

Website Address: www.drngyenyen.com/blog

Site Age: 3 years

Website Worth: $361.35

Daily Pageviews: 165

Daily Ads Revenue: $0.50

No. 17

Name: Ustaz Nasrudin Hasan

Website address: ustaznasrudin-tantawi.blogspot.com

Website Worth: $291.27

Site Age: N/A

Daily Pageviews: 133

Daily Ads Revenue: $0.40

No. 18

Name: Karpal Singh

Website Address: www.karpalsingh.net

Site Age: 3 years

Website Worth: $278.13

Daily Pageviews: 127

Daily Ads Revenue: $0.38

No. 19

Name: Datuk Dr. Wee Ka Siong

Website Address: kasiong.blogspot.com

Website Worth: $232.14

Site Age: N/A

Daily Pageviews: 106

Daily Ads Revenue: $0.32

N.B. I was unable to trace Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s blog except for his official website. At the time of writing this posting, calculations for the blogs of Datuk Seri Wan Azizah, Tan Sri Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, Datuk G. Palanivel, M. Kulasegaran and Gobind Deo Singh were unable to be performed by cubestat.com.

/end

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 7 November 2010, 9:04 am and is filed under
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Support a UN Commission of Inquiry into international crimes in Myanmar not next weekend’s general election

OPEN LETTER TO ASEAN LEADERS

Your Excellencies,

The 17th ASEAN Summit has concluded, and, as elected representatives of the peoples of ASEAN, we are disappointed by its outcome and by your passivity in the face of this weekend’s election in Myanmar.

The election is about to be conducted under a new constitution, enacted in 2008, which was drafted by an assembly whose members were handpicked by the country’s current ruling military regime and conducted without open and inclusive input from the people of Myanmar. The constitution is designed to assure the continued dominance of the military regime under the guise of a democratically elected civilian government, notably reserving one-quarter of seats in parliament for the military.

Additionally, five electoral laws and four decrees promulgated earlier this year violate democratic principles by restricting current political prisoners, including Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and other key leaders of the country’s democracy and ethnic movement, from participating in the polls.

In light of this, Myanmar’s general election can in no way be acknowledged as conforming to internationally accepted standards of freedom and fairness. They are a farce and a non-election for the country’s people. Your hopes that Myanmar will open up the process and create conditions conducive to free and fair elections less than a week before they are due to take place are therefore misguided.

During your deliberations in Hanoi, you also failed to take into account the continued detention of more than 2,200 political prisoners, ongoing armed conflicts, tensions and abuses in ethnic nationality areas and the absence of dialogue between all stakeholders in Myanmar’s political process. As we have already stated to you, we do not believe that elections under oppression can bring peace. Instead, they are a route to increasing violence and growing instability.

As members of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC), we urge you not to support Myanmar’s upcoming election, nor should you accept or acknowledge in any way as legitimate the results of this election.

As a signatory to the ASEAN Charter, Myanmar has agreed to support and uphold certain principles, including adherence to the principles of democracy and constitutional government and the promotion and protection of human rights. Myanmar is clearly failing to uphold the principles to which it agreed when signing the Charter.

ASEAN should no longer let itself be fooled. All the evidence suggests the 2010 election will simply entrench military rule with a civilian face. Instead of pinning any hopes on this election, we urge you to support an international call for a Commission of Inquiry under UN auspices to look into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Myanmar and to work for the establishment of such a commission of inquiry at this moment and not after the holding of elections that do not meet international standards.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made public the U.S. government’s commitment to seek accountability for the human rights violations that have occurred in Myanmar. Her call for action on 28 October, 2010 in Hawaii marks a commitment by the U.S. to move from rhetoric to action towards addressing gross and systematic violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law in Myanmar. In this, she is already joined by more than 12 governments worldwide who have publicly voiced their support for such a commission of inquiry in Myanmar.

We now expect you to act. We urge you to support the EU annual Myanmar resolution at the United Nations General Assembly, which is currently in session in New York, and to be among the nations committed to the establishment of an international commission of inquiry in Myanmar.

It is sometimes said that such a commission of inquiry could be counterproductive and derail the process of peaceful democratization in Myanmar. This is a false dichotomy.

We could not agree more with the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Tomas Ojea Quintana, who recently stated to the UN General Assembly that “failing to act on accountability in Myanmar will embolden the perpetrators of international crimes and further postpone long-overdue justice”.

It is time to reconsider the notion of ASEAN solidarity. Solidarity – brotherhood and sisterhood – cannot be built on a foundation of repression and harsh human rights violations. ASEAN solidarity should be for the people of Myanmar whose fate lies in the hands of a brutal military regime. ASEAN’s tolerance of the brutality of the regime and the regime’s manipulation of ASEAN’s principle of solidarity sets a bad precedence for efforts to ensure ASEAN accountability to human rights principles and standards.

We urge you to heed the call of the UN Special Rapporteur to act. Justice and democracy go together. There can be no democracy in Myanmar without an end to abuses and impunity.

Sincerely yours,

Kraisak Choonhavan

President, ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus

Fully endorsed by all AIPMC national chapters, in Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

Done in Bangkok, 4 November 2010

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 7 November 2010, 11:16 am and is filed under
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The thing about viewpoints

Letters

by
Goh Keat Peng

As I read a sports commentary on England vs NZ All-Blacks, it becomes quite clear how the view from an onlooker looking down from his seat in the terraces of Twickenham Stadium and that of a player on the field is really very different.

“…a fast flat pass left from Youngs then put Mike Tindall in space on the Kiwi 22, the old battering-ram hesitated, dawdled inside and then threw a change-of-heart pass behind Lewis Moody on the outside. Chances made, chances lost,” writes Tom Fordyce, the famous sports commentator featured on the BBC website.

This to me sums up quite well the difference in viewpoints within the same arena. Both commentator and player were in the same stadium at the same time engrossed in the same game. But one was up there on the terrace able to see at once the entire field and all the 30 men plus three match officials; the other was on the field where the match is in ongoing progress. The two men literally have two very different points of view, not just in terms of sight but also insight. Understandably so.

Almost at once as I read Tom Fordyce’s insightful commentary on a rugby test match between two giant teams, I am brought back from faraway Twickenham to the present-day realities of Malaysian politics.

It becomes for me like a parable as to how we view the going-ons of the national political scene. Depending on which side we are rooting for, we are filled with a mixture of emotions- hope? foreboding? glee? despair? humour? disgust? Just like the team you support in the Premiership, or Super Bowl, or Tri-Nations. Real matches and games are being played out before us (on television) the outcomes of which may send us into ecstasy or embarassment or, as in politics, sedition charges!

In recent months, chiefly because of much news about a certain political party’s internal elections of office-bearers as well as a series of by-elections, comments have been prolific. (Even this writer could not resist to say his piece as evidenced in his IS WAYNE ROONEY NOW PLAYING IN PKR?)

In saying our piece, though, we “commentators” must be somewhat circumscribe and try to be a little reasonable. I often catch myself in a “this one can do no wrong and that one can do no right” mode. Rather like in those chauvinistic cowboy movies where the “only good red indian is a dead one” kind of thing. Fortunately, the truth is not to be found in such one-sided viewpoints.

Some humility must be there that we commentators are after all only spectators watching a match in progress. Despite our vantage points from the terraces looking down, even we are only able to focus on the play in a certain spot at a given time (usually where the ball is) and do not always know the exact positions of all the players all of the time. On the other hand, the player we are following is not only seeing and reading the game on the ground but his vision on a flat pitch is limited too, if not more so. Who to pass the ball to is a decision he has to make at a given time and at an instant. Through the team practice and training, certain patterns of play becomes familiar to the team. But the decision who to pass the ball to on either side of him and when to pass on the ball or to run the ball himself is, on match day, the player’s alone to make. We who are onlookers in the terraces can think, say and act as we wish; even think we are absolutely right and the player, absolutely wrong. But only the players are doing all the playing, deciding and kicking. One is sitting quite comfortably watching the progress of a match; the other is running his heart out playing the match.

Commentators, spectators and players- we all need to acknowledge and appreciate one another’s viewpoints. We need to make better effort to have a healthy respect for one another’s contribution.

The players know they are, unlike God, not omniscient (all-knowing), nor omnipresent (present in all places at the same time) , nor omnipotent (all powerful). The question is whether we as onlookers know the same. (Or is it the other way round?) Players or onlookers who actually think, feel and act as though we are like God will necessarily bite the dust before long- whichever side we support. One-sided views do not make a match winner.

Here are some views of the rugby test match from those much more involved in the actual action than the commentators from the stands:

“You will always make errors – they made two or three too – but we made too many,” admitted Johnson (the England coach), pragmatic as always.

“At vital times, especially in defence, we gave the ball away too easily by trying to do too much sometimes,” said McCaw (the NZ captain). “Those are the decisions we’ve got to get right if we’re going to improve. There’s a learning we have to take out of the last two weeks. There’s time in the game when that’s the right thing to do, and there’s time when hanging on to the ball for one more phase is the right thing to do. Risk versus reward is the thing we need to get under control.”

