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The best (acting) prime minister

Mariam Mokhtar
Malaysiakini
Sep 9, 2013

No one will dispute the filial piety and devotion shown by Tawfik, the eldest son of Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman, who was once called “The man who saved Malaysia.” Dr Ismail died in office, in his capacity as acting prime minister, effectively the best prime minister we have had.

tun dr ismail abdul rahmanDr Ismail was remembered for his non-ethnic approach to issues and his concern about racial polarisation. He had a strong work ethic, was a strict but fair man who adhered strictly to rules. He despised incompetence and lateness. He was feared and respected. He refused to grant favours even to relatives and close friends. He was highly principled and enjoyed debating.

He avoided conflict of interest and the British High Commissioner said in despatches, “Ismail was a man of formidable reputation for integrity and talent in all communities.”

Tawfik has sullied his father’s memory by aligning himself with the present, undistinguished Umno Baru politicians by suggesting that the controversial film, Tanda Putera be made into a mini-series. Continue reading “The best (acting) prime minister”

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Is the dissemination of racist lies, poison and incitement, regardless of the harm to Malaysian nation-building, the surest way to high votes and influence in the upcoming UMNO party elections?

There has recently been an unprecedented outpouring of racist lies, poison and incitement in Umno media and social media, whether facebook, twitter or blog, raising the question:

Is the dissemination of racist lines, poison and incitement, regardless of the harm to Malaysian nation-building, the surest way to high votes and influence in the upcoming UMNO party elections?

Two days ago, the UMNO official newspaper, Utusan Malaysia carried a report quoting a former Umno deputy minister, Dr. Mohd Fuad Zarkashi making the accusation that the DAP’s criticism of the film “Tanda Putera” “samata-mata ingin menyembunyi kebiadapan Penasihat DAP, Lim Kit Siang yang bertindak kencing di depan rumah Menteri Besar Selangor ketika peristiwa 13 Mei 1969”. (Utusan Malaysia 7.9.13 p.13)

How can the former Umno deputy minister say, and Utusan Malaysia publish, such dastardly falsehood, when this is a most irresponsible and downright lie?

I was never in Kuala Lumpur at any time during the May 13, 1969 racial riots, and the director of Tanda Putera, Datin Paduka Shuhaimi Baba had claimed that the fabricated urination incident in her film was her “creative licence” in her fictitious account of the May 13, 1969 racial riots!

This is not an isolated instance, as there had been a recent spate of malicious lies and falsehoods in UMNO media and social media, like the blog post of former Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin last Tuesday (3rd September 2013), accusing me of having “sowed the seeds of death” in causing the May 13, 1969 riots.
Continue reading “Is the dissemination of racist lies, poison and incitement, regardless of the harm to Malaysian nation-building, the surest way to high votes and influence in the upcoming UMNO party elections?”

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Setpol Encik Lim Kit Siang dan UITM

– Sakmongkol
The Malaysian Insider
September 08, 2013

Apa sudah jadi kepada pemimpin Umno? Respons mereka terhadap isu-isu yang dibangkitkan sejak akhir-akhir ini dibuat dalam keadaan hysteria.

Dua minggu lalu, bila Anwar Ibrahim mencadangkan perbincangan meja bulat, cadangan tersebut dibaca sebagai cadangan menubuhkan kerajaan perpaduan.

Anwar Ibrahim mengajak pemimpin Umno yang bengap untuk berbincang mengenai polarisasi kaum, mengenai rasuah, mengenai pengurusan ekonomi negara, mengenai jinayah dalam negara dan perkara2 umpanya.

Perkara yang mudah ini pun pemimpin Umno tidak faham sebab diserang penyakit sawan babi dan hysteria.

Pemimpin-pemimpin PAS pun saya harap fahamlah dahulu cadangan Anwar itu. Ini bukan kerajaan perpaduan.

Bukan untuk bergabung dengan Umno. Tak ada orang hendak bergabung dengan Umno. Umno parti fiudal, rasuah dan rasis dan zalim kepada orang Melayu.

