Day: February 26, 2013

by Allan CF Goh

Like the tiny drops of water,
When split, remains a puny thing;
But when all gathered together,
Become the mighty ocean king.
Like the ocean of tiny drops;
Pushed hard, it forms a tsunami.
We, too, can create the same impact,
When united with all you, him, me.

In this impending election,
Your ‘lonely vote’ really matters;
Together with like-minded folks,
And combined with other charters,
Can, too, bring forth a tsunami.
All our ‘insignificant’ votes,
When massed, unified and counted,
Can ensure a victory of note.

Change for a better tomorrow.
Stand up to vile exploitations.
Reject those without moral spine.
Realize our just expectations.
Convince your family and friends,
And those who righteousness support,
Do your citizen’s great duty.
On voting day, show your rapport. Continue reading “Your Vote Counts”

By Martin Jalleh

I am not surprised that there has been no response whatsoever whether from the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, the Cabinet or UMNO/Barisan Nasional coalition to my proposal in Kuching yesterday to attach a 10-Point Addendum to the Transparency International (TI) Election Integrity Pledge to ensure that signatories are signing a meaningful document to usher in a new era of integrity and good governance rather than being involved in a pure publicity stunt which will have absolutely no bearing or influence on the the quality of integrity and good governance of future governments.

Several Pakatan Rakyat MPs have signed the TI Election Integrity Pledge even before Najib appended his signature with great fanfare last Wednesday.

But it is precisely because Najib had signed the TI Election Integrity Pledge that grave doubts have been raised about the purpose and meaningfulness in signing such a pledge, as in his four years as Prime Minister, Najib had not shown any commitment or seriousness to combat corruption and abuses of power.

This is why Malaysia had plunged to the worst rankings in the annual TI Corruption Perception Index (CPI) in his four years as Prime Minister from 2009 to 2012 as compared to the past 18 years.

How can Najib convince Malaysians that he is now a “convert” in the fight against corruption and abuses of power when Malaysia in the past four years is most corrupt in the nation’s 56-year history when compared to the previous five Prime Ministers, whether Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak, Tun Hussein, Tun Mahathir or Tun Abdulah?

Can Najib’s signing of the TI Election Integrity Pledge absolve him of all the failures to check corruption and abuses of power in the past four years or his own involvements in corrupt deals and abuses of power? Continue reading “44-Day Countdown to 13GE – If Suharto or Marcos had signed an Election Integrity Pledge at the height of their power and office, would it enhance or discredit such a pledge?”

by Pak Sako | Monday, 25 February 2013 14:53
CPI

CPI Introduction

This is the second part of a three-part CPI series on Malaysian debt. The first part, entitled, ‘Investigate Malaysia’s debts now’ , surveyed the overall debt situation.

This part examines the trend in government debt. The upcoming part will concern Malaysia’s total debt.

Statistics reveal that in the last 15 years, the Malaysian government’s debt increased at an unprecedented rate.

The graph below shows the statistics for the government’s combined domestic and foreign debts from 1991 till the present. Forecasts are provided up to the year 2017.

Continue reading “Malaysian government’s debt to approach RM1 trillion by 2020”

By Martin Jalleh

Written by John Berthelsen
Asia Sentinel
Monday, 25 February 2013

Malaysian Election Finally Nears

With the Lunar New Year out of the way and after months – years, in fact – of speculation, it appears that Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak will finally call national elections, probably for the second week in April, amid speculation that he may have let it go too long.

Under Malaysia’s parliamentary system, inherited from Britain’s 127-year rule, the prime minister can dissolve parliament any time he feels his chances are good of winning a majority. There has been speculation for two years over when an election would be called. But Najib put it off while he struggled to put his touted Economic Transformation Program (ETP) reforms in place and to let some of the myriad scandals around him cool off.

For the prime minister, there are dangers on several sides. The common wisdom is that he must not just preserve the Barisan Nasional’s parliamentary majority in the 222 seat Dewan Rakyat, but must pull more than the 76 parliamentary seats that the United Malays National Organization won under his luckless predecessor Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in the disastrous 2008 election. He must also preserve more than 125 total seats for the component parties of the Barisan.

If not, his detractors say, he is likely to be blindsided from the right of his own party by forces aligned with ultra-Malay nationalists determined to preserve ketuanan Melayu, or Malay ethnic and cultural dominance and sovereignty. Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, a Malay nationalist, is commonly believed to be after Najib’s job although UMNO stalwarts deny it. The state political parties in Sabah and Sarawak, whose allegiance has always been slippery, are also said to be ready to opt for the opposition if the vote is close and the price is right. Continue reading “The long wait is nearly over. Did Najib delay too long?”

— Othman Wahab
The Malaysian Insider
Feb 26, 2013

FEB 26 — Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad does protest too much. He says all this talk by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and the opposition about him and nepotism is slander and that he is clean and his sons are self-made businessmen.

I can only imagine that mixing around with the likes of Datuk Ibrahim Ali has made the former prime minister believe that all Malaysians have the IQ of Ibrahim.

The simple reality is that we don’t need Anwar to tell us what we know about you. All we need to do is remember the crony capitalism which you promoted, bumped up IPP contracts for certain cronies, a sweetheart deal to take over the national airline by another crony (who incidentally had a string of legal suits against him by government entities miraculously settled because he knew too much about your dealings and promises to him), the bailout of Konsortium Perkapalan during the financial crisis by MISC.

