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GE13: What happened? And what now? (Part 1)

By Clive Kessler | JUNE 12, 2013
The Malaysian Insider

JUNE 12 ― In a brief commentary elsewhere (“Malaysia’s election result — no surprise to the knowledgeable,” Asian Currents, June 2013), I have noted one paradoxical but hugely important consequence of Malaysia’s recent national elections held on 5 May.

A paradox: anomalous domination

The remarkable, perhaps “counter-intuitive”, fact is that, while the election result itself ― namely, a fairly close but nonetheless comfortable victory of the Umno-centred Barisan Nasional side over the Pakatan Rakyat opposition ― came as no great surprise, that unremarkable result nonetheless had one quite surprising, even paradoxical, consequence.

From GE13 an electorally weakened Umno emerged politically even more dominant than it had been before. While still embattled in the broader political arena, Umno was delivered a dominant position within the parliament, ruling coalition and government.

By bestowing it with that now dominant parliamentary position, GE13 had delivered into Umno’s hands an ascendancy over the governing BN coalition, government policy, Parliament’s agenda and parliamentary process, and thereby over national political life ― over the nation’s affairs and direction ― of a quite unprecedented and perhaps irresistible kind.
Continue reading “GE13: What happened? And what now? (Part 1)”

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From excitement to fatigue

by Zan Azlee
The Malaysian Insider
May 31, 2013

MAY 31 — Last week I had lunch with my friend Liew Seng Tat, a famous award-winning Malaysian film director of Chinese descent. If you haven’t heard of him, then you know zilch about films.

Seng Tat is very politically active. He’s not a politician, he’s just one of the many young Malaysians who have a heightened sense of political awareness due to developments in the country.

He was at all three Bersih demonstrations and was even beaten up and arrested during the second one (remember the famous assault on Tung Shin Hospital? He was in the car park).

He attends a lot of ceramahs and talks, candlelight vigils, protests and even became a PACABA volunteer during the recent GE. And of course there are the Black 505 rallies.

He even sends me all kinds of SMSes, Facebook links and e-mails about politics, the government, news of corruption and human rights abuse, etc.

But when I met him for lunch a few days ago at Mahbub in Lucky Gardens, Bangsar, his mood and level of enthusiasm was a stark difference from before. Continue reading “From excitement to fatigue”

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Malaysia’s deep divides

by John Berthelsen
Asia Sentinel
May 29, 2013 10:49AM UTC

National elections on May 5 haven’t cooled political and racial tensions, writes Asia Sentinel’s John Berthelsen

Any hope that May 5 national elections in Malaysia would cool the political atmosphere appears to have been misguided, leaving a country entangled in deepening racial problems and creating the risk of a real threat to the legitimacy of Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s reign.

While not calling for Najib’s removal, the prime minister’s most potent critic, former Premier Mahathir Mohamad, damned him with faint praise, telling Bloomberg News in an interview in Tokyo last week that the United Malays National Organization will continue to support him “because of a lack of an alternative.” Continue reading “Malaysia’s deep divides”

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No point talking about Parti 1Malaysia or other combination or permutations if UMNO/BN leaders not prepared to accept 13GE outcome as a Malaysian tsunami, particularly young Malaysians of all races, who want to see the end of the politics of race

The Star today front-paged “1 Party for All”, declaring: “Parti 1Malaysia is among the names being considered for Barisan Nasional if its component parties merge into a multi-racial party to meet current political needs and expectations. Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who described the proposal as ‘rational’, said an in-depth study should be conducted and a decision made within the next few months.”

Sixty-two years ago, the founding President of UMNO Datuk Onn Jaffar had already made the proposal that UMNO should open its doors to non-Malay membership and UMNO should be renamed from United Malays National Organisation to United Malayans National Organisation.

Onn was too far ahead of his time and he had to leave UMNO when his proposal for an end to race-based politics was rejected by UMNO.

It is better late than never that some in UMNO and the other Barisan Nasional component parties are broaching the subject of an end to race-based politics and race-based political parties – and there can be no denial that the cause of this re-visiting the subject of an end to race-based politics is because of the outcome of the recent 13th general elections.

For a start, the Prime Minister and UMNO President, Datuk Seri Najib Razak should admit that he had made a major mistake and misjudgment when he had said on the night of May 5 that the outcome of the 13GE was a “Chinese tsunami”, for analysis of the 13GE has vindicated the case that it was not a Chinese tsunami, but a Malaysian tsunami representing a political awakening of Malaysians transcending race.

It is not just Chinese, but Malays, Indians, Kadazans and Ibans who want UBAH!
Continue reading “No point talking about Parti 1Malaysia or other combination or permutations if UMNO/BN leaders not prepared to accept 13GE outcome as a Malaysian tsunami, particularly young Malaysians of all races, who want to see the end of the politics of race”