Kita bukan ingin bergabung, kita hendak lawan Umno sampai Umno kalah. Kita hendak memerdekakan orang Melayu dari perhambaan Umno yang feudal ini. Continue reading “Setpol Encik Lim Kit Siang dan UITM”

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Registrar of Societies should stop acting on the script of the Umno/BN “DDD” (Demolish/Destroy DAP) campaign but demonstrate that he is independent, impartial and professional including giving reasons why he wants DAP CEC re-elections

Yesterday, the Registrar of Societies (RoS) Director-General Datuk Abdul Rahman Othman asked the DAP to stop its “battle” with the RoS in the media and to comply with procedures.

It is the RoS which is guilty of being part of a “media war” against the DAP in the past eight months, and I would call on Abdul Rahman to stop acting on the script of the Umno/BN “DDD” (Demolish/Destroy DAP) campaign and to demonstrate that he is independent, impartial and professional in carrying out his duties, including giving reasons why he wants DAP Central Executive Committee (CEC) re-elections when the DAP CEC elections last December were proper, valid and conducted fully in accordance with the party Constitution.

In the Umno/BN DDD campaign in the first seven months of the year, three reasons had been floated to question the validity of the DAP CEC re-elections at the DAP Congress in Penang last December:

  • Firstly, allegations of electoral fraud and irregularities arising from a computer glitch resulting in an error in the announcement of the CEC results, which had nothing to do with any error in vote counting or tabulation but a mistake in the computer posting of the results for purposes of announcement.

  • Secondly, allegation that 753 delegates “mostly Indians” were not notified of the DAP Congress in Penang last December, resulting in their being unable to attend and therefore deprived of the right to vote in the CEC election.

  • Thirdly, allegation that 547 “phantom delegates, mostly from Penang” were allowed to vote in the DAP CEC elections in Penang, resulting in fraudulent election results.

Continue reading “Registrar of Societies should stop acting on the script of the Umno/BN “DDD” (Demolish/Destroy DAP) campaign but demonstrate that he is independent, impartial and professional including giving reasons why he wants DAP CEC re-elections”

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Malaysia’s Najib Weakens

Written by Our Correspondent
Asia Sentinel
Thursday, 22 August 2013

KL sources say he’ll remain as PM, but as a “lackey” of former PM Mahathir

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak appears to be under increasing pressure from inside his own party and under blistering attack by bloggers allied with former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad — one of whom compared him to a flattened bug on a windshield.

Najib saw his ruling coalition lose the popular vote in May national elections, garnering only 47.38 percent of the vote against 50.87 for the three-party opposition Pakatan Rakyat led by Anwar Ibrahim. The Barisan, however, managed to maintain its 56-year hold on parliament by a 133-89 seat margin because of gerrymandering.

Since the election, Najib has faced a drumfire of criticism from within the United Malays National Organization over his strategy to attempt to reach out against the country’s minority Chinese and Indian races. Because UMNO raised the number of seats it won while its component Indian and Chinese parties went down the tubes, the party more and more appears to be in the hands of Mahathir and his allies, particularly former Finance Minister Daim Zainuddin, who advocated a strident Malay nationalism strategy to lure ethnic Malays, who make up 60.1 percent of the population, to the polls.

A quiet approach to Anwar to seek to set up a unity government after the election was batted back by the opposition leader, ostensibly because Najib wouldn’t rein in the strident racists in his party, but probably actually because Anwar wasn’t really interested in playing no. 2 to Naib in any political scenario.

Publication of Najib’s vain attempt to reach across the aisle to the opposition is considered to have weakened the prime minister further, partly because of Mahathir’s implacable enmity against Anwar. And while the 88-year-old Mahathir has remained silent, Mahathir-aligned blogs, including “outsyed the box” and one maintained by former information Minister Zainuddin Maidin have stepped up their attacks on Najib in recent days. Continue reading “Malaysia’s Najib Weakens”

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Apa lagi Mahathir mahu?