And this is how Tom Fordyce, sports writer, sums it up:

“In a strange way, Johnson has it easier than All Blacks coach Graham Henry. No-one expects Johnson’s England side to win the World Cup – a semi-final place would be beyond most expectations. For Henry, by contrast, there’s only one outcome that will count as success. Fail to win the old gold pot on home soil (next year’s Rugby Union World Cup hosted by NZ) and this long unbeaten run in the northern hemisphere, let alone the nine wins on the trot against England, will count for nothing. Those worries are for another night. For now, the contrast is clear. England showed glimpses of what they might achieve. The All Blacks, to an outsider’s eyes at least, revealed close to the full picture.”

You see how close and alike politics is to sports?

So what is the lesson of this parable? Onlookers should stop making comments? Spectators should stop watching games? Coaches should stopped their ears and ignore the comments and stubbornly go their own path- win or lose? Players should retire from the game especially when they lose to their opponents? Clubs should change their owners?

Yes in some cases; not necessarily so in others; of course not in a few instances. In the game of politics, one match is not the end- win or lose. We all need to continue to stay with the tournament till the end. As to which player/s we should bring into the team to buttress and augment team performance, even Alex Ferguson himself had brought in, as it turned out, some lame ducks not worth the money spent to secure them. And look at the so-called non-entities he brought in who cost little but grew up in and with the club and made good. Who says that those who stay longest in the club are not making enormous contributions?

Unlike rugby or any other sport, politics affect all in the country-every single one of us. We don’t watch also the match goes on and affects my life and yours and our loved ones.

My worry reading the commentaries and comments these days is that the negativity and ridicule of the reporting puts off interest in high stake politics of the country and once more we common people may eventually throw up our hands in frustration and surrender the struggle to career politicians. Or worse still, drive away some good or promising career politicians and leave the field to the ones who never scored any goals nor keep the undesired goals out for us the people.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 7 November 2010, 1:37 pm and is filed under
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Welcome to the feast of fools

by
Hafidz Baharom

The Malaysian Insider

November 07, 2010

So the United Malay Nationalists met up the other day for what seemed to be a dressed-up annual general assembly that brought nothing new since they re-formed in 1988 supposedly as the new Umno.

Yet another rebranding procedure then, no doubt. But then again so is 1 Malaysia, right?

Meanwhile, all of us Malaysian nationalists looked on at hour upon hour of nothing more than a repeat of their best hits and misses. The usual same old, same old was all there; don’t mess with Malay rights, don’t question the Malay privileges in the Constitution and, of course, ban all sanitary pad commercials from television for promoting perverted thoughts.

That was, of course, from the firebrand bimbo wing. Permit me to say this; this was the dumbest strategy to win back the female Malay Muslim votes. Even Muslimah PAS were rolling their eyes under their burqas.

Meanwhile, the Umno chairman decided that it was necessary to tell off the Malaysian Chinese Association leader for questioning Malay rights. Is it just me, or does the term Malay rights mean the Malay race are superhuman, or something, in comparison to us other human beings?

In addition to this, there was even a call from the Perlis Umno delegate to create an ulama wing within Umno. Because there’s nothing really bad about politicising religion, right? What could happen?

Was increasing the imams’ allowance to RM750 merely an attempt to lift them out of poverty, or was that the government trying to buy votes usually given to PAS?

Then there was the Wanita Umno representative who pointed out that while there were 33,777 non-Malay teachers in national schools, there were only 2,245 Malay teachers in SJKT and SJKC. In fact, she even bothered to quote the statistics for the number of national schools (5,881), Chinese Schools (1,291) and Tamil Schools (523).

What she did not quote was the racial ratios that also take place in the placement at schools. Or even the performance of the teachers in accordance to race. Or perhaps in this case, the parents who are members of Umno’s perception of public schools, in comparison to private schools and why they prefer the latter.

All in all it was an affair with great pomp(ous) and vigour, with stalls in place making it more of a festival than a general meeting. If anything, it reminded me of Disney’s “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

The scene during the Feast of Fools.

Only instead of having a competition to see the ugliest face in all of France, what we had was who could mention the stupidest way a political party could fight for racial privileges. And I think we all can say that Puteri Umno and their sanitary pad fetish takes the gold.

But of course, these were all mere side shows to the main event.

The arrival… of Zizie Izette, of course.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 7 November 2010, 4:17 pm and is filed under
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Kit Siang sues NSTP over ‘Umno kafir’ report

By
Hafiz Yatim

Nov 8, 2010

Malaysiakini

DAP advisor Lim Kit Siang has filed a defamation suit against New Straits Times Press (M) Bhd over a report published by its Malay-language daily Berita Harian on Tuesday.

The suit was filed by senior lawyer Karpal Singh.

The Ipoh Timor MP, in his statement of claim, alleged that the report was malicious and false in claiming that he had branded Umno as kafir (infidels), particularly in light of ongoing campaigning then for the Galas by-election.

Claiming that the respondent had failed to verify the facts, Lim said the report claimed that he had given a speech at Kesedar Sungai Terah, when he had not.

The report, he said, could be construed to mean that he had interfered in Islamic affairs and that he was guilty of sedition in making the alleged remark.

Another possible meaning was that he intended to sow hatred in a plural society and that he was an irresponsible politician.

In his statement of claim, Lim said the report was directed to lower his self-esteem and position.

For this, he is seeking general and aggravated damages for libel, as well as interest and costs of the action.

He also said a ralat (correction) published by Berita Harian on Thursday could be used as admission.

Karpal later said he would file a notice of action against Malacca Chief Minister Mohd Ali Rustam to verify whether or not he had commented on the matter, as quoted by Berita Harian.

This will be sent to Mohd Ali tomorrow, giving him seven days to reply.

“We will consider our next course of action following Ali’s reply – whether he apologises or denies making such a statement,” added Karpal.

‘Investigate the reports’

Lim later said the newspaper had shown lack of sensitivity and carelessness in what it published.

“This goes beyond Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s 1Malaysia concept (which requires) being sensitive to all races, as we live in a multi-religious society,” he said.

Karpal also renewed calls for new Inspector-General of Police Ismail Omar to quickly investigate the matter as several reports have been lodged.

“There is not only civil liability but also sedition and criminal defamation,” he claimed.

“DAP will not sit back (if there are any more similar incidents), let’s make this clear.”

Last Tuesday, Berita Harian had quoted Ali as saying that the DAP and Lim have become braver by asserting that Umno members are kafir.

The daily issued a correction two days later.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 8 November 2010, 5:09 pm and is filed under
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TK is not OK

By
Martin Jalleh

Political Irony of the day

Today, in The Star we read of former Gerakan President Lim Keng Yaik (KY) telling his protégé Koh Tsu Koon (TK) not to stay longer than he is welcome. Tsu Koon has been the president of Gerakan for only about three years, Keng Yaik has been at the top of the party for 27 years! Who has been overstaying?

For the younger generation who do not know who Lim Keng Yaik is, well his last Cabinet post was Minister of Energy, Water and Communications. Reporters would be ready to attest to the fact that KY was a very communicative Minister with lots of energy and “water” to spare!

The old man must have forgotten that four years ago he told The Star: “When I took over from Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu in 1980, they said, this KY will not be able to measure up to Chong Eu. I think I can now safely beg to defer. No two persons are alike. I told him (TK) to be himself just as I was myself.” As you can see, KY is still very much himself!

Meanwhile, the young “backdoor” Minister who has been besieged by KY for  “burying his head in the sand” and “bringing the party to the dogs” barked and brayed loudly today that Gerakan, far from being a party that is hopeless  — is a party of “honourable, honest and humble leaders”.  What a heap of hype and humbug from a man trying hopelessly hard to whip a dead horse!

TK promised to change his laid back “tai chi” leadership style to a more aggresive (hardened form of kungfu) — the “praying mantis” kungfu. Perhaps the “drunken monkey” style may be more suitable?

                This entry was posted on Monday, 8 November 2010, 12:31 pm and is filed under
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Upholding the nation’s origins

By
Clive Kessler

NOV 8 — Their royal highnesses, the Rulers of the Malay states, following their recent October meeting as the Conference of Rulers, have urged all Malaysians to heed the nation’s history. Citizens, they remind us, must recognise the obligation upon all Malaysians to share the land and its benefits equitably. Their highnesses accordingly call upon all Malaysians to respect and uphold “the social contract”.

More recently, in his regular “Reflecting on the Law” column in The Star (“Unifying Role of the Rulers”, November 3), the nation’s leading constitutional scholar Prof Shad Saleem Faruqi voiced a similar plea. Again, he insists, history must be acknowledged, it cannot be denied. There is no skirting around its legacy. The land and its bounty are to be shared in a fashion that is mindful of and faithful to the nation’s historical foundations. All the nation’s citizens, both Malay and non-Malay in their various historically distinctive ways born of how they became incorporated into the one shared nation, are stakeholders in the nation, its present benefits and future destiny.

The same message of historical awareness and responsibility, according to a recent column by Dr Mohd Ridhuan Tee Abdullah in Utusan Malaysia (“Sifat Toleransi Kerana Islam”, October 31), has been voiced by two leading Malaysian scholars of Chinese origins, the eminent historian Prof Khoo Kay Kim and the linguist (and lively Berita Harian columnist) Prof Teo Kok Seong.

