Faux Pas By Datuk Tengku Sariffuddin Tengku Ahmad
Posted by Raja Petra
Thursday, 01 May 2008
By Little Bird
Tengku Sarifudin faux pas is not pronounced 'fox pass'.
It is pronounced 'four par'. It means a bad mistake, a false step.
I have just read the letter by the DPM's Press Secretary Sarifuddin Ahmad rebutting an article written by RPK in this Blogsite and also RPK's reply to Sarifuddin.
As Press Secretary to the DPM, you should know more than anyone else that politics is all about perception. The real truth can be something else. The trick is, Sarifuddin, to move the perception and the truth of a matter both in the same direction.
Then you have what the physicists call 'resonance' - elections are won, leaders become idols, philosophies become written in stone and other such things - when you resonate.
My personal view is that lately, say over the past 20 years, the UMNO politicians have simply lost their ability to think things through properly, especially when they are in a tight spot. Even when there are no tight spots, UMNO politicians are not capable of strategising well or paying enough attention to that which is obvious and using their common sense. Hence they fumble easily and really look the idiot.
Your reply to Raja Petra's article is a fatal mistake, a faux pas.
I recall during the time of Anwar's downfall, there was a Chinese Muslim lawyer in Anwar's 'Institut Kajian Dasar' by the name of Faiz or something (who ran an expensive books shop too) who made the greatest mistake of making a Police report over the book '50 Dalil....' by Khalid Jeffri. That got the Police rolling which led them to reinvestigating the Police raid on the house of Dr Ristina in Bangsar. After that it was just a matter of tracing things backwards to nail the 'abuse of power' angle. Right or wrong, agree or disagree, that Police report started the sequence of events which led to Anwar's first trial for abuse of power.
Daim had advised Anwar 'Dont make any Police reports about Khalid Jeffri's book. Just leave it alone'. But just like you now, Anwar was concerned about public opinion and perceptions about him in the public eye. By the way has anyone seen or heard this Faiz character anywhere? Just curious.
Your reply to RPK has only given more credibility to RPK as well as to the Blogsite Malaysia Today. You speak on behalf of the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia. You have deemed it necessary to reply to a Blogsite that your cohorts have labelled as being run by 'bored housewives', full of lies, etc. It would have been better if you (or Datuk Najib) had chosen to remain silent and just ignore the Blog. Now you have muddied the public's perception even further. As I said the UMNO boys just cannot think anymore.
There is also some desperation that is perceptible in your reply. As I said it is all about perception. But in this case what has transpired so far in Court seems to create a resonance with the public's perceptions of the matter. That is a powerful combination. I refer the truth of the matter that has actually been established through the Court and reported in the Press. And they do not seem to favour your view. It will get even murkier if the court acquits Razak Baginda and/or Azilah Hadri. I dont know about Sirul.
Before saying further we must discuss again the unusual treatment of high profile murders in our country. There is a record of high profile murders not getting proper treatment (and remaining unsolved too) despite going through the legal process.
The first one is of course the murder of Mustakizah during the time of Megat Junid. I believe Mustakiza's murderers were never found. It was widely known that Mustakizah was having a relationship with the late Megat Junid and that she may have been pregnant with his child. Yet this angle was never explored in Court. The Court of Laws was satisfied but can you blame the Court of Public Opinion which was not very convinced - till this day?
Then we have the high profile murder of Siti Hasleza in Perak. This pretty girl was killed with a 'karate chop' and then thrown over a bridge onto some rocks while she was possibly still alive. The men who killed her were caught, tried and found guilty. But those tried included an Indian labourer, a bomoh type character, one minor royal and even a Chinaman (I think).
The question that the Court refused to pursue or investigate was 'what did the pretty Malay girl, who was the second wife of a Malay Royal, have to do with these jokers, especially the Indian labourer, that they wanted to kill her?' Does an Indian labourer working the fishing boats in Kuala Kurau get up one fine morning and simply decide 'Well today I am going to find a pretty Malay girl, preferably one married to a Malay Royal, kill her and then throw her over a bridge in Batu Kurau'?But this was exactly the truth established in the Court of Law.
Who can argue with that? It was a Court of Law. But the Court of Public Opinion knows that this was shoddy workmanship by the Court. Everyone knows that another woman was involved, who had hired the Indian labourer and the others to get rid of Siti Hasleza. But that woman was never arrested by Police, never charged in Court and never even questioned.
Just like in the Altantuya case where the AG's office announced way ahead of everything else 'Only three people are involved, we are not pressing charges against anyone else' the AG never went beyond the actual perpetrator's of the murder without investigating the dalang or conspirator behind the affair.
By law and by fact, it was established that the Indian labourer and the others had killed Siti Hasleza. There was no argument about that. But what was their motive and what was the overall motive behind the murder of the girl? Why did she have to die? The Court has sidestepped this question.
Now, Sarifuddin, do you think that the Court of Public Opinion is stupid? Do you think that the Court of Public Opinion cannot read, cannot question and cannot think? Until this day these questions about the Siti Hasleza murder remain unanswered. What do you suggest the Court of Public Opinion should do? Vote for the BN? Wake up.
Then we have the high profile murder of Norita Shamsudin in Kuala Lumpur. Norita was found dead by her room mates. She was found dead sprawled in her bed. When the Police were called, two Indian detectives were the first on the scene. This was reported from the Court proceedings. When they arrived, these two Indian detectives closed off the room door and spent about three hours alone with Norita's body. No other police were allowed inside the crime scene. Then early in the morning, the two detectives left. Nothing has been heard from them or of them since. They were never called as witnesses in the Court case. Have they been sucked up into the sky by alien spaceships?
But when the Police Forensics team entered the room after them, Norita's body was found in a different position - with her hands tied and stuff. What type of Police training is it where detectives tamper with evidence and distort the crime scene? And why would they want to do that in the first place? Is that acceptable Police behaviour?
Then they arrested a patsy, a fall guy, and made huge Press reports about him as though he was a serial killer. Then the Court case became a joke. From day one, the Prosecution team bungled and fumbled all the way, as though they wanted to lose the case, close the file and be done with it. The Defense just smiled all the way through.