Mariam Mokhtar
Malaysiakini
Aug 19, 2013

If the third prime minister of Malaysia, Hussein Onn, had not nominated Mahathir Mohamad as his successor in 1981, the course of Malaysian history would have been very different.

Mahathir may have left office after 22 years in power, but today, he pops up like those annoying advertisements which appear, without warning, on your computer screen. Mahathir’s messages act in a similar way to some of those adverts; they can harm your computer with malware or other unwanted files, when they are “opened”. Perhaps, we need a spam-blocker that will work on Mahathir.

How will we ever learn from history, if we are prevented from examining what has gone badly wrong for this nation? Mahathir’s policies continue to divide the nation, but many Malays are under the illusion that he is their saviour. Sadly, after 56 years of independence, it is mostly non-Malays who are more Malaysian than the Malays.

Until we get a change in government, only one man can stop Mahathir’s deleterious effects on the nation – Najib Abdul Razak – but he either won’t or can’t bring himself to perform this saintly task. Such is the hold that Mahathir has over Najib.

Yesterday, Mahathir urged that MAS be privatised. His penchant for privatisation enables profitable companies to be annexed by his cronies or Umno Baru nominees. This practice has all but bankrupted the nation.

It is ironic that the man who once said that “Melayu mudah lupa”, should forget his role in handing the national airline carrier, on a golden platter to Tajudin Ramli. Few MAS employees will ever forget how the company’s performance plummeted with Tajudin at its helm. Continue reading “Apa lagi Mahathir mahu?”

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Lawyers instructed to institute legal proceedings against Utusan Malaysia for recycling the lies of booklet “The Equity Report (CEC Election Fraud)” of fictitious “Father Augustus Chen”

I have instructed my lawyers to institute legal proceedings against Utusan Malaysia for recycling the defamatory lies of the booklet “The Equity Report (CEC Election Fraud)” of fictitious “Father Augustus Chen”.

In a statement on August 5, 2013, I said:

  • “Father Augustus Chen” who authored the booklet alleging irregularities in the DAP Central Executive Committee (CEC) elections last December was “a total figment of imagination of the Umno/BN ‘war-room psy-war’ campaign against the DAP before and after the 13th General Elections”;

  • The allegations of DAP election irregularities by the fictitious “Father Augustus Chan” in his booklet is a regurgitation of the many lies and baseless allegations which had been published in some 400 anti-DAP reports and write-ups in UMNO/BN controlled media since January, particularly in Utusan Malaysia and New Straits Times;

  • The appearance of the booklet of lies by the fictitious “Father Augustus Chen” in July was to provide a semblance of justification for UMNO/BN and the Registrar of Societies (RoS) to act against the DAP, enabling Umno/BN leaders and Cabinet Ministers to quote the fictitious “Father Augustus Chen” as authority why action, such as invalidation of DAP CEC elections and even deregistration, should be taken against the DAP.

Continue reading “Lawyers instructed to institute legal proceedings against Utusan Malaysia for recycling the lies of booklet “The Equity Report (CEC Election Fraud)” of fictitious “Father Augustus Chen””

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Today’s New Straits Times front-page report of lies about DAP CEC re-election signals a new phase of the DDD (Demonise/Destroy DAP) propaganda war with lies and falsehoods

The New Straits Times (NST) front-page report today on the DAP Central Executive Committee (CEC) re-election is a typical example of the mountain of DDD – “Demonise/Destroy DAP” – lies and falsehoods by Umno/Barisan Nasional media, culminating in the July appearance of the booklet of lies by the fictitious “Father Augustus Chen”, in the past seven months.

The lead paragraph of NST front-page report headlined “DAP finally agrees to hold fresh CEC polls” by S.K. Thanusha Devi reads:

“Kuala Lumpur: DAP yesterday conceded that it must hold fresh polls, after it was found to have disallowed 753 party members from attending its congress-cum-elections as delegates in December”.

