Selling Reclaimed Johor Land is Good for the Economy

Koon Yew Yin

19th January 2017

A few months before the end of last year, I wrote on the state of the economy in an article chiefly directed at market investors and the business community. In my article I touched on the Chinese investment wave and noted that this was a most important partnership emerging between Malaysia and China which would boost our nation’s economic fortunes. I followed up this with another on “The China X Factor in Malaysia’s Future”

In my second article, I noted that the Chinese are investing here for their own benefit and not out of charity. I wrote:

Let’s make no mistake. This is not about PM Najib’s, Malaysia’s or Malaysian Chinese’s interests that China is making these deals. China will be the X factor in Malaysia’s development in any transformation programme for our nation. If we want to make it a win-win deal, we have to work to pursue our national advantage.

I had also written

The most important thing we can learn from the Chinese example, is that we have to free the creative enterprise and spirit of the people, especially the young.

No freebies – just hard work, a no-nonsense, fair and competent government, and incorruptibility which was high on the governance agenda, has made China the power to respect throughout the world and in Malaysia.

But there is also a lot wrong in China now that mainland Chinese are trying to eradicate. Let us learn from that too.

I had hoped that our leaders would take my advice in the right spirit.

Imagine my shock then to see that Dr. Mahathir has chosen to focus on the subject of Chinese investment and to use it as a political football in his effort to bring down the Najib government.

But I should not be surprised as Dr. Mahathir is a political animal par excellence. Since he has not been able to topple the Prime Minister on the 1MDB and personal donation issues, he has to find another issue. And the Chinese investment in Johor is a ready made one for political mischief and trouble making.

Here I must express my strong agreement with the Sultan of Johor who has rightly in my opinion condemned Dr. Mahathir for going too far in twisting the issue.

Firstly, the land being sold to Chinese investors is not existing land or land that is being taken away from existing Johorean residents.

It is reclaimed land. Even if it is existing land it is obvious that vacant land will remain vacant, unused and of little or no value if no one is prepared to spend money to develop it. This is the situation with much of Malay reserve land which partially accounts for the sorry state of the Malay economy.

Secondly, there are positive multiplier effects from the sale of land to foreigners. No sensible leader from any country in the world – except perhaps North Korea – will object to foreigners buying up property and taking up residence. In fact, even the developed countries such as Australia, Canada and Britain are doing exactly the same in trying to attract foreign investment including in the property sector. The result of this is that many Malaysians – including most likely too Dr. Mahathir himself and his children – have bought property abroad.

Just as Dr. Mahathir has come out with various challenges in his latest letter on the Forest City issue including the need to “let all transactions be transparent…Do this honestly. No hiding”, I would like him to tell us how many properties and details of other assets he and his family members have kept abroad.

The estimated cost for the Forest City is about Rm 440 billion.

Ever body, except Dr. Mahathir, can see that this astronomical amount will be a big boost for our economy. The amount of Chinese money from investment in Johor will definitely have trickle down effects in terms of employment generation, GST revenues, etc. At the same time the continuous spending by the Forest City residents – presumably not only Chinese but also Singaporeans and other foreigners – will surely benefit the local economy.

Hopefully this initial wave of Chinese property investment will benefit other sectors. Personally I think the figure of 700,000 mainland Chinese staying in JB and becoming citizens is being used by Dr. Mahathir as a scare tactic to frighten the Malay electorate.

But even if a small fraction does invest in JB we can expect benefits to the local work force in tourism, education, construction, food and entertainment industry, etc. And if even a smaller proportion decide to stay on and invest in manufacturing and the higher end sectors which the Government has had little success in attracting investment, then the gain not only to economy but also to society will be even greater.

Finally I must say that I support Dr. Mahathir and others in wanting to see justice done in the 1MDB case and other important issues. But when he or any of the other leaders plays racial politics, it is necessary to stand up and speak against them.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 19 January 2017, 5:08 pm and is filed under
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Why is Najib leading the UMNO/BN charge and campaign of fear, hatred and lies in the run-up to the 14GE unless he feels that this is the only formula to save himself in the next general election?

I am surprised by the speech by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak in Kedah on Tuesday night that regardless of whether DAP has the top government post, the party will still  “call the shots” and run the show if UMNO/BN is defeated in the 14th General Election.

Najib said: “Democracy and politics are a game of numbers. Who has the most seats, wins. Even if the top post of the government is not given to it, the party with the most seats will effectively rule.”

My surprise at Najib personally leading the charge and campaign of fear, hatred and lies in the run-up to the 14th General Election is for two reasons:

Firstly, has Najib such  poor strategists among his  election and propaganda advisers that he is personally leading the UMNO/BN charge and  campaign of fear, hatred and lies in the run-up to the 14th General Election instead of leaving such “dirty work” to his subordinates, which will give him leeway for deniability of personal approval or even knowledge as Prime Minister and UMNO/BN President for such “gutter politics”, which are most unworthy of the  Prime Minister of the nation?

Secondly, has Najib become so desperate that he might lose the 14th General Election requiring him to move out of Putrajaya to the Opposition benches in Parliament, that he has now  thrown scruples to the winds by leading the charge and campaign of fear, hatred and lies in a last-ditch effort to save his political office in Putrajaya so as to pack the maximum amount of explosives into such wild and baseless charges?

The ordinary laymen and women in Malaysia can see through Najib’s gambit as evident from the following typical reactions to the Prime Minister’s speech in Kedah:

•	“He is using DAP to scare the kampung Malays, and we shall see how smart are those kampung folks.”

•	“Unfortunately, the PM does not know how to count although politics is about numbers! How can DAP run the govt even if it wins all the 51 parliamentary seats contested out of available 222 parliamentary seats. UMNO and PAS is using the same tactics to scare the Malay voters from voting for Pakatan Harapan and Bersatu.”

•	“DAP again and again. Guess he thinks Malays are so stupid and only UMNO members are considered as Malays or what. What about the Malays in the Opposition.”

•	“What’s wrong with DAP-run gomen? It is way better than BN. Penang is the best example. At least DAP does not produce super-corrupt PM and family. At least people leads a better life under DAP.”

•	“Its stupid to claim DAP will call the shots if Pakatan Harapan comes into power. This is nothing more than just to frighten and scared off the Malays. A typical example of Penang State Government, the Malays are in fact have more and better benefits now than when it was under Umno/BN. Umno has run out of ideas to win the heart of the Malays. Umno/BN could not stomach what DAP is doing for the Penangites now. The disparity is so obvious between now and then –  which BN can accept the truth?”

•	“And what is wrong with DAP running the country if they are transparent, accountable, and competent. That is a lot more than we can say of you guys who are in power for over 60 years and nothing to show for. And if continue with this ‘status quo’, we can expect the country to be behind Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Myanmar.”

•	“Yes you should fear DAP because they would be fair and run a clean and efficient government, no race would be left behind. The only people who would be adversely effected would be the UMNOputras. They are afraid so they make others afraid too.”

•	“Hahaha…hohoho….. Najib finally admits DAP is the most competent party to rule Malaysia! That explains why DAP is being attacked by WILD UMNO, left, right and centre!”

•	“Najib has made a wild, unsubstantiated claim that DAP will run the show if BN is defeated. Whether that is going to be so or otherwise, nobody knows. But what we do know is that Jho Low runs the show in 1MDB and he is the proxy for MO1, whom Abdul Rahman Dahlan said is Najib Razak, the Prime Minister of Malaysia. And 1MDB is the scourge of Malaysia, having corrupted countless souls in its wake.”

Is Najib so desperate that he must give his personal stamp to the UMNO/BN charge and campaign of fear, hatred and lies which was the very theme of his UMNO Presidential speech on Nov. 30, where he concocted “fake news” and “false stories” while decrying the danger of “fake news” and “false stories”.What was the main “fake news” and “false stories” which Najib was guilty of in his Nov. 30 UMNO Presidential speech?

These were the  Three “Nazi-style” Big Lies reminiscent of Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels’ injunction:  “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it”,  viz:

1. That the 14th General Elections will be a contest between UMNO and DAP;

2. That the DAP is anti-Malay or anti-Islam.

3. The “nightmares” Malay will suffer if UMNO loses power in the next general elections.

Najib must have realized that his three “Nazi-style” Big Lies he tried to plant in his UMNO Presidential speech on Nov. 30 had not found  much traction and he needed to repeat them ala-Goebbels in Kedah to an UMNO crowd on Tuesday night.

But what I found most significant in Najib’s speech was his virtual abandonment of the fiction concocted by his cybertroopers that I had met Tun Mahathir on Dec. 3 where I was supposed to have hammered out a deal where Mukriz Mahathir would be Prime Minister and I would be Deputy Prime Minister – which is utter balderdash as it never happened!

Why did Najib abandon  this latest “fake news” concocted by his cybertroopers and mercenaries?

Instead of leading the UMNO/BN charge and campaign of fear, hatred and lies in the run-up to the 14th General Election, threatening the make the next general election not only the “dirtiest” but “most moneyed” polls in Malaysia, Najib as Prime Minister should be an example of clean, honest and moderate politics.

He should advise in particular the mainstream media under Barisan Nasional ownership or control to start being independent and professional  media organisations  again and stop  being servile  agents in the UMNO/BN campaign of fear, hate and lies or they lose will even more public credibility and readership – with one of them at present  virtually bankrupt and another self-professed national daily selling only  some 50,000 copies a day!

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 19 January 2017, 3:26 pm and is filed under
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MH370: Should Malaysia fund new MH370 search?

by Jonathan Head

BBC

Friday 20 January 2017

Many distraught relatives have called for the search to continue

The announcement on 17 January that the search for MH370 was being suspended should have surprised no-one.

At the tripartite meeting last July of the three countries involved in the search, Malaysia, Australia and China, they agreed that it would not be continued beyond the current 120,000sq km area (46,332 sq miles) of the southern Indian Ocean, unless there was credible new information showing a specific location for the crashed airliner.