It soon transpired in Court that witnesses had glimpsed another dark-skinned man, with a bad body odour who was in the apartment when Norita's friends came home. Someone even shouted at this dark-skinned, bad smelling man and saw him running away.
Then there was the case of Norita's handphone. Despite so many other handphone records being subpoenaed, records of Norita's phone calls on the fateful night she was murdered were never presented as evidence in Court. Why? Maybe like Altantuya's passport records, Norita's phone records have also been mysteriously erased.
And as can be expected, the poor accused, the fall guy, was found innocent and released. The murder is not solved. But the Police and the AG have since refused to reopen the case. My question is : most certainly they have Norita's phone records. Surely they know who she spoke to on the night she was killed. There was also DNA of more than one male found on Norita. Surely they could at least cross reference the DNA with some of the people she spoke to on that same night? Has this been done? If not why not?
So Sarifuddin, this was what was presented (OR NOT presented) as evidence in the Court of Law in this beautiful country of ours. Do you honestly think that the Court of Public Opinion will accept this type of shoddy and tidak apa simplicity? Apa you ingat kita semua bodoh ke?
Then we come to the Altantuya case. What was the motive? Why was she killed? This is a general question. And to be more specific why did Sirul and Azilah have to kill her? Sirul and Azilah never met her before. Did Sirul and Azhar just get up one morning and say 'Hari ini jom kita pi cari sorang pompuang Mongolia, kita culik dia, kita rogol dia, kita tembak dia lepas tu kita letup dia.' Maybe you would like to suggest that Sirul and Azilah were related (or went to the same school) as that Indian labourer in Kuala Kurau.
Do people just get up in the morning in our country and then go out and find exceptionally pretty young women and kill them by the most horrendous and unusual means? But this is what the Court of Law in this country will want us to believe. Sarifudin do you expect the Court of Public Opinion to be as easily convinced?
Then, just like in the Norita Shamsudin case, it appears that this case has also been thrown by the Prosecution. In the Norita case, there was a dark-skinned man, with a bad body odour who was seen running away. In this Altantuya case, a very straight talking Police woman testified that a Suzuki Vitara appeared driven by a man wearing a baseball cap. Azilah spoke politely to Altantuya who then got down from one car of her own free will and got into the Suzuki Vitara, alone with the man with the baseball hat who then drove away with her. That was the last time Altantuya was seen alive. She was NOT last seen with Azilah.
RPK has said that the registration number of the car and the identity of the owner have been made known. Yet the Police say they cannot trace the owner of the car or the person to whom he sold the car (if the car had been sold). This is really spooky. Betul ke ni?
But again we want to know the motive? Why would Sirul and Azilah want to kill a Mongolian woman whom they have never met before in their lives? And we know from Razak Baginda's Affidavit that there is a man by the name of Musa Safri. Musa is Najib's ADC. We know that as Najib's bodyguards Azilah (and Sirul) must take orders from Musa.
If there was no Immigration record of Altantuya ever entering or leaving the country did she slip into the country in a secret submarine (no pun intended)? Since it is not likely that she came by submarine, who erased her travel records and how?
So you see, Sarifudin, the Court of Law in this country has a terrible record of probing the right questions and the motives behind this type of high profile murders. Yet we are expected to accept the Court's findings because they are the findings of a Court of Law.
But the Court of Public Opinion does have its own mind. Sarifuddin, may I make a suggestion. If you just happen to know of anyone who is in the habit of resorting to, shall we say, draconian measures to solve their problems, please tell them to stop. There is more, much more to life than resorting to actions that we may regret later on. There are also easier ways to do things. Granted that the faculty of thinking may be quite retarded in this country, n'theless it is still possible to think things through instead of just blasting a way through the rocks.
As for Dato Najib, I feel that he is quite incapable of hurting even a fly. The guy is quite a limp noodle. Dr Mahathir says he is a penakut. The Court of Public Opinion will also agree that Najib is a penakut. The Court of Public Opinion will not likely attach much blame on him. But there may be stiffer noodles in his kitchen. Sarifudin, maybe Najib needs to get a new maid for his kitchen. Why live with indigestion? Think.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
The monkeys strike back
Wednesday, 30 April 2008
These are signs that Umno’s factionalism will deepen and intensify as contending forces align and realign themselves for the party election, now scheduled for December.
Khoo Boo Teik, ALIRAN
Khoo Boo Teik looks back at how the people came together to collectively crack the BN’s supposedly shatter-proof hegemony.
Analysing the transformed political landscape, he discusses some of the fresh challenges that lie ahead.
If you’ve read or heard the tales from the Chinese classic, Xi You Ji (Journey to the West), you’d recall that the amazing cudgel-wielding 72-morph Sun Wukong, a.k.a. ‘Monkey’, first became famous for ‘creating havoc in Heaven’.
Long loved as an icon of recalcitrance,
Monkey swung as he pleased, shaking the established order and shaming the hirelings sent to suppress him.
In the 12th General Election of 8 March 2008, 49 per cent of the voters morphed, as it were, into one gigantic electoral Monkey and cracked the Barisan Nasional’s supposedly shatter-proof hegemony.
No more two thirds
Long-suffering voters spurned the ruling politicians and stunned their hacks and flunkeys by handing 82 seats to the alliance of Parti Keadilan Rakyat, Democratic Action Party and Parti Islam SeMalaysia, thus breaking the BN’s two-thirds stranglehold on Parliament.
Collectively, Pas, PKR and DAP took control of five states – Kedah, Kelantan, Penang, Perak, and Selangor – besides winning ten out of eleven parliamentary seats in the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur.
Overnight, PKR stopped being the one-seat party that the United Malays National Organisation had threatened to send into oblivion.
Instead, PKR added 30 more to the sole parliamentary seat held by Datin Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail in 2004.Nor was Pas beleaguered any longer with a precarious one-seat majority in Kelantan.
It won 38 out of 45 state seats in Kelantan and now governed Kedah, too.
For the first time ever, DAP took power in Penang by completely defeating both Gerakan Raykat Malaysia and the Malaysian Chinese Association.
In Perak and Selangor, the three parties formed coalition governments, however untidy their power-sharing process was (and however much they still need to formalise it to avoid being the playthings of non-electoral forces).