This is not journalism but a downright blatant and bare-faced lie, for two reasons: Continue reading “Today’s New Straits Times front-page report of lies about DAP CEC re-election signals a new phase of the DDD (Demonise/Destroy DAP) propaganda war with lies and falsehoods”

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‘Duplicitous, dysfunctional and directionless’

By Ong Kian Ming | 11:07AM Aug 14, 2013
Malaysiakini

COMMENT This week marks the first 100 days of the Najib administration since May 5, 2013, when BN won 60 percent of parliament seats with only 47 percent of the popular vote.

Najib Abdul Razak has the distinction of being the first Malaysian prime minister to hold on to the reins of power without having won the majority of votes.

He has further distinguished himself by presiding over a duplicitous, dysfunctional and directionless government. If this is a sign of things to come, the next five years will, if Najib lasts that long, see things in the country going from bad to worse.

Duplicitous

On the night of polling day, when it was announced that BN had retained power at the federal level, Najib called for a national reconciliation in order to unite the voters who had been “polarized” as a result of a high stakes and often heated general election campaign.
Continue reading “‘Duplicitous, dysfunctional and directionless’”

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QED – “Father Augustus Chen” a sham, phantom and ghost and his booklet on DAP a tissue of lies and falsehoods

QED – “Father Augustus Chen” is a sham, phantom and ghost, and his booklet on the DAP “The Equity Report (CEC Election Fraud)” a tissue of lies and falsehoods.

The lies and falsehoods about “Father Augustus Chen” were so thick and free that he was even described as my one-time close associate and I had even been challenged to declare whether I still maintain a friendship with him.

The seven days given to “Father Augustus Chen” to surface to prove that he is not a phantom are past, and there is no ghost of a sign that there is such a person in Malaysia or on this earth.

“Father Augustus Chen” is a chimerical and fictitious creature of the fancies and fantasies of the Umno/BN “DDD” (Demonise/Destroy DAP) propagandists and cybertroopers to cram about one hundred lies about the DAP in a 12-page booklet as a culmination of a seven-month DDD campaign over the DAP Central Executive Committee (CEC) elections last December which had spawned a few hundred lies and falsehoods about the DAP in the UMNO/BN controlled media in the past seven months.
Continue reading “QED – “Father Augustus Chen” a sham, phantom and ghost and his booklet on DAP a tissue of lies and falsehoods”

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Fictitious “Father Augustus Chen” an evil genius who have packed some 100 lies and falsehoods in his 12-page DDD booklet

This is the second day of the week-long period I suggested to give the fictitious “Father Augustus Chen” who allegedly wrote the booklet “The Equity Report (CEC Election Fraud)” which is used by UMNO/BN leaders and the Registrar of Societies (RoS) as authority to invalidate the DAP Central Executive Committee (CEC) elections last December to surface and prove he is not a phantom.

I have been told that there is no person by the name of Father Augustus in Malaysia, let alone Father Augustus Chen. But let us give the purported “Father Augustus Chen” the benefit of the doubt for the next five days for him to surface and prove that he is not a phantom.

I for one would like to meet the purported “Father Augustus Chen” or the person camouflaging as “Father Augustus Chen” as he is quite a genius, although an evil genius, for I do not think it is easy to find another person who could pack so many lies and falsehoods into a 12-page booklet, with each page crammed and brimming with lies and falsehoods.

There are easily some 100 lies and falsehoods in “Father Augustus Chen’s” DDD (Demonise/Destroy DAP) 12-page booklet, proving he is quite a “find” for the UMNO/BN “war-room psy-war” campaign against the DAP.
Continue reading “Fictitious “Father Augustus Chen” an evil genius who have packed some 100 lies and falsehoods in his 12-page DDD booklet”

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A time when Utusan Malaysia didn’t get away with everything…

The Malaysian Insider
August 07, 2013

In a book about his years in power, former prime minister Tun Abdullah Badawi makes a startling revelation about how he dealt with Utusan Malaysia, in stark contrast to how the strident newspaper is managed by its Umno backers now.