There is nothing particularly controversial in what all these various guardians of the national conscience and heritage declare. No responsible political actor or commentator seriously questions these basic ideas. They are widely held.

And yet … The nation is nonetheless still caught up in lively debate, and marked by serious political differences, over these issues.

Why? Because while there is little dissent over the essentials that the Rulers and national scholars have in common affirmed, there still remain some significant differences concerning what those commonly agreed essentials, what we might call the “national fundamentals”, mean and imply.

Eager to uphold national sovereignty and harmony, the Malay Rulers, in their recent statement following their October meeting, expressed the hope that “the people will not allow outside involvement and interference in the country’s affairs”. So I perhaps comment on these matters now, as in the past, at my peril. Not a Malaysian citizen, I may be one of those whom the leading journalist Datuk Kadir Jasin, in the volatile time leading to the 1999 national elections, branded in the New Straits Times as “clueless outsiders”. But one can only speak of the truth as one sees it. And a person of character not only can but must do so.

Shad urges everybody to heed the Malay Rulers’ call to honour the “social contract” that is the basis of the Constitution and through it the nation — a constitution in which their royal highnesses have a pivotal role, an acknowledged standing and in-built position.

What kind of a role, standing, and position these are — to what degree they are symbolic and in what measure politically instrumental, and, where instrumental or “effective”, to what extent their royal highnesses are to be seen as capable of autonomous political action on their own behalf and in what measure they are there more to “be” than to “do”, or simply to serve as the personified embodiments of constitutional principle and the Constitution itself — are significant questions. Matters of heated contestation in Malaysia over the last three decades, these are questions that will not be addressed here.

Setting those questions aside, let us return to the now central idea of the “social contract”. This is what their royal highnesses’ recent statement invokes. This is an idea or phrase that is also used by Shad and Ridhuan Tee as well as by many contemporary political actors especially from Umno and Perkasa.

They all use it to “telescope” together or summarise other things: namely and notably, their view of the nation’s foundations and the manner whereby those negotiated foundations of nationhood, patiently worked through in the “Merdeka process” of the years 1955-1957, were expressed in, and made effective by the promulgation of, the Merdeka Constitution.

The term “social contract” is now used as, and has become for some, a standard “portmanteau term” or summary label for that Merdeka process, for its terms and what the process of agreeing to them as the basis of modern national sovereignty involved.

But, it should be clear, it is a term not of that time but of this, of ours now.

The idea of a “social contract”, in those words or terms, is nowhere to be found in and is no part of the Constitution’s language. Nor was that expression at the time any part of the deliberations and negotiations (“the Merdeka process and agreements”) that made the adoption and promulgation of the Constitution, and hence the creation of nation upon which it stands, possible.

The term “social contract” is a later construction. It is not part of the Constitution but retrospectively offers a certain subsequent — a very partisan and contested — political interpretation of its meaning (namely, that which was famously articulated by Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad in his “Ketuanan Melayu” speech in Singapore in 1986).

Now inseparably associated with that much more recently created notion of “Ketuanan Melayu” which Abdullah promoted in that same address, the idea of “the Malaysian social contract” is a retrospective, partisan and revisionist notion (or “reading”) of the essence of national constitutional principle that some have wished to “read back into” the Constitution.

By recourse to this means, this conceptual manoeuvre, they seek to “read back” into the Constitution itself not only the idea of the “social contract” but also its associated companion notion of “Ketuanan Melayu”. In this way, with this stratagem, they are able “read out” these contested notions from the Constitution as if they were there. They pursue this recourse of contriving to find these notions already implicitly embedded there precisely because they are not, and never were, there in the first place.

The “social contract” and “Ketuanan Melayu” are “read back into” the Constitution and not, as this argumentative stratagem and those who employ it seek to suggest, “read off from it”. They must be “read back” into the Constitution, by means of a kind of after-the-event conceptual “smuggling” operation, by creative anachronism designed to serve the ends of a disguised revisionism.

All Malaysians need to be clear — fastidiously clear and precise — about this point. There is no comfort, no support, no entrenched precedental foundation in any of this for the creatively anachronistic, the retrospectively revisionist, the doctrinally expansionist notions that the “new Malaysian social contract theorists” and champions of the notion of “Ketuanan Melayu” seek to find — and happily imagine that they can see — in the foundational constitutional guarantees of modern Malaysian nationhood.

Ironically, the key protagonists on both sides of this centrally important question are agreed that both the spirit and the letter of the agreements reached as the basis for the nation’s founding moment in 1957 must be upheld and honoured.

There is no difference over that point. Both sides insist upon it. But the two sides disagree fundamentally about what those agreements and their implications, what their letter and animating spirit, were.

On the one side are those who for long spoke of, and affirmed their allegiance to, the “Merdeka agreements” that emerged from the “Merdeka process” and the “Merdeka negotiations”. They see those agreements as laying down, with clear and conscious intent, the foundations for an emerging democratic, progressive and secular multiethnic society and nation.

That was for long not only the “orthodox” or conventional view of the matter but the only one that could be given any credence — that had any support, any claim to be taken seriously. It was not just the “default” position but the only one on offer, the only one to be considered.

But from 1986, a different view began to be developed, voiced and promoted, one based upon Abdullah Ahmad’s radical reconceptualisation of the foundations and character of Malaysian nationhood. This view saw the national Constitution that emerged from the Merdeka process as having been advisedly designed and pre-adapted, from the outset, to serve certain subsequently advanced claims of Malay ascendancy in national life.

The Merdeka negotiations and process, in the view of these later thinkers, had solemnised — within what they retrospectively saw and named as a “Malaysian social contract” — their own more recently crafted ideas of “Ketuanan Melayu”.

For them, both the originating legitimation for the broad agenda of “Malay political ascendancy in perpetuity”, and also the crucial enabling mechanisms for asserting and implementing it institutionally, were somehow deeply embedded or powerfully “hard-wired” within the Constitution itself.

As part of a foundational “Malaysian social contract”, the new doctrine asserted, they had been implanted there, by common agreement of all parties including all member organisations of the Alliance Party, from the time of post-imperial national birth by those pre-independence negotiations. For them it was the joint legacy of Malaya’s “Midnight’s Children”.

“Ketuanan Melayu”, Malay social ascendancy and political domination, were accordingly, on this reading, part of the darah-daging, the very flesh and sinew, of the nation. Both explicit and implicit, stated and implied, spirit and letter, tersurat and tersirat, they were intertwined and integral parts of the Constitution itself.

Both sides see as politically “sacred” the nation’s founding moment, the Constitution promulgated at its founding moment, and the processes that made agreement to the adoption of that constitution possible. Both insist that the nation’s founding dispensation be upheld and honoured. They simply disagree — and disagree vehemently — over what that founding national covenant stated and now means, what its essential terms are.

The Constitution and the nationally focal “Merdeka moment” from which it emerged are what philosophers refer to as “essentially contested ideas”. They have become so as a result of the promotion, three decades after Merdeka itself, of a radical reinterpretation of modern nationhood. By its “rebranding” of the Merdeka agreements as the “social contract”, this new view reads the notion of Malay ascendancy, through its association with those new ideas of an originating “social contract”, into the fabric of the nation and the terms of the Constitution itself.

This latter process is circular, not unlike the children’s party game of a treasure hunt. You only end up finding what you have yourself placed there to be later found. Without your efforts to implant it there and make it conveniently available, it would not be there to find. But the illusion — the appearance that it has been there, waiting all the time and available to be found by those who seek it in sincere and truthful determination — is beguilingly created.

The country, notably its major political elements, are these days divided not between those who uphold the social contract and those who would prefer to repudiate it. All sides, all the main political actors and commentators want what they see the nation’s foundational covenant as they see it — labelled by some as the “social contract” and by others, for much longer, as the “Merdeka agreements” — honoured. The problem, theirs and the nation’s, is that they disagree fundamentally what those agreements are, what that “contract” is, what the nation’s foundational covenant says and means.

*
Clive S. Kessler is Emeritus Professor, Sociology and Anthropology at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 8 November 2010, 5:01 pm and is filed under
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A Reply to the Ampas Man

Letters

I hate N’Sync

To begin with, lets get something straight – P. Ramlee should not have wallowed in poverty or died penniless. However, the Ampas Man seems to have forgotten that such tragedies are still happening everyday to famous artists all around the world. The author seems to have conveniently forgotten that P. Ramlee signed contracts with Shaw Brothers who produced his films and any royalty from his body of work would have been subjected to the original terms. Recording companies own the right for most of his songs, and till this day, that’s how the way music royalties work. Isaac Hayes, Goo Goo Dolls, TLC, Toni Braxton, Jerry Lee Lewis, Marvin Gaye, Run DMC are but some notable examples of multiplatinum artists who have declared bankruptcy or was in financial trouble.

The great composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died penniless and left beind a huge debt too.

Some may have rightly noted that the fortunes of our stars (and their profligacy, where applicable) should not be guaranteed by the government, especially since it is also your money as well (if you are a tax payer like myself). However, to insinuate that P. Ramlee made a wrong move to leave Singapore and blame all his subsequent box office failures on the Malaysian government (and the lack of local expertise and “talent”) speak volumes of the author’s lack of knowledge, understanding and misguided imagination about the history of modern cinema in Malaysia. The Ampas Man must have forgotten how the Malay cinema, or cinema in the Malayan region operated at that time.

