Day: December 6, 2011

— Aspan Alias
The Malaysian Insider
Dec 06, 2011

6 DIS — Perhimpunan Agong Umno yang baru selesai ini menampakkan kepada kita segala niat dan matlamat Umno serta pimpinannya yang sebenar. Bermula dari ucapan Timbalan Presidenya semasa perhimpunan 3 sayap parti pada selasa lepas membawa kepada ucapan dasar presiden dalam Perhimpunan Agong Umno sehinggalah kepada ucapan penangguhan persidangan pada sabtu yang lepas semuanya penampilan parti yang “desperate dan panicky”.

Seperti biasa agenda Melayu menjadi isu yang terbesar seperti perhimpunan-perhimpunan sejak Umno mula berkecai selama lebih dua dekad yang lalu. Isu agenda Melayu ini pada saya hanyalah merupakan umpan yang ampuh untuk memerangkap orang Melayu untuk dipergunakan bagi pemimpin-pemimpin parti yang sentiasa lapar kepada kuasa tetapi tidak bertanggungjawab kepada rakyat yang memberi mandat itu.

Isu agenda Melayu ini memang isu yang tidak pernah tertinggal dalam Perhimpunan Agong Umno atau dalam mana-mana convention parti dan selalunya pemimpin terutamanya Najib akan mengeluarkan dari mulutnya segala istilah-istilah serta acronym acronym yang hebat-hebat tanpa memahami apa yang beliau katakan. Program Transformasi Ekonomi (PTE) merupakan sebutan seperti menyebut nama cucu oleh seorang atuk, tetapi semua orang tahu dan merasakan yang setakat ini tidak ada satu pun lagi PTE yang sedang berjaya dilaksanakan. Continue reading “PR mesti ingat: ‘The darkest part of the night is just before dawn’”

Dr. Lim Teck Ghee
CPI
6th Dec 2011

Commentary

The UMNO General Assembly has come and gone. Most political observers had expected it to be the usual rah-rah event aimed at rallying UMNO members ahead of the coming elections and in support of the leadership of Najib Razak, the party president. They were right. The public were subject to yet another spectacle of sound and fury on how important the party is to the future of Malays, albeit with the occasional reminder of how indispensable the party is to the well being of all the citizens of the country.

Optimistic observers who had hoped that the party would live up to its rhetoric of being a mature and transformed party of moderation – at least for the duration of this publicly viewed occasion – were disappointed. The collective breast beating led by the party president and deputy president – on the greatness and goodness of the party compared with the weaknesses and evilness of the opposition – was quite unprecedented in the history of the party’s general assemblies.

The attacks against PAS, PKR and especially the DAP during the meeting have only just begun. Can we expect it to continue with greater viciousness and spitefulness as UMNO leaders fan out into the grassroots to campaign in the next few months leading to the elections? What should be of concern is not just the running down and bad mouthing of the opposition. This has been the norm in past assemblies, especially those leading up to the elections. What is new and unexpected is the vitriol and venom directed openly and without inhibition at opposition parties and their leaders. Continue reading “UMNO General Assembly: Beating the drums for another May 13”

It is most shocking and outrageous that up to now, neither the Prime Minister,
Datuk Seri Najib Razak nor the Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has responded to the worst international report card for Malaysia in the 32-month Najib premiership.

This worst international report card for Malaysia was delivered on the same day that Najib made his “do-or-die” UMNO Presidential Address last Thursday, but for the entire UMNO General Assembly, the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2011 was the “elephant in the room” with all the UMNO leaders and delegates putting up a great pretence that it never existed.

In fact, not a single UMNO leader or delegate at the UMNO General Assembly breathed a word of concern about corruption in general or TI CPI 2011 in particular – apart from giving “blank cheque” support to Wanita UMNO leader and Minister for Women, Family and Community Development Datuk Seri Shahrizat Jalil in her embroilment in the RM300 million “CattleGate Cow Condo” scandal!

Three days after the UMNO General Assembly, the TI CPI 2011 – which was the worst ranking for Malaysia in 17 years since the introduction of the annual ranking, plunging from No.23 placing in 1995 to the worst ever of No. 60, as well as registering the lowest-ever score of 4.3 when Malaysia scored 5.28 in 1995 and 5.32 in 1996 – continued to be “the elephant in the room” for the entire Najib government!

In the past week, Muhyiddin has been both Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, completing the full repertoire of political stances ranging from that of an extremist playing the race card in his speech at the joint opening of Umno Wanita, Youth and Putera general assemblies last Tuesday, perpetrating irresponsible lies, falsehoods and sedition that the DAP is anti-Malay, anti-Islam and anti-Malay Rulers to putting on the garb of a moderate extolling multi-racial co-operation in his speech at the 20th anniversary dinner of the Federation of Chinese Associations (Hua Zong) on Sunday night.

But Muhyiddin, like all the UMNO/Barisan Nasional Ministers and leaders, could not see “the elephant in the room” for a whole week – the TI CPI 2011 on the worst ranking and lowest-ever score for Malaysia in 17 years, highlighting the tragic fact that corruption in 32 months under Najib is worse than five years under Tun Abdullah and 22 years under Tun Mahathir!

Malaysia’s TI CPI ranking and score, which ranges between 10 (highly clean) and 0 (highly corrupt), from 1995 to 2011 are as follows:
Continue reading “TI CPI 2011 on Malaysia’s worst-ever 60th ranking and lowest-ever 4.3 score in 17 years cannot continue to be “the elephant in the room””