Month: January 2013

Abdul Khalid Ibrahim
Malaysiakini
11:20AM Jan 5, 2013

COMMENT

2012 has been a productive year for the Selangor state government, and I along with other state leaders begin 2013 with the firm intent of redoubling our efforts to serve the rakyat.

It is saddening to see the deputy prime minister, on the other hand, begin the new year with low class politicking, stating that the people of Selangor have been fooled for four years under Pakatan Rakyat.

In reality, it is Barisan Nasional that has fooled the people of both Selangor and Malaysia for 55 years.

This article intends not to rely on rhetoric, but to provide conclusive evidence regarding the priority given by Pakatan Rakyat and the Selangor government to the welfare of the people as well as our commitment to the highest standards of good governance.

We are confident that comparable evidence cannot be shown by any state administered by BN, including in Selangor before 2008.

In terms of financial management and allocation of funds for welfare programmes, Selangor under Pakatan Rakyat by far outperforms any other Barisan Nasional state, as well as the federal government itself. Continue reading “Umno-BN, stop the lies against Selangor”

Questions have been raised as to how there could be such a huge “recount” discrepancy and mistake in the DAP Central Executive Committee (CEC) election results where Zairil Khir Johari’s votes for election to the DAP CEC increased by 498 votes from the 305 votes announced on 15th December 2012 to the actual vote of 803 (placing him in the 20th elected position), while Vincent Wu Him Ven could drop 533 votes from the 1,202 votes announced on 15th December 2012 to the actual vote of 669 votes (putting him in the 26th elected position).

The blunder however did not arise from any vote counting, as Zairil and Wu’s votes were properly counted and tabulated as 803 and 669 votes respectively but from a computer error resulting in the votes for the last eight candidates (i.e. No. 61 – 68) also being posted with the same votes as those of Candidates Number 31 to 38, as follows, viz:

No	Candidate	Votes		No	Candidate	Votes
31	LIM LIP ENG	448		61	WONG SAI HOONG	448
32	LIU TIAN KHIEW (RONNIE)	761		62	WONG SZE PHIN @ JIMMY	761
33	LOKE SIEW FOOK (ANTHONY)	1202		63	WU HIM VEN (VINCENT)	1202
34	M. KULA	984		64	YONG WUI WUI (VIOLET)	*
35	MANOGARAN A/L MARIMUTHU	305		65	ZAIRIL KHIR JOHARI	305
36	MANOHARAN MALAYALAM	216		66	ZULKIFLI BIN MOHD NOOR	216
37	NG CHIN TSAI	39		67	ROSELI BIN ABDUL GANI	39
38	NG WEI AIK	407		68	TAN BOON PENG	407

Continue reading “96-Day Countdown to 13GE – Honesty and humility must always remain qualities of DAP leaders if DAP is to continue to command trust and confidence of Malaysians”

― Pak Sako
CPI
Jan 04, 2013

JAN 4 ― Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad published a piece called “Change” yesterday in his blog.

In it he asked why change governments.

He then criticised the socialist ideology. He strangely claimed that “Malaysia has no ideology”.

That is completely untrue.

When Dr Mahathir came into power in 1981, Malaysia was introduced to the neoliberal ideology.

This is an ideology that is biased in favour of corporations and capitalists.

It is the opposite of socialism, which aspires to put people first.

The neoliberal ideology was aggressively promoted around the world in the early 1980s by influential global networks of business interests and their supporters.

Their mantra? Continue reading “What change? A reply to Dr M”

By Dr. Lim Teck Ghee | 04 January 2013 09:19
CPI

As we begin a new year, a rash of old issues and challenges confront the country. Chief amongst them are racial and religious tensions and a rising sense of marginalization and alienation among our minority communities while at the same time the majority community feels threatened and insecure.

Many of these problems are deeply entrenched. Their effects are no longer confined to a small part of our body politic or emerge as isolated and unconnected events. They have infiltrated into all sectors of society and cast a shadow in the life of every Malaysian – in our everyday thought processes, in our consciousness and in our actions.

The problems that are associated with the ethnic and religious divide between Malays and non-Malays and between Muslims and non-Muslims will not be resolved quickly. There is no magical remedy.