During the studio era (1947 – 1977), Shaw Brothers and Cathay-Keris “virtually controlled the whole industry” and “the distributive/ exhibition sector in Malaysia largely remained monopolistic because the same companies distributed local and imported films and also owned the cinema chains throughout the country” (William Van der Heide, 2002, p. 117). Kahn (2001) pointed out that “Shaw Brothers prevented the productions of other companies from showing in peninsular cinemas which they effectively monopolised” (p. 101). Van der Heide (2002) even went as far as to claim that “the success of these films, was undoubtedly the result of Shaw Brother’s stranglehold on the exhibition sector that they had bought up before the war” (p. 133). It was pure business when Shaw Brothers crippled Seruan Merdeka at the box office. In the 1950s, the typical pattern was “for films to be produced by Chinese capital (Shaw Brothers), directed by Indians, with ‘Malay-ised’ versions of Indian and Chinese plots, and acted by Malaysia speaking in Malay” (Kahn, 2001). P. Ramlee was aboard MFB (Malay Film Productions) during this period (1948 – 1955) and rode on its formulaic popularity.

It was not until P. Ramlee’s arrival in his directorial debut (Penarik Becha, 1956) that truly marked the beginning of the rise of “Malay creative control” (Van der Heide, 2002). This happened within the studio system. Merdeka studio came into being in the early 1960s and is the first production company headed by mostly Malay Malaysians. To say that it had no talent is an insult to the likes of L. Krishnan, who was with Shaw Brothers and directed the first film P. Ramlee starred in. L. Krishnan was also with Cathay-Keris before joining Merdeka Studio in KL. To quote Wikipedia, “It had a meagre beginning, but once the top stars started their exodus from the two Singapore studios, its growth surged dramatically. …The Shaw Brothers dispatched some of their Singapore film directors, among them L. Krishnan, P. Ramlee and Salleh Ghani, Jamil Sulong, Omer Rojik, S. Kadarisman, Sudarmaji, Naz Achnas, M. Amin and Datuk Jins Shamsudin, to make films at Merdeka”.

What really killed the studio business was the increase in production cost (including colour films), regional competition (Indonesian, Indian and Hongkong) and the influx of foreign films, not to mention the advent of the idiot box (television). Shaw Brothers actually took over Merdeka Studio itself in 1966, but local films have already lost its competitiveness by then. Shaw Brothers would close its studies in 1968 and Cathay-Keris did the same in 1972, as the local Malay film scene shifted to Kuala Lumpur into the hands of independent (Bumiputera) filmakers. Please, it wasn’t a Singapore-based or Malayan-based problem. Raj Kapoor would soon make a storm with Bobby in 1973, and together with Bruce Lee in the Big Boss, 1971, they all but wiped out the demand for local films who already have trouble keeping up. The Malaysian government bought the Merdeka studio in 1985 to house FINAS.

Rather than harping on the past and making non-existent connections, we should look carefully at what has been happening to the local film industry. Recently, local films started to make money because the audience and demand grew. However, most of the quality is uneven because it is still a relatively risky investment (unless you have strong financial backing). The late Yasmin Ahmad has shown us that with the Orked trilogy (Sepet, Gubra and Mukhsin) that we have many capable filmakers (or dabblers, as she used to say) with beautiful stories to tell. Today, independent Malaysian filmakers are making a comeback against the rising tide of box-office driven spiel made by some local production houses that, to borrow Hishamuddin Rais’s expression, “bonsified” the Malaysian audience. If the Ampas Man read anything about the current FINAS board controversy, he would realize the problem that P. Ramlee faced back then is still around today, which is financing films and struggling for creative control – a norm of the industry worldwide (Hollywood included). It is true that P. Ramlee’s films after 1964 with Merdeka Studio was not as big as his past successes, but times change and he did enjoyed a good run. P. Ramlee’s creative successes was with comedies and melodramas, and perhaps it wasn’t easy to find financial commitment to bankroll his subsequent films. One thing we DO know is that after Shaw Brothers and Cathay-Keris closed shop, Singapore’s local filmaking industry did not really quite recover (please don’t give me Jack Neo’s films as examples).

If history of filmaking in Malaysia has anything to offer, it is the lesson that we need to groom local talent to produce quality films. Some movies sell better than others, but performance at the box-office is not the one-all indicator of success. You want a thriving, vibrant and inclusive local film industry, you need to invest in it. P. Ramlee, like Sudirman after him, are all great Malaysians beloved by many. Stop abusing our memory of him to further narrow and parochial political games. He could have been a politician, true, but luckily he remained true to his art and profession. Instead of taking the opportunity to shine the spotlight on the local filmaking and music industry in Malaysia, the Ampas Man unfortunately decided to make P. Ramlee a case study to disparage the Malaysian government over the recently launched Talent Corporation. Whether it is for brain gain or brain circulation, please leave P. Ramlee out of this, thank you. With Malaysians (or ex-Malaysians?) like these, who need enemies?

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 9 November 2010, 7:59 am and is filed under
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Gani Patail stand accused of fabricating evidence in the Anwar Ibrahim “black eye” investigation in 1998, which stands unrebutted although made by the police officer responsible for the investigation 12 years ago

On April 14, 2010, in response to my statement “Call for RCI to conduct full inquiry on whether Israeli agents had infiltrated Bukit Aman” posted on my blog on April 10, 2010, I received following email from one Datuk Mat Zain bin Ibrahim, which said among other things:

“First and foremost let me declare that I was the Investigation Officer of the infamous “black-eye” incident,which need no further elaboration.

“My response are confined to certain remarks only which YB made in the above article,that are reproduced below;

“A good case in point was the 1998 “black-eyes” attack on Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim by the then Inspector-General of Police in the very inner sanctum of Bukit Aman, just some fortnight after losing his high positions as Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister.

The top police leadership even got the then Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad to declare publicly that Anwar’s “black eyes” could be self-inflicted, when Anwar was nearly beaten to death by the then Inspector-General in Bukit Aman!

Finally, only an independent Royal Commission Inquiry could delve out the truth about Anwar’s “black-eyes” assault”

“I have to say it point blank that YB’s remarks as above are incorrect. I can’t blame YB for having made such remarks since you did not have sight nor would you ever be allowed to have sight of the investigation paper (IP)which I put up. However for YB’s benefit,I would suggest you have a look at the copy of my letter dated 15.4.2009 which I wrote to the Advisory Board and the various Committees of MACC,to have a better understanding of what exactly transpired during the course of the investigation.

“I can vouch that the top Police leadership too never saw the IP. I never briefed them nor took any instructions from them pertaining to the black-eye investigation. I was totally independent. I dealt direct with the AG’s rep. Tan Sri Abdul Ghani Patail (then Dato Gani Patail a senior DPP in AG’s Chambers ) and no others.

“It is also not correct for YB to say that top police leadership that got to (Dato Seri Dr.Mahathir Mohamed, the PM then (TDM), to declare publicly that Anwar’s black-eye was self-inflicted. It was I who met TDM on 8.10.1998 at about 8.15 am at the PM’s office.(that was less than two weeks from the time I was appointed the I.O.) I told TDM without hesitation that DSAI’s black-eye was due to assault and that the assailant was Tan Sri Rahim Noor (TSRN) himself. And that no one abetted TSRN. I gave my word to TDM that there would not be any cover-up in the investigation and that the IP would be completed in two weeks time,from then, and  handed over to the AG for further actions.

“I must say that YB’s remark saying that only after the RCI was formed that the truth was known is also incorrect. In fact the assailant in this case was identified by the Police themselves which I conveyed to TDM on 8.10.1998.

“I have to state in defense of the Police that PDRM are able to conduct a ‘no-holds-barred’ investigation and the IP in point was the probe into the black-eye incident 1998. I assure YB that the comments I made above were all recorded in detail in the Investigation Diary (ID) and the special running report to the AG’s Chambers which are still in the IP. Some parts are attached to my letter dated 15.4.2009 to the MACC.

“One must follow the events that led to the establishment of the RCI by the Govt.in order to appreciate why it was set up. In short, the delay in completion of the investigation was due to the unprofessional manner the IP was handled by the AG Chambers, and in particular by Tan Sri Gani Patail himself. I can say without fear of favour that if  there were misleads then it was Gani Patail who misled and if there was manipulations of evidence then it was he who initiated them.

“PDRM’s position regarding this investigation was firm in that it shall be done without fear or favour and to leave no stone unturned and to get it over as soon as possible irrespective of whoever the assailant be. That was what exactly we did and it was I who recommended to charge TSRN under Section 323 Penal Code for assaulting DSAI well before the RCI was set up.

“YB is fully aware that DSAI have lodged a report on 1.7.2008 alleging 4 individuals namely Gani Patail, Musa Hassan, one Dr.Abdul Rahman Yusof and myself to be involved in fabricating evidence in the black-eye investigations. This case was investigated by MACC.

“On 11.3.2009 YB Nazri Aziz  announced in Parliament that a three-member Independent Panel appointed as DPPs under the CPC by the Solicitor General to study the investigation into DSAI’s allegations cleared Gani Patail and Musa Hassan of any wrong-doing. YB Nazri also mentioned that the Panel’s decision on Musa Hassan was “unanimous”(3-0) whilst on Gani Patail by “a majority”(2-1).

