Cook the crook

Is UMNO out of its mind? Fielding a dishonest person for an otherwise honourable position as Member of Parliament? If this is the best that UMNO can offer to the Rakyat, then it shouldn't be in the business of government. An MP is an honoured position tasked to make laws, deliberate on the State and country's budgets and finances, and act as the leader of the community.

Clearly this position requires a person of great personal integrity and honesty. Anything less, and it appears that UMNO is willing to settle for less, and the people will feel betrayed. Why, because it is the people's money - the taxes that they pay - that goes to providing the salary and whatever other perks that an MP enjoys. If I were a taxpayer, I will be very unhappy that my hard earned money is used to support and sustain a crook, who, it would appear, has not seen the error of his ways and shown any remorse. Like what many are saying, he would even try to deceive UMNO about the truth of his conduct - behaviour that the Law Society deems fit to debar him from practicing as a lawyer.

For a moment there, it appeared that Najib was doing the right things, striking the right cords, but this incident, coupled with the MACC incident threatens to derail any attempt by him to gain respectibility among the electorates. The long hard winter is set to continue in UMNO-land.

p.s. then again, I can hear someone questioning the integrity of half the MPs in the present Parliament. So what is one more?

The Win

Friend, Malaysians, Countrymen, today we come together to pronounce the end of the Mahathir Dynasty with his son, Mukhriz Mahathir's loss to Mr Khairy Jamaluddin for the post of UMNO Youth Chief. It was a surprise win, given that sentiment has been against Khairy's father-in-law, Mr Abdullah Badawi (AB) since UMNO's crushing loss in the elections last March. The in-coming PM, Mr Najib Razak has been replacing AB's people in government over the last couple of months, perhaps in an effort to erase anything connected to AB in the new Administration. So one would reasonably expect Mukhriz to win, or at least come in second. He came in last. Poor chap.

So things are not to be. With Khairy the Youth Chief, it is now more difficult to shake aways AB, much to the chagrin, no doubt, of Dr M and his son.

The politics, if it is not already tumultous over the last couple of years, is set to retain its suspense into the Najib administration.

Punch and counter-punch

Things are coming to a head in Malaysia. Anwar Ibrahim has just been arrested for alleged sodomy (i.e. homosexuality) with a young 23 former volunteer at his political outfit. People are wondering why he was taken to the hospital when a swap of the saliva is sufficient to provide material for determining one's DNA. But I suppose that, going by Malaysian government doctors, you need a specialist to extract the DNA sample 'properly'. You need even to go to the hospital to do it, and I suppose, it had to be a government hospital. No, a General Practitioner (GP) will not do, and much less a police with a mouth swap in his hands, although this is widely practiced elsewhere in the world. I suppose that the Malaysian government wants to uphold the highest standards as they will be accused of un-professionalism when and if Anwar is convicted of sodomy - again. So that's why the government steadfastly refuses to acknowledge the medical report filed by a GP at a private hospital that reportedly stated that Saiful, the accuser, showed no signs of being violated in his private parts - a necessary condition for his accusation of sodomy by Anwar to stand.

I suppose all these started with the opposition gaining a spectacular victory in the last GE in March, where the opposition came 30 seats shy of unseating the incumbent government. With Anwar promising to really unseat the government by September 2008, things couldn't lie still. Real or not, Anwar got slapped with the sodomy charge, which if convicted, would guarantee that he will stay out of parliament for another 10 years. A punch must be met with a counter-punch. Najib was then accused of sleeping around with a murdered Mongolian model, whom he claimed never to have met - in spite of circumstantial evidence that showed he was probably doing a Pinocchio. Curiously, the lawyer who made the charge recanted almost the next day and went missing. Then the government grabbed Saiful and put him under police protection and quickened the pace of charging Anwar for sodomy. They knew that was the most effective and legal way of silencing Anwar, at least in Parliament, if not in public. But truth be told, the Malaysia Police do not have much credibility in the eyes of Malaysians, or foreigners for that matter.

Now, Anwar is trying to beat them all by running for election in the ward vacated by his wife. Many believe that he will win, even if he were arrested and sits in jail during campaigning. A duly elected Indian MP still sits in detention under ISA laws. But Anwar will still be denied if the charge of sodomy is carried, unless a Member of Parliament carries immunity for this type of 'crime'.