Many of these problems stem from our seriously weakened social cohesion and the growing disunity that our nation has experienced during the past four decades. The intangible but potent glue of harmony, sense of community and commitment to realizing the common good that binds countries and their people together has long broken down in Malaysia.
Continue reading “Time to set up a Ministry of Minority Affairs”

For over a month, the country had been convulsed by a series of exposes revolving around the murder of Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu relating to the second Statutory Declaration of Private Investigator P. Balasubramaniam and very serious allegations against the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and his family by carpet businessman Deepak Jaikiishan.

The question many Malaysians are asking is whether the truth about the C4 murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu, the mystery surrounding Balasubramaniam’s second Statutory Declaration and the very serious allegations by Deepak against Najib and his family would only be known if there is a change of government in Putrajaya in the 13th general elections.

Although the Defence Minister Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi had said that he would respond to Deepak’s allegations against Najib at the winding-up of the 66th UMNO General Assembly, he conspicuously failed to do so, although it was not Zahid but Najib himself who should be responding to Deepak’s allegations. Continue reading “97-Day Countdown to 13GE – will the truth about the C4 murder of Mongolian Altantuya, Balasubramaniam’s second SD and Deepak’s serious allegations against Najib and Rosmah only be known if there is a change of government in Putrajaya?”

— Greener Pastures
The Malaysian Insider
Jan 04, 2013

JAN 4 — I write today to present a scenario from personal experience which relates to the national brain-drain and low enrolment in the civil service.

I have served in the civil service for three years now, and the reasons why I joined the civil service was because of my mother, who herself served as a teacher for 30 years and convinced me that the civil service was not what most people thought it to be. In fact, it gave her a good career, a good life, a good income and good benefits right up till now in her retirement. The other reason was I wanted a stable job that would allow me a good work-life balance and time for my new family.

So, after graduating in the Dean’s list from a local university and working in the private sector for a while, I applied and subsequently was called to service. Before I started in the civil service, one year after graduation, I took a certification examination which allows me to practise in many foreign countries. But I chose to stay in Malaysia because Malaysia is home.

I am perhaps the unlikeliest candidate to choose the civil service. The first question most people ask is “Why did you join the civil service?”, and then it is usually followed by “When are you leaving (the civil service)?”. There were two options for me to join the civil service, my first choice was to join the academia. When I embarked on the application process, they told me that they weren’t keen on accepting me because they were afraid that I would leave the University after I got my post-graduate qualifications. Facing such negativity, I gave up on that option and chose to join the civil service proper.

Even with my excellent results, overseas certification and private sector experience, I started off with the basic graduate’s pay grade, which was very low, considering that with my overseas certification, I could get a job in other countries which would pay between RM10,000 — RM40,000 a month. As such, I was only getting somewhere around RM35,000 per annum. The current salary I get, is just enough to maintain a comfortable middle income lifestyle if I don’t purchase a car or house. But I thought that if I wanted to bring change to the industry, I had to be the change. Money isn’t everything, so I stayed. (Remuneration, check; idealism, check.) Continue reading “From personal experience”

Written by John Berthelsen
Asia Sentinel
03 January 2013

Prime Minister Najib, his wife and UMNO leaders remain silent in the face of charges

Disaffected Malaysian businessman Deepak Jaikishan is continuing to rain accusations of bribery, political favoritism, murder cover-up and other scandals against Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, his wife, family and top UMNO figures despite apparent attempts to shut him up by arranging for a quasi-government agency to buy his company.

He has now written – apparently at lightning speed – a book called “Black Rose” which is billed as a tell-all about his relationship with Rosmah Mansor, Najib’s wife, and deals with allegations of the cover-up of details of the murder of the 28-year-old Mongolian national Altantuya Shaariibuu in 2006. The book was to be issued today but he told local media that the publisher couldn’t get it to him in time, so he would issue an e-book which so far hasn’t appeared.

Deepak, who once said he was close enough to Rosmah to call her his “big sister,” has continued to cause embarrassment to the prime minister and his wife, who so far have maintained an awkward silence in the face of his charges.

He has vowed to detail – or re-detail, since he has already made the information public to a flock of internet sites over recent weeks – RM3 million in payments to a private investigator, Perumal Balasubramaniam, in 2008 in an effort to shut up the investigator. Balasubramaniam had made public sworn allegations that Najib himself had had an affair with the jet-setting beauty, who was killed by two of Nabob’s personal bodyguards. The two were later convicted of murder in a trial regarded by many as designed to keep secret the names of those who had paid them to carry out the crime. Continue reading “Malaysian Businessman Continues Attacks on Premier”

by Mariam Mokhtar
Malaysiakini
Dec 31, 2012

Puppet shows, ‘Punch and Judy’ politics, farcical presentations, tragicomedies, drama queens, flip-flops, U-turns, dress rehearsals and of course, pornographic productions can be used to sum up current Malaysian politics.