(The three persons appointed were two former Federal Court judges and one former Court of Appeal judge, viz: Datuk Abdul Kadir Sulaiman, Datuk Wira Mohd Noor Ahmad an Datuk Mohd Noor Abdullah).

 “For YB’s information, it was the result of this announcement that I wrote the 15.4.2009  letter to the Advisory Board of MACC. Among the issues I raised was that DSAI alleged 4 people to have fabricated the evidence but the Panel ‘cleared’ only two persons namely Gani Patail and Musa Hassan. So I wanted to know my position and demanded that I be cleared.The details are found in my letter.

“The other important point which I raised in that letter was about the ‘validity’ of the appointment of the Panel Members as DPPs under the CPC by the Solicitor General(SG).

“I pointed to the Advisory Board that as far as I know,the SG have no rights or power under the CPC to appoint any qualified persons as DPPs. The only person that have the rights and powers to do so is the Public Prosecutor which must be exercisable by the PP personally as stipulated in Sec 376(4) CPC. I also stated in my letter that the SG only have the powers of a DPP and as such if the SG was the one to have appointed the Panel Members then,the Panel was not lawfully instituted. As such the Panel’s decisions or findings are useless and null & void. I went further to state that should the AG himself was the one who appointed the Panel Members then the issue of serious conflict of interest would arise since it was the AG himself  who was supposed to be adjudicated in this case. Based on my interpretation of Sec 376 of the CPC and having been advised of the same, I am of the view that the ‘clearance’ given to Gani Patail and Musa Hassan are unlawful based on the grounds that the Panel was not legally instituted.

“The other point is that YB Nazri clearly stated that the Panel’s decision on Gani Patail was by a majority(2-1).Notwithstanding the validity of the Panel Members’ appointment, one Dato Abdul Razak Musa(Razak), the Director of Legal & Prosecution Department MACC, have affirmed in his affidavit dated 30.6.2009 and filed in the on-going sodomy case that the decision by the Panel on both Musa Hassan and Gani Patail are ‘unanimous’. So here either YB Nazri or Razak or both did not tell the truth.

“Razak further affirmed in that same affidavit that based on the findings of all the Panel Members he closed the case against Gani Patail only! This could also be taken to mean that the case against the other three namely Musa Hassan, Dr.Rahman and myself are still on-going. To me this is just ridiculous when the evidence on Gani Patail are so obvious and yet the MACC close the case against him ONLY. It only shows that MACC and the Chambers are prepared even to go to the extent of affirming false affidavit to screen Gani Patail from legal punishment.(for YB’s information this Razak is the Counsel for MACC in the TBH Inquest).

Yang Berhormat,I do not wish to write more than I should. I hope my response to your article would not take much of your time to comprehend and lastly I can assure you that the facts disclosed above are easily verified. Apart from that I have given my written undertaking to MACC and the AG’s Chambers that I’m prepared to disclose those facts in any judicial proceeding concerning this matter.”

In his letter to the Advisory Board on Corruption (Lembaga Penasihat Suruhanjaya Pencegah Rasuah Malaysia SPRM) dated 15th April 2009, Mat Zat wrote:

“Tanpa mengambil kesahihan perlantikan ‘Panel Bebas’ tersebut, seorang Yang Ariff Panel berkenaan telah mendapati Gani Patail terlibat dalam salah laku jenayah sekalipun sejenis jenayah yang dilakukan tidak dinyatakan.

“Selaku Pegawai Penyiasat kes ‘mata lebam 1998’, saya amat yakin, sekiranya Yang Ariff Ahli-Ahli Panel berkenaan dibekalkan dengan dokumen lengkap seperti yang terkandung dalam Kertas Siasatan yang pernah saya sediakan dahulu dan dibaca bersama dengan Laporan Suruhanjaya Di Raja, maka ketiga-tiga Yang Ariff berkenaan akan mendapati salah laku jenayah yang lebih dari itu.

Mat Zain then went on a great length to substantiate what he described as “Dakwaan ‘mereka keterangan palsu’ berkaitan Laporan perubatan keatas Anwar Ibrahim Dalam kes ‘mata lebam’ 1998” yang melibatkan Gani Patail dan Dr. Rahman.

Mat Zain telah mengistiharkan beliau serta Pegawai-Pegawai dalam Pasukan Khas kes tersebut dan juga pucuk pimpinan PDRM ketika itu tidak pernah mensubahati Tan Sri Gani Patail dalam memalsukan keterangan terhadap DSAI.

Malahan beliau menjelaskan bahawa beliau telah mengambil segala langkah yang perlu (yang dirakamkan dalam diari penyiasatan beliau) untuk menasihati dan menghalang beliau daripada melakukan sesuatu yang menyalahi undang-undang dalam penyiasatan kes mata lebam tersebut.

Mat Zain telah menasihatkan Gani Patail ketika itu, posisi Dr. Rahman yang sedang dalam siasatan Polis berkaitan satu kes ugutan jenayah keatas seorang Dr. Abdul Halim Mansar yang merupakan Pakar Forensik Hospital Kuala Lumpur yang mula-mula menyediakan lapuran kecederaan keatas DSAI atas permintaan rasmi beliau, dan penggunaan Dr. Rahman menyediakan lapuran perubatan bertentangan dengan apa yang telah disediakan oleh Dr. Halim, akan menyebabkan “complications” kemudian hari.

Rupa-rupanya Gani Patail telah mengambil kesempatan posisi Dr. Rahman sedemikian itu untuk mengarahkannya menyediakan sejumlah tiga lapuran palsu berlainan berkaitan dengan kecederaan DSAI dalam insiden mata lebam tersebut.

In my speech on the budget on Thursday 28th Oct., I had referred to Mat Zain’s Open Letter dated 8th October 2010 to Datin Kalsom Taib, wife and biographer of Datuk Shafee Yahya, former head of Anti-Corruption Agency, in response to questions asked in her book about police investigations into allegations against former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad for abuse of power in June 1998 in ordering a halt to corruption investigations against Ali Abul Hassan Sulaiman, head of Economic Planning Unit as Mat Zain was the officer in charge of investigations into the allegations.

Mat Zain revealed in his Open Letter that he had written in May this year to Tan Sri Ismail Omar, then Deputy IGP and the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, for a review of investigations into the false evidence produced against Anwar in the “black eye” assault case of 1998 “to protect the credibility, impartiality and image of the PDRM which had been serious affected since 2006”.

I told Parliament that Mat Zain made the very serious allegation that former IGP Musa Hassan and Attorney-General Gani Patail had allowed fabricated evidence in the Anwar Ibrahim “black eye” assault case and must be held responsible for the current mess of the criminal justice system.

Mat Zain had asked in the Open Letter:

“Apa sudah jadi dengan Sistem Keadilan Jenayah kita?….Siapa yang sepatutnya dipersalahkan? Siapa yang menyebabkan Sistem Keadilan Jenayah kita menjadi kucar kacir sehinggakan sesiapa juga boleh mempermain-mainkannya tanpa takut kepada sebarang tindakan dan hukuman undang-undang? Saya tidak teragak-agak untuk menyatakan bahawa keadaan ini berpunca daripada ‘precedent’ yang dibuat oleh Tan Sri Gani Patail dan Tan Sri Musa Hassan sendiri.”

I had said in Parliament: “Gani Patail, Musa Hassan or the Home Minister Hishammuddin and IGP Ismail cannot keep mum on this most incriminating and devastating Open Letter by a former top cop and I call on the Home Minister to give a full and satisfactory accounting on this matter to Parliament.”

I am shocked that the Home Minister, Hishammuddin did not reply to me at all on Mat Zain’s damning indictment of the criminal justice system and when I asked him why there was no response from him when he  sat down at the end of his two-hour-long winding-up speech, gave the outrageous reply that I never raise the matter in my speech.

I am utterly shocked at it is all in the Hansard. Either the Home Minister was dishonest or he had been deceived by his officers, which means the Home Minister is not master of his Ministry.

How could this happen, unless it is part of a deliberate conspiracy to ignore and cover-up the biggest scandal in the history of criminal justice in Malaysia!

As adverted in his Open Letter to Datin Kalsom, Mat Zain said:

“Dalam surat saya kepada Tan Sri Ismail itu juga saya telah memberi ‘isyarat awal’ berkaitan pemerhatian saya mengenai penggunaan keterangan palsu dalam perbicaraan Sodomy II yang sedang berjalan.Keterangan palsu/tidak benar itu adalah dalam bentuk dua afidavit yang diikrarkan pada 30.6.2009 oleh dua Pegawai Jabatan Peguam Negara bagi pihak Pendakwa Raya.Perkara ini bukan rahsia kerana DSAI sendiri telah membuat laporan Polis Travers Rpt:5160/09 pada 21.7.2009 dan membuat kenyataan akhbar mengenai laporan ini terhadap, Dato Abdul Razak Musa Pengarah Pendakwaan dan Perundangan SPRM dan Timbalan Pendakwa Raya Hanafiah Hj.Zakaria dari Jabatan Peguam Negara, seorang Ahli dalam Pasukan Pendakwaan kes Sodomy II.

