Call In Fresh Polls for Perak

Iqbal Abd Ghaffar

A government holding on to a razor thin majority brings no benefit at all to anyone, specifically to the people. Time, money and effort that should otherwise be focused on wielding and solving problems also has to be diverted to political bickering and political supremacy. What more in a time like this when the whole world is suffering from a financial, economical, and confidence crisis?

The only party that survived and ruled a state with a razor thin majority was PAS in Kelantan. This happened in 2004 when Abdullah’s reign ushered in a euphoria of a new dawn. Assemblyman of PAS had stayed true to their principles and closed ranks in the face of a larger presence of BN/UMNO legislators as the opposition in the state assembly.

Bota’s assemblyman that jumped shipped from UMNO to PKR had both desirable and undesirable consequences.

The event prompted long time ex-Perak Menteri Besar and BN state liaison chairman to step down citing his incompetence to hold the BN/UMNO faction together. Deputy PM, Najib Razak has taken over the job.

On the 31st of January, two PR assemblyman charged with corruption had gone missing, Bala style (after the infamous P.I Bala statutory claim incident on the Altantuya murder). No one is able to reach them, not even their family members. Rumors are rife about them defecting to UMNO with UMNO offering to drop the corruption charges against them. Now a 3rd assemblyman from DAP is said to be mulling joining MCA.

If these 3 PR assemblyman from leave the coalition for the opposition, BN would lead with a single majority of 30:29.

This razor thin majority is by any standards not healthy and would only leave a bad aftertaste of instability. A house built on a shaky foundation would collapse sooner than later as lobbying and courting for defections would intensify.

The ultimate borne loser?  The rakyat of Perak.

Already, PKR has initiated its contingency plan, the undated letter signed after the March 8th by each PKR assemblyman that they shall vacate their seat should they jump ship. With them gone missing, and Menteri Besar, Nizar Jamaluddin making a missing persons report, the contingency plan has been set in motion paving the way for a by-election in 60 days.

But having a by-election for these two seats would not solve the problem of leading with a thin majority. The best way to move forward is to call on for fresh elections in the state.

PR is already leading with a 4-0 lead over BN with the 4th goal scored when the Bota assemblyman defected to PKR. the 3rd and 2nd was in the KT and Permatang Pauh by-election while the first was on March 8th.

Fresh polls for the state of Perak will have a huge impact on Najib as he is now the Perak State liaison chairman for BN. He has already suffered from two by-election losses. A loss of a state would only mean that he and BN/UMNO are rejected by the people.

A fresh polls for the state of Perak will also give the opportunity to PR to rebalance its seat distribution as many members of PAS and PKR were not happy that they were the minority in the state assembly.

Will Nizar Jamaluddin get the consent of the Sultan of Perak to hold fresh polls for the state? Will Nizar even call on fresh polls?

I certainly hope he will, because this is one show that I won’t want to miss! Tune in to Sunday, March 8th 2009 for polling day!

IAG

The “End of the Decade” Curse
Iqbal Abd Ghaffar

Have you ever noticed that once in every decade, specifically during its second half, Malaysia is faced either with a major crisis or event? Since its formal inception as the the Federated States of Malaya in 1948, this country is witness to seven major events that had made a deep impact to the nation’s history.

Let’s take a brief walk down memory lane…

In 1948, the Federation of Malaya was formed after strong opposition by UMNO and the Malays against the Malayan Union implemented by the British from 1946 – 1948. The Malays were opposed to the Malayan Union state as it rendered their Kings and Sultans powerless, threatened Islam, and threatened their existence as the awarding of citizenship to migrants on a jus-soli basis will dwarf their population. Furthermore, the Malays questioned the loyalty of the migrants as they were allowed to hold dual citizenship.

In 1957, the Federation of Malaya gained independence from the British peacefully, after the tripartite communal based parties of UMNO-MCA-MIC succesfully showed that they could work together amicably to govern a multiracial Malaya.

In 1969, racial riots broke out after the Alliance Party lost its two-thirds majority and formed the government with a simple majority. A political crisis loomed, and the country was under emergency rule. The Alliance Party was then re-branded as Barisan Nasional and had accepted many opposition parties into its wing forming a new coalition.

The 1976, second PM Tun Abdul Razak dies. Tun Hussein Onn takes premiership as third PM of Malaysia.

In 1987/88 several prominent events took place that had a strong bearing on Malaysia’s political landscape.

In 1987, Ops Lalang saw the infamous arrest of 106 persons under the Internal Security Act (ISA) and the revoking of the publishing licenses of two dailies and two weeklies.

In 1988 UMNO was declared an unlawful society due to the existence of several unregistered branches — an illegal act under the Societies Act of 1966. This was due to the irregularity of unregistered UMNO branches taking part in the UMNO central committee election in 1987. Mahathir led the formation of UMNO Baru and Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah who lost the party president elections formed Semangat 46.