Nonetheless the families of the victims have condemned this requirement for a “precise location”, calling it “at best an erroneous expectation, and at worst a clever formulation to bury the search”.

MH370: What we know

Is it likely MH370 will ever be found?

The passengers on board MH370

MH370: The key pieces of debris

One man’s search for answers

They have pointed to a statement in December by the Australian Transport Safety Board, which is leading the search operation, that in view of the drift modelling carried out by the Australian scientific organisation CSIRO for debris from MH370 found along the East African coast, there was “strong evidence that the aircraft is most likely to be located to the north of the current indicative underwater search area”.

And with no trace of the airliner found after an exhaustive two-and-a-half-year search, all the experts agree they have been looking in the wrong area.

There were 14 nationalities among the 227 passengers and 12 crew on board the plane

The CSIRO drift models suggest the search should be shifted to a 25,000sq km area immediately north of the existing zone, along the arc that satellite data shows the plane must have travelled. It might require an additional $40-50m to extend the search operation into the new area, on top of the $160m already spent.

But the three governments appear unmoved, sticking rigidly to the formula they agreed last July, although the Australian and Malaysian governments insist cost is not a factor in their decision to stop searching.

However in an interview with ABC News on Tuesday, Australian Transport Minister Darren Chester made the point that any decision to resume the search was “primarily Malaysia’s call”.

That underlines a problem which has troubled the search operation from the start: who is really responsible?

Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) staff examine a piece of aircraft debris at their laboratory in Canberra, Australia, July. 20, 2016.

Back in February 2015 Australia submitted a request to the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), which regulates international air travel, for clearer guidelines on which country should be responsible for both organising and funding an extended search operation.

Under existing guidelines Australia is responsible for initial search-and-rescue efforts in the vast areas of ocean off its western coast. But once it was clear there would be no survivors, it became a search-and-recovery operation, for which responsibility is not clear.

The ICAO designates to Malaysia, the flag state of the missing plane, the task of leading the accident investigation, but it is not clear whether that includes running the extended search.

This was important because by 2015 Australia had shouldered most of the financial burden, and people were beginning to complain. After all, the specialised ships and detection equipment used in the search had to be rented from a Dutch salvage company; any of the three countries could have covered this cost.

Only six of the MH370 passengers were Australians, whereas 153 came from China, which has so far contributed relatively little, around $16m, although the ICAO imposes no requirement on it do so. The Malaysian government now says it has contributed a total of $112m, but the official Australian figures suggest it has actually spent less than that.

So why does Malaysia not take the initiative to fund an extended search? The Malaysian Transport Ministry responded to this question with the formula from last July, that all three countries had agreed they first needed indications of a specific location for the crash site, despite that fact that such detailed information in a huge expanse of sea is extremely unlikely to be found.

Piece of possible MH370 debris found in Madagascar in June 2016

Pieces probably from the plane have been found as far away as Madagascar

Relatives of the passengers have also criticised the Malaysian authorities for being so slow to request recovered pieces of debris, eight of which are now believed to be almost certainly from the missing airliner.

That debris is important: it has not only helped ascertain a probable alternative location for the plane; it has also helped confirm how the aircraft ended its flight, with Australian investigators concluding that it plunged into the sea, and was not under the control of the pilot.

Malaysia has at times given the impression of being a reluctant lead investigator, happy for Australia to do most of the legwork.

Aviation expert Geoffrey Thomas describes Malaysia’s approach as “inexcusable and irresponsible. It is their plane, and their responsibility to find out what happened to it. They are walking away from their commitment to international aviation and the flying public”.

The Malaysian Ministry of Transport says only that “all decisions with regards to the MH370 search have and will always be in the spirit of tripartite co-operation.”

If it is primarily Malaysia’s call to restart the search operation, it looks unlikely to make it.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 20 January 2017, 12:29 pm and is filed under
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Najib has achieved what all the five previous Prime Ministers have failed to do in  getting  Malaysia into the world’s top 20 nations –  joining the club of global  kleptocracy in short span of 5-6 years!

It should be  a great start for the launching of the National Transformation 2050 (TN50) journey with the  first town hall dialogue of  the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak with 500 youths at the Tunku Chancellor in  University of Malaya and telecast live to the nation.

But anybody following the TN50 launch-off live from their homes and offices would have realized that there is something missing in the air of the Prime Minister’s dialogue – detracting from the event’s authenticity,  bona fides and relevance.

What was wrong and missing about the TN dialogue was brought to the fore when the Prime Minister in his ending remarks called on the youths to ensure that Malaysia get into  the world’s top 20 nations.

But Najib had achieved what all the five previous Prime Ministers – Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak, Tun Hussein, Tun Mahathir and Tun Abdullah –  have failed to do in  getting  Malaysia into the world’s top 20 nations. Joining the club of global kleptocracy in a short span of five to six years!

Not a single one of the selected 500 youth attendees dare to advert to this “phenomenal” national  achievement –  to shoot into the world’s top 20  nations if not “top 10” or even “top five” in global kleptocracy – and there was not a single question about accountability, integrity and good governance, whether about “tigers” in China and “crocodiles” in Indonesia being brought to justice while “ikan yus” swimming at large and freely  in the South China Sea, not to mention the international multi-billion dollar 1MDB kleptocratic money-laundering scandal which is creating international waves and headlines almost every other day!

The artificial quality of the TN 50 launch-off became even more evident when it is reported that the Prime Minister studiously avoided the group of student activists led by Kesatuan Mahasaswa Malaysia chairperson Anis Syafiqah Md Yusof who wanted to deliver a personal message to him, but who were left holding up their protest placards as the Prime Minister’s official entourage of a fleet of cars left the Universiti Malaya campus.

What an ignominous instead of a glorious launch-off for  the TN 50 journey –  with the  message that it is not an inclusive journey for all Malaysians, regardless of race, religion, region, politics, gender or age but only for a selected and captive audience!

                This entry was posted on Friday, 20 January 2017, 7:29 am and is filed under
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The Malaysian government must seriously consider funding a new MH370 search

The Malaysian Government must give full and satisfactory response to serious allegations made in the international media that it had withheld crucial data that could help find  the missing MH370  from the Australian authorities and independent aviation and data experts involved in the search.

The Australian news website News.com.au is one of the international media which had made these shocking allegations.

In an exclusive article, the Australian website said: “If you assumed those tasked with finding this needle in a haystack had been given every piece of information available to solve what is now regarded as the greatest aviation mystery in history, you would be wrong.

“News.com.au can reveal that Malaysia withheld, and continues to withhold, from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) and consulting experts, vital radar data containing possible clues to the location of the Boeing 777 – or what is left of it.”

The search for the Malaysia Airlines jet, which went missing en route to Beijing, China from Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014, officially ended on Tuesday after the search party failed to find any sign of the plane in a 12,000 sq km section of the Southern Indian Ocean.

The article also alleged that the Malaysian authorities were negligent and befuddled in the crucial hours after the plane went off radar.

It quoted two independent investigators of MH370’s disappearance – American Victor Iannello and British Don Thompson – who concurred they have been denied access to data that could more accurately pinpoint the plane’s location.

Thompson told the website that military long-range air defence surveillance data from eight military sites across four nations, was not shared with the ATSB.

“Those satellites, all within range of MH370’s flight path – any one of them, or all collectively, could provide vital clues to the plane’s whereabouts. ”

There were also discrepancies and inconsistencies in evidence relating to the flight path, that was shown to victims’ families, and was never made available to official investigators, said the report.

One such data was presented by the Royal Malaysian Air Force’s Lt-Gen Ackbal Abdul Samad to victims’ families in Beijing, China, that placed the flight in the Malacca Straits, it added. This data was also reportedly not shared with ATSB.

“A full copy of the MH370 data communications log has never been made public. The version released has been heavily edited by authorities.

“The existence of telephone records indicating First Officer Fariq Abdul Hamid’s mobile phone connected to a tower on Penang Island were initially denied by Malaysia,” the report pointed out, adding that authorities however, later admitted the event had occurred.

“Details of this midair call have never been made public.”

The ending of the search of MH370 has become embroiled in  increasing international controversy.

With growing allegations on irresponsible and incompetent handling of the major air disaster by the Malaysian authorities,  a question that must be decided is whether Malaysia should fund a new MH370 search.

The families of the MH370 victims are in grave disagreement with the tripartite decision of Malaysia, Australia and China of 17th January to suspend the search for MH370.

They  condemned the requirement for a “precise location”, calling it “at best an erroneous expectation, and at worst a clever formulation to bury the search”。

I call on the Malaysian government to answer the specific question haunting all concerned  whether the two-and-half-year search had been looking in the wrong area.

How can the Malaysian government expect  Malaysians or the victims’ families to accept that passengers of the national airline can just disappear into thin air?

The Malaysian Government should seriously consider funding a new MH370 search!

                This entry was posted on Friday, 20 January 2017, 3:15 pm and is filed under
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Why hasn’t MH370 been found?

Elle Hunt

Guardian

Thursday 19 January 2017

Australia’s multimillion-dollar search effort for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight ‘tested the limits of human endeavour’ – and failed. Where did it go wrong?

Nearly three years after the disappearance of MH370, theories abound as to what caused the Boeing-777 to change course and fly more than six hours with its satellite and navigation systems turned off, before plummeting into the Indian Ocean at terrifying speed.

Plenty of theories, but only piecemeal evidence.

And now, with the conclusion of the largest and most expensive underwater search effort in history, the governments of Malaysia, China and Australia have stopped looking for more.

At a media conference in Melbourne on Wednesday, the Australian transport minister, Darren Chester, said the mission led by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau had been at the “cutting edge of science and technology, and tested the limits of human endeavour”.

Why did such an extraordinary effort fail?

Chester stressed that “very limited data” had been available in the months after the plane’s disappearance on 8 March 2014. But independent investigators who have been following the search closely say the ATSB made crucial errors in determining where to look.