“Berpeluang meneliti kandungan dokumen-dokumen tersebut yang berada dalam public domain itu,serta mengetahui perkara sabjek yang terkandung dalam laporan Suruhanjaya DiRaja berkaitan,saya berpendapat yang dakwaan DSAI ada kebenarannya walaupun saya tidak mempunyai ekses lagi untuk mengetahui hasil siasatan berkaitan laporan tersebut.

“Saya memberikan isyarat awal ini adalah untuk PDRM mengambil langkah berjaga-jaga supaya tidak dijadikan “scape-goat” sekiranya sesuatu yang buruk berlaku dalam pendakwaan Sodomy II seperti mana yang menimpa PDRM dan saya dalam penyiasatan kes mata-lebam.

“Hari ini pula,ketika saya sedang menulis Surat Terbuka ini kepada Datin, tersiar pula secara meluas dalam akhbar-akhbar dan blogs mengenai seorang Rahimi Osman yang disenaraikan sebagai seorang saksi pembelaan,menghebahkan pula yang beliau dipaksa membuat Statutory Declaration (SD) untuk mengaitkan Dato Seri Najib dan Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor dalam kes Sodomy II ,yang melibatkan sahabat beliau Mohd.Saiful Bukhari Azlan dua tahun lalu.Dilaporkan pula kononya Rahimi Osman telah membuat SD yang baru pula.Ini mengingatkan kita kepada apa yang dilakukan oleh Private Investigator Bala dalam kes bunuh Altantuya.

Apa sudah jadi dengan Sistem Keadilan Jenayah kita? Seolah BAB XI dalam Kanun Keseksaan berkaitan Keterangan Palsu dan Kesalahan-Kesalahan Terhadap Keadilan Awam tidak ujud lagi.Siapa yang sepatutnya dipersalahkan?.Siapa yang menyebabkan Sistem Keadilan Jenayah kita menjadi kucar kacir, sehinggakan sesiapa juga boleh mempermain-mainkannya tanpa takut kepada sebarang tindakan dan hukuman undang-undang.Saya tidak teragak-agak untuk menyatakan bahawa keadaan ini berpunca daripada “precedent” yang dibuat oleh Tan Sri Gani Patail dan Tan Sri Musa Hassan sendiri.Jika mereka boleh merekacipta keterangan palsu dan menggunakan dua daripada tiga laporan yang dipalsukan itu pula dalam prosiding kehakiman Suruhanjaya Di Raja, dan kemudian mendabik dada mengatakan mereka bersih daripada sebarang salah laku jenayah;jika Tan Sri Musa boleh memberi keterangan palsu dalam perbicaraan dalam Mahkamah Tinggi Kuala Lumpur seperti yang dilaporkan oleh seorang Penggubal Undang-Undang YB R.Sivarasa dalam bulan Mac tahun ini, dan tiada tindakan dikenakan;jika Tan Sri Musa Hassan boleh mengemukakan Pernyataan Tuntutan yang tidak benar dalam samannya terhadap DSAI serta menuntut berjuta Ringgit sebagai ganti rugi pula dan menayangkan pula saman tersebut kepada dunia,maka P.I.Bala dan Rahimi Osman juga tidak bimbang akan tindakan undang-undang terhadap mereka.Cuma yang tidak bernasib baik, mungkin Brig.Gen (B) Datuk Mohamad Yasin Yahya bekas Panglima Brigade Sabah(saya juga tidak pernah mengenali beliau) yang telah berpuloh tahun menabur keringatnya mempertahankan kedaulatan Negara, akhirnya diaibkan dengan dituduh memberi keterangan palsu(walaupun kemudiannya didapati tidak bersalah) ketika memberi keterangan di-Mahkamah melibatkan satu kes Dato Ramli Yusuff.”

Gani Patail stand accused of fabricating evidence in the Anwar Ibrahim “black eye” investigation in 1998, which stands unrebutted although made by the police officer responsible for the investigation 12 years ago.

It is not made by an ordinary person but by a top cop in the country who was entrusted with the investigation into one of the blackest episodes in the history of the police and good governance in the country.

We have the bizarre and scandalous situation where the Attorney-General, the highest legal officer of the land who is also Public Prosecutor, stand accused of subverting the very law and Constitution which he is charged with upholding, undermining and subverting course of justice himself,  and who dare not take steps to rebut these serious allegations of a top cop say by way of a Royal Commission of Inquiry!

On this score alone, a censure motion by way of a RM10-cut is fully warranted.

[
Speech (part 1) in Parliament when moving RM10-cut motion for Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail on Tuesday, November 8, 2010
]

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 9 November 2010, 2:38 pm and is filed under
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Malaysia is the worst country in Asia-Pacific in Transparency International Corruption Perception Index in past 16 years since the start of the annual ranking in 1995

Malaysia is the worst country in Asia-Pacific in Transparency International Corruption Perception Index in past 16 years since the start of the annual ranking in 1995

Despite the “1Malaysia People First Performance Now” slogan and the alphabet soup of GTP, NKRA, MKRA, SRIs,  ETP etc and one Roadmap after another of Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and the  National Integrity Plan of former Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Malaysia is the worst country in the Asia-Pacific in Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI)  in past 16 years since the start of the annual ranking in 1995.

In the first TI CPI in 1995, Malaysia was ranked No. 23 out of 41 countries or the 6th highest-ranked nation after New Zealand -1, Singapore – 3, Australia – 7, Hong Kong – 17 and Japan – 20, with a CPI score of 5.28.

Sixteen years later, after numerous anti-corruption campaigns, two major anti-corruption legislation and “transformation” of the former Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) into Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) with massive infusion of public funds and increase of staffing, Malaysia has continued to remain  in the lowest TI CPI ranking of No. 56 as last year but with the lowest CPI score of 4.4 – falling to No. 11 country placing in the Asia-Pacific.

In the past 16 years, Malaysia had lost out to five other countries in the Asia-Pacific, namely Taiwan now ranked No. 33 with CPI score of 5.8; Bhutan (No. 36 –  5.7 ); Brunei (No.38 – 5.5); South Korea (No. 39 – 5.4) and Macau (No.46 – 5.0).

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

Thailand, China and Indonesia are three examples in Asia. China was ranked No. 40 with a CPI score of 2.16 in 1995. In 2010, China was ranked No. 78 with a CPI score of 3.5.

At the annual average rate of China’s improvement and Malaysia’s regression of their CPI score in the last 16 years, China will not only catch up but will leave Malaysia behind in the TI CPI, both in ranking and in score in a matter of six years – come 2017!

Another Asian country set to overtake Malaysia is Thailand, which  was ranked No. 34 with CPI score of 2.79 in 1995, and is now ranked together with China at No. 78 with CPI score of 3.5.

Breathing down Malaysia’s necks in the TI CPI is India (No. 87 – 3.3), having climbed from No. 35 with CPI score of 2.78 in 1995.

Even Indonesia is making significant strides in the anti-corruption front.  Ranked at the very bottom of No. 41 in 1995, with CPI score of 1.94, Indonesia is now ranked No. 110 with a CPI score of 2.8 in 2010.

Malaysia is the worst country in the TI CPI in the past 16 years, falling from No. 23 with CPI score of 5.28 to No. 56 with CPI score of 4.4 in 2010.

Malaysia is also losing out to other countries in other regions. For instance Turkey, which was ranked No. 29 in 1995 with CPI score of 4.4 has caught up with Malaysia in 2010, equally ranked No. 56 with 4.4 CPI score.

It is heart-rending  to see Malaysia losing out to Middle East countries. Jordan was ranked No. 30 with CPI score of 4.89 in the 1996 TI CPI when Malaysia was ranked No. 26 with CPI score of 5.32.  In TI CPI 2010, Jordan has shot ahead of Malaysia, ranked No. 50 with CPI score of 4.7.

Saudi Arabia, which was first ranked No. 46 with CPI score of 4.5 in 2003 (when Malaysia was ranked No. 37 with CPI score of 5.2) is now ahead, with ranking of 50 and CPI score of 4.7.

In the past 16 years, Malaysia is perceived by the world as becoming more and more corrupt while other countries have become less corrupt!

The NKRA on “fighting corruption” had set the target to increase the TI CPI score from 4.5 last year to 4.9 this year, but the reverse has taken place, falling to a new national low of 4.4!

What is most unacceptable and reprehensible is the attempt by the Minister for NKRA Datuk Idris Jala, Pemandu (Performance Management and Deliverty Unit) and the MACC to whitewash the shocking failures of anti-corruption measures this year by claiming that the TI CPI ranking and scores are not correct or reliable.

Pemandu claimed that in the past year, Malaysia had bettered the graft score from 5.2 to 6.3 in the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook, from 3.6 to 4.6 in the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy’s (PERC) Asian Intelligence Newsletter and from 4.5 to 4.6 in the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Competitiveness Report – and that based on the “average score of the four surveys, it is clear that Malaysia’s index has improved from 4.45 in 2009 to 4.975 in 2010”.

Pemandu, which is being staffed by highly-paid consultants and professionals, is being  most dishonest, unethical and unprofessional in  trying to engage in an  unacademic PR exercise to gloss over the abject failures on  the anti-corruption NKRA front as TI CPI had not changed its methodology from previous years.

