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DAP, in turn, postpones party polls

Hazlan Zakaria
Malaysiakini
Dec 14, 10

The DAP today announced that it will postpone its party polls for 12 months to prepare for snap-elections which the party believe is just around the corner.

“(This is to) to put the party in general election mode, so all resources and efforts should be directed towards preparations,” said party secretary-general Lim Guan Eng during a press conference in parliament.

He said that the party’s central executive committee is compelled to consider the decision in the view that both Umno and the MCA has postponed their own party polls recently, which he believed is “a clear signal that a snap election will likely be called”. Continue reading “DAP, in turn, postpones party polls”

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Putrajaya closes door on ‘black-eye’ issue

The Malaysian Insider
By Clara Chooi
December 14, 2010

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 14 — Putrajaya has closed the door for good on Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s 1998 “black-eye incident” despite allegations of evidence fabrication against Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail.

In its highly-anticipated explanation to Parliament today, the government clearly side-stepped the damning accusations made by former investigating officer Datuk Mat Zain Ibrahim that Abdul Gani had falsified documents in the case, brushing aside the former’s two recent open letters.

Instead, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Aziz told the House today that there was no need for Mat Zain to complain that the independent panel formed to investigate the evidence fabrication had failed to clear his name in the incident.

This, said Nazri, was because Mat Zain had never been the subject of the panel’s probe and had merely been called forth as a witness to testify.

“The MACC’s (Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission) advisory board, though its letter to Datuk Mat Zain on July 23, 2009, had already stressed that there was no need for the independent panel or the MACC to clear Mat Zain’s name, seeing as he was not the subject of the investigation in the first place,” he said. Continue reading “Putrajaya closes door on ‘black-eye’ issue”

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Keeping March 8 alive

by Stephanie Sta Maria
Free Malaysia Today
Tue, 14 Dec 2010

FMT EXCLUSIVE The day had not begun particularly well for Kee Thuan Chye. A friend – once a staunch supporter of political change – had confided that he was contemplating reverting to the “devil he knew” in the next general election.

“I was very upset,” Kee said. “After staying for so long on the track of change, he is giving up because he has lost faith in Pakatan Rakyat’s ability to get its act together to govern this country.”

It was the sort of sentiment that the former journalist found deeply troubling as it preyed on a simmering disquiet that the tide behind the March 8 tsunami may be turning again, this time in favour of the ruling party. And that, in Kee’s view, would spell imminent political tragedy for Malaysia. Continue reading “Keeping March 8 alive”

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The unfinished Malaysian corruption story

By Tunku Abdul Aziz

I was honoured last month by the Australian Corporate Lawyers Association with an invitation to deliver the International Keynote Address at their 2010 Conference at the Sydney Hilton.

Three hundred corporate lawyers participated in the two-day conference, with some 400 attending the ACLA Awards Dinner. I was invited to perform a similar task last year by the association, but to my regret and utter shame, I was forced to cancel, at great cost to my Australian hosts, my appearance in Melbourne, their 2009 conference venue.

I found myself a reluctant patient at the Gleneagles Hospital in Kuala Lumpur, with a serious lung infection. The doctor pumped, yes, pumped enough antibiotics into my body to float a destroyer and maybe keep our two valiant submarines happily submerged forever.

It transpired that I had picked up a virus in the Netherlands while attending an ethics conference at the Amsterdam Free University. I was very surprised, to say the least, when I received a repeat invitation from ACLA very early this year. I asked the organisers, in jest, if they realised that they were taking a risk as the same thing might happen again.

Overcoming Corruption: A Regional Challenge was the title of my address. I assured them that there was really no need to feel concerned about the state of health of corruption in the region. Continue reading “The unfinished Malaysian corruption story”