The Independent Group is a network of about 20 pilots, scientists, engineers and experts around the world united by an interest in solving the mystery of MH370. With members based in the US, the UK, Germany, Sweden, France, Singapore, Canada, New Zealand and Hong Kong, members communicate mostly over email and analyse publicly available information.

Over the past two years some have occasionally conferred with the ATSB; in March 2016 the then-chief commissioner, Martin Dolan, told the Guardian that the IG provided valuable “criticism and questioning”.

The ATSB and the IG “by and large” agree, according to Richard Godfrey, an aerospace engineer and IG member based in Frankfurt. “It’s a lot to get your mind around, all of the data in its significance.”

But there are also crucial gaps, even in the data that was used to determine the underwater search area.

The turn south

The ATSB’s underwater operation began in early October 2014, nearly six months after the aerial and surface search had concluded without success, with a 60,000 sq km “priority area” determined by analysis of the plane’s last radar and satellite communications.

The critical disagreement between the IG and the ATSB is over the estimation of the moment that MH370 turned south.

At 2.22am local time the Malaysian military’s primary radar said the plane was bound north-west along the Malacca Strait. That was reiterated by Inmarsat satellite data at 2.25. But just after 2.22, the plane was abruptly lost from the radar – and by 3.41 the satellite data showed it had inexplicably changed course to track in a southerly direction.

MH370’s final resting place depended – still depends – on when it made that all-important turn, and how far south it flew before running out of fuel and crashed.

Malaysia Airlines’ operational centre, having noticed the plane had “gone dark” on radar and was not responding on radio, called its satellite phone at 2.39 and again at 2.40. There was no answer.

The ATSB believes the plane had turned south by the point of the first attempted call. “But it could have taken place much later, and that changes things enormously in terms of how far south the plane could have flown,” Godfrey said.

He and the rest of the IG believe that the plane was descending by 2.39, at a rate of about 2,000 feet a minute towards an air force base in India’s Nicobar Islands. This would suggest MH370 could have turned south as late as 3.36 – almost an hour after the attempted phone call.

If the satellite data was interpreted to show a descent, the plane would have run out of fuel and crashed up to 870km further north than the northernmost point of the area searched by the ATSB.

In its June 2014 report defining the search area, the ATSB was forthcoming about “uncertainty associated” with the Inmarsat data and the impact it would have on the plane’s location, going so far as to state that “no evidence was available to conclusively determine” when the turn – or turns – took place.

Despite this significant ambiguity, the assumptions about the satellite data were used to determine the search area, which Godfrey described as a “little bit of a screw-up”. The bigger one was to come.

The search area increases

In April 2015, with some 40% of the priority area yet to be searched, there was a tripartite announcement that the search zone would be extended by a further 60,000 sq km, “thereby covering the entire highest probability area identified by expert analysis”.

This 120,000 sq km total area was a remote stretch of water almost twice the size of Tasmania, nearly 2,500km off the coast of Western Australia.

Over almost two and a half years, eight search vessels scoured depths of up to 6km in waves of sometimes up to 20 metres. Greg Hood, the ATSB’s chief commissioner, said at Wednesday’s press conference they were “some of the most extreme ocean conditions anywhere in the world”.

“This has been the largest and most challenging underwater search operation in history, and we have a high degree of confidence now that the aircraft is not in the area in which we have searched,” he said.

The likely location of MH370’s wreck is a narrow stretch of water known as “the seventh arc” – a line connecting seven so-called “handshakes” with the plane recorded by the Inmarsat satellite. In doubling the search area, the ATSB committed to searching 40 nautical miles of seafloor either side of it.

“That is the one single, huge mistake in this whole exercise,” Godfrey said.

As long ago as September 2014, he and 12 other members of the IG co-authored a report recommending that the width of the search area be reduced but its length be extended northwards. He stands by that analysis today.

The ATSB had been guided by the so-called “glide theory”: that with a pilot in control, the plane flew a further 100 nautical miles after running out of fuel in a controlled ditching. But this was disputed from the start by Inmarsat satellite data that showed that the plane was in a steep dive in its final moments, “accelerating into the ocean at quite a horrendous rate”, said Godfrey – up to 15,000 feet a minute.

This data, only accepted by the ATSB late last year, would situate the wreck no more than 15 nautical miles on either side of the seventh arc. The decision to widen the search area to 40 was unfounded, said Godfrey, and another example of the ATSB committing too much on the strength of too little.

The only other aviation disaster akin to MH370was Air France flight 447, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris in 2009. That recovery operation was stop-start as evidence came to light.

But the ATSB’s analysis of debris that eventually came to be found on beaches in the Indian Ocean and on the east coast of Africa, starting with a flaperon on Réunion Island in late July 2015, occurred at the same time of its search of the seventh arc.

“They set out at the start what they were going to cover, and they kept to it,” Godfrey said.

The next best guess

The ATSB expressed confidence right up until the search’s final stages. Before the second anniversary of the plane’s disappearance, Dolan said it was “very likely” to be in the remaining 30,000 sq km area.

It only publicly expressed misgivings in December, after a three-day summit of experts in Canberra reviewed the findings so far. In its subsequent report, it announced a “high degree of confidence” that the plane was north of the seventh arc, in a patch of ocean of approximately 25,000 sq km.

Even this new area, according to Godfrey, is still based on “the same false assumptions”. He would search even further north: “If I had a million dollars to spend, that’s where I’d spend it.”

But the decision to extend the search was not the ATSB’s to make. In July 2016 the three governments had reiterated their earlier resolution not to extend the search, unless “credible new information” led to the aircraft’s “specific location”.

Those caveats were stressed by Chester, the Australian transport minister, and his Malaysian counterpart, Liow Tiong Lai, after the ATSB’s First Principles Review report was published.

“It did come as a surprise that Darren Chester’s office rather quickly brushed aside any discussion on a possible extension of the search after the First Principles Review,” said K S Narendran from Chennai, India, who lost his wife on MH370. He was present at that tripartite meeting in July.

“I did carry the impression from that meeting that Malaysia was perhaps not too keen on continuation of the search, while the Australians were sympathetic to our situation and our entreaties for a continuation of the search effort,” he said.

“Malaysia has from very early on given the impression that either it was not up to the task, or was keen to fold up the search and investigation.”

A spokesperson for the Malaysian government responded: “We wish to note that every decision with regards to MH370 search efforts are made in the spirit of Tripartite.”

Malaysia’s investigation

Criticism of the Malaysian investigation for a perceived lack of urgency and transparency has been voiced by the IG, journalists and passengers’ next of kin. Communication and reporting has been haphazard and deficient in detail, with a thousand-page report kept confidential within Malaysian police (but leaked to the IG).

Australian authorities have not joined the criticism but they have been somewhat hamstrung in their role leading search and recovery when Malaysia, as the country in which MH370 was registered, holds responsibility for the investigation, as well as the analysis of debris.

When the US independent investigator Blaine Gibson delivered aircraft debris to the ATSB in Canberra in person last September – partly out of frustration at Malaysia’s months-long delay to collect it – the ATSB’s on-the-record response was that it was “seeking advice from Malaysian authorities regarding how they would like to proceed”.

“Australian authorities have a difficult diplomatic issue,” said Don Thompson, an IG member based in Belfast. “One doesn’t make overt criticisms of one’s international partners.”

He characterises the Malaysian authorities’ approach as “incredibly callous” – even secretive.

On 21 March 2014 the country’s air force chief of air operations presented a graphic depicting a series of radar point to a delegation of next of kin in Beijing. The track extending over the Malacca Strait was assumed to show MH370 after it had deviated from its course, as recorded by military radar.

Government investigators made no subsequent reference to the graphic, nor was it shared with the ATSB. A photograph taken by a member of the press is believed to be the only image of the data publicly available.

Thompson pointed to this as evidence of “silence and stonewalling and questionable excuses”. “It’s unconscionable that Malaysia refuses to be more open about this,” he said.

The flight simulator mystery

Last July the journalist and commentator Jeff Wise reported in New York Magazine that the home flight simulator of MH370’s captain, Zaharie Ahmad Shah, had been used to plot a course to the southern Indian Ocean – one month before the plane vanished along a similar route.

Liow, Malaysia’s transport minister, said Malaysian authorities were “not aware” of the simulated route, nor the FBI analysis of it outlined by Wise – even after the ATSB confirmed both.

The significance of the simulation is another point of contention between the IG and the ATSB, with the latter stressing that it did not show intention to fly; it was not necessarily plotted by Zaharie; and there were only six points relevant to the course apparently taken by MH370.

“I personally don’t think it’s the kind of simulation that people do every day on a flight simulator,” Godfrey said. Taken as fact, he said, it gave “tremendous clues” to the whereabouts of MH370, narrowing it down to an area of below 10,000 sq km much further north of the search area – “that hasn’t been searched at all”.

His personal view, not unanimous within the IG, he said, was that Zaharie crashed MH370 in an act of murder-suicide – a “politically unsavoury” opinion to hold. If found to be true, it has enormous implications for families’ ongoing battles for compensation from Malaysia Airlines, which was placed in government administration in May 2015 after the MH370 and subsequent MH17 air disasters.

The two most advanced of these cases, lodged in the Kuala Lumpur high court and the Australian federal court, have reached an impasse after the airline refused to hand over logbooks, flight crew’s medical records and other documentation.

“You have to ask the question, when you know that someone has information they are keeping secret, is why – why don’t they want to divulge,” Godfrey said. “It is for me rather obvious that they are scared of compensation claims that will go into the billions, not into millions … It’s not just in [Malaysia’s] interest to admit that this was a result of a crime.”

Sucked into the black hole

If Malaysia wants the mystery of MH370 to just go away, public opinion is on its side – particularly in Australia, which is perceived to have gone above and beyond given that it had only six citizens on board.

Wise, the journalist who describes himself as “abnormally obsessed” with MH370, said the public had “lost interest in the story” – his wife included.