As an indirect result of the striking of UMNO as an unlawful society and the confrontation between the government and the judiciary, a judicial crisis sparked off later that year. The then Lord President, Tun Salleh Abbas was sacked and several high court judges were transferred to other divisions. This brought a wrath of criticism against Mahathir as it was seen that the judiciary was no longer an independent institution as enshrined in the constitution but became part of the government machinery.

In 1997/98, Malaysia was facing its worst economic crisis after 10 years of stunning growth. Many Asian tigers crumbled under this problem and resorted to bail from the IMF.

The financial crisis also had indirectly increased tensions between Anwar and his political mentor Dr. Mahathir over economic policies and Anwar’s close ties with the US and IMF. Mahathir sacked the Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister accusing him of immoral sexual conduct and corruption that lead to his imprisonment in 1998.

End of Part I

The 21st Century

Taking a look back at these events, they all have one thing in common; the crisis are a result of a political, economic, or socioeconomic problem accumulated during the first half of the decade.

As we near the end the first decade of the 21st century, Malaysia once again is experiencing a crisis. On her 51st anniversary “the mother of all crisis” is unfolding before our very eyes. Racial animosity, economic crisis, BN’s dismal election performance, UMNO leadership crisis, opposition take over, judicial independence and reforms, and ISA detention are happening all at once. A 60 year deja vu compacted into one year.

How did it all start? In the beginning of the 21st century, Malaysia was slowly recovering from the 97/98 financial crisis and the economy was growing again albeit at a lower pace than its average 9-10% in the 90s. Politics was relatively stable.

In 2003, Mahathir stepped down as PM and Abdullah was appointed to helm the premiership. He promised to continue Mahathir’s economic policies and called on for ambitious reforms in the country to weed out corruption and give greater independence to the judiciary.

At Malaysia’s 11th general election in 2004, the BN came back with a resounding victory winning 91% or 198 seats in Parliament; the best performance by far for BN.

Just 4 years after a resounding victory, and under the same leadership, something never imaginable had happened. BN only managed to secure 140 seats or 62.6% of Parliament… a stunning loss since 1969. The political tsunami had not only costed the BN its two-thirds majority, it had lost Penang, Kedah, Perak, Selangor, Kelantan, and Kuala Lumpur to the opposition. On top of that, many top BN leaders and party presidents had also lost their seats to many green horns most notably Samy Vellu and Koh Tsu Koon. So sick were the rakyat of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi that they showed their disgust at the polling stations on 8th March 2008.

The extravagant loss for BN was attributed to Abdullah’s weak leadership, his flip-flop, indecisive, and slow reaction attitude towards decision making, scraping of many mega-projects among them the crooked bridge and the double railway tracking project, failure to deliver his promises of reforms and weed out graft and corruption, increased racial sentiments, UMNO becoming more arrogant and racist, the gagging of the media, the involvement of his son and son-in-law in the distribution of wealth and projects to their cronies, increase in petrol prices and the cost of living, mismanagement of the economy, wasteful spending of tax payer’s money and a decrease in business competitiveness.

This was boosted by the fact that he opposition of DAP-PAS-PKR despite their extreme differences in ideologies, had fully cooperated under the leadership of Anwar Ibrahim. A one-to-one match was seen in every constituent. For the first time, PAS supporters campaigned for the DAP, Indians and Chinese were campaigning for PAS, to deny BN its two-thirds majority.

The increase in tech savvyness and increased penetration of Internet users saw the alternative or independent media blossomed with alternative news portals and blogs. The opposition used this to the fullest extent as the mainstream media is biased and controlled by the ruling party. The ruling coalition ignored it entirely. A blunder that they had fully regretted.

Coupled with about 1.5 million young voters who would now have been eligible to vote since the Reformasi days of 98, the BN tumbled. Had it not been for the scrapping of indelible ink, and vote rigging via postal votes, the BN would have been obliterated.

End of Part II

The Aftermath

In the aftermath of the political tsunami, there was both fear and joy among the rakyat. The were joyous that Makhal Sakthi or People’s Power is alive and that they can make a difference, but they also feared the specter of 13th May becoming a reality. One can sense fear on the streets if one goes to work or shopping in KL in the first few days after the elections. Traffic on the streets was reduced, shopping malls were eerily quite.

However, racial riots never materialized. It was then realized that Malaysian’s have learned from history. They have matured with the country, and they can finally bury the ghost of 13th May 1969.

