Month: December 2015

Mariam Mokhtar
Malaysiakini
14 Dec 2015

Is Othman Aziz, the Jerlun Umno Baru division vice-chief, on Najib Abdul Razak’s side or is he secretly trying to undermine the PM? His unfortunate choice of words, describing Najib as “The Chosen One” (by God), does not augur well for the PM. If Othman has watched ‘Star Wars’ (SW), he will realise that ‘The Chosen One’ is not a complimentary term.

It is stupid to claim that Najib is ‘The Chosen One’. He has failed to deal with any of the allegations which beset him. At worst, it is blasphemy to use God’s name in this fashion.

How did Othman, a mere mortal, obtain a hotline to God? Which crystal ball is Othman gazing into? Did he consult the self-styled Raja Bomoh, Mahaguru Ibrahim Mat Zin, and look through the shaman’s ‘telescopic bamboo’ to see what God has ordained for Malaysia?

This time last year, ‘The Chosen One’ was playing golf with his buddy, President Barack Obama of America and neglected to deal with the worst floods in Malaysia’s recent history. ‘The Chosen One’ was forced to return home, only after he was ridiculed on social media for his lack of compassion and leadership. Continue reading “The Darth Vader of Umno Baru”

Liew Chin Tong
Malaysiakini
15 Dec 2015

MP SPEAKS At the China High Speed Railway Symposium, China’s public relation event to lobby for the KL-Singapore High Speed Rail (HSR) project, Land Public Transport Commission (Spad) chairperson Syed Hamid Albar said that some 14 companies have been invited to present their views and ideas to Malaysia and Singapore for the development of the HSR.

At each Parliamentary sitting since June 2013, I have asked the government to reveal the feasibility studies for KL-Singapore High Speed Rail.

In the recent Parliamentary sitting, I told Minister in Prime Minister’s Department Nancy Shukri during the debate on Prime Minister’s Department’s budget, that the government must not enter into the High Speed Rail project without revealing the feasibility studies and without a national debate on the nation’s priorities.

Pakatan Harapan stated our objection to the HSR in the Alternative Budget for 2016 as the government fails to demostrate that the HSR is a national priority and there is no feasibility study detailing its financial viability.

The national priority should be to expand railways to cater for both freight and passengers. Continue reading “Does Malaysia really need High Speed Rail?”

I asked around just now when the Alor Pongsu State Assembly by-election in Perak was held but nobody seems to know.

It was 41 years ago when the DAP contested in the Alor Pongsu by-election in 1974, and although the UMNO/Barisan Nasional director of operations for the Alor Pongsu by-election announced on nomination day that the DAP’s Malay candidate would not secure more than 2,000 votes, i.e. getting only non-Malay voter support, DAP polled about 3,500 votes – indication that the DAP Malay candidate was able to secure significant Malay voter support as well.

The Alor Pongsu by-election is testimony that right from the beginning of DAP’s formation 50 years ago, DAP had never regarded itself as a Chinese or non-Malay party, never an anti-Malay and anti-Islam party, but a party for all races and religions in the country.

DAP contested the Alor Pongsu by-election not because we expected to win, but part of a long-term reach-out by the party to all Malaysians and regions with the DAP message for national unity, justice, freedom, development and good governance for all.

I am pleasantly surprised by an old photograph taken when I visited Bagan Serai at the end of 1970, which was shortly after I was released from the first Internal Security Act (ISA) detention, and I thank the strong party supporter, who was in also in the photograph 45 years ago, who had presented with an enlarged copy of the photograph. Continue reading “Will Najib accept the democratic verdict of the voters in the 14GE rejecting UMNO/BN and demanding for a change of government in Putrajaya through the ballot box or will he resort to undemocratic powers like the National Security Council Act even without a Proclamation of Emergency by Yang di Pertuan Agong?”

By John Berthelsen
Asian Sentinel
December 14, 2015

With the United Malays National Organization’s annual general meeting safely out of the way last week and with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak in the saddle as expected, the opposition led by dumped Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin and former Premier Mahathir Mohamad is expected to set off on a new course. Some are calling it guerrilla war.

The four-day conclave was programmed down to the last speaker and lunch menu to make sure that Muhyiddin, Mahathir and other dissidents didn’t have a chance to upset anything despite huge controversies over dual scandals involving Najib’s personal finances and massive debt owed by the state backed 1Malaysia Development Bhd. investment fund. Continue reading “Anti-Najib Forces Planning ‘Guerrilla War’”

If by some miracle, it is possible to restitch back Pakatan Rakyat and get back together the three parties, DAP, PKR and PAS (plus a second miracle of re-uniting PAS and Parti Amanah Negara) under one roof for the 14th General Election, could the reconstituted Pakatan Rakyat defeat the UMNO/BN coalition by winning more parliamentary seats than the 13GE?