For two years he has argued that MH370 is in Kazakhstan after having been hijacked on Vladimir Putin’s instruction. He was excommunicated by the IG in March 2015, he said for “being so far out on a limb”; the IG said for abusing members’ trust.

Wise, for his part, said the IG “really bristle” at the implication that the perpetrators could have been smarter than them. Because at face value his theory is disproved by the discovery of debris, he has also accused Blaine Gibson – who he says has spent his career “eyeball-deep in Russia” – of planting it; Gibson said he had received death threats as a result.

Wise said his questions over inconsistencies in Gibson’s finds were legitimate but acknowledged the challenge of distinguishing them from what he termed “the toxic fog” surrounding MH370. “There’s so much misinformation that’s relentlessly put out there … It’s an almost impossible task for someone who isn’t sucked into this black hole.”

His conviction has been strengthened by the ATSB’s failure in the Indian Ocean. “I don’t expect you to believe me, I don’t believe everyone else. But I would point out that the plane isn’t there.”

Pointing to a new potential search area in the last stages of a failing mission allowed the ATSB to save face, said Wise: it defended its significant investment to date while presenting next steps that it would have known it would probably be prevented from taking.

“It’s frustrating to me that they’re taking this attitude of, ‘We know where it is, we’re just not allowed to look’ …

“As the search winds up three years on, the ATSB is trying to say, ‘We did our best, we were unlucky, end of story – we never solved Amelia Earhart either, but life goes on.’ I think this is the one opportunity to say, ‘Were you unlucky, or were you bamboozled?’”

But a failure can either be an ending or a new beginning. Long before the last ship departed the search area on Tuesday, there had been little incentive to ask “Where next?”

The real barrier to finding out what happened to MH370 is not a lack of evidence, capability or even a next best guess at the plane’s whereabouts. It’s apathy.

Thompson, the IG member in Belfast, said after three years the mystery had “receded from most people’s minds”.

“But there are about 1,000 or 1,500 people who wake every morning with the reality: ‘My husband, my father, my daughter, my cousin, my sister, my brother still hasn’t come home, and I don’t know where they are.’”

Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes in Bangkok

                This entry was posted on Friday, 20 January 2017, 11:42 am and is filed under
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Najib is repudiating his father Tun Razak’s legacy in  violating the fifth Rukunegara principle of “Good Behaviour and Morality” by leading the UMNO charge and campaign of fear, hatred and lies against the DAP

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak is repudiating his father Tun Razak’s legacy in  violating the fifth Rukunegara principle of “Good Behaviour and Morality” by leading the UMNO charge and campaign of fear, hatred and lies against the DAP.

Today, through UMNO “mainstream media”, Najib continued the campaign of fear, hatred and lies against the DAP  claiming that Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad had admitted that the DAP would be given the Deputy Prime Minister’s post if the Opposition wins federal power, and  lambasted Mahathir for having spent 22 years attacking me and suddenly, Mahathir wanted to give me the position of Deputy Prime Minister.

Anybody who follows public affairs closely would know that Najib was concocting a tissue of lies, as DAP had never asked for the post of DPM, whether under Pakatan Rakyat, Pakatan Harapan or the present Pakatan Harapan Plus Pribumi Bersatu – and I myself am not aware that Mahathir wanted me to be Deputy Prime Minister if the Opposition wins federal power.

I should be flattered that in the past few days, the UMNO/Barisan Nasional “mainstream media” had gone to town about the fairy tale of  my being Deputy Prime Minister, hoping to create fear and hatred in certain sectors of the population through dissemination of such  lies and falsehoods.

Najib should realise that the UMNO/BN “mainstream media” had lost their  credibility and authority because more and more Malaysians have woken up to the fact that they are the worst culprits for manufacturing “fake news” and “false stories” which Najib had purportedly warned Malaysians in his New Year message.

Najib should realise that if he is so politically desperate as to repudiate his father’s legacy of Rukunegara, in particular the fifth principle of “Good Behaviour and Morality,” as to take the personal charge  of the UMNO/BN campaign of fear, hatred and lies against the Opposition, the end result is a faster slippage and total loss of whatever is left of the credibility of the UMNO/BN “mainstream media”.

 At present these UMNO/Barisan Nasional  “mainstream media” are already facing a grave and critical crisis of confidence, with one of them at present  virtually bankrupt begging UMNO to pay the staff salaries almost monthly and another national daily selling only  some 50,000 copies a day, a pale shadow of its former self.

May be, Najib wants to give these UMNO/Barisan Nasional “mainstream media” an early burial to end the agony of having to continue to prop them up financially.

(Media Conference Statement at Kampong Tok Subuh, Bukit Mertajam on Saturday, 21st January 2016 at 12.30 pm)

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 21 January 2017, 4:00 pm and is filed under
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The role and place of Rukunegara, the first Caliph’s inaugural address and global kleptocralcy in  TN50’s “shared vision for the future”

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak has touted 2050 National Transformation (TN50) policy as a shared vision that will give everyone, especially young Malaysians, an opportunity to shape the nation in the years to come.

He said at the launch of the TN 50 at the first of Town Hall dialogues with 500 selected youths at the Universiti Malaya’s Dewan Tunku Canselor on Thursday night that TN 50 shared vision for the future, which is Malaysia’s roadmap for the next 33 years, must come from the people so that there is a sense of public ownership and belonging.

Very correct. How can a minority government, which has only 47% support of the popular electorate in last general election in 2013, have the locus standi  to talk about creating a national vision for 2050 without the full participation of the 53% of the national electorate  who rejected  UMNO/Barisan Nasional government?

When former Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad introduced  “Vision 2020” when tabling the Sixth Malaysia Plan in Parliament in 1991, he had the support of the majority electorate in the 1990 general election, where Barisan Nasional secured 53.4% of the popular vote, which increased to 65.2% in the 1995 general election.

This is very different from Najib, who secured only 47% of the popular vote but 60 per cent of the parliamentary seats because of gerrymandering and a most undemocratic redelineration of electoral constituencies.

Be that as it may, there cannot be any meaningful national dialogue about a national shared vision for the next 33 years in NT50 unless there is national consensus on the fundamentals of Malaysian nation-building based on the Malaysian Constitution, the Malaysian Agreement 1963,  the Rukunegara principle and objectives 1970 and Vision 2020.

Is NT50 a repudiation or fulfilment of Vision 2020 – and shouldn’t there be a national reappraisal whether Vision 2020 is a success or a failure?

For today’s purpose, I want to pose two questions:

My first questions is whether the  TN50  will reaffirm the five Rukunegara principles of  Belief in God; Loyalty to King and Country; Upholding the Constitution; Rule of Law and Good Behaviour and Morality and the five Rukunegara objectives (1) to achieve a greater unity of all her peoples; (2) to maintain a democratic way of life; (3) to create a just society in which the wealth of the nation shall be equitably shared; (4)  to ensure a liberal approach to her rich and diverse cultural traditions; and (5) to build a progressive society which shall be oriented to modern science and technology?

I am reminded of the first Caliph  Abu Bakr As-Siddeeq’s first but short  and classic inaugural address. It  fits into a paragraph but  touched upon several critical issues, including Governance, Justice, relationships between the government and the citizenry, etc.

This was Abu Bakr’s classic inaugural address as the first Caliph:

“O people, I have been appointed over you, though I am not the best among you. If I do well, then help me; and if I act wrongly, then correct me. Truthfulness is synonymous with fulfilling the trust, and lying is equivalent to treachery. The weak among you is deemed strong by me, until I return to them that which is rightfully theirs, insha Allah. And the strong among you is deemed weak by me, until I take from them what is rightfully (someone else’s), insha Allah. No group of people abandons military/armed struggle in the path of Allah, except that Allah makes them suffer humiliation. And evil/mischief does not become widespread among a people, except that Allah inflicts them with widespread calamity. Obey me so long as I obey Allah and His Messenger. And if I disobey Allah and His Messenger, then I have no right to your obedience. Stand up now to pray, may Allah have mercy on you”.

“Wahai manusia, sesungguhnya aku telah dilantik menjadi pemimpin kamu, bukanlah aku yang terbaik dalam kalangan kamu. Jika aku betul, tolonglah aku. Jika aku salah, betulkanlah aku. Benar itu adalah amanah, bohong itu adalah khianat.

“Orang yang lemah dalam kalangan kamu adalah kuat di sisi sehingga aku mengembalikan haknya. Orang yang kuat dalam kalangan kamu, lemah di sisiku sehingga aku mengambil daripadanya hak (menghalang apa yang bukan haknya), insya-Allah. Jangan kamu meninggalkan jihad, kerana tidak ada kaum yang meninggalkan jihad, melainkan Allah timpakan mereka dengan kehinaan.

“Taatlah aku selagi aku taatkan Allah dan Rasul-Nya. Jika aku derhakakan Allah dan Rasul-Nya, maka tiada ketaatan untukku.”(Ibn Athir, Al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, 1/361).

The lessons from Abu Bakr’s short inaugural but powerful and moving speech include:

1. The right of citizens to scrutinize their leader and to hold him accountable;

2. Truthfulness should be the basis of all dealings between a leader and his people;

3. Establishing the principles of Justice and Equality

4. War against wickedness and shameful acts

5. Declaration that the leader is not above the law.

Malaysia is a confluence of great religions, cultures and civilisations in the world and it will do the character of Malaysian nation-building great good if the present generation are taught the wisdom from all the great religions, cultures and civilisations which meet in confluence in Malaysia – not only the inaugural address of the first Caliph, but the great sayings from the sages from the different cultures and civilisations.

My second question is whether maintaining Malaysia as a “global kleptocracy” will be an integral part of the shared national vision which TN50 is designed to be, and if not, what Malaysians, regardless of race, religion, region, politics, gender or age should do to cleanse and purge Malaysia of the ignominy and infamy of being regarded worldwide as a global kleptocracy.