Caution v. confidence
The opposition’s unprecedented advance brought on a euphoric daze after virtually all the expert pre-election assessments were proven wrong, no less with the big picture than with the local scenes.
Take the magnificent Malaysia-kini. Its offer of ten-day free access caused countless surfers to jam its site on the evening of 8 March.
Yet, even the redoubtable Steven Gan had cautioned that 40 seats would be a realistic advance for the combined opposition, a figure, Gan later said, that was ‘not even close’.
Or take Anwar Ibrahim, seemingly the most foolhardy of the opposition leaders for urging BN’s replacement while others only targeted its two-thirds majority.
Anwar thought that PKR would do well to win 25 seats.
In fact, PKR became the largest opposition party with 31 seats.
In Penang, an ill-concealed intra-party dispute over who should succeed Koh Tsu Koon as Chief Minister showed that Gerakan expected to retain power.
But the four named and un-named pretenders to that position needn’t have troubled themselves.
The DAP deleted Gerakan from Penang’s political terrain (and Tsu Koon became the third of all three chief ministers, after Tan Sri Wong Pow Nee in 1969 and Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu in 1990, to depart office in defeat).
Whose fear?
Beyond seats and states, there was a popular disdain for scare-mongering.
The mainstream media issued its usual anti-opposition warnings of instability, erosion of investor confidence, Islamic state, and ‘May 13’.
Some editors must have so believed their own propaganda that they were paralysed by the Chinese swing, the Hindraf factor, and the late Malay swing.
Why else, for instance, did The Star Online, late on 8 March, show no result except BN’s ’10 out of 10’ parliamentary victories?
Outgoing Selangor Mentri Besar Khir Toyo threatened ‘zero opposition’ only to be ejected from power.
Melaka’s Mohd Ali Rustam intimidatingly boasted that Umno could rule on its own – forever.
Now he and his ilk must rue Umno’s insecure dependence on the goodwill of the unlikely power-brokers of Sabah and Sarawak.
The arrogance of power
When the Malay voters revolted in 1999, in response to Anwar Ibrahim’s persecution, many non-Malay voters rejected the Barisan Alternatif’s call for Reformasi.
Instead, they helped to save Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Umno and continued to support Abdullah Badawi in 2004. Abdullah also recovered the support of Malay voters who badly wanted a closure of the Anwar affair.
But four ‘work with me’ years under Abdullah did not reward Malay and non-Malay voters with promised reforms, but with an ‘arrogance of power’, as Tsu Koon, after some soul-searching, has belatedly admitted.
Of course, it was Umno’s power, and, of course, it was arrogant.In ethnic terms, Umno soon reasserted its power.
Ketuanan Melayu was not to be questioned; the New Economic Policy’s restructuring would be extended; the so-called Malay Agenda was timeless.
Hishamuddin Hussein, with his keris-kissing antics, warned even Umno’s non-Malay partners, ‘Do not challenge us!’
Khairy Jamaluddin flashed his ‘My bangsa, right or wrong’ rhetoric and Umno Youth organised a protest of convenience against a pliant Gerakan in Penang.
In class terms, the power was flaunted by displays of the increasingly unaccountable corruption of the Umno-related oligarchs and the greed of new corporate groups with strong political cables.
On the other hand, mass protesters against fuel price increases and rising inflation were met by tear gas, water cannons and Red Helmets.
In cultural terms, the regime’s claim to moderation, via Islam Hadhari, rang hollow.
It seemed indifferent to religious disputes that blurred the jurisdictional boundaries between the civil and the Syariah courts, to the invasive body-snatching actions of religious bureaucrats, and to the insensitivity of Umno-dominated local governments towards incidents of temple demolition.
Reformasi's retribution
Within that context, the election result was retribution with a flavour of
Reformasi, albeit appearing late and not quite following the Barisan Alternatif’s 1999 script.
Once, many non-Malay voters could be persuaded that ‘A vote for DAP is a vote for PAS’.
This time, many, many more decided that ‘A vote against MCA and Gerakan and MIC is a vote against Umno’.
In short, the non-Malay voters snapped the BN chain at its weaker links.
They showed their contempt for the timidity of MCA, Gerakan and MIC, gagged and impotent Chinese-based and Indian-based component parties.
It was unlikely that Malay voters significantly swung to parties such as DAP or even PKR.
But in certain ethnically mixed constituencies, a late Malay swing or an appreciable Malay absenteeism at the polls compounded BN’s losses. In Malay-majority constituencies, the old Umno-Pas division was still evident, leaving the non-Malay swing to exert its impact.
The PKR’s present position is an ironic, almost un-Malaysian, outcome of the ethnic voting patterns.
A party some had written off emerged as a symbol of multi-ethnic politics.
Whatever its future, PKR’s leadership of a balanced Malay-non-Malay opposition has dragged Parliament from its old self of being dominated by BN and opposed by an entirely Malay Pas and an entirely non-Malay DAP.
New landscape
Many observers have likened this transformation of the political landscape to a tsunami, a perfect storm, or a surge of Makkal Sakthi (People Power) that outdid the Bersih and Hindraf rallies of late 2007.
The metaphors may be excessive. A true tsunami, say, would have swept BN out of office.
A perfect storm would not have bypassed Sabah and Sarawak.Yet, obviously, the transformation raises some urgent questions for an opposition that has begun to contemplate national power.
Breaking the two-thirds barrier was both a symbolic and real achievement. For some time now, the ability to amend the Constitution was not the crux of the two-thirds issue.
Power was, and especially Umno’s unassailable power within BN.
Without the buffer of a two-thirds majority, however, BN’s ethnic power-sharing formula may be in jeopardy.
If Umno insists on taking so many seats, to be able to rule on its own, it won’t be able to satisfy the demands of its 13 non-Malay adjuncts.
Actually, MCA and Gerakan had paid for Umno’s arrogance of power before, in 1986 and 1990.
As they lick their wounds, MCA, Gerakan and MIC might stumble upon a simple truth: Stop playing ‘Kapitan China’ and ‘Kapitan Keling’ (no insult intended) to Umno’s ‘Tuan Melayu’, or be irrelevant – as Gerakan, shorn of its Penang base, seems already to be so.