I don’t think so although UMNO in the 14th GE will be more fractured and weaker than in the 13GE with Datuk Seri Najib Razak as Prime Minister haunted and hounded by so many political and economic scandals as compared to the general election two years ago.

This is because the reconstituted Pakatan Rakyat in the 14th General Election will be fighting a losing battle just to win back the same number of parliamentary and state assembly seats, for the most important element which led to the 53% popular support for Pakatan Rakyat in the 13th General Election, resulting in 89 Parliamentary and 229 State Assembly seats (minus Sarawak) will be missing, i.e. absolute trust and confidence in the PR because of the people’s belief in the adherence and unswerving commitment of DAP, PKR and PAS to the PR Common Policy Framework and the PR consensus operational principle.

I am reminded of the nursery rhyme:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

Like Humpty Dumpty after its “great fall”, it would not be possible to put Pakatan Rakyat together again. Continue reading “What “olive branch” Najib could offer PAS in exchange for support of 14 PAS MPs to secure two-thirds parliamentary majority together with 134 UMNO/BN MPs to amend the Constitution for redelineation of parliamentary constituencies?”

The outcome of the UMNO General Assembly over the weekend is that the Prime Minister and UMNO President Datuk Seri Najib Razak has emerged stronger while UMNO has become weaker.

This is good for Pakatan Harapan for the 14th General Election but not good for Malaysia in the next 30 months as the country stumbles from one crisis to another under a government paralysed by crippling denial syndrome and an administration which is fractured, inept and cut off from the realities on the ground.

This is why the UMNO General Assembly completely ignored four of the five biggest political and socio-economic scandals in the country this year – Najib’s RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM50 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals; the undemocratic and unconstitutional National Security Council Bill which usurps the constitutional powers of the Yang di Pertuan Agong, the Cabinet and 13 State Governments; and the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) adding to the hardships of low-income Malaysians, already sandwiched between rising costs of living and falling incomes.

On the fifth biggest scandal in the country, there was even an attempt at the UMNO General Assembly to hijack public funds to come out with a publication to glorify the Sept. 16 “Red Shirts” rally in Kuala Lumpur which turned the 2015 Malaysia Day into a “black-lettered” day full of negative vibes of inter-racial disunity, division and disharmony when it should be a day to celebrate the unity, union and harmony of Malaysians regardless of race, religion or region! Continue reading “Outcome of UMNO General Assembly – Najib stronger but UMNO weaker”

by Anisah Shukry
The Malaysian Insider
14 December 2015

The demonising of DAP in this year’s Umno general assembly was a calculated move by party president Datuk Seri Najib Razak to use the opposition party as a bogeyman to drum up support among the Malays and distract his supporters from his own weaknesses, say political analysts.

DAP was Umno’s villain of choice because PKR was not seen as a threat, due to the jailing of party de facto chief Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, while PAS was seen as a potential ally, said Ibrahim Suffian (pic), the executive director of independent pollster Merdeka Center.

“The economy is not doing so well, the prime minister and the party are less popular. So in order to round up support, particularly among its core supporters, it needs to define an opponent that is very different from them.

“Here, DAP is targeted as the bogeyman to rally Malay support because it represents the antithesis of what Umno stands for – DAP is secular, it champions a more liberal democracy, it wants more equality for minorities, for example.”

Lim Teck Ghee, the executive director of the Centre for Policy Initiatives said Najib was also trying to distract supporters from his own failings by demonising DAP. Continue reading “DAP made bogeyman to rally Malay support, divert attention, say analysts”

Shamim Adam
Bloomberg
December 14, 2015

Having silenced his critics at a meeting of Malaysia’s ruling party, Prime Minister Najib Razak is moving to cement his hold on power by further wooing the ethnic Malay majority.

After five months of political turmoil sparked by a multimillion-dollar funding scandal, Najib has seen off potential threats to his leadership, securing the backing of the powerful division chiefs in his United Malays National Organisation. His message of unity and his calls for loyalty went largely unchallenged at a five-day annual UMNO congress last week attended by detractors including former premier Mahathir Mohamad.