(Speech at the launch of “Jelajah Desa Bersama Kit Siang” at Kampong Tok Subuh, Bukit Mertajam)

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 21 January 2017, 12:41 pm and is filed under
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Lesson of my two-day “Jelajah Desa Bersama Kit Siang” is that ordinary Malays like ordinary non-Malays  want unity, peace, harmony,  progress and prosperity  for plural Malaysia and not racial or religious polarization to divide the country and cause tensions

One important lesson I have learnt from my two-day “Jelajah Desa Bersama Kit Siang” in Bukit Mertajam to Kampong Permatang Tok Subuh yesterday and to Sungai Gelugur in Bukit Gelugor today is that ordinary Malays like ordinary non-Malays  want unity, peace, harmony,  progress and prosperity  for plural Malaysia and not racial or religious polarization to divide the country and cause tensions.

In the past eight years, irresponsible politicking and communalization have succeed in projecting a very misleading and even mischievous perception that the Malays are being oppressed and suppressed in Penang, that the DAP-led Penang State Government is anti-Malay and anti-Islam.

These are  not borne out by the facts and the actual situation in the state.

In fact, the DAP-led Penang State Government has done more for the Malays and Islam as compared to what Barisan Nasional government of the past.

I myself have been demonized of being  anti-Malay and anti-Islam.

I really pity the UMNO operatives who  have been tasked with the thankless job of going through the 10 million words that I must have spoken and written in my 51 years of political life to  find proof that I am anti-Malay and anti-Islam  and yet unable to do so – which is in fact the most powerful testimony that it is the UMNO leaders, propagandists and cybertroopers who are guilty of the most irresponsible and immoral gutter politics of lies, hate and bigotry in trying to demonise DAP and myself  as anti-Malay and anti-Islam.

I call on Najib and the UMNO leaders, propagandists and cybertroopers to  stop their puerile and hateful politics of defaming and demonising DAP leaders, but to be model leaders and  citizens to promote a national shared vision, especially as the Prime Minister is promoting a National Transformation 2050 (TN50) policy.

As I told the women folk in Kampong Permatang Tok Subuh in Bukit Mertajam yesterday, any DAP government will be a thousand times better than the present UMNO government of Najib, for the simple reason that a DAP government will want to prove that under its stewardship, all Malaysians, whether Malays, Chinese, Indians, Kadazans, Dayaks or Orang Asal will enjoy a better life so that we can continue to get the support of the electorate to win future general elections.

It is a “no brainer” for anyone to make the baseless allegation that a DAP or DAP-controlled government will be anti-Malay or anti-Islam, unless DAP wants to commit political suicide and DAP is not suicide-prone.

The racial and religious polarisation in the past eight years, particularly after the 2008 General Elections, creating racial divisions and tensions, are all the handiwork of desperate and ruthless political operatives and leaders and not the work of ordinary Malays and ordinary non-Malays who only want unity, peace, harmony, progress and prosperity for every one in the state and country.

The ordinary citizenry, regardless of race, religion or even politics, must not allow the political hustlers to create racial and religious tensions in the country just to serve their own political ends but must ensure that Penang and Malaysia can continue to progress and prosper for the best interests of our children and children’s children.

(Media Conference Statement at the end of “Jelajah Desa Bersma Kit Siang 2.0” at Sungai Gelugor on Sunday, 22nd January 2017 at 12.30 pm)

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 22 January 2017, 4:24 pm and is filed under
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Najib’s Goebbelian Syndrome – I am made a guinea pig to test the Goebbels’ Nazi  doctrine to “tell a big lie,  keep repeating it and eventually people will believe it” to control the rural Malay mind

This is Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s Goebbelian Syndrome – to use me as  a guinea pig to test out the Goebbels’ Nazi doctrine to “tell a big lie, keep repeating it and eventually people will believe it” to control the rural Malay mind.

In his UMNO Presidential Speech on Nov. 30, Najib set in motion this Goebbelian power play, telling three Nazi-style “Big Lies” about the DAP, viz:

1.    That the 14th General Elections will be a contest between UMNO and DAP;

2.    That the DAP is anti-Malay or  anti-Islam.

3.    The “nightmares” Malay will suffer if UMNO loses power in the next general elections.

These three “Big Lies” fit the Goebbels/Nazi definition that “if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

Najib and the UMNO propagandists have not been able to reply to my rebuttal of Najib’s “Three Nazi Big Lies” against the DAP or  the challenge to  Najib to list out DAP’s Three Big Lies against  him or the UMNO leadership – but  the Goebbelian attack of “Nazi Big Lies”  on the DAP and me have  continued.

But it is very evident that Najib’s propagandists shy away from a public debate, including on television live, to defend their Three Nazi Big Lies against the DAP, for they have no cogent or credible reply to the DAP response to UMNO’s Three Nazi Big Lies against the DAP, viz:

1.    14th General Election not a battle UMNO vs DAP. It will be a battle between the Barisan Nasional led by UMNO and the Pakatan Harapan coaliltion of DAP, PKR and Parti Amanah together with Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) to save Malaysia from a kleptocracy by defending the founding Constitutional principles of a democratic, just and united plural Malaysia.

2.     DAP is not anti-Malay or anti-Islam. DAP is not a Chinese party as right from the beginning of our formation 50 years ago, we were committed to the principles and vision of a Malaysian party, led by Malaysians and serving the interests of all Malaysians, regardless of race, religion or region.

DAP was founded 51 years to be party for all Malaysians, regardless of race, religion or region, and this is why we have within our  ranks Malays, Chinese, Indians, Kadazans, Dayaks, Orang Asli; Muslims, Buddhinsts, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Confucianists, Taoists.

3.     Malays will not have “nightmares” if UMNO loses power in 14GE, as Najib tried to create scare and panic among  the Malays that they will lose  political power to the Chinese.

Whatever happens in the 14GE, whether Najib is toppled as Prime Minister or UMNO loses the Federal Government, the Malays in Malaysia will continue to exercise political power in the country as there is no way they will lose their political power.

The demographic reality of the nation and the  racial make-up of the electorate and the  parliamentary constituencies are  the surest guarantees that the Malays will not lose political power whatever happens to Najib or to UMNO in the next general elections.

With the triple factors establishing overwhelming Malay predominance in the Malaysian political scene – the demographic make-up of the general population, the electorate and the parliamentary constituencies – can Najib and UMNO propagandists explain how the Malays will lose political power, whatever the scenario in the 14GE?

How Malays who dominate in 70% of the parliamentary seats in Peninsular Malaysia will lose political power to the Chinese, who are in the majority in only 13% of the parliamentary seats?

Najib and his propagandists and cybertroopers could not counter the rebuttals of their Three Nazi “Big Lies”, and this is why they have been  turning and twisting to come out with variations of the Three Nazi Big Lies against the DAP.

But what really surprised me is that Najib is leading the Goebbellian propaganda charge, as in Kedah last week, Najib signified a major variation from  the original attack, saying that regardless of whether DAP has the top government post, the party will still  “call the shots” and run the show if UMNO/BN is defeated in the 14th General Election.

Najib said: “Democracy and politics are a game of numbers. Who has the most seats, wins. Even if the top post of the government is not given to it, the party with the most seats will effectively rule.”

This was a major back-off for Najib  from the earlier insinuation that DAP wanted the Prime Minister’s post,  now varied to the  baseless allegation that the DAP had demanded and  Mahathir had conceded not only the post of Deputy Prime Minister but also that of Finance Minister to me, specifically alleging that there was a secret meeting between Mahathir and me on Dec. 3 where a “secret deal” was struck where Mukhriz would be Prime Minister and I would be DPM-cum-Finance Minister.

These are only more Nazi-style “Big Lies” based on the Goebbelian theory: “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it!”

The who edifice of UMNO’s Goebbelian propaganda against the DAP is based on the multitude of lies that DAP is anti-Malay, anti-Islam, anti-Malay Rulers; that the 14th GE is a contest between UMNO and DAP; that Mahathir, Muhyiddin, Anwar, Mat Sabu (and previously Hadi) were all my stooges under my thumb; and that the Malays will suffer if UMNO loses power in the 14GE – all downright Nazi-style Big  Lies.

I really pity the UMNO operatives who  have been tasked with the thankless job of going through the 10 million words that I must have spoken and written in my 51 years of political life to  find proof that I am anti-Malay, anti-Islam, anti-Malay Rulers and yet unable to do so – which is in fact the most powerful testimony that it is the UMNO leaders, propagandists and cybertroopers who are guilty of the most irresponsible and immoral gutter politics of lies, hate and bigotry in trying to demonise DAP and myself  as anti-Malay, anti-Islam and anti-Malay Rulers.

Will the UMNO/Barisan Nasional leaders stop the puerile and hateful politics of defaming and demonising DAP leaders.

But what could be more puerile and ludicrous than having on the one hand, UMNO propagandists and cybertroopers accusing Mahathir of becoming my puppet and stooge while MCA/Gerakan propagandists and cybertroopers doing the very opposite,  accusing me of being Mahathir’s puppet and stooge?

Clearly, these UMNO/MCA/Gerakan/Barisan Nasional leaders and propagandists cannot understand that  neither Mahathir or  I is the stooge or puppet of the other, that we can continue to disagree on many political questions but yet can come together on the larger national agenda of saving Malaysia from becoming a global kleptocracy and a failed and rogue state.

In fact, if the PAS President, Datuk Seri Hadi Awang is prepared to conclude a solemn agreement that the top priority in the 14th General Election is to save Malaysia from becoming a global kleptocracy and a failed and rogue state, which would be the national agenda for the next five to ten years, I am prepared to co-operate with him.  Is Hadi prepared to make such a commitment?

Najib’s strategists and propagandists are however realistic enough to realise that  their “Big Nazi Lies” about the DAP as anti-Malay, anti-Islam and anti-Malay Rulers may not be sustainable and credible, as it is nonsensical for any rational mind to believe that even if DAP wins all the some 50 parliamentary seats it will contest in the 14GE, it could be in control of Putrajaya when the total parliamentary seats are 222.