Watch out for old politics
Partly for that reason, Umno will strive to impose its old ethnic politics upon the PKR-DAP-Pas experiments in new multi-ethnic politics.
We have already seen the knee-jerk attacks on DAP for allegedly marginalising the Malays in Penang, on the Perak government for not having enough Malays in its Exco, and so on.
We’ve seen before these unscrupulous tactics of ethnic assaults from quarters that claim to be the champions of national unity.
When Parti Bersatu Sabah, the original, not the current ersatz one, ruled Sabah, Umno sanctimoniously questioned if the Muslims there could be properly accommodated under ‘Christian rule’.
When Pas ruled Kelantan and Terengganu, MCA, Gerakan and MIC would ask if the non-Muslims would be denied their rights.
Hence, a host of newly formed ‘Malay action fronts’, sore and vengeful losers, will waste little time organising demonstrations, orchestrating media disinforma-tion and fomenting ‘Malay anxieties’.
This manner of interpreting policies and practices in chauvinistic terms can only be defeated by a united opposition that can come to the rescue of all five opposition state governments.
The worst scenario, if the alliance fails, is for Pas to join Umno in condemning the DAP-led government in Penang, and for DAP to join MCA, Gerakan and MIC in criticising the PAS-led governments of Kedah and Kelantan.
In Perak and Selangor, the coalition governments can only escape such externally created problems by commitment to cooperation and collective responsibility.
Parliament and responsibility
Some encouragement may be derived from the sentiments of the opposition’s supporters.
It’s one thing to vote ethnic in an ethnicised political system.
It’s another thing altogether to regard all things in the stark light of inter-ethnic competition.
At least in the alternative cyberspace, voters, bloggers and commentators have admirably urged PKR, DAP and Pas to keep their differences to themselves, but, above all, to keep their alliance intact.
Not to do so, the voters know, just as the leaders of these parties must know, would hand back to BN what was painfully gained at the election.
The presence of the largest ever opposition in Parliament has amplified popular hopes of reforming the political system.
To this end, the opposition representatives must set out to raise the quality of law-making, monitor the Executive and discipline state institutions.
To do so, they must themselves be competent in diverse areas, capable of informed debate and committed to representing their constituents’ (and not merely their parties’) interests.
The opposition representatives, no less than the backbenchers, should realise that the public sickens at name-calling, trading of insults and histrionics that debase parliamentary proceeding.
They should learn, from Lim Kit Siang at his best, and the outstanding opposition figures of the 1960s, that dedicated parliamentary work requires a mix of investigative research, thoughtful arguments and courageous demands.
Economic management
The new opposition state governments should appreciate that they’ve taken power at a difficult juncture.
They don’t know yet how the deepening troubles of the United States economy will affect each state’s economy.
They should know that their scope for economic management will be limited by national policies and global market forces.
Even so, the opposition alliance must plan for employment creation, reasonable rates of growth, the alleviation of economic difficulties, and so on.
Never mind, for example, that short-term, limited-impact measures are dismissed as ‘petty populism’ by the New Straits Times editors.
That’s only the response of hacks who have fawningly publicised all of BN’s petty handouts.
For the medium-term, however, honest administration, competent planning and effective implementation must be the order of the day for PKR, DAP and Pas, just as it was for the original Gerakan when it captured Penang in 1969.
Renegotiating federalism
It’s well known that PBS in Sabah, and Pas in Kelantan and Terengganu had previously had to weather Umno’s wrath and the Federal government’s might.
Today, however, only the insane would risk impoverishing the national economy by strangling five opposition states and Kuala Lumpur which include the rice bowl, the manufacturing centres, and the seat of administration of the nation.
Even they would not thereby alienate the influential chambers of commerce and industry and sensitive foreign investors.
The most hostile might conspire to inflict on the five states the wang ehsan punishment that Pas-ruled Terengganu endured.
But it’s politically infeasible to re-enact what has been discredited and what people despise, especially in urban centres that aren’t so dependent on direct federal expenditures.
Foes though they are, the Federal government and the state governments are compelled to talk to each other.
High on the agenda of such talks should be a review of federalism itself, not by any means an unwelcome prospect.
Planning and action
On their part, the new and inexperienced state governments must realise this much. While resources are necessary, resourcefulness is indispensable.
It’s reasonable to ask for learning time; it’s imperative to learn fast.
It was fair politics to promise alternatives but it’d be suicidal politics not to act quickly, symbolically and meaningfully.
There is enthusiastic talk about engagement with civil society, participatory democracy and the restoration of local government elections.
All this may help to distinguish the old administrations from the new, and, where necessary, expose past malpractices in order to cleanse the administrative machinery.
Above all, PKR and DAP, whose grassroots structures are underdeveloped, must find ways to root themselves in society, as Pas managed to in Kelantan during its years of isolation.
The new governments should consult a spectrum of social and economic interests.
Yet, they should not yield to vested interests that reinvent themselves as the spokespeople of ‘civil society’ now that their links to BN have been severed.
For that matter, there are NGOs and NGOs, and the new governments should not pander to the ‘upper middle class’ character of many visible NGOs.
Unifying ethos
The true measure of good government will be its attitudes towards the ‘little folks’ of our society, including the lower working classes, the poor and the disadvantaged, small retailers, hawkers, petty traders, the smallest of the SMEs, and so on.
In Penang, for example, there’s no reason to keep beautifying the charming Western Road-Macalister Road-Residential Road areas.
It’d be better economics and urban management to clean up the inner city, rehabilitate decrepit former rent-controlled houses, and attend to the special needs of deprived neighbourhoods, whether these are Malay, Chinese, Indian or ‘Other’.
No one expects PKR, DAP and Pas to resolve overnight the differences in their visions of a better society.
From where, then, might come common ideological planks that they can use to build a workable raft of shared policies?In principle, the broad answer has to be a non-sectarian social democracy.
That can creatively fuse Anwar’s concept of a caring civil society, the Parti Rakyat Malaysia’s plebian concerns, the DAP’s old socialist claims, and Pas’s Islamic welfarism.
Guided by such social democracy – rather than, say, a neoliberal meritocracy – PKR, DAP and Pas can formulate and implement policies that would most benefit the non-rich.