It is amazing what the subconscious reveals. When MCA keeps asking if Hadi Awang or Anwar Ibrahim would make the better prime minister, you know what the ruling coalition are thinking – that BN is doomed.

Why would one of the main component parties in BN talk about opposition candidates for the post of prime minister? If they thought they stood any chance of winning GE13, they would be discussing which BN candidate should lead the country, rather than which opposition politician would make the best PM.

In November 2011, the Umno information chief, Ahmad Maslan, talked about a hung parliament: “If there is a hung Parliament scenario like Australia, let’s say 112 government seats to 110 opposition seats, it is the worst thing that could happen.”

This showed that Umno had no confidence of victory at the polls. Continue reading “Out with the old, in with the new”

By Kee Thuan Chye
Malaysian Digest
01 January 2013

What Utusan Malaysia’s lawyer reportedly told the High Court on Dec 27 is shocking.

According to The Malaysian Insider, Firoz Hussein Ahmad Jamaluddin said newspapers do not have the “luxury of time” to verify the truth of news reports before publishing them.

In defending Utusan Malaysia’s report that allegedly accused Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim of being a proponent of gay rights, Firoz also said, “If newspapers have to go through the full process of ascertaining the truth, the details, they wouldn’t be able to report the next day.”

If he thinks this would justify the publication of untruths by the media, he is grossly wrong. No media organization should ever publish untruths or lies. On top of that, no media organization can, after doing it, claim justification by saying it had no time to check its facts.

Not checking facts before publication is a cardinal sin in journalism. And no self-respecting journalist or media could absolve themselves by saying they did not have the “luxury of time”. Continue reading “There’s No Excuse For Not Reporting The Truth”

On the 98-Day Countdown to the 13th General Elections, Malaysians are reminded that the nation deserves better on all fronts of national life, whether political, economic, educational, social, cultural or environmental.

Malaysia definitely deserves higher ranking than No. 36 out of 80 nations in the “Best country to born in 2013” index by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) attempting to measure which country provides the best opportunities for a healthy, safe and prosperous life.

The 10 top-ranking nations in the EIU “Best country to be born in 2013” index are:

1. Switzerland
2. Australia
3. Norway
4. Sweden
5. Denmark
6. Singapore
7. New Zealand
8. Netherlands
9. Canada
10. Hong Kong

Malaysia is outranked by Taiwan (No. 14), United States (No. 16), UAE (No. 18), South Korea (No. 19), Kuwait (No. 22), Japan (No. 25) and Britain (No. 27). Continue reading “98-Day Countdown to 13GE – Malaysia deserves higher ranking than No. 36 placing in the EIU “Best country to be born” index”

Yesterday, I suggested that the 100-Day Countdown to the 13th General Elections be computed from New Year’s Day and that all Malaysians take part in the daily countdown to the 13GE because of the historic significance and possibilities of this event.

On the 99-day Countdown to the 13th General Elections, I call on the 13.1 million electorate to make corruption one of the top election issues for the first time in 13 general elections in the past 53 years.

Last Saturday, Bernama carried the following report:

All BN candidates for the 13th general election have been found to be free of corruption and other crimes, BN secretary-general Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor said today.

He said the candidates for the 222 parliamentary and 505 state seats had undergone screening by the police, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and Department of Insolvency to ensure that they were “clean” and did not have any problems. Continue reading “99-Day Countdown to 13GE – Make Corruption one of the top election issues for first time in 13GE”

With the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak continuing to make himself a national and international spectacle for nearly two years playing the role of Hamlet agonising on “To Be or Not To Be” on dissolving Parliament to seek a mandate of his own and end his role as longest unelected Prime Minister in Malaysia, the phrase “100 days to the 13GE” has become the constant refrain of Malaysians in the last month of 2012.

Let the 100-day countdown to the 13GE start officially today, the first day of 2013, and let all Malaysians take part in the daily countdown to the 13GE because of the historic significance and possibilities of this event. Continue reading “Let the 100-day countdown to the 13GE start today”