What next?

Do the job

Hey, where did this Tengku come from? Razaleigh Hamzah I mean. Yes, I have heard of him. He was a in very public spat with Dr M when he tried to wrest fro him the UMNO presidency in 1987, some 20 years ago. Now, as the Chinese saying goes the "East Mountain has risen again" and he wants to challenge Dr M's successor, Abdullah Badawi for the UMNO presidency (again) and become Prime Minister. Apparently his backers are the rejects in Abdullah Badawi's new Cabinet. Come on, many of these rejects have served for long periods of time in Cabinet, and if they are not wanted this time around, they should just 'fade away'. Some period of reflection may be in order why they were dropped.

Instead, I heard that they are trying the back door through the old man, Tengku Razaleigh. He is 71 this year. The last thing that Malaysia needs now is a disunited BN - not after it fared so poorly in the last elections. So not only does AB have to contend with Anwar Ibrahim,who is threatening to further reduce the BN's majority through enticements to defect, he also has to watch his back for would-be assassins from within his own people. How the political situation has deteriorated. It is perhaps at such times that people's true colours are revealed. Never mind that you have been working with a person for years, and have been 'pal-ly' all this while, even to the extent of shedding tears in public. Some people cannot see beyond their own interests at the interests of the people and the nation. Is it any wonder that the people have rejected the status quo and demanded change? Yet there are some who are living in self-denial, and I am not surprised because that has been the case for too long. AB shouldn't be too nice a guy. He must remember that he was put there to do a job. And this being his last term as PM (he wouldn't want to continue this - its just not worth it, really), he should do what needs to be done and then hand the hot potato to his deputy, Najib Tun Razak. Then history would remember him more favourably.

UMNO should close ranks and give their leader the support that he needs, not hack him down at the next opportunity. 

Chance to change

Come to think of it, PM Abdullah Badawi should shake Anwar Ibrahim's hands as a gesture of gratitude for having 'humiliated' him in the last General Elections. For without him and the loose opposition coalition's success in wresting 4 states from the BN, Abdullah Badawi would not have been able to get rid of some dead wood in his old Cabinet and given him a chance today to reform his government, particularly those at the highest levels. I can imagine that all components parties in the BN will now be less quarelsome when it comes to the allocation of cabinet posts. Abdullah Badawi has a great opportunity to put good people in the proper places so that it would be easier for him to forward his agenda of fighting corruption and nepotism. He should stay put with the old gang left by his predecessor, Dr Mahathir.

The question is, would he do it? Or is his weakened authority and credibility going to force him to accept Tom, Dick and Harry that his stronger 'colleagues' in the BN, like Najib Tun Razak, and conceivably Mukhriz Mahathir, have in mind? If he cannot exert his authority, or what is left of it, in gathering a good team around himself - people who are interested in serving the country rather than themselves - then he may as well retire from politics today.

For clearly the next 5 years cannot be more of the same. Yes, he has articulated his position through the Wall Street Journal partly to calm the financial markets, but talk is still talk. Would he walk the talk, for example, in fighting corruption, which he listed as his third objective in the statement to the WSJ? We know he said that 5 years ago, but didn't follow up with enough concrete action to fulfill that promise. What gives anyone any confidence that he can do better in the next 5 years? Hopefully the factor will be the absence of imcompetent former ministers and leaders who may be more interested in building themselves palatial homes in an exclusive suburb in the capital city of Kuala Lumpur or fattening their Swiss bank accounts, if any exists. With a chastened BN, there is opportunity to do the right thing and not the old thing.

Hopefully, Ahmad Badawi will not fail his people this time. Or are the knives already out for his head?