Calls for Abdullah to step down came firing from all angles within UMNO. His strongest opponent came from his predecessor Dr. Mahathir. Tengku Razaleigh called for an Emergency General Meeting but was gagged and shot down by Abdullah’s people. UMNO party elections were postponed from July to Dec 2008 and a transition plan for Najib to take on as PM in mid-2010. This is seen as a move by Abdullah to pacify calls for his resignation and to buy him time to implement his reforms. It’s a little too late for that.

Though racial riots never came to be, racial animosity has been brewing. The recent Permatang Pauh by-elections that saw the fashionable comeback of Anwar Ibrahim with a larger majority into Parliament after a 10 year exodus, had proven the continued disgusted sentiment of the rakyat towards BN and Abdullah. The results quashed the notion that the Mar 8 results was a “one-off thing”.

It was during this time that the Bukit Bendera UMNO chief angered the Chinese community over his remarks about them. Racial animosities have run high when Datuk Ahmad Ismail called the Chinese immigrants and showed no remorse over his statement. Chinese leaders and the opposition lambasted his racial remarks. Gerakan and MCA went to the extreme by severing all ties with Penang UMNO. They called on for harsh action to be taken against him.

Abdullah’s leadership was put to the test yet again. His indecisiveness and “tak apa” attitude had almost cost the country to run into amok and BN on the brink of collapse. It took Abdullah almost 3 weeks to decide on an action against Ahmad Ismail. Despite being stripped of all party post and suspension of his membership for three years, Ahmad Ismail showed no remorse and continues to uphold his remarks.

The spat of racial remarks had let to the detention of Sin Chew Daily reporter Tan Hoon Cheng under the ISA on Friday night. The ISA or Internal Security Act is a draconian law that allows the government to detain anyone without trial. Tan, 32 was detained because of her report on Ahmad’s racist statement in the daily. 16 hours after she was held captive, she was released from the ISA by the police.

Home Minister, Syed Hamid Syed Albar said that Tan was detained because her life was in danger. If so, why was Anwar Ibrahim not detained under the ISA when he sought protection in the Turkish embassy when he claimed that his life was threatened. Why did the police not detain Saiful Bukhari Azlan under the ISA for his life was also threatened when he reported of being sodomized by Anwar. Why was PI Bala not detained under the ISA when he claimed that he and his family was under threat after making a statutory declaration of Najib’s involvement in the Altantuya case? Till today, there is no news of him or his whereabouts.

And why was Ahmad Ismail not detained under the ISA for it was he who made the racial remark and stoked racial animosity. The government cannot go on providing lame stupid excuses like it did in the past! People are far better informed and have access to information beyond the mainstream media in this day and age.

Can the government be anymore stupider than this? Why are they back tracking their own call to the press to report the truth and not be afraid of reporting the truth? This only exposes Abdullah’s flip flop leadership qualities and questions the man’s state of mind. Who does he surrounds himself with…a bunch of loonies?

Following that, Raja Petra Kamaraddin, editor of Malaysia Today had also been detained under the ISA for “insulting Malays, Muslims, and Islam” on his blog. He is well known for his no holds barred attitude towards the leaders of the country and is a staunch critic of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

DAP’s Seputeh MP Teresa Kok who is also assemblyman for Kinrara and a senior executive councilor in charge of investment, industry and trade have been picked up in connection with a residents petition in Puchong over a mosque. Two term former chief minister of Selangor, Khir Toyo (who was also incarcerated in the political tsunami) had allegedly accused Teressa of being involved. Despite her denying it and demanded an apology from Khir and the newspaper that reported it, she was still detained under the ISA.

One can deduce two things from the events above.

Firstly, this proves that the media is under full control of the ruling government. The mainstream media practices selective and biased reporting. Media freedom has been gagged with the use of ISA to intimidate anyone from writing or revealing anything that is against the government or put the ruling coalition in bad light.

Secondly, what we see may be a prelude to Ops Lalang II. In Ops Lalang I, many opposition leaders and members were detained under the ISA for raising racial sentiments over the appointment of Chinese heads from non-Chinese educated schools as headmasters.

Ops Lalang II may very well be the crackdown against opposition leaders for the imminent takeover of the government come this Sept 16. Abdullah Badawi is exercising the full extent of his raw power to thwart any attempts to oust him and destabilize his government.

Perhaps we may be seeing more arrests of opposition leaders or those who have been vocal against the government on the eve of Sept 16.

By then, chaos will reign supreme. There will be political, economical, and judiciary turmoil. The PM may invoke an emergency to suspend Parliament. All political elections and activities will be suspended under Emergency law. Police will detain bloggers, citizens, politicians, and the likes who defy emergency rules and who pose a threat to national security. The country, already suffering from slow growth and facing recession wil be subdued into allowing the government to divert the public’s attention to bread and butter issues. The calls for reformasi, cries of democracy and transparency will be buried and suppressed for the sake of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s grip onto power.

THIS…would be the “Mother of All Crisis”.

IAG