But Najib’s strategists and propaganists hope that at least for the 14GE, they could make these “Big Nazi Lies” about the DAP credible and believable to the rural Malay mind, which is a reflection of the desperation  felt by Najib and UMNO leaders that despite the veneer of confidence that they could sweep to victory in the 14GE and even to restore two-thirds parliamentary majority, they are aware that they could be ejected from Putrajaya altogether.

This is why the Goebbellian propaganda campaign to scare the rural Malay voters that the anti-Malay, anti-Islam DAP will defeat UMNO in the next general elections and that the Malay race will be wiped out by the Chinese is such a massive, high-powered and well-financed  operation, involving not  only the Prime Minister himself, UMNO Ministers and leaders, UMNO outfits disguised as government institutions like Jabatan Hal Ehwal Khas (JASA), ambassadors who are political appointees, UMNO-owned “mainstream media”,   “soldiers of fortune” who are very well  paid to spout lies and falsehoods, an army of UMNO cybertroopers and mercenary websites.

Only cretins and political medicine-sellers will believe or disseminate lies that there can be a DAP or DAP-controlled government in 14GE.

But as I told the women folk in Kampong Permatang Tok Subuh in Bukit Mertajam yesterday, any DAP government will be a thousand times better than the present UMNO government of Najib, for the simple reason that a DAP government will want to prove that under its stewardship, all Malaysians, whether Malays, Chinese, Indians, Kadazans, Dayaks or Orang Asal will enjoy a better life so that we can continue to get the support of the electorate to win future general elections.

It is a “no brainer” for anyone to make the baseless allegation that a DAP or DAP-controlled government will be anti-Malay or anti-Islam, unless DAP wants to commit political suicide and DAP is not suicide-prone.

Malaysia is unique as a multi-racial, multi-religious, multi-lingual and multi-cultural Malaysia.

I have always believed that a person who is anti-Malay and anti-Islam cannot be a true Malaysian, just as a person who is anti-Chinese or anti-Indian, anti-Buddhism, anti-Christianity, anti-Hindusim, anti-Sikkhism could not be a genuine Malaysian for he or she will be denying the multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-cultural diversity and heritage in Malaysia which is the country’s greatest asset and strength to be a world-class nation.

I would urge Najib and  UMNO leaders, propagandists and cybertroopers to liberate themselves from the Goebbelian Syndrome, especially at a time when he is promoting a national shared vision for the future in National Transformation 2050 (TN50) and  to stop their gutter-politics of lies, falsehood, fake news and hatred if they really love Malaysia, for the degeneration of Malaysian politics to the gutter level is to take Malaysian nation-building to the cleaners as well!

I find it most laughable to see a headline in one of the UMNO mainstream media today, “Lim Should Make A Public Apology”, which is one important reason why UMNO mainstream media are facing a crisis of existence, with one virtually bankrupt and asking UMNO to pay the staff salaries while another reduced to one-tenth of the circulation it once boasted at its hey-day domination of Malaysia print media.

Who is the  Goebbels of Malaysia? Not Najib or any UMNO Minister or leader, but a powerful behind-the-scene figure who may doing UMNO and Barisan Nasional the greatest national disservice and finally responsible for UMNO’s downfall.

(Media Conference Statement at the “Jelajah Desa Bersama Kit Siang” at Gerai bawah pokok, Jalan Ismail Nagore,  Seri Delima Penang)

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 22 January 2017, 10:41 am and is filed under
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Cabinet on Wednesday should set up national consultative council on TN50  under chairmanship of Nazir Razak to ensure a shared national vision by 100% and not just 47% of the population

The Cabinet on Wednesday should set up a national consultative council on 2050 National Transformation Policy under the chairmanship of CIMB Group Chariman, Datuk Seri Nazir Razak to ensure a shared national vision by 100% and not just 47% of the population.

How can the first minority government in the country, which won only 47% support of the popular electorate in the last general election in 2013, undertake a national undertaking like the TN 50 concerning the vision of Malaysia for the next 33 years when it has the lost the locus standi even to claim to represent the majority of Malaysians?

The 53% of the popular electorate, who rejected the Barisan Nasional as the Federal government in Putrajaya, must be able to fully participate in the evolution and shaping  of TN 50 if the objective is to create a shared national vision for 100% of Malaysians and not just 47% of the people.

The Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is right when he said yesterday that  Malaysians need to focus on efforts on instilling unity instead of giving attention to matters pertaining to disagreements and differences in opinion.

He said as a multiracial and multi-religious country, any kind of disagreement and differences in opinion should be handled with care and that the paramount objective is to set aside differences and focus on matters that can instill unity and harmony.

The Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues must walk the talk and not just utter sweet mumbo-jumbo or even worse, the cause of worsening racial and religious polarisation in plural Malaysia – like the case of a Minister who recently officiated the opening of a government-sponsored forum on “Liberalisme: Agenda Jahat Illuminati”.

One question that begs answer is whether  NT50 a repudiation or fulfilment of Vision 2020 – and shouldn’t there be a national reappraisal whether Vision 2020 is a success or a failure?

I suggest that the  national consultative council headed by Nazir with representatives from the government, political parties, civil societies, academics, religious leaders and businessmen be tasked with specific term of reference to achieve a national consensus on the fundamentals of Malaysian nation-building based on the Malaysian Constitution, the Malaysian Agreement 1963, the Rukunegara principle and objectives 1970 and Vision 2020.

It is not surprising that many Malaysians are wondering whether the TN50 will reaffirm the five Rukunegara principles of Belief in God; Loyalty to King and Country; Upholding the Constitution; Rule of Law and Good Behaviour and Morality and the five Rukunegara objectives (1) to achieve a greater unity of all her peoples; (2) to maintain a democratic way of life; (3) to create a just society in which the wealth of the nation shall be equitably shared; (4) to ensure a liberal approach to her rich and diverse cultural traditions; and (5) to build a progressive society which shall be oriented to modern science and technology.

The first Caliph Abu Bakr As-Siddeeq made a  short but classic inaugural address which touched upon several critical issues, including Governance, Justice, relationships between the government and the citizenry, etc.

This was Abu Bakr’s classic inaugural address as the first Caliph:

 “O people, I have been appointed over you, though I am not the best among you. If I do well, then help me; and if I act wrongly, then correct me. Truthfulness is synonymous with fulfilling the trust, and lying is equivalent to treachery. The weak among you is deemed strong by me, until I return to them that which is rightfully theirs, insha Allah. And the strong among you is deemed weak by me, until I take from them what is rightfully (someone else’s), insha Allah. No group of people abandons military/armed struggle in the path of Allah, except that Allah makes them suffer humiliation. And evil/mischief does not become widespread among a people, except that Allah inflicts them with widespread calamity. Obey me so long as I obey Allah and His Messenger. And if I disobey Allah and His Messenger, then I have no right to your obedience. Stand up now to pray, may Allah have mercy on you”.

“Wahai manusia, sesungguhnya aku telah dilantik menjadi pemimpin kamu, bukanlah aku yang terbaik dalam kalangan kamu. Jika aku betul, tolonglah aku. Jika aku salah, betulkanlah aku. Benar itu adalah amanah, bohong itu adalah khianat.

“Orang yang lemah dalam kalangan kamu adalah kuat di sisi sehingga aku mengembalikan haknya. Orang yang kuat dalam kalangan kamu, lemah di sisiku sehingga aku mengambil daripadanya hak (menghalang apa yang bukan haknya), insya-Allah. Jangan kamu meninggalkan jihad, kerana tidak ada kaum yang meninggalkan jihad, melainkan Allah timpakan mereka dengan kehinaan.

“Taatlah aku selagi aku taatkan Allah dan Rasul-Nya. Jika aku derhakakan Allah dan Rasul-Nya, maka tiada ketaatan untukku.”(Ibn Athir, Al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, 1/361).

The lessons from Abu Bakr’s short inaugural but powerful  speech include:

1. The right of citizens to scrutinize their leader and to hold him accountable;

2. Truthfulness should be the basis of all dealings between a leader and his people;

3. Establishing the principles of Justice and Equality

4. War against wickedness and shameful acts

5. Declaration that the leader is not above the law.

Malaysia is a confluence of great religions, cultures and civilisations in the world and it will do TN 50 and the character of Malaysian nation-building great good if they are guided by  the wisdom from all the great religions, cultures and civilisations which meet in confluence in Malaysia – not only the inaugural address of the first Caliph, but the great sayings from the sages from the different cultures and civilisations.

(Media Conference Statement (2) at Wisma Penang DAP in Penang)

                This entry was posted on Monday, 23 January 2017, 12:06 pm and is filed under
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UMNO’ first and second major Goebbellian offensive against DAP have tanked and failed, now we await the third UMNO Goebellian propangada gambit

I want to remind the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak of the Chinese saying “If you don’t want anyone to know, don’t do it”. (若要人不知  除非己莫为)

This is because the pieces are falling into place about Najib’s Goebbellian Syndrome to use me as a guinea pig to test out Goebbels’ Nazi propaganda doctrine to “tell a big lie, keep repeating it and eventually people will believe it” as the strategy to control the rural Malay mind.

The whole sorry story started with Najib’s UMNO Presidential speech on Nov. 30, where he notched up another octave in the politics of race, hatred and falsehood when he declared DAP as UMNO’s Enemy No. 1 in the forthcoming 14th General Election, declaring that the Malays will have to decide whether to maintain a government led by UMNO or DAP.

This is of course a political fallacy, as whatever happens in the 14GE, whether Najib is toppled as Prime Minister or UMNO loses the Federal Government, the Malays in Malaysia will continue to exercise political power in the country as there is no way they will lose their political power.