Humble pie around the table

The writing was already on the wall. Riots, running inflation, perceived injustice suffered by the Indians, corruption at the highest places, religious bias in favour of the state religion, Islam, in a supposedly multi-racial multi-religious country - the results of the Malaysian Election are hardly unexpected, except the scale of the upset. Upset is perhaps too tame a word to use. Some called it a tsunami that knocked the incumbent BN off their pedestal, forcing them to eat humble pie this time around. The Barisan Nasional (BN), the ruling coalition led by PM Abdullah, lost a total of 5 states - Kedah (the home state of former PM Mahathir), Penang (the home state of sitting PM Abdullah Badawi), Selangor, Perak and Kelantan (retained by PAS). The BN even lost to lawyer Manoharan, a candidate who is still incarcerated in Malaysia's prisons under the Internal Security Act. Can it be any more humiliating than this? And for the first time perhaps, a blogger, Jeff Ooi, won against seasoned politicians.  

And they failed to retain their two-thirds majority. I don't understand why the two-thirds is a factor in the first place. Sure it allows the government to change the Constitution, but does anyone want to change the Constitution? Two-thirds is an important and indicative target because it shows the total confidence that the electorate has in the ruling party - confident enough to allow them to change the Constitution at will. But that confidence is no more.

Many of the bigwigs in BN either lost their seats or were returned with reduced majorities. For all the hype surrounding Khairy Jamaluddin, UMNO's Dpy Youth Chief, he won by a slim majority of 5,746 votes. The previous BN candidate had won by a margin of 18,656 in 2004. People just aren't comfortable with this young man. His work is cut out for him once his father-in-law exits the political stage sooner rather than later. 

Probably the only consolation the BN got was DPM Najib Razak's overwhelming victory in Pekan, Pahang - polling an increased 26,464-vote majority - in a constituency that he has held since he was 22 and before that, his father, Malaysia's second PM, Tun Abdul Razak. What can be said perhaps is that the electorate has kept faith with its favourite political family. Now, there is more reason for PM Najib to claim the Premiership from Abdullah Badawi, notwithstanding questions over his alleged involvement in the murder of Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu. This case will now probably never see the light of day.

And of course, Malaysian's heeded their former PM Mahathir's instructions - dump Samy Vellu. Ironically, Mahathir is probably now a very happy person. First, he isn't the PM that suffered such as stunning loss. People apparently still listen to him. He will probably see PM Abdullah Badawi stand aside in favour of DPM Najib - something he has been very vocal about. His son, Mukhriz Mahathir won in Jerlun, Kedah, which used to be part of Kubang Pasu where his father was MP for 3 decades.

Anwar Ibrahim is probably also a very happy man. Both his wife and daughter won their Permatang Pauh and Lembah Pantai parliamentary seats respectively. Wan Azizah Ismail polled a vastly improved majority over her last election. Although Nurul's majority margin was only 2,895, she was up against a formidable and proven opponent. She wasn't even expected to win.

In hindsight, Mahathir should also take responsibility for this huge setback. He said Samy Vellu had overstayed his welcome, but he had kept him as a government Minister for all those many years he was the PM. The corruption, the rot, did not start with Abdullah Badawi. Mahathir may or may not be corrupt, but as the PM, he didn't have a hoot of an idea how to resolve the problem. History will have many negative things to say about the Mahathir years which may have contributed to today's sorry state of affairs.   

Truly, the political landscape has changed drastically with this latest elections. One only hopes that the BN will pay more attention and gain a greater urgency in resolving problems that have been festering for years.

Elect the Blogger

The temperature is hotting up, not only in Kuala Lumpur, but elsewhere throughout the Peninsula and East Malaysia. PM Badawi disssolved Parliament on 13 February 2008, paving the way for a General Election in March 2008.

Significantly, at least one prominent blogger - Jeff Ooi - is getting into the fray and putting himself up for election. He wrote:

But the call of national duty is definitely prompting me. I need to do what I wanted to do in JEFF 4 MALAYSIA campaign, and I have made some details here, to explain the mission. The state Election Manifesto, which I helped draft, will be release at the right time. I am certain that talk is cheap and beyond being a blogger, I need a legislator role to speak up for Malaysians!

Well, as a fellow blogger, I wish him well. As a foreigner, I'd stay neutral in the contest. But it seems that he does need a lot of campaign contribution and the amount he has received so far is paltry. Perhaps the rest of Malaysia's bloggers are not too enthused that one of their own is putting himself forward for national duty?

Visit his Blogsite and his Election Site to find out more.