After all these have been the staunchest opposition supporters and these would be constantly targeted by BN’s petty blandishments.
Turmoil in Umno
There is nothing destabilising about any of these.
Potentially destabilising, though, is the turmoil that defeat has visited upon Umno.
The Umno leadership’s new spin is that BN hasn’t lost the election despite Abdullah’s initial response, ‘We’ve lost, we’ve lost.’
To Abdullah and his allies, BN holds a ‘strong majority only eight seats short of a two-thirds majority’.
That is in fact so.
Nonetheless, the loss of the two-thirds majority; the fall in BN’s popular vote to 51 per cent; the failure to capture Kelantan; the defeat in four more states and Kuala Lumpur; the departure of several ministers; and the painful dependence on Sabah and Sarawak have intensified Umno’s chronic factionalism.
Much of that factionalism is tied to the loss of resources, projects and patronage, a grievous loss since Umno’s unreformed structures habitually mixed business with politics.
Another implosion
For now Umno’s turmoil can move in uncoordinated ways.
Political forces once pushed aside have re-surfaced to challenge Abdullah whose position is weaker than in 2006, the year of his big spat with Mahathir.
Mahathir has called for Abdullah’s resignation.
As if trying to be his father’s son, Mukhriz Mahathir has sent a letter to Abdullah in a farcical replay of Mahathir’s 1969 letter to Tunku Abdul Rahman.
Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, who had twice failed to secure the leadership of Umno, has offered to challenge Abdullah for the party presidency.
The Malay Rulers have intervened in the appointment of Menteris Besar in Perlis and Terengganu.
It will certainly be regarded as a defeat for Abdullah that both his nominees for Perlis and Terengganu were rejected and replaced by others more acceptable to the respective rulers.
The formation of the new Cabinet was fraught with disgruntlement.
The ambitious Khairy Jama-luddin simply had to be excluded.
But the excluded Mohd Radzi Sheikh Ahmad resigned as Umno Secretary-General while Rafidah Aziz’s departure led to public disagreement with Azalina Othman Said.
These are signs that Umno’s factionalism will deepen and intensify as contending forces align and realign themselves for the party election, now scheduled for December.
If the past is a good indication, however, Umno could be heading towards implosion for a third time – after the 1987 battle between Team A and Team B fight, and the 1998 Anwar affair.
If that happens, it’d be the sort of political disorder that arises just as one system’s dying while another is struggling to be born.Whatever happens, those who helped to create this situation – necessary but insufficient for lasting transformation – were the wise and brave voters.
No more risk averse, they decided that change was better than stasis.Like it or not, love us or hate us, we’re all monkeys now.
(Aliran Monthly)
These are signs that Umno’s factionalism will deepen and intensify as contending forces align and realign themselves for the party election, now scheduled for December.
Khoo Boo Teik, ALIRAN
Khoo Boo Teik looks back at how the people came together to collectively crack the BN’s supposedly shatter-proof hegemony.
Analysing the transformed political landscape, he discusses some of the fresh challenges that lie ahead.
If you’ve read or heard the tales from the Chinese classic, Xi You Ji (Journey to the West), you’d recall that the amazing cudgel-wielding 72-morph Sun Wukong, a.k.a. ‘Monkey’, first became famous for ‘creating havoc in Heaven’.
Long loved as an icon of recalcitrance,
Monkey swung as he pleased, shaking the established order and shaming the hirelings sent to suppress him.
In the 12th General Election of 8 March 2008, 49 per cent of the voters morphed, as it were, into one gigantic electoral Monkey and cracked the Barisan Nasional’s supposedly shatter-proof hegemony.
No more two thirds
Long-suffering voters spurned the ruling politicians and stunned their hacks and flunkeys by handing 82 seats to the alliance of Parti Keadilan Rakyat, Democratic Action Party and Parti Islam SeMalaysia, thus breaking the BN’s two-thirds stranglehold on Parliament.
Collectively, Pas, PKR and DAP took control of five states – Kedah, Kelantan, Penang, Perak, and Selangor – besides winning ten out of eleven parliamentary seats in the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur.
Overnight, PKR stopped being the one-seat party that the United Malays National Organisation had threatened to send into oblivion.
Instead, PKR added 30 more to the sole parliamentary seat held by Datin Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail in 2004.Nor was Pas beleaguered any longer with a precarious one-seat majority in Kelantan.
It won 38 out of 45 state seats in Kelantan and now governed Kedah, too.
For the first time ever, DAP took power in Penang by completely defeating both Gerakan Raykat Malaysia and the Malaysian Chinese Association.
In Perak and Selangor, the three parties formed coalition governments, however untidy their power-sharing process was (and however much they still need to formalise it to avoid being the playthings of non-electoral forces).
Caution v. confidence
The opposition’s unprecedented advance brought on a euphoric daze after virtually all the expert pre-election assessments were proven wrong, no less with the big picture than with the local scenes.
Take the magnificent Malaysia-kini. Its offer of ten-day free access caused countless surfers to jam its site on the evening of 8 March.
Yet, even the redoubtable Steven Gan had cautioned that 40 seats would be a realistic advance for the combined opposition, a figure, Gan later said, that was ‘not even close’.
Or take Anwar Ibrahim, seemingly the most foolhardy of the opposition leaders for urging BN’s replacement while others only targeted its two-thirds majority.
Anwar thought that PKR would do well to win 25 seats.
In fact, PKR became the largest opposition party with 31 seats.
In Penang, an ill-concealed intra-party dispute over who should succeed Koh Tsu Koon as Chief Minister showed that Gerakan expected to retain power.
But the four named and un-named pretenders to that position needn’t have troubled themselves.
The DAP deleted Gerakan from Penang’s political terrain (and Tsu Koon became the third of all three chief ministers, after Tan Sri Wong Pow Nee in 1969 and Tun Dr Lim Chong Eu in 1990, to depart office in defeat).
Whose fear?
Beyond seats and states, there was a popular disdain for scare-mongering.
The mainstream media issued its usual anti-opposition warnings of instability, erosion of investor confidence, Islamic state, and ‘May 13’.
Some editors must have so believed their own propaganda that they were paralysed by the Chinese swing, the Hindraf factor, and the late Malay swing.