Oh yes, we also remember your pathetic performance at the Royal Commission of Inquiry on the Lingam video where you suddenly had amnesia. But thankfully the commissioners saw through your act and named you and your friends (Lingam and Vincent Tan) as parties who subverted the course of justice.

Mahathir, you have never declared your assets to Malaysians. We still don’t know how you bought that nice home in the Mines or why is it that the likes of Syed Mokhtar and others love lending their private jets to you or taking you on six-star holidays jaunts. Continue reading “Stop lying, Mahathir”

Mariam Mokhtar
Malaysiakini
Feb 25, 2013

This is Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s first experience in calling a general election, but waiting for the announcement is as bad as an expectant mother’s wait for an overdue birth. After a gestation of 42 weeks, it is recommended that labour be induced.

Unfortunately, Najib is acting like an overanxious, elderly primigravida, who prolongs the gestation period because he fears both the birth and the progeny. He also displays all the symptoms of a mother carrying a post-mature foetus; sleepless nights, backache, sweating and anxiety.

It is highly probably that elections have been rigged in Malaysia, for many decades. Recently, the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) into immigrants in Sabah provided ample proof that citizenship was awarded in exchange for voting rights. In addition, the opposition has unearthed much evidence of cheating at the polls.

Yesterday, Najib announced that GE13 would be held only after the rakyat had derived full benefit from the success of his government’s national transformation policies (NTP).

He said, “That is why we wait until we are exhausted to hold the general election, we wait because I want to prove that the national transformation policy can truly succeed.”

Najib should have no reason to delay the announcement of the date for GE13, if he knows that Umno has cheated in the elections since the 1980s and he also knows that this cheating will secure a win at GE-13 – unless he has been warned by his intelligence services that he will still lose. despite the cheating.

Cheating can influence the outcome of an election to a certain extent and it does not help Najib that the electorate has been alerted to the possibility of cheating. The opposition and internal election monitors are also aware of the tactics that have been used to cheat, and foreign countries are observing the fairness of GE13. Continue reading “GE13 as a late pregnancy?”

RK Anand | February 26, 2013
Free Malaysia Today

BN propagandists strike fear in the hearts of the Chinese about PAS and in the hearts of the Malays about DAP. But still a substantial of number of Malaysians dream of change.

COMMENT

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Scene I

The Honda Cub coughed up a trail of black smoke as it chugged along the labyrinth of dimly-lit alleys until it came to a screeching halt outside a dilapidated budget hotel. Chua missed the comforts of his Mercedes Benz but these were difficult times. The government’s decision to stop trade with evil nations like the United States had been a fiscal nightmare. Much had changed since that fateful general election.

With his helmet still on, he tiptoed up the creaking stairs and into the room where she was waiting for him. He then scanned the walls for hidden cameras. Satisfied, he slipped out of his clothes, climbed into the bug-infested bed and snuggled under the sheets next to his mistress. He recognised the fragrance of the Chanel perfume which seduced his nostrils. He had given it to her as a gift for Chinese New Year. It had to be smuggled from Singapore as such immoral items were banned. He leaned closer and his pulse raced with excitement and trepidation. He craved for a glass of Cognac to calm his nerves but alcohol, like Viagra, had been banned as well. These clandestine meetings placed them at severe risk with the ever vigilant moral police keeping watch for adulterous couples.

Chua’s greatest fear was that those bearded men in robes would burst through the door, drag him in chains to the public execution square Dataran Nik Aziz, once known as Dataran Merdeka, and stone him to death. Continue reading “Pakatan victorious: How frightening!”

By Tarra Quismundo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
1:44 am | Tuesday, February 26th, 2013

MANILA, Philippines—The standoff between Malaysian security forces and an armed group of followers of the sultan of Sulu entered a third week on Monday with hopes running high that the drama would end within the next 48 hours.

The Malaysian government extended the deadline for the armed group to leave the village of Tanduao in Lahad Datu town by another 48 hours to allow time for talks between emissaries of the Philippine government and the family of Sultan Jamalul Kiram III for the recall of the so-called Royal Armed Forces of the Sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo.

The first 48-hour extension of the Feb. 22 deadline expired on Sunday as the Philippine government sent a Navy ship to pick up the women and children among Jamalul’s followers to get them out of harm’s way in the event the Malaysian forces were forced to storm the Filipinos’ camp.

A statement from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said the ship was leaving for Sabah from Bongao, Tawi-Tawi, on Sunday night.

But the DFA said Monday the ship was still in Tawi-Tawi, awaiting diplomatic clearance to enter Malaysian waters and be on standby off Lahad Datu to receive the noncombatants from the armed group led by Agbimuddin Kiram, brother of Jamalul, who ordered the intrusion into Sabah to press his clan’s claim to the territory.

“We have learned that [Malaysian forces] have surrounded the area. So what we want to happen is [for] this group to now decide to leave the area for safety and get on board our humanitarian ship,” said DFA spokesman Raul Hernandez.

“We don’t want them to get hurt, to think of resorting to violence or whatever. That’s why we sent a ship there. It’s ready to go to the border when we have people who are ready to be moved and fetched,” he said. Continue reading “Hopes run high Sabah drama over in 48 hours”