Malaysia’s CPI 2010 is calculated by TI using nine sources by six independent institutions – the same as in previous CPIs. Unless Pemandu challenges the validity of previous CPI scores, it cannot selectively dispute the validity of the 2010 CPI.

The worst TI CPI score for Malaysia in 2010 should be a top issue in Parliament for the government to explain in the 2011 Budget winding-up stage of debate. Instead, this subject has been avoided like the plague, although many MPs had spoken about it in the debate.

The  two Ministers in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz and Tan Sri Dr. Koh Tsu Koon studiously avoided the subject of Malaysia’s worst TI CPI in 16 years in their winding-up, further undermining public confidence in the political will and commitment of the Barisan Nasional government to declare war on corruption, particularly grand corruption of the “Ikan yus” as distinct from “ikan bilis”, as well as the real worth and utility of expensive Government Transformation Programme run by  highly-paid  professionals and consultants with their NKRAs, MKRAs, SRIs, etc.

MACC is the chief agency which must be held responsible for the failure of the anti-corruption NKRA, resulting in Malaysia becoming the worst country in Asia-Pacific in Transparency International Corruption Perception Index in past 16 years since the start of the annual ranking in 1995.

In the past seven years, Parliament has trebled the budget for the anti-corruption agency, from RM76.4 million for ACA in 2005 to RM202 million for the MACC in the 2011 Budget – but these increased expenditures, staff and facilities have resulted in a worsening anti-corruption record.

This is the reason for the RM10 cut motion against the MACC Chief Commissioner.

[
Speech in Parliament on Tuesday, 9th November 2010 when moving RM10-cut motion against MACC Chief Commissioner
]

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 9 November 2010, 3:19 pm and is filed under
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Why AG is so eager to close the books over the two conflicting statutory declarations by Private Investigator P. Balasubramaniam on the heinous C4 murder of Mongolian Altantuya Shariibuu?

But there are many issues pertaining to public confidence in the independence, impartiality and professionalism of the Attorney-General that can be raised, but because of time constraints, I will just mention in passing the following:

Why AG is so eager to close the books over the two conflicting statutory declarations by Private Investigator P. Balasubramaniam on the heinous C4 murder of Mongolian Altantuya Shariibuu?

All Malaysians are asking why the Attorney-General is so eager to close the books over the two conflicting statutory declarations by Private Investigator P. Balasubramiam on the heinous C4 murder of Mongolian Altantuya Shariibuu in 2006.

In an extraordinary twist to the sordid saga of the C4 murder of Altantuya, Balasubramaniam has hit back at the government for closing the case on his double statutory declarations.

In an open letter to attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail the day after the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz told Parliament that the Attorney-General had closed the case, Balasubramaniam said that he was “surprised” that despite having conceded to signing a false statutory declaration, the police could not find evidence of any wrongdoing.

In his Open Letter, Balasubramaniam wrote:

“I have been made to understand that you have decided to close the case involving two statutory declarations I signed sometime at the beginning of July 2008 in Kuala Lumpur.

“The contents of these statutory declarations were diametrically opposed. Both could not have been true and therefore one of them was false. I trust that makes sense to you.

“The police, I believe, have investigated the circumstances surrounding the making of these two statutory declarations under section 199 of the Penal Code, for an offence which carries a sentence of three years’ imprisonment and a fine. “This is not a trivial offence.

“The police must have interviewed my lawyer, Americk Sidhu, his secretary, the commissioner of oaths who attested my signature and a variety of other witnesses you have mentioned who were somehow intrinsically interwoven in the construction and affirmation of both statutory declarations, one way or another.

“It has therefore come as a great surprise to me to discover that you have been unable to decipher any wrongdoing from the enormous amount of evidence the police must have been able to accumulate from their investigations.

“Please permit me to assist you. Firstly, may I suggest that you re-open this file immediately. I will make it easy for you.

“Let me admit to you that I did sign a false statutory declaration. Yes, I did. I signed a false statutory declaration. It was the second one, not the first one. The first one was entirely truthful. The second one was a complete pack of lies. I admit this.

“This statutory declaration was prepared by some unknown person(s) and I was forced by very thinly veiled threats and intimidation to sign it. I have already made this known to the world at large and I am surprised your office has not picked this up as yet. Everyone else has.

“If you are unable to ascertain this information which I have just provided to you directly, please feel free to contact me at this email address
[email protected]
 and I shall forward to you a copy of the video recorded interview I had in the presence of my lawyers in Singapore last November, and a copy of the transcript thereof.

“Otherwise you can find this information on all the blogs worth reading (such as Raja Petra Kamarudin’s Malaysia Today) and also on ‘YouTube’ (just type in ‘PI Bala’ into the search column and you will be surprised what comes up).

“So you may now consider charging me for making the false second statutory declaration after the clues I have given you. I do however reserve the right to plead not guilty to the charge as I believe I have a very good defence.

“Your prosecutors will also have to make sure they call all the necessary witnesses to prove their case against me. These witnesses will have to include the following personalities:

A lawyer named Arunampalam Mariam Pillai (who coincidentally does legal work for Deepak Jayakishan and Rosmah Mansor’s personal companies).

A commissioner of oaths (Zainal Abidin Muhayat) who works in the office of Zul Rafique and Partners (Advocates & Solicitors) and who attested my signature when he came to the room in which I was being held at the Hilton Hotel Kuala Lumpur.

Deepak and Dinesh Jaikishan (very good friends and confidantes of Rosmah Mansor).

Nazim Razak (younger brother of the prime minister), and his wife.

ASP Suresh (a suspended police officer formerly attached to the IPK headquarters in KL).

Officers from the Immigration Department Damansara (who assisted in obtaining urgent passports for my family).

A host of journalists and reporters who were present in the lobby of the Prince Hotel Kuala Lumpur when a lawyer called Arunampalam released my second statutory declaration without my permission.

“These are just some of the witnesses I can think of but I am sure you know how to do your job so that should be not a problem. I don’t want to be accused of trying to teach an old dog new tricks.

“If for some strange reason my defence is called, I will also be able to provide witnesses to support what I have to say. I need not disclose who these witnesses are at this stage and I am sure you know that as well.

“I shall now wait for the charge against me to be laid.

“I will be more than happy to return to Malaysia to defend myself but you will have to ensure that my safety is guaranteed as there are some people who would prefer that I was not around.”

Is the Attorney-General prepared to take up Balasubramaniam’s challenge and charge him for the crime of making a false statutory declaration – and if not, why not.

The Attorney-General’s handling of Balasubramiam’s two conflicting statutory declarations and the C4 murder of Mongolian Altantuya do not conduce to enhancing public confidence in the administration of the justice, but the reverse – which has far-reaching consequences in undermining Malaysia’s international competitiveness and driving away not only FDIs and foreign talents, but also local funds and local talents.

[
Speech (part2) in Parliament when moving RM10-cut motion for Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail on Tuesday, November 8, 2010
]

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 9 November 2010, 3:13 pm and is filed under
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Best Bloated Bureaucracy to Bleed Bolehland to Bankruptcy!

by
Martin Jalleh

9 Nov. 2010

Deputy PM Muhyiddin Yassin believes that the BN is “back in business”. The buoyant “Malaysian-second” in Bolehland, said that BN’s future is bright and the Opposition better not underestimate them!

Bolstered by two big by-election victories he even boldly declares that the bureaucrats in Bolehland are “the best civil servants in the world”! The civil servant “have done a lot, but the people want better”.

The Deputy PM was at his ironic best: “The people do not want rhetoric. The era for rhetoric has long gone. The era where the government knows all, like what the prime minister has said, has long gone.”

[Strange, but it is APCO (the international communications firm which Najib is paying a bomb to spruce up his image and lobby for support in Washington) which feels that Malaysia is just another backward hole where Government knows best and press freedom is a figment of the imagination (Malaysian Chronicle)!]

Yes, the rakyat knows best Muhyiddin and we fully agree with you that the civil service in Bolehland is the “best in the world” in the following ways:

Best Bloated Civil Service

·   With 1.3 million civil servants to a population of 26 million, Malaysia has one of the highest civil servants-to-population ratio in the world by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development standards.

·   In 2009, Malaysia’s civil servants-to-population ratio was highest in Asia Pacific. Her ratio was 4.68%, compared to Indonesia’s 1.79%, Korea’s 1.85% and Thailand’s 2.06% all of which have less than half our ratio.

·   In 2009, Singapore had a total of 60,000 civil servants, i.e., 1.5% of the total population.  Hong Kong had 160,000 out of a population of 7 million (2.3%). Taiwan (population of 23 million) was served by only 528,000 (2.3%).

Best  way  to bleed  a budget dry

·   “…much of the budget (2011) continues to go into operating a bloated civil service. As much as three quarters of the national budget is spent on paying salaries and other benefits to over 1.3 million civil servants.

·   “This means that of every dollar spent in the budget, 75 sen goes towards manning the civil service, leaving little left to carry out development work that can benefit the country’s population.