Why else, for instance, did The Star Online, late on 8 March, show no result except BN’s ’10 out of 10’ parliamentary victories?
Outgoing Selangor Mentri Besar Khir Toyo threatened ‘zero opposition’ only to be ejected from power.
Melaka’s Mohd Ali Rustam intimidatingly boasted that Umno could rule on its own – forever.
Now he and his ilk must rue Umno’s insecure dependence on the goodwill of the unlikely power-brokers of Sabah and Sarawak.
The arrogance of power
When the Malay voters revolted in 1999, in response to Anwar Ibrahim’s persecution, many non-Malay voters rejected the Barisan Alternatif’s call for Reformasi.
Instead, they helped to save Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Umno and continued to support Abdullah Badawi in 2004. Abdullah also recovered the support of Malay voters who badly wanted a closure of the Anwar affair.
But four ‘work with me’ years under Abdullah did not reward Malay and non-Malay voters with promised reforms, but with an ‘arrogance of power’, as Tsu Koon, after some soul-searching, has belatedly admitted.
Of course, it was Umno’s power, and, of course, it was arrogant.In ethnic terms, Umno soon reasserted its power.
Ketuanan Melayu was not to be questioned; the New Economic Policy’s restructuring would be extended; the so-called Malay Agenda was timeless.
Hishamuddin Hussein, with his keris-kissing antics, warned even Umno’s non-Malay partners, ‘Do not challenge us!’
Khairy Jamaluddin flashed his ‘My bangsa, right or wrong’ rhetoric and Umno Youth organised a protest of convenience against a pliant Gerakan in Penang.
In class terms, the power was flaunted by displays of the increasingly unaccountable corruption of the Umno-related oligarchs and the greed of new corporate groups with strong political cables.
On the other hand, mass protesters against fuel price increases and rising inflation were met by tear gas, water cannons and Red Helmets.
In cultural terms, the regime’s claim to moderation, via Islam Hadhari, rang hollow.
It seemed indifferent to religious disputes that blurred the jurisdictional boundaries between the civil and the Syariah courts, to the invasive body-snatching actions of religious bureaucrats, and to the insensitivity of Umno-dominated local governments towards incidents of temple demolition.
Reformasi's retribution
Within that context, the election result was retribution with a flavour of
Reformasi, albeit appearing late and not quite following the Barisan Alternatif’s 1999 script.
Once, many non-Malay voters could be persuaded that ‘A vote for DAP is a vote for PAS’.
This time, many, many more decided that ‘A vote against MCA and Gerakan and MIC is a vote against Umno’.
In short, the non-Malay voters snapped the BN chain at its weaker links.
They showed their contempt for the timidity of MCA, Gerakan and MIC, gagged and impotent Chinese-based and Indian-based component parties.
It was unlikely that Malay voters significantly swung to parties such as DAP or even PKR.
But in certain ethnically mixed constituencies, a late Malay swing or an appreciable Malay absenteeism at the polls compounded BN’s losses. In Malay-majority constituencies, the old Umno-Pas division was still evident, leaving the non-Malay swing to exert its impact.
The PKR’s present position is an ironic, almost un-Malaysian, outcome of the ethnic voting patterns.
A party some had written off emerged as a symbol of multi-ethnic politics.
Whatever its future, PKR’s leadership of a balanced Malay-non-Malay opposition has dragged Parliament from its old self of being dominated by BN and opposed by an entirely Malay Pas and an entirely non-Malay DAP.
New landscape
Many observers have likened this transformation of the political landscape to a tsunami, a perfect storm, or a surge of Makkal Sakthi (People Power) that outdid the Bersih and Hindraf rallies of late 2007.
The metaphors may be excessive. A true tsunami, say, would have swept BN out of office.
A perfect storm would not have bypassed Sabah and Sarawak.Yet, obviously, the transformation raises some urgent questions for an opposition that has begun to contemplate national power.
Breaking the two-thirds barrier was both a symbolic and real achievement. For some time now, the ability to amend the Constitution was not the crux of the two-thirds issue.
Power was, and especially Umno’s unassailable power within BN.
Without the buffer of a two-thirds majority, however, BN’s ethnic power-sharing formula may be in jeopardy.
If Umno insists on taking so many seats, to be able to rule on its own, it won’t be able to satisfy the demands of its 13 non-Malay adjuncts.
Actually, MCA and Gerakan had paid for Umno’s arrogance of power before, in 1986 and 1990.
As they lick their wounds, MCA, Gerakan and MIC might stumble upon a simple truth: Stop playing ‘Kapitan China’ and ‘Kapitan Keling’ (no insult intended) to Umno’s ‘Tuan Melayu’, or be irrelevant – as Gerakan, shorn of its Penang base, seems already to be so.
Watch out for old politics
Partly for that reason, Umno will strive to impose its old ethnic politics upon the PKR-DAP-Pas experiments in new multi-ethnic politics.
We have already seen the knee-jerk attacks on DAP for allegedly marginalising the Malays in Penang, on the Perak government for not having enough Malays in its Exco, and so on.
We’ve seen before these unscrupulous tactics of ethnic assaults from quarters that claim to be the champions of national unity.
When Parti Bersatu Sabah, the original, not the current ersatz one, ruled Sabah, Umno sanctimoniously questioned if the Muslims there could be properly accommodated under ‘Christian rule’.
When Pas ruled Kelantan and Terengganu, MCA, Gerakan and MIC would ask if the non-Muslims would be denied their rights.
Hence, a host of newly formed ‘Malay action fronts’, sore and vengeful losers, will waste little time organising demonstrations, orchestrating media disinforma-tion and fomenting ‘Malay anxieties’.
This manner of interpreting policies and practices in chauvinistic terms can only be defeated by a united opposition that can come to the rescue of all five opposition state governments.
The worst scenario, if the alliance fails, is for Pas to join Umno in condemning the DAP-led government in Penang, and for DAP to join MCA, Gerakan and MIC in criticising the PAS-led governments of Kedah and Kelantan.
In Perak and Selangor, the coalition governments can only escape such externally created problems by commitment to cooperation and collective responsibility.
Parliament and responsibility
Some encouragement may be derived from the sentiments of the opposition’s supporters.