As an additional buffer, he is bringing UMNO closer to the main opposition Islamic party. That could help rally the Malay vote ahead of an election due by 2018. UMNO, in power since independence in 1957, won the 2013 ballot with its slimmest result yet as Chinese and Indian electors deserted Najib’s coalition, and since then he’s embraced policies that play to his support base of Malay voters.

A closer working relationship with Parti Islam se-Malaysia could have dual outcomes: Further help Najib fend off the funding scandal and lead to more hardline policies. PAS, as the opposition party is known, has advocated Shariah law — which allows for stoning or amputation for certain crimes — in a state it governs, while Najib has already made greater use of the country’s Sedition Act with the detention of media executives and political opponents. Continue reading “Malaysia Premier Tightens Grip as Draws Islamic Parties Closer”

by Zulkifli Sulong
The Malaysian Insider
14 December 2015

Groomed by PAS in university for a future in politics, four close friends who lived and studied together, and were part of the Islamist party’s campus network, have decided to abandon the party and affiliate themselves with other political parties instead.

In events that mirror developments at the national level after PAS progressives left to form Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah), the four friends, Khairul Najib Hashim, Mohammad Amar Atan, Fahmi Zainol dan Adam Fistival Wilfrid, said they found PAS to be stifling.

The Universiti Malaya (UM) student activists said the PAS network, also known as “jemaah” (congregation) on campus was controlling and restrictive. Continue reading “PAS loses shine with campus students”

This is the 43rd parliamentary constituency I am visiting as part of the “Solidarity with Lim Kit Siang & Mana RM2.6 billion?” nation-wide campaign since I was suspended from Parliament on Oct. 22, 2015 for six months – – not because I had stolen, robbed or killed anyone, but because as elected representatives, we have the right and obligation to demand full accountability from the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak for his RM2.6 billion “donation” and the RM50 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals.

Although it will not be possible for me to visit all the 222 Parliamentary and 576 State Assembly constituencies in the country during the period of my six-month suspension from Parliament, I will try to visit more than 50 per cent of the 222 Parliamentary constituencies in the country by the time I am allowed to return to Parliament – with a strong and unmistakable mandate from Malaysians from all over the country, embracing all races, religions and regions in the country, to demand that Najib must fully account for the twin mega scandals.

Undoubtedly today, one of the greatest concerns in everyone’s minds, even to the Malay Rulers who even issued a rare joint statement on the 1MDB scandal on Oct. 6, are the two questions: where the RM2.6 billion “donation” in Najib’s personal banking accounts came from, and where they have gone to.

For six weeks during the budget parliamentary meeting, Najib and the Ministers had taken MPs from both sides of the House for a ride, giving the promise that the government would be completely forthcoming and answer all questions relating to the RM2.6 billion “donation” scandal on the last day of Parliament, only to renege on the last sitting of Parliament on Dec. 3 with a three-minute Ministerial Non-Statement by the Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi disclosing absolutely nothing at all.

Did Najib, Zahid or any government minister offer any apology or express any contrition to Members of Parliament and the nation for the government being caught so red-handed in breaking its promise and breaching its trust to Parliament and the country?

None at all. In fact, the Ministerial benches seem quite proud of such perfidy! Continue reading “The five government scandals this year which show that UMNO/BN Federal Government is utterly insensitive to the rights and concerns of all Malaysians regardless of race, religion or region”

Datuk Mohd Puad Zarkashi should be sacked as Department of Special Affairs (JASA) Director-General and be made to personally bear the costs of the JASA booklet “Uprising of the Red Shirts, Sept. 16” distributed at the UMNO General Assembly or he should be charged for the offence of criminal breach of trust if the booklet is paid for from public funds.

UMNO Secretary-General Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor said Putrajaya does not support the Sept. 16 “Red Shirt” rally and if this is the case, how can JASA, a government department, be the publisher and distributor of the booklet, especially as JASA functions as a disseminator of government polices and propaganda?

Or is this another case of an increasingly fractured and schizophrenic UMNO/BN government, where the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing, or the right hand is not allowed to interfere with what the left hand is doing even if aware of what is happening? Continue reading “Puad Zarkashi should be sacked as JASA Director-General and be made to personally bear the costs of the JASA booklet “Uprising of the Red Shirts, Sept. 16” or he should be charged for CBT if the booklet is paid for from public funds”

DAP has become the favourite punching bag in the current UMNO General Assemblies, which is a reflection of the loss of direction and the sense of purpose of the UMNO leadership which have strayed far from the UMNO founding principles to serve the Malay community and the multi-ethnic country.

Today, we read of the UMNO representative from Terengganu declaring that PAS should not be perceived as the main enemy of UMNO, and that it is the DAP which is UMNO’s “main enemy” because PAS is an Islam-based party with the members comprising the Malays.