·   “There is clearly something fundamentally wrong in the way the country’s budget is being spent when so much of the allocation goes to paying for a sector that is generally regarded as unproductive and standing in the way of efficiency.” – Dr Lim Teck Ghee, Director of the Centre for Public Policy Studies

·   A post-2011 Budget dialogue highlighted the massive amount (35% of the total RM162.8 billion operating expenditure) to be spent on emoluments, pensions and gratuities of civil servants. A panelist, Ministry of Finance budget division director Datuk Dr Rahamat Bivi Yusuff admitted that there is a need to trim the civil service to reduce the budget deficit.

·   In a public forum held in Sept this year Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin admitted that there is an over-inflated civil service and that the government will need to make tough but necessary changes in the next five or 10 years to reduce the numbers.

·   “We are now spending more than RM41 bil a year – that’s a billion more than the market capitalisations of Khazanah Nasional and Telekom Nasional – to upkeep our 1.15 million civil servants. It’s a whopping cost, especially so when juxtaposed against the 1.14mil Malaysians who pay income tax. (There are 10.5 million employed citizens in the country, of whom 6.4 million are registered taxpayers, but actual contributions come from only 1.14 mil). – The Star, 7 May 2009

Best way to bankrupt this nation

·   Whilst it is the growing trend of many countries to reduce their civil service, Malaysia, the PM’s Department in particular, has done the opposite.  It more than doubled its number of civil servants from 21,000 to 43,554 this year. In stark contrast, the White House employs only 1,888 staff.

·   The White House’s budget is US$394 million for 2011. The PM’s Department has been allocated a whopping RM18.14 billion for the year 2011, almost double the RM10.2 billion this year.

·   “Pemandu, which stands for Performance, Management and Delivery Unit, was set up last year under the Najib administration as one of the pillars in his Government Transformation Plan… is a massive drain on resources. In a span of two months, just to pay 50 consultants, the government spent RM20 million.”

·   “If the civil service is consuming a big budget under the Prime Minister’s Department, it is because the other agencies of the civil service are not functioning. That’s why Najib consolidates everything under his department.” – Ong Kian Ming, political analyst

Best contradiction of 1Malaysia

·   As at 31 December 2009, the racial breakdown of the Malaysian civil service comprising 1,247,894 employees was as follows: Malay (78.2%); Other Bumiputras (7.7%); Chinese (5.8%), Indian (4.0%); and Others (4.2%).

·   “This is the worst multi-racial composition of the government service, with the lowest Chinese and Indian representation in the public service in Malaysia’s 53-year history. This is clearly seen from the three sets of comparative figures of the racial breakdown of the civil service before the NEP 1971 and as at December 2009 – Malays (60.80% and 78.2%); Chinese (20.2% and 5.8%); Indians (17.4% and 4.0%); and Others (1.6% and 4.2%).

·   “It is clear that the Government is setting the worst example of a 1Malaysia Government.” –Vivian Kuan, in Loyar Burok’s Blog (8 Nov 2010).

Best in corruption

·   Last year two out of five civil servants were deemed corrupt by Cuepacs. It was described as a worrying trend that needed to be tackled urgently.

· Cuepacs President Omar Osman revealed that a total of 418,200 or 41% of the 1.2 million civil servants in the country were suspected to be involved in corruption last year (Bernama, 02.06.10). It caused Lim Kit Siang to remark that “the MACC is a big flop as it did not even arrest 0.1% of the corrupt civil servants last year”.

·  Malaysians generally consider political parties and civil service to be the most corrupt groups, and the government’s anti-corruption drive to be ineffective, the 2009 Global Corruption Barometer (GCB) report revealed (The Sun, 03.06.09)

Best “dumping ground”

Finally, Muyhiddin should ponder on the wisdom of Sakmongkol AK47, the pen-name of  Mohd Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz, a former state assemblyman of Pahang who is a member of Umno.

“Government service shouldn’t be treated as a dumping ground for academic rejects and mediocre material. Let’s demand a certain high standard and ensure we bring in talent that supports that demand for high standards.

“What has the government done to improve the efficiency and competence of government servants? There isn’t really competition there if the service is dominated by one race. There isn’t sufficient quality if the entry-level qualifications are so-so.

“Yet each year, to placate civil servants, the PM will appear on TV to say, we honour our civil servants because they have done a good job, blah blah. Which is not entirely true. The service is slow, the quality of officers is questionable.

“Those people talking about the GTP have not talked openly about the issue of talent in the civil service and in government. If we don’t open up our civil service, it will atrophy. It is a simple observation of experience. If we don’t open up and cultivate competition to get into government service, we get what ails our service now – little Napoleonism – the imposition of pettiness by mediocre talent that fouls up the delivery service.”

So there you have it Muhyiddin — the world’s best bureaucratic behemoth and blunder to burden the people of Bolehland and bleed the country dry! And believe it or not its by a government who boasts about  ” People First, Performance Now”.  Little wonder that we are the world’s best example of a country with growing similarities with Greece where 10% of its population are government servants and is reputed to be the most corrupt nation in the Eurozone!

But Umno likes Muhyiddin’s make-believe. It will guarantee them votes in the next General Elections, which must be close at hand. Civil servants are made to believe that Umno is their (political) paymaster and they owe Umno. The party’s leaders would do or say anything to convince the government servant of this, even praising them as “the best civil servants in the world”!

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 10 November 2010, 8:45 am and is filed under
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Neo-Colonisation or Neo-Liberation?

by
Zairil Khir Johari

Did you just say what I thought you did?

It is back to the grind as the Penang State Assembly gets underway, as does the UMNO-BN’s theatrical onslaught on the State Government.

Last week, they managed to round up a motley group of protesters ostensibly comprising angry Malay residents from Balik Pulau and a member or three from the BN-friendly Parti Cinta Malaysia, a party made up of disgruntled former members of the DAP and the once-relevant ‘political NGO’ called Gerakan (I posit that a political party with unelected nominees in government more closely resembles an NGO than a political party proper).

Their grouse this time? Over an area of land in Balik Pulau that has been allocated for the development of an educational hub. Of course, it was invariably portrayed as yet another case of the sacrilegious ‘Chinese government’ cruelly robbing the ‘poor Malay peasant’ of his land and rights.

As always, facts play no part in their campaign of blind vilification. It makes no matter that only 21% of the land acquired was Malay land (corresponding to a whopping 2 Malay families), the rest belonging to non-Malays. In any case, as the Chief Minister explained, the racial aspect of land ownership was never even a consideration! But there you go, just another round of racialised rhetoric from an opposition bankrupt of ideas.

During yesterday’s State Assembly session however, UMNO had the temerity to deny involvement in last week’s protest, conveniently ignoring the fact that Penang UMNO Youth Leader Norman Dahlan had been fussing about at the scene, proudly proclaiming that he was there to return ‘a portion’ of the money that they had recently stolen from the poor in their constituencies.

True heroes and nationalists, this lot. They are indeed the saviours of their race, as evident by a recent statement by the Minister Zahid Hamidi, Chief Hero of UMNO Penang:

“I am confident that together we can free the people of Penang from the clutches of the neo-colonisation spearheaded by the DAP under (chief minister) Lim Guan Eng,” he said.

Neo-colonisation? Really? That’s a very bold statement by the Hon. Minister. Surely he wouldn’t have made such an accusation unless it was factually based. Let us assume it is, and let us examine these facts for ourselves to see how the unfortunate people of Penang have been oppressed by their ‘colonial master’ over the last two years:

The Penang state Budgets for 2008 and 2009 were turned from deficits to surplus budgets.

Not good enough? Even the local council, Majlis Perbandaran Seberang Perai, was able to achieve an average surplus of RM23 million a year since 2008. Compare this to an average deficit of RM28 million a year over the last 8 years prior to 2008.

What about rising state coffers? For two years running, Penang has declared record collections of RM1 billion in 2008 and RM1.1 billion in 2009. Penang had never crossed the RM1 billion mark prior to 2008.

Senior Penangites above the age of 60 now receive RM100 a year, while families of senior Penangites who pass away receive RM1,000 in compassionate bequest. All this made possible from administrative savings (gasp, did I mention the S word?).

Let’s not forget the Malays, who have now been ‘colonised’. They have been further oppressed by a monumental increase in the budget allocated to Islamic welfare, from RM12.5 million in 2008 to RM20.5 million in 2009 and RM24.3 million in 2010.

And then, there’s also the obscure fact that Penang has managed to eradicate hardcore poverty.

Last but not least, the neo-colonial government of Penang has also punished its people (or maybe just a few previously well-connected cronies?) by being the first state in Malaysia to implement a public open tender system.

So, all in all, the Pakatan Rakyat Government of Penang has indeed been disastrous! Open tenders, greater transparency, less wastage of public funds, administrative savings (surely it can’t be true), money actually being returned to the rakyat (shameful) and the end of hardcore poor families. Achieved, I must add, in spite of an uncooperative Federal Government and a pack of opposition troublemakers hell-bent on besmirching the State Government with no fidelity whatsoever to the truth.

A tyrannical regime indeed. I ask the Minister: is this what you mean by neo-colonialism? It appears to me that the people of Penang have in fact been liberated by the change in government.

Neo-colonisation? More like Neo-liberation. Our country has had enough of the former. Let’s liberate the rest of Malaysia.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 10 November 2010, 5:00 am and is filed under
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