Abdullah was known for liberalising news media in an attempt to restore their credibility after the severe damage that mainstream media took under the Mahathir years, but Abdullah still kept a firm line on racial and religious issues.

Referring to his appointees, he said, “I did not interfere with their work as I believed that they had a professional job to do and I allowed them the space to do it. But when they abused the openness by playing up racial and religious issues, like when Utusan Malaysia did, then I would call them and warn them.”

He revealed that he made a phone call to the editor-in-chief of Utusan Malaysia and left him with a stark warning: the newspaper had crossed the boundary with an editorial that smacked of racism and he should expect no favours from Putrajaya if charged with sedition.
Continue reading “A time when Utusan Malaysia didn’t get away with everything…”

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Fictitious “Father Augustus Chen” given seven days to surface and prove he is not a phantom – failing which would RoS reconsider his decision?

I have said that “Father Augustus Chen” whose booklet “The Equity Report (CEC Election Fraud)” is used as authority by Umno/BN leaders and the Registrar of Societies to invalidate the DAP Central Executive Committee (CEC) elections last December is a fictitious figure and a total figment of imagination of the Umno/BN “war-room psy-war” campaign against the DAP before and after the 13th General Elections.

Today there is further confirmation that the lies and falsehoods about election irregularities in the DAP CEC elections last year has become fodder in the upcoming UMNO party elections when Utusan Malaysia reported that the UMNO MP for Kuala Pilah and Minister for Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism Datuk Hasan Malek has confirmed that he would be contesting for the UMNO Supreme Council elections in October this year.

It was Hasan Malek who over the weekend quoted the fictitious figure “Father Augustus Chen” as authority for the decision by the Registrar of Societies director-general Datuk Abdul Rahman Othman directing the DAP to hold CEC re-election.

Two dubious records are set here –firstly, it is the first time in the 56-year history of public law in Malaysia where Cabinet Ministers and public officials are depending on a fictitious character to justify their decision, and secondly, relying on a scurrilous publication which is no different from a “poison pen letter” which is published against the law as it does not carry the required identity of the printer and publisher.
Continue reading “Fictitious “Father Augustus Chen” given seven days to surface and prove he is not a phantom – failing which would RoS reconsider his decision?”

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It’s Not About the Chinese, Syed Ali!

By Kee Thuan Chye
Yahoo
August 1, 2013

If Umno Cheras division chief Syed Ali Alhabshee thinks he’s reaching out to the Chinese by asking them to tell Umno why they did not support the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) at the 13th general election (GE13) and what they are unhappy about, he’s still missing the point. The rejection of BN at GE13 is not about the Chinese. It’s about governance.

Good governance and an end to corruption are among the things every caring and intelligent Malaysian wants. Why does he single out the Chinese?

True, many Chinese care about the country and therefore want it to do well, and they don’t think that under BN rule, it will, so they voted for a change of government. But then so did a few million others comprising Malays, Indians, Kadazans and Ibans who also care about the country and want a better government.

If Syed Ali can grasp this basic idea, he should instead be telling his own party’s leaders that they need to do much, much better to deserve being in government – in fact, to change. And change drastically. He should be telling them to stop playing the same old politics they are still playing, like exploiting the issues of race and religion to divide the people.

He should tell Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin to take back what he said on July 31 and even apologise for it: “Muslims do not insult the religion of non-Muslims such as Christianity and Hinduism. But non-Muslims are insulting our religion.” That’s the kind of inflammatory remark we can expect from an extremist, not from a deputy prime minister. Continue reading “It’s Not About the Chinese, Syed Ali!”

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“Father Augustus Chen” is a total figment of imagination of the Umno/BN “war-room psy-war” campaign against DAP

The statement yesterday by the Minister for Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism and Umno MP for Kuala Pilah Hasan Malek quoting the fictitious figure “Father Augustus Chen” as authority for the decision by the Registrar of Societies director-general

Datuk Abdul Rahman Othman to direct DAP to hold re-elections for the DAP Central Executive Committee (CEC) has taken the Umno/BN conspiracy to invalidate the DAP CEC elections last December to the realm of the absolutely bizarre.

