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Abolish UMNO – as no political will to eradicate corruption in the country’s most corrupt institution?

Just as no one expects that the proposal of the Umno disciplinary board chairman Tengku Tan Sri Ahmad Rithaudeen to abolish the Umno wings – Wanita, Youth, Puteri and Putera – to end the scourge of money politics in Umno would be taken seriously by any Umno leader, nobody believes that it is possible to eradicate corruption in the country’s most corrupt institution, Umno, because of the sheer absence of such political will.

Sure enough Rithaudeen’s proposal encountered immediate objection yesterday from the Umno top-guns, like Umno vice president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, Umno Youth leader Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, Umno Wanita leader Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz and Puteri Umno leader Datuk Noraini Ahmad with the de facto Umno President and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak delivering the coup de grace when he said today that Umno will not abolish any of its wings as they are important in nurturing future leaders of the party.

If Rithaudeen is right – and he is right – that the many elections for the Umno Youth, Wanita, Puteri and Putera wings created opportunities for money-making, all that Najib meant about “nurturing future leaders of the party” is to give them opportunities to be adept in the art of corruption in Umno party elections.

No wonder Umno has the notoriety as the most corrupt institution in the country and Rithaudeen is totally helpless to check money politics, to the extent that he has to concoct a totally unacceptable analogy to justify the Umno disciplinary board’s failure to hand over all cases of Umno money politics to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC). Continue reading “Abolish UMNO – as no political will to eradicate corruption in the country’s most corrupt institution?”

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Let Kugan not die in vain – entire Cabinet should resign if no RCI and IPCMC

A. Kugan would not have died in police custody if the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) had been operational since May 2006 as recommended by the Police Royal Commission headed by former Chief Justice Tun Dzaiddin and former Inspector-General of Police Tun Hanif Omar.

If the IPCMC, the key proposal of the 125 recommendations of the Police Royal Commission to transform the Malaysian police force into an efficient, incorruptible, professional world-class police service to discharge its three core functions to keep crime low, eradicate corruption in the police force and uphold human rights had been set up in accordance with the timeline as proposed, a new mindset and culture of responsibility, accountability and professionalism would have been disseminated and developed in the police force in the past 30 months and saved the life of Kugan.

As it is, even the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar does not have this requisite mindset that he could come out with his latest howler, when he said that “the people should not regard criminals as heroes and the police who enforce the law as demons”.

This statement, as outrageous as his previous howler when he said last September that the Sin Chew senior reporter Tan Hoon Cheng had been detained under the infamous Internal Security Act for her personal safety, is strong testimony that Hamid is not capable of being a reformist Home Minister to undertake long-needed and far-reaching police reforms. Continue reading “Let Kugan not die in vain – entire Cabinet should resign if no RCI and IPCMC”