It’s one thing to vote ethnic in an ethnicised political system.
It’s another thing altogether to regard all things in the stark light of inter-ethnic competition.
At least in the alternative cyberspace, voters, bloggers and commentators have admirably urged PKR, DAP and Pas to keep their differences to themselves, but, above all, to keep their alliance intact.
Not to do so, the voters know, just as the leaders of these parties must know, would hand back to BN what was painfully gained at the election.
The presence of the largest ever opposition in Parliament has amplified popular hopes of reforming the political system.
To this end, the opposition representatives must set out to raise the quality of law-making, monitor the Executive and discipline state institutions.
To do so, they must themselves be competent in diverse areas, capable of informed debate and committed to representing their constituents’ (and not merely their parties’) interests.
The opposition representatives, no less than the backbenchers, should realise that the public sickens at name-calling, trading of insults and histrionics that debase parliamentary proceeding.
They should learn, from Lim Kit Siang at his best, and the outstanding opposition figures of the 1960s, that dedicated parliamentary work requires a mix of investigative research, thoughtful arguments and courageous demands.
Economic management
The new opposition state governments should appreciate that they’ve taken power at a difficult juncture.
They don’t know yet how the deepening troubles of the United States economy will affect each state’s economy.
They should know that their scope for economic management will be limited by national policies and global market forces.
Even so, the opposition alliance must plan for employment creation, reasonable rates of growth, the alleviation of economic difficulties, and so on.
Never mind, for example, that short-term, limited-impact measures are dismissed as ‘petty populism’ by the New Straits Times editors.
That’s only the response of hacks who have fawningly publicised all of BN’s petty handouts.
For the medium-term, however, honest administration, competent planning and effective implementation must be the order of the day for PKR, DAP and Pas, just as it was for the original Gerakan when it captured Penang in 1969.
Renegotiating federalism
It’s well known that PBS in Sabah, and Pas in Kelantan and Terengganu had previously had to weather Umno’s wrath and the Federal government’s might.
Today, however, only the insane would risk impoverishing the national economy by strangling five opposition states and Kuala Lumpur which include the rice bowl, the manufacturing centres, and the seat of administration of the nation.
Even they would not thereby alienate the influential chambers of commerce and industry and sensitive foreign investors.
The most hostile might conspire to inflict on the five states the wang ehsan punishment that Pas-ruled Terengganu endured.
But it’s politically infeasible to re-enact what has been discredited and what people despise, especially in urban centres that aren’t so dependent on direct federal expenditures.
Foes though they are, the Federal government and the state governments are compelled to talk to each other.
High on the agenda of such talks should be a review of federalism itself, not by any means an unwelcome prospect.
Planning and action
On their part, the new and inexperienced state governments must realise this much. While resources are necessary, resourcefulness is indispensable.
It’s reasonable to ask for learning time; it’s imperative to learn fast.
It was fair politics to promise alternatives but it’d be suicidal politics not to act quickly, symbolically and meaningfully.
There is enthusiastic talk about engagement with civil society, participatory democracy and the restoration of local government elections.
All this may help to distinguish the old administrations from the new, and, where necessary, expose past malpractices in order to cleanse the administrative machinery.
Above all, PKR and DAP, whose grassroots structures are underdeveloped, must find ways to root themselves in society, as Pas managed to in Kelantan during its years of isolation.
The new governments should consult a spectrum of social and economic interests.
Yet, they should not yield to vested interests that reinvent themselves as the spokespeople of ‘civil society’ now that their links to BN have been severed.
For that matter, there are NGOs and NGOs, and the new governments should not pander to the ‘upper middle class’ character of many visible NGOs.
Unifying ethos
The true measure of good government will be its attitudes towards the ‘little folks’ of our society, including the lower working classes, the poor and the disadvantaged, small retailers, hawkers, petty traders, the smallest of the SMEs, and so on.
In Penang, for example, there’s no reason to keep beautifying the charming Western Road-Macalister Road-Residential Road areas.
It’d be better economics and urban management to clean up the inner city, rehabilitate decrepit former rent-controlled houses, and attend to the special needs of deprived neighbourhoods, whether these are Malay, Chinese, Indian or ‘Other’.
No one expects PKR, DAP and Pas to resolve overnight the differences in their visions of a better society.
From where, then, might come common ideological planks that they can use to build a workable raft of shared policies?In principle, the broad answer has to be a non-sectarian social democracy.
That can creatively fuse Anwar’s concept of a caring civil society, the Parti Rakyat Malaysia’s plebian concerns, the DAP’s old socialist claims, and Pas’s Islamic welfarism.
Guided by such social democracy – rather than, say, a neoliberal meritocracy – PKR, DAP and Pas can formulate and implement policies that would most benefit the non-rich.
After all these have been the staunchest opposition supporters and these would be constantly targeted by BN’s petty blandishments.
Turmoil in Umno
There is nothing destabilising about any of these.
Potentially destabilising, though, is the turmoil that defeat has visited upon Umno.
The Umno leadership’s new spin is that BN hasn’t lost the election despite Abdullah’s initial response, ‘We’ve lost, we’ve lost.’
To Abdullah and his allies, BN holds a ‘strong majority only eight seats short of a two-thirds majority’.
That is in fact so.
Nonetheless, the loss of the two-thirds majority; the fall in BN’s popular vote to 51 per cent; the failure to capture Kelantan; the defeat in four more states and Kuala Lumpur; the departure of several ministers; and the painful dependence on Sabah and Sarawak have intensified Umno’s chronic factionalism.
Much of that factionalism is tied to the loss of resources, projects and patronage, a grievous loss since Umno’s unreformed structures habitually mixed business with politics.
Another implosion
For now Umno’s turmoil can move in uncoordinated ways.
Political forces once pushed aside have re-surfaced to challenge Abdullah whose position is weaker than in 2006, the year of his big spat with Mahathir.
Mahathir has called for Abdullah’s resignation.
As if trying to be his father’s son, Mukhriz Mahathir has sent a letter to Abdullah in a farcical replay of Mahathir’s 1969 letter to Tunku Abdul Rahman.
Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, who had twice failed to secure the leadership of Umno, has offered to challenge Abdullah for the party presidency.