This is because “Father Augustus Chen”, who allegedly wrote a booklet alleging irregularities in the DAP party elections last year, is a total figment of imagination of the Umno/BN “war-room psy-war” campaign against the DAP before and after the 13th General Elections.

The allegations of DAP election irregularities by the fictitious “Father Augustus Chan” in his booklet is nothing more than a regurgitation of the many lies and baseless allegations which had been published in the some 400 anti-DAP reports and write-ups in the Umno/BN controlled media since January, particularly in Utusan Malaysia and New Straits Times. Continue reading ““Father Augustus Chen” is a total figment of imagination of the Umno/BN “war-room psy-war” campaign against DAP”

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DAP National Legal Bureau should comb through the over 200 Utusan reports targetting and character-assassinating DAP since January to file multiple defamation suits against the Umno newspaper

The DAP National Legal Bureau headed by DAP MP for Puchong Gobind Singh Deo should comb through the over 200 Utusan Malaysia reports and articles targetting and character-assassinating DAP since January to file multiple defamation suits against the Umno newspaper.

In these reports and articles, Utusan Malaysia have ad nauseum repeated lies and falsehoods against the DAP and DAP leaders, particularly over the DAP Central Executive Committee (CEC) elections at the DAP National Congress in Penang last December, in utter disregard of the basic canons of journalism with regard to ethics, honesty and truth.

This campaign directed by the Umno/BN “war room” to demonise and destroy the DAP reached its peak in April just before the 13th General Elections, and although its tempo slowed down immediately after the general elections in May, its momentum was accelerated in June and July, culminating in the directive by the Registrar of Societies to the DAP on CEC re-elections.

Although the Registrar of Societies did not give any reasons to the DAP for its directive on CEC re-elections, two false allegations had been prominently canvassed in the Utusan media offensive in the past six months to justify any RoS invalidation of the CEC elections last December:

  1. That 753 DAP delegates had not been notified of the DAP Congress and denied the right to vote for the new CEC.

  2. That there were 547 phantom delegates, primarily from Penang, who voted at the DAP Congress last December.

Continue reading “DAP National Legal Bureau should comb through the over 200 Utusan reports targetting and character-assassinating DAP since January to file multiple defamation suits against the Umno newspaper”

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Umno/BN journalism reached new “heights” when lies become truths and fiction transmuted into fact

Malaysian journalism in Umno/BN country has reached new international “heights” where lies become truths and fiction transmuted into fact.

The Umno-owned daily Utusan Malaysia gave an illustration of this “transformation” of Malaysian journalism yesterday when its official commentary “Bisik-Bisik” by Awang Selamat, which is the pseudonym of the Umno-Utusan propaganda/psy war command centre, launched another attack on the DAP for its response to the Registrar of Societies asking for reasons for the RoS’ decision to direct the holding of DAP Central Executive Committee (CEC) re-elections.

Awang Selamat commented:”Awang teringat desakan orang politik termasuk bekas orang DAP sendiri yang mahukan DAP mengadakan semula pemilihan CEC ekoran dakwaam berlaku penyelewengan dan manipulasi undi membabitkan 547 perwakilan.”

The lie of 547 phantom delegates at the Penang DAP Congress in Penang last December, with the even more ludicrous allegation that all the 547 ‘phantom’ DAP delegates came from Penang, is one of the despicable falsehoods concocted and conjured up by the Umno/BN psy-war journalists when there is no shred of evidence whatsoever, but which Umno/BN propagandists hope can be accepted as fact by gullible Malaysians by implementing the Goebble doctrine that if a lie is repeated a thousand times, it could become a fact.
Continue reading “Umno/BN journalism reached new “heights” when lies become truths and fiction transmuted into fact”

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The Boris Yeltsin to Najib’s glasnost

– Sakmongkol AK47
The Malaysian Insider
August 01, 2013

Readers may be interested to read an abridged version of an interview I had with The Malaysian Insider, here.