By this logic, UMNO should declare the majority of the parties in the Barisan Nasional, including MCA, Gerakan, MIC and the Sabah and Sarawak parties which are not exclusively restricted to Malays or Muslims also as UMNO’s “main enemies”.

Is this the direction UMNO is leading the country after some six decades of nation-building?

What has happened to the 1Malaysia concept which the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak had proclaimed on becoming Prime Minister in April 2008 and on which he spent so much public funds on 1Malaysia propaganda and gimmicry in the run-up to the 13th General Election in May 2013? Continue reading “DAP does not regard the three million UMNO members and one million PAS members as “enemies” but only as Malaysians with different political inclinations and we are always prepared to engage with them for the common purpose to save the nation and not just to save individuals or political parties”

David Pilling
Financial Times
December 9, 2015

The bloc favours consensus. Its lack of overarching ambition is a strength as well as its weakness

If you think European nations are having a hard time holding it together — strained by disputes over immigration, austerity and debt — spare a thought for the 10 countries that form the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

True, compared with Europe, they face few fatally divisive problems. Most of Southeast Asia is contending with the impact of a slowing China and braced for the turbulence that could accompany the steady normalisation of US monetary policy. Yet there are no big financial transfers within Asean, a loose federation akin to the EU of the 1950s. No country is threatening to leave, nor are there fundamental differences over the direction of policy.

Still, as Asean prepares for an important milestone this month — the creation of a theoretically single market — it is worth reflecting on the incredible diversity of the “new bloc on the block”. Continue reading “The fiction of a unified, harmonised Asean”

Malaysians do not want to hear from the Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi or even by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), as they want the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak himself to stop procrastinating and prevaricating and to give full and satisfactory accountability on the RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM55 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals.

Having misled the nation and Members of Parliament to wait for six weeks for the last day of Parliament on Dec. 3 to answer all questions about the twin mega scandals, Najib should not disappoint Malaysians a second time – and his winding-up speech at the UMNO General Assembly later today is the last opportunity for him to come clean on the RM2.6 billion “donation” and 1MDB scandals.

The 1MDB scandal went back to more than six years ago, when 1MDB was incorporated in 2009 after its precursor, Terengganu Investment Authority (TIA), was turned into a federal agency, with the unprecedented Clause 117 in the 1MDB’s Memorandum and Articles of Association requiring the Prime Minister’s written approval for any of 1MDB’s deals, including the firm’s investments or any bid for restructuring, amendments to the company’s Memorandum and Articles of Association and appointments and removal of directors and senior management team of 1MDB.

The RM2.6 billion “donation” scandal is more recent, going back to March 2013, just before the 13th General Election on May 5, 2013, but awareness in the corridors of power that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark” did not begin only on July 2 this year when Wall Street Journal shook the country and the world with the scoop about the RM2.6 billion “donation” in Najib’s personal banking accounts in March 2013, but much earlier. Continue reading “Malaysians do not want to hear from Zahid or even the MACC – they want Najib himself to stop procrastinating and prevaricating and to give full and satisfactory accountability on the RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM55 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals”

By Martin Jalleh

Kee Thuan Chye
Malaysiakini
11th December 2-15

COMMENT There’s something not right about Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s revelation on national television on Dec 8 that he did receive RM2.6 billion from donors.

In fact, it was even laughable to hear him say that the donors wanted the money to be deposited in his personal account.

“Yes, that was the donor’s wish,” he said. “The donation was made to me personally, that is why the account is under my name.”Is Najib that naïve? He allowed the donors to dictate that despite the risk of the money being easily traced to him?

If you recall, when The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) came out with its report about the RM2.6 billion last July, even Deputy Finance Minister Ahmad Maslan responded that no prime minister would be that stupid to have such a huge amount deposited into his personal account.

And that’s Ahmad Maslan, mind you. Continue reading “On RM2.6b, Najib’s answers beg more questions”

A question which should have been answered some six months ago if the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak really believes in accountability, transparency, integrity and good governance is now creating havoc all over the country, latest additions to the teeming questions swirling around the scandal of RM2.6 billion “donation” in Najib’s personal banking accounts just before the 13th General Election in May 2013.

The question is one of two queries central to the RM2.6 billion “donation” scandal – where the RM2.6 billion came from and where this RM2.6 billion had gone to.