For the past two months, neither Najib nor anybody in UMNO and its propaganda apparatus has been able to give a decent reply to the question recently asked by National Laureate Pak Samad as to how Malays could lose political power if UMNO is defeated in a general election.

Pak Samad had found it odd that the Malay community are obsessed over the loss of power to the country’s other minority groups if UMNO loses control of Putrajaya, and how the Malays and Islam could be under threat, and he had asked:

“How are Malays under threat? How can religion (Islam) and Malays be threatened when those in power have been Malays for over five decades?

“What have they (Malay leaders) been doing for five decades (if Malays can be under threat)?”

Even the UMNO veteran, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah is on public record as saying that he did not know where the perceived threats to Malays were coming from when the government is headed by a Malay, state governments headed by Malays with the exception of Penang, the civil service is mostly made up of Malays, the army are mostly Malays and there are also the Malay rulers.

Malaysia’s foremost civil rights activist, Zainah Anwar, had also questioned where does the “threat to the Malays” come from after nearly 60 years of UMNO rule, and why, after more than four decades of the New Economic Policy, (i) 75.5 per cent of those at the bottom are Malays; (ii) some 90 per cent of the unemployable university graduates Malays; and (iii) of the RM54 billion worth of shares pumped to Malay individuals and institutions between 1984 and 2005, only RM2 billion remained in Malay hands.

I am prepared to have a live telecast debate with Najib on his UMNO Presidential speech that Malays will lose political power if he, Najib, is toppled and UMNO is voted out of Putrajaya in the 14GE.  Is Najib prepared to accept my challenge?

This news conference, however,  is not about how the triple factors – the demographic make up of the population, the electorate and the parliamentary constituencies –  make it impossible for the Malays to lose political power in Malaysia but to expose UMNO’s fear and scare tactics ala Nazi-style Big Lies and to trace the sinister Goebbellian gambits which UMNO leaders, propagandists and cybertroopers have set in motion after Najib’s UMNO Presidential speech on Nov. 30.

I held a media conference at Wisma DAP Penang on Tuesday, 6th December 2016 to expose UMNO’s Nazi-style “Big Lie” propaganda offensive on the social media – a chart of a so-called  “Barisan Kerajaan Baru 2017 – Pakatan Harapan DAP/PKR/PAN/PPBM” with a 22-Minister Cabinet line-up.

When I saw the fake Cabinet line-up poster for the first time, I thought that those behind it did a poor job, as they had missed out the important portfolio of Finance.

It was with surprise that I found out later that there was no such omission, for I had been assigned as Finance Minister as well.

Clearly, the authors of the fake Cabinet line-up were unaware of the DAP position that the Prime Minister should not double up as Finance Minister, as Malaysia would not have suffered the ignominy and infamy of being regarded as a “global kleptocracy” and the international multi-billion dollar 1MDB kleptocratic money-laundering scandal would not have happened  if Najib had not doubled up as Prime Minister-cum-Finance Minister.

For the first time in the nation’s 60 year history, I am listed as Prime Minister and Finance Minister in the fake Cabinet list, with Tun Mahathir Mohamad as Deputy Prime Minister.

The intention is very obvious – to send out the message that Mahathir is only my stooge and puppet, although MCA and Gerakan leaders and propagandists are going round the country to say that it is I who is Mahahtir’s stooge and puppet!

Can I advise UMNO, MCA, Gerakan and the BN component parties to have a common stand and not to blatantly contradict themselves?

I had not realised when I called the media conference about the fake Cabinet line-up on Dec. 6 that this was UMNO’s first  Goebbellian major  propaganda offensive in the  follow-up to Najib’s speech at the UMNO General Assembly on Nov. 30 – a decision which must have been made  at the same time that the Goebbellian character of Najib’s speech as UMNO President was decided upon by Najib’s “brain trust”.

The fake Cabinet poster was designed as an follow-up to Najib’s speech to immediately accuse and frame  the DAP as wanting to wrest political power from UMNO by picturing me as Prime Minister and Finance Minister, reducing Tun Dr. Mahathir to the secondary position as Deputy Prime Minister.

But “Man proposes, God disposes”.  UMNO’s first major Goebbels  propaganda offensive was neutralised and even neutered by the swift flow of events, although this happened by serendipity rather than by any conscious design.

On Sunday 4th December 2016, Tun Mahathir attended the DAP National Convention, which was a new experience for the former Prime Minister, who found that “DAP’s Malaysian-ness is even stronger than that of BN and Umno”.

Mahathir told a media conference that  the DAP Convention showed that DAP is not a Chinese party but a  multiracial party. He conceded he previously had the wrong impression of DAP in the past as he had thought that the DAP was a Chinese party.

Mahathir  praised DAP Secretary-General and Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng’s convention speech for stressing that DAP upholds the federal constitution, including the constitutional monarchy, the special position of the Malays and the national language, and the position of Islam as the religion of the federation, where other religions may also be practiced.

Without knowing that UMNO’s first major Goebbellian propaganda offensive  was afoot  to accuse me of wanting to be Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Guan Eng in his convention speech reiterated the DAP stand that taking into account the political reality in the country,  the party had never proposed to have a Chinese as Prime Minister of Malaysia.

As a result, UMNO’s  first major Goebbellian propaganda offensive after Najib’s speech –   the fake Cabinet line-up with me as Prime Minister and Finance Minister –   was neutralised and even neutered before it could be fully launched to flood the  social media!

This was the reason why Najib’s propagandists and cybertroopers had to devise a second major Goebbellian propaganda offensive as they had to abandon the lie that I wanted to be Prime Minister and Finance Minister.

The next best Goebbellian gambit was for the UMNO propagandists and cybertroopers to accuse me of wanting to be Deputy Prime Minister – hence the  “DPM story” which had dominated the news in the past fortnight, starting with  the fairy tale of my Dec. 3 meeting with Mahathir to strike a deal that Mukhriz will be Prime Minister and I the Deputy Prime Minister.

This fits completely into the Goebbelian definition “if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it”, as such a Dec. 3 meeting between Mahathir and myself never happened!

To give cover for the second Goebbellian gambit, Najib was again trotted out to declare in Kedah last Tuesday that  regardless of whether DAP has the top government post, the party will still “call the shots” and run the show if UMNO/BN is defeated in the 14th General Election.

But the Achilles’ heel of UMNO’s second Goebbellian offensive against the DAP is not only that the Dec. 3 meeting between Mahathir and myself is a total fiction,  DAP had never, whether in Pakatan Rakyat days or now with Pakatan Harapan with Pribumi Bersatu, asked for the post of Deputy Prime Minister.

When Tun Mahathir made the mistake of saying that he had previously heard the DAP asking for the DPM post, when in fact it was the MCA which had asked for the DPM post, Najib jumped in to make a denial that MCA had requested for the post of DPM.

Najib said throughout his tenure as the country’s number one leader, never once did the BN component party asked to be given the number two post.

Only over the weekend, a national MCA leader admitted that MCA had asked for the DPM post in 2009, which is also confirmed by the MCA newspaper, the Star,  which reported in April 2009  that the MCA deputy secretary-general Datuk Loke Yueh Yow had urged Najib as the Prime Minister to appoint a Chinese DPM and a Barisan Nasional deputy chairman from the MCA.

I  remember the MCA had asked for the post of DPM three times in the past five decades, but whether they were all like the 2009 occasion where the demand for DPM post for the MCA never reached the ears of the Prime Minister but appeared only in the Chinese media – it is left to the MCA leadership to clarify!

UMNO’s  first and second major  Goebbellian propaganda offensive against DAP to follow up on Najib’s UMNO Presidential speech on Nov. 30 to herald “fake news” and “false stories” in its campaign of fear, hate and bigotry to incite Malays to fear losing political power to the Chinese if Najib and UMNO are ejected from Putrajaya in the 14GE had failed and fallen flat on their faces.

What will be the third major Goebbellian propaganda offensive against the DAP and will they be as disastrous as the first and second UMNO Goebbellian manoeuvres?

Lets wait and see. But it is sure to come, as night follows day.

I will call on UMNO’s  Goebbels to come to the limelight and identify himself.

Who else would have the power to commission such a massive, high-powered and well-financed Goebellian operation, involving not  only the Prime Minister himself, but also UMNO Ministers and leaders, UMNO outfits disguised as government institutions like Jabatan Hal Ehwal Khas (JASA), ambassadors who are political appointees, “soldiers of fortune” who are very well  paid to spout lies and falsehoods, an army of UMNO cybertroopers and mercenary websites?

UMNO “mainstream media” are also under his thumb, despite their facing a crisis of existence, with one virtually bankrupt and asking UMNO to pay the staff salaries while another reduced to one-tenth of the circulation it once boasted at its hey-day domination of Malaysia print media.

UMNO’s Goebbels  is not Najib or any UMNO Minister or leader, but a powerful behind-the-scene figure who may doing UMNO and Barisan Nasional the greatest national disservice and be finally responsible for Najib and UMNO’s downfall.

Press conference in Wisma Penang DAP

(Media Conference Statement at Wisma Penang DAP in Penang)

                This entry was posted on Monday, 23 January 2017, 11:59 am and is filed under
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Fund-scandal fallout keeps Malaysia on its toes

By Una Galani | HONG KONG

Reuters

Jan 23, 2017

(Reuters Breakingviews) – Malaysia is still struggling to put its sovereign-fund scandal behind it. Prime Minister Najib Razak was not named in lawsuits filed last year by the U.S. Department of Justice after billions disappeared from 1Malaysia Development Berhad, and he has deftly avoided a legal tangle on his home turf. Nonetheless, the fallout is keeping Malaysia’s leader on his toes.

    The scandal at the fund Najib championed has left a dark mark on sentiment around the country. Money from the fund found its way into financing the movie “The Wolf of Wall Street” and allegedly into Najib’s personal bank account, something he denies. But mud sticks. One recent survey by FT Confidential Research found 71.5 percent of respondents had a negative view of the prime minister. Malaysia must hold an election by August 2018 at latest, but even with the redistricting of constituencies, it will be a slog to win more votes than in 2013 which saw the worst-ever performance for the Barisan Nasional ruling coalition.