I spoke freely about a number of issues. One of these includes the future of Malays and what Mahathir is doing to imperil the social structure in Malaysia by distorting the issues.

If I may expand. Najib will fail in his glasnost style of politics because he hasn’t got the ground troops in the support power structures. He has the institutions, the means which are given legislative muscle- but the people to implement his ideas are not there.

His world is full of tenured sycophants. Tenured in the sense that as far as these people get bits and pieces of economic and business entitlements- they sing like canary of Najib. In order to make his ideas take root, he needs the manpower with enough zeal, dedication, honesty and commitment to carry out the ideas.

Sadly, he has a modicum of talent and even then, the talented ones like KJ, Nurjazlan are viewed with suspicion and envy. Najib has got two chances – slim and none. Look at what happened to Gorbachev. Najib has old man Boris Yeltsin in the form of Dr Mahathir hovering around him. Old man Boris would very much like to put a Putin with enough aggression to control the politics. He is cultivating several- Muhyiddin, Shafie Apdal, and eventually the son. Yes, Mukhriz is now being trained to take over.

The Umno ground stands in opposition to Najib. What he has is, perception that is media created mostly that his policies are working. The Umno ground isn’t buying his Glasnost style. They want assertiveness and power talk. This is where, the man who can walk on water – Dr Mahathir – comes in.

What Dr Mahathir has done is to set the tone and the theme for the coming Umno elections. His message: – In order to check and balance the emergence of an assertive Chinese community, the next batch of Umno leaders must be the most Malay of Malays. They must be aggressive, strident and bellicose. Continue reading “The Boris Yeltsin to Najib’s glasnost”

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For Sakmongkol AK47, Malaysia’s future lies beyond just Umno

by Jennifer Gomez
The Malaysian Insider
July 31, 2013

Datuk Mohd Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz does an admirable job of selling the DAP.

He marvels at the way 38 of his party men won their parliamentary seats with sparse resources; he calls his colleagues the most well-prepared team in the House; he says that he feels nothing but comfort with this group who fight for good government and good governance.

“They are committed and dedicated, and I never feel infringed or overwhelmed by the Chinese nature of DAP. I feel very comfortable being in their environment and they have never stopped me from speaking out about Malay issues,” Mohd Ariff told The Malaysian Insider in an interview.

Now comes the hard part for the former Umno state assemblyman who contested and won the Raub parliamentary seat in the white of DAP: help the party officials convince more Malays across the country that the party of Lim Kit Siang, Karpal Singh, Lim Guan Eng are not the ogres or threat to their political power as sketched by Umno leaders, most recently former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

“We have to destroy the myth that DAP is bad for the Malays. We are not out to grab political power despite what Mahathir is asserting.

“Even if all the Chinese were to unite under one banner, it is mathematically impossible, they would only form 24 percent, and Mahathir knows this,” said the ardent blogger who goes with the nom de guerre Sakmongkol AK47. Continue reading “For Sakmongkol AK47, Malaysia’s future lies beyond just Umno”

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Dr M and the Malays

Mariam Mokhtar
Malaysiakini
Jul 29, 2013

If some of you think that this nation is in a mess, then blame the Malays because they are the problem. Malays know that Malaysia is not the land of gold and honey any longer.

In these difficult times, they have become more aware of their surroundings; but one other person has noticed this sea-change in the Malays.

mahathir and malay peopleHe is former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad. He knows that a thinking and independent Malay is detrimental to his legacy, his creation – Umno-Baru – and to the well-being of his family’s fortunes. Today’s self-aware Malay is Mahathir’s downfall.

Malays are in positions of power in government and the civil service. They dictate policies and run the wheels of government; but Malays are also the nation’s worst hypocrites.

They are greedy. They are happy with short-term solutions. They do not think of the consequences. They are happy to hide behind the cloak of race and religion if it will bring them some material benefit or status. The day they lose everything is probably the day they will regain their humility, values and self-respect. Continue reading “Dr M and the Malays”