Najib had refused to give a full and satisfactory accounting of the RM2.6 billion scandal, despite leading all Members of Parliament up the garden path for six weeks during the recent 25-day budget parliamentary meeting that the Prime Minister will bravely, fully and satisfactorily address all questions relating to this issue, only for Najib to play truant from Parliament on the last day on 3rd December, leaving to the Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi to go through the parliamentary charade of a three-minute answer-nothing Ministerial statement.

Najib’s subsequent attempts to “save the day” on the RM2.6 billion donation scandal, with tame and orchestrated interviews with UMNO media and closed-door UMNO briefings, were to no avail, as Najib has again proved that his repeated promise to come clean on the RM2.6 billion “donation” just could not be believed or trusted!
So much for accountability, transparency, integrity and good governance in the Najib premiership.

But the half-hearted and haphazard attempts at explaining away the RM2.6 billion donation scandal had spawned more questions, including whether it was one donor or more than one donor involved in Najib’s RM2.6 billion “donation” and whether only one foreign country, or more than one foreign country had been involved. Continue reading “Najib’s RM2.6 billion donation – from one donor or more than one, from one foreign country or more than one?”

Today is Human Rights Day 2015 and we should be joining with peoples all over the world to celebrate another milestone in the promotion and protection of human rights in Malaysia – but the reverse is taking place.

On the Human Rights Day this year, Malaysians are facing with the greatest threat to democratic and human rights for over a decade since the retirement of Tun Mahathir as Prime Minister with the human rights horrors committed during his 22-year premiership, like the Operation Lalang mass arrests and closure of newspapers in 1987 and the assault on the independence of the judiciary beginning in 1988.

This is what has brought us to this forum “National Security Act: To Protect or to Oppress” tonight.

I had called the National Security Council (NSC) monstrous and pernicious because it was nothing less than a quadruple power grab, usurping the constitutional powers of the Yang di Pertuan Agong and the Cabinet on the proclamation of Emergency as well as the autonomy rights of the Sarawak and Sabah State governments, and it was rushed through the Dewan Rakyat “like a thief in the night” with a vote of 107 vs 74, in a late-night session on the last day of the 25-day Parliamentary meeting without any prior notice to the major stakeholders in the land.

On closer look, the NSC Bill is even more monstrous and pernicious for it would create a parallel government with an infrastructure of bureaucracy of its own, vesting the Prime Minister with executive powers to interfere with the running of the 13 State Governments without the consent or even consultation with the State Governments concerned. Continue reading “The presentation of National Security Council (NSC) Bill to Senate should be deferred until all the 13 State Governments have been consulted and agreement given for the creation of a parallel NSC government vesting the Prime Minister with executive powers to interfere with the running of the 13 state governments”

The UMNO Wanita leader, Datuk Shahrizat Abdul Jalil is the typical example of UMNO leaders who have to resort to the politics of fear, hate and lies to try to perpetuate their political careers and political position in the party.

Malaysiakini reported that at the winding-up speech of the UMNO Wanita General Assembly, Shahrizat urged former Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir, former Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and former Rural and Regional Development Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Apbdal to return to the fold as she does not want Malays to be “controlled” by DAP because of Umno leaders opposing UMNO president Najib Abdul Razak.

She urged Mahathir, Muhyiddin and Shafie to be with UMNO, “right or wrong”.
She said: “There is no other party. Do you want to surrender the Malays and bumiputera to DAP? I am not prepared (to do so).”

She lost control of herself when she continued in a most irresponsible and seditious manner, declaring: “Let blood flow, we won’t allow DAP to take over. Umno is weak, god forbid, our country is taken over by DAP.”

If any DAP or Pakatan Harapan leader had made a similar “blood-curdling” speech, the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar would have tweeted a directive to his subordinates to commence immediate police investigations and action.

Let us see whether there will be any action from the Inspector-General of Police against Shahrizat or she belongs to a special breed of Malaysians who enjoy immunity and impunity under the law! Continue reading “Why is UMNO afraid of DAP? Not because the Chinese will control the Malays but because UMNO-putras will not be able to exploit the Malays”

Bridget Welsh
Malaysiakini
9 Dec 2015

COMMENT Today the Umno general assembly begins – an event that has been stage-managed to deliver another show of support for Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak. These sorts of activities have become commonplace since the July revelation of the RM2.6 million ‘donation’ that continues to be inadequately explained and embarrasses Malaysia.

The meeting provides an opportunity to take stock – not only of the PM but of the state of the party that has governed Malaysia since independence. By whatever measure, Malaysia’s leadership is facing serious challenges ahead. Continue reading “Difficult questions on Umno’s future trajectory”