    The fallout is also playing out in the currency. Since November 2014 the ringgit has slumped by over one-third against the U.S. dollar, three times more than the Philippine peso, Indonesian rupiah, Singaporean dollar and Thai baht. That frustrates Malaysia’s middle class, many of whom aspire for the country to become more like Singapore; they complain that even visiting Thailand has become expensive. The currency’s slide has become a stick used by the opposition to bash the government.

    The ringgit’s weakness matters because voters care, and because foreigners own nearly half of Malaysia’s government bonds. That’s unfortunate because Najib has otherwise done a decent job of putting the economy on a solid footing. The government expects Malaysia could grow as much as 5 percent next year, and the country continues down the path of fiscal consolidation with the recent introduction of a goods and services tax, which is unpopular but has helped reduce the government’s dependence on oil revenue.

    As a small nation, surrounded by mostly larger, faster-growing neighbours, against a backdrop of rising U.S. rates, Malaysia needs to move on from 1MDB, but governance clearly matters to investors and possibly voters. Najib may have dodged a bullet abroad – but the struggle at home continues.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 24 January 2017, 5:33 am and is filed under
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I am prepared in the next 72 hours to meet Liow  and Mah any place any time in  the national interests to discuss how to  purge and cleanse Malaysia of the infamy and ignominy of being regarded worldwide  as a global kleptocracy

During my  “Jelajah Desa Bersama Kit Siang” visit to Sungai Gelugor on Sunday, I told a media conference that if the PAS President, Datuk Seri Hadi Awang is prepared to conclude a solemn agreement that the top priority in the 14th General Election is to save Malaysia from becoming a global kleptocracy and a failed and rogue state, which would be the national agenda for the next five to ten years, I am prepared to co-operate with him.  Was Hadi prepared to make such a commitment?

This had created a lot of political waves, both in  MCA and Gerakann  quarters, with the  MCA Youth leader and Deputy Education Minister launching into a tirade against the DAP.

Why?  Is it just because of my preparedness, despite our great political differences,  to work  with Hadi Awang on a common agenda in the larger national interests to free the country from the curse of a global kleptocracy?

Only the small-minded and political opportunists will call this an “U-turn” or hypocrisy, when it is the highest form of expression of patriotism and love for Malaysia.

I do not know what is Hadi’s response, but I stand by my position that despite our great political differences, I am prepared to work with Hadi to save Malaysia from global kleptocracy – not mere kleptocracy.

No country can claim to be God-fearing, guided by the religious, moral and ethical precepts and principles, whether Islamic, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu or Sikhist, and nobody can claim to be patriotic and want to save the country  if he is she is  content for Malaysia to remain a global kleptocracy!

There is this quaint and immature notion that political opponents must be political enemies but I can say with all honesty that in 51 years of my political life, I had never entertained hatred, animosity or vengeance against my political opponents, although they had wronged me, my family and my party.

When I was released from second detention under the Internal Security Act under Operation Lalang in April 1989, I asked for a meeting with Prime Minister Mahathir, and when I met him, I said I wanted to see him not to ask why he arrested me and Guan Eng, but why he had not arrested the UMNO Youth leader at the time, Najib Razak, who had exacerbated ethnic tensions in the run-up to the Operation Lalang.

I am prepared to work not only with Hadi, but with the Prime Minister and UMNO president Datuk Seri Najib Razak,  MCA President Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai, Gerakan President Datuk Seri  Mah Siew Keong,  the MIC President Datuk Seri Dr. S. Subramaniam and all the Sabah and Sarawak Barisan Nasional leaders in the national interest to purge and cleanse Malaysia of the infamy and ignominy of being regarded worldwide as a global kleptocracy.

I am prepared to meet Liew  and Mah any place any time in the next 72 hours from 12 noon today to 12 noon on Chinese New Year’s Eve on January 27 to discuss how we can co-operate in the larger national interests to purge and cleanse Malaysia of the infamy and ignominy of being regarded world-wide as a global kleptocracy.

Will Liow and Mah have to get UMNO approval before responding? I await response from Liow and Mah for such a meeting in the next 72 hours.

I am surprised that the  MCA Youth leader and Deputy Education Minister had condemned me for  my preparedness to work  with Hadi to ensure that Malaysia is saved from kleptocracy  alleging that this showed that I am “willing to neglect the rights of non-Muslims”.

Is such an ignoramus and mentally-deficient person with no notion of the need to instill ethics, unity and harmony among the diverse races and religions in  Malaysia qualified to be Deputy Education Minister of a plural Malaysia, as he can only poison the minds of the young generation of Malaysians from being model Malaysians!

How would this Deputy Education Minister term the acceptance of  Ministers and leaders of the MCA, Gerakan, MIC, Sarawak/Sabah Barisan Nasional component parties to UMNO’s unilateral and arbitrary decision for the BN Federal Government to take over Hadi’s private member’s bill in the March meeting of Parliament, without any consensus either from the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council or the Cabinet?

Can the MCA leadership explain how working with Hadi with the specific agenda to purge and cleanse Malaysia’s of the infamy and ignominy of being regarded world-wide a global kleptocracy would “sell out the rights and interests of non-Muslims”?

Are the MCA leaders seriously suggesting that Malaysia’s infamy and ignominy of being regarded world-wide as a global kleptocracy serve  the “rights and interests of non-Muslims” in Malaysia?

I am totally flabbergasted that Malaysia has such a Deputy Education Minister. For such an outrageous  statement which reflect a most immature and unMalaysian mentality, the MCA Youth leader and Deputy Education Minister should be sacked from both posts immediately.

Both he would not be – as birds of the same feather flock together!

At least we must be thankful that from the current controversy, Malaysians have  gleaned  the truth about the MCA’s demand for a Deputy Prime Minister in 2009 when Najib became Prime Minister – a secret which the MCA had kept for seven long years.

When Tun Mahathir made the mistake a few days ago of saying that he had previously heard the DAP asking for the DPM post, when in fact it was the MCA which had asked for the DPM post, Najib jumped in to make a denial that MCA had requested for the post of DPM.

MCA Secretary-General Datuk Seri Ong Ka Chuan admitted yesterday that MCA had never raised the DPM issue ever since Najib took over as Prime Minister, despite the Star report of the MCA deputy secretary-general Datuk Loke Yueh Yow making a big issue in the Chinese press at the time over MCA demand for DPM.

Ong Ka Chuan said “the issue regarding the Deputy Prime Minister post was never put forward by MCA leadership to the Prime Minister, either in private or through any formal meetings.”

Loke Yuen Yow has also been dragged out of retirement to state that he was making the demand for a MCA Deputy Prime Minister in 2009 in his personal capacity.

MCA deputy president Datuk Seri  Wee Ka Siong chimed in and said Loke’s position in 2009  could not be taken as a party stand.

Why didn’t the MCA national leaders make such a clarification in 2009 and kept this secret for seven long years?

Yesterday, I said   the MCA had asked for the post of DPM three times in the past five decades, but whether they were all like the 2009 occasion where the demand for DPM post was only ‘drama’ in the Chinese media but ‘did not reach’ the ears of the Prime Minister – I leave it to  the MCA leadership to tell Malaysians more of their secrets.”

The more immediate and urgent  question now is whether  the Loke Yuen Yow farce, with a lot of “thunder and lightning signifying nothing”, repeat itself in a Liow Tiong Lai farce over Hadi’s private member’s bill?

In an interview with the Chinese press today, Liew said UMNO may risk breaking up BN if it wilfully presents Hadi’s private member’s bill to amend Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965.

He warned that even though MCA has only seven MPs in Parliament, they will all vote against it.

He called on the people, particularly the Chinese community, to rise and prevent the amendment from being passed in Parliament.

It is all well and good to breathe “lightning and thunder” like Loke Yueh Yow in 2009, but what is the purpose if this is just “drama” in the Chinese press and not meant to be taken seriously whether by the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council or Cabinet?

In fact, Liow is being downright irresponsible when he called on “the people, particularly the Chinese community, to rise and prevent the amendment from being passed in Parliament”.

This is because Hadi’s private member’s bill would not  even be voted in Parliament without “green light” by the BN Government, and Liow should explain whether there is consensus in Barisan Nasional Supreme Council or the Cabinet for the BN Federal Government to allow Hadi’s private member’s bill motion to be put to a vote in the March meeting of Parliament, to be followed BN Federal Government take-over of Hadi’s private member’s bill?

This is why I had proposed the Pensiangan Formula to address the political and constitutional stalemate presented by UMNO’s unilateral and arbitrary support for Hadi’s private member’s bill.

Is Liow prepared to present at the Cabinet meeting tomorrow the Pensiangan Formula for adoption by the Cabinet?

The Pensiangan Formula comprises two elements, viz:

• Firstly, the Barisan Nasional government should not take over Hadi’s private member’s bill, which should remain on the parliamentary order paper; and

• Secondly, the formation of an all-party Parliamentary Select Committee to study and make proposals on how to strengthen inter-religious relations in Malaysia based on the Malaysian Constitution, Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) and Rukunegara, with the Parliamentary Select Committee specifically assigned to study Hadi’s private member’s bill motion.

If the MCA gives full and uncompromising support for the Pensiangan Formual, there is no need for him to call on ‘the people, particularly the Chinese community, to rise and prevent the amendment from being passed in Parliament”, for the Bill will not be voted by Parliament and would be referred to a Parliamentary Select Committee for further study and recommendation.

If I meet Liow and Mah in the next 72 hours, I am prepared to discuss with them how to ensure that the Loke Yuen Yow-DPM farce of 2009  will not be repeated in a Liow Tiong Lai-Hadi private member’s bill farce in March Parliament.

(Media Conference Statement at Wisma DAP Penang)

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 24 January 2017, 12:07 pm and is filed under
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