Day: April 5, 2013

The Star
Published: Friday April 5, 2013 MYT 11:26:00 AM
Updated: Friday April 5, 2013 MYT 12:18:05 PM

JOHOR BARU: The MCA does not eliminate the possibility of Johor Mentri Besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman (pic) coming down to Gelang Patah to contest in the 13th general election.

However, MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek said Friday that there has yet to be a decision on the matter.

“There will be a discussion among the Barisan Nasional component leaders soon but what is important is that Barisan wins,” he said in a press conference after meeting with voters at the Taman Ungku Tun Aminah market in Skudai here Friday.

Dr Chua said that they want a candidate with a good track record and “Abdul Ghani has a proven track record as a Mentri Besar who is accepted by all races.”

The photograph of the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak flamboyantly signing the Transparency International-Malaysia (TIM) “Election Integrity Pledge” on February 20 flanked by UMNO/Barisan Nasional leaders, with the Sarawak Chief Minister, Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud, the bete’ noire of international anti-corruption campaigns, glaring malevolently from the back and the MCA President Datuk Seri Dr. Chua Soi Lek in a somnabulant pose, will go down as one of the most unforgettable pics of the 13th General Elections.

This is because nobody, including the TIM President Paul Low, seated importantly on Najib’s left and who could not suppress a cynical sneer, really believed Najib and his Umno/BN Ministers and colleagues have even an ounce of sincerity in wanting to eradicate grand corruption and gross abuses of power in the country.

It was just a meaningless public relations exercise scripted by Najib’s political consultants and image-builders to score political points in the 13GE, destroying in the process all credibility and legitimacy of TIM’s Election Integrity Pledge.

How can Najib for instance 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 Abdullah – as testified by the annual Transparency International Corruption Perception Index (CPI) since 1995 well as by the perceptions of all Malaysians down the 56 years of the nation’s history.

In fact, Najib proceeded to violate one item after another of the TI-M Election Integrity Pledge (EIP) before the ink of his signature was dry, chalking quite a catalogue of violations in the 44 days since his signature of the TI-M Election Integrity Pledge which made a total mockery of the four principles of the TI-M EIP, viz: Continue reading “Taib has delivered a coup de grace to Najib’s pretensions of elevating “fighting corruption” as top agenda of his transformation programme when Taib is not only mightier than MACC but also the Prime Minister”

By Chong Zhemin | 10:33AM Apr 4, 2013
Malaysiakini

The 13th general election will be the first election in history where Malaysians go to polls knowing that they have a chance to vote for a regime change.

There are three possible outcomes for the coming election:

Scenario 1 – BN regains two-thirds majority
Scenario 2 – Slight gain for Pakatan Rakyat
Scenario 3 – Pakatan wins the election

Scenario 1 – Low possibility

For BN to regain two-thirds majority, BN would need to swing 1.5 percent of Pakatan voters in 2008.
Continue reading “Pakatan needs 7pct vote swing to win Putrajaya”

Datuk Seri Idris Jala in his article entitled 12 Clear Signs of Success has the chutzpah to make the claim that he believes in numbers and that their proper use and measurement does not result in lies.

It is rather laughable that having staked out this position, he proceeds to use fabricated numerical data in a brazen manner to make claims that do not have a basis and the assertions being made deviate from the truth.

However, he is not alone in spewing false and spurious numbers to befuddle the public. This has indeed been the season in which the nation has been treated to a recitation of false numbers to telltales of success and to make promises and paint mirages.

Pemandu has led the way and carved a niche for itself as the propaganda arm of the Government; and Datuk Idris is now a purveyor of twisted facts to cover up the failings of the Government.

The BN effort started with the Prime Minister claiming in the course of his March 23rd televised interview that per Capita GNI had grown by 49 percentage – and according to him the fastest ever in global terms – between 2009 and 2012.

This audacious claim, despite being challenged, was repeated by Pemandu in its Annual Report.

When further challenged, Datuk Idris was forced into issuing a “correction” citing a figure of 41 percent, further repeated in his article.
Continue reading “6-Days to 13GE – Idris Jala’s 12 clear signs of success – April Fool’s Day Message of Illusions”

By Martin Jalleh

By Gobind Rudra
April 4, 2013

COMMENT

As grotesque as it was, Najib sought desperately to adopt the Obama image of a change agent.

Najib Tun Razak has kept to his chosen self-image of a presidential prime minister by calling for a general election only after completing a full four years in office.

In fairnesss, he might even be allowed a measure of self-congratulation, for having stayed the course and completing his “term”, even if it is only in his imagination that his four years as PM can be compared to the fixed four-year term of the US president, and only in his own imagination could he be compared to Barack Obama.

With his image handlers, he has worked hard at projecting himself in the Obama mould — even down to the solecisms of his swearing-in and the King’s proclamation of dissolution and his frenetic adoption of new media savviness and online cool.

His projection of himself in the image as Obama, as absurd as it may seem, could be seen as early as June 2009 when the US president made the semi-obligatory phone call, engineered by the State Department, to the newly-appointed prime minister. Najib recorded it thus in his blog:

“It was our first conversation with each other as Heads of State and we exchanged congratulatory wishes on our respective appointments.” Continue reading “‘President’ Najib has failed”

By Martin Jalleh

– The Malaysian Insider
April 04, 2013

APRIL 4 – Naughty seems to be the byword in Sarawak.

The long-serving state chief minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud used that word today to describe the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission’s (MACC) for its investigations into alleged graft in timber land awards.

“They don’t deserve my cooperation because they have been naughty… and they have not been honest,” he told reporters in Kuala Lumpur. Continue reading “Might as well dissolve MACC after Taib snub”

By Zurairi AR
The Malaysian Insider
April 05, 2013

KUCHING, April 5 — Tan Sri Taib Mahmud has challenged Global Witness to debate him on the issue of illegal land deals in Sarawak, and accused the international environmental activist group of having a hidden agenda by visiting Malaysia’s biggest state in a “sneaky way”.

He has also suggested links between Global Witness and opposition parties.

“The timing is too much to ignore … I think there is a link between them and the opposition,” said the long-serving Sarawak chief minister, who noted the release of a video showing how illegal land deals are allegedly brokered in the state happened just before with Election 2013 which will be held soon.

Global Witness’ accusations against him were also the result of second-hand information obtained from the Bruno Manser Fund (BMF), Taib said in a video interview uploaded online yesterday.

He invited the international activists to observe the real situation in Sarawak themselves as he trumpeted the state’s many achievements in preserving its forests.

“Global Witness should … not (be) hiding behind some picked up second-hand tales from a fellow NGO,” Taib told the Malaysian Observer (MobTV) channel, referring to environmental and human rights group BMF. Continue reading “Taib says Global Witness video expose was ‘sneaky’”