The Malay Rulers have intervened in the appointment of Menteris Besar in Perlis and Terengganu.
It will certainly be regarded as a defeat for Abdullah that both his nominees for Perlis and Terengganu were rejected and replaced by others more acceptable to the respective rulers.
The formation of the new Cabinet was fraught with disgruntlement.
The ambitious Khairy Jama-luddin simply had to be excluded.
But the excluded Mohd Radzi Sheikh Ahmad resigned as Umno Secretary-General while Rafidah Aziz’s departure led to public disagreement with Azalina Othman Said.
These are signs that Umno’s factionalism will deepen and intensify as contending forces align and realign themselves for the party election, now scheduled for December.
If the past is a good indication, however, Umno could be heading towards implosion for a third time – after the 1987 battle between Team A and Team B fight, and the 1998 Anwar affair.
If that happens, it’d be the sort of political disorder that arises just as one system’s dying while another is struggling to be born.Whatever happens, those who helped to create this situation – necessary but insufficient for lasting transformation – were the wise and brave voters.
No more risk averse, they decided that change was better than stasis.Like it or not, love us or hate us, we’re all monkeys now.
(Aliran Monthly)
Wives of BN officials caught up in scandal
Wives of BN officials caught up in scandal
Wednesday, 30 April 2008
They took title deeds and funds from welfare group after election loss
The murky goings-on at Balkis, which are being replicated in other states such as Penang and Perak which also fell to the opposition in the elections, have since turned into a major scandal over the alleged abuse of public funds by organisations associated with the BN.
By Leslie Lopez, THE STRAITS TIMES
BY THE BOOK: Datin Seri Zahrah holding a two-page statement which says that the transfer of funds out of the Balkis accounts was done in line with the organisation's Constitution. -- PHOTO: THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
SOON after winning the Selangor state legislature last month, the opposition Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) ordered that the state administration buildings and the offices of key state agencies be sealed and nothing be removed.
But they overlooked the premises of a state-funded welfare organisation, Balkis, operated by the wives of the Barisan Nasional (BN) politicians who lost in last month's general election.
Two days after the March 8 polls, key Balkis officials arrived at its office in the Selangor capital of Shah Alam and carted away documents and title deeds of properties it owned.
Another RM9.9 million (S$4 million) in cash deposits were transferred out of the organisation's bank accounts by Balkis officials led by Datin Seri Zahrah Kecik, the wife of former Selangor chief minister Khir Toyo.
The murky goings-on at Balkis, which are being replicated in other states such as Penang and Perak which also fell to the opposition in the elections, have since turned into a major scandal over the alleged abuse of public funds by organisations associated with the BN.
'The whole situation is very disturbing, and there is certainly the possibility of criminal breach of trust in the entire affair,' said Bar Council vice-president Ragunath Kesavan.
The following account is based on interviews with key Selangor state government officials and documents made available to The Straits Times.
Balkis was set up in May 1985 as a non-political welfare organisation which opened its membership to the wives of the elected representatives of the state.
It was primarily a BN vehicle, although its charter did not discriminate between government and opposition elected representatives.
But opposition politicians saw Balkis as one of many similar groupings that made up a nationwide political patronage network built on public funds to finance the political activities of the ruling coalition led by Umno.
Balkis, as the main welfare organisation in Selangor, received strong financial support.
According to state government documents, Balkis was awarded a choice piece of property from the Selangor State Development Corp at a concessionary price of RM250,000 in 2000.
The documents also showed that between early 2006 and September last year, Balkis received donations amounting to RM600,000 from the Selangor State Development Corp to finance various activities, including its annual dinner, the opening ceremony of its administrative office and political activities of the wives of elected representatives.
The welfare organisation often turned to other state agencies to fund other activities, including overseas trips for its key office bearers, state government officials say.
The halcyon days enjoyed by Balkis came to an abrupt halt in the late hours of March 8, when Selangor, together with four other states, fell into the control of Malaysia's opposition headed by former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim.
As the Balkis charter stipulated that the organisation must be headed by the wife of the sitting chief minister, Datin Seri Zahrah faced the immediate prospect of having to relinquish her position as head of the organisation in favour of the wife of the incoming chief minister from the PKR-led opposition.
To sidestep any handover, Datin Seri Zahrah and her committee members comprising the wives of other BN candidates moved to dissolve Balkis.
According to state government officials, Datin Seri Zahrah and her colleagues turned up at the Balkis administrative office on March 10 and told employees that they intended to alter the welfare organisation's charter to avoid relinquishing control.
They carted away documents, including title deeds and bank statements, officials say.
A day later, the Balkis committee led by Datin Seri Zahrah held an emergency meeting to dissolve the organisation and withdrew RM9.9 million in cash deposits held by the organisation.
They planned to establish a new organisation that would limit membership to wives of BN leaders.
In the interim, Datin Seri Zahrah and her colleagues sought refuge with Bakti, a welfare organisation headed by the wife of the Prime Minister and senior Cabinet ministers.
According to the minutes of a Bakti meeting obtained by The Straits Times, Balkis and another BN-sponsored welfare society from Penang, called Bunga Tanjung, approached the national-level organisation to help them to 'receive and manage their funds for their welfare activities in the interim period'.
Bunga Tanjung transferred RM350,000 to Bakti, while Balkis placed RM9.9 million for safekeeping, the minutes showed.
The Bakti minutes showed that Datuk Heliliah Yusof, its legal adviser who is also a judge in Malaysia's Court of Appeal, endorsed the plan.
In the meantime, the PKR-led Selangor state government has asked the National Registration Department to reject the dissolution of Balkis and is demanding that the transferred funds be returned to the organisation.
But Balkis and its former patron, Datuk Seri Khir, maintained that they did nothing wrong, and that all actions by the committee led by his wife were legal.
'Don't talk rubbish and refer to our lawyer,' the former chief minister told reporters this week.
CHRONOLOGY OF THE BALKIS SAGA
March 8: Selangor and four other states fall into the hands of the Parti Keadilan Rakyat-led opposition alliance in last month's general election.
March 10: Datin Seri Zahrah Kecik, wife of the former Selangor menteri besar, Datuk Seri Khir Toyo, goes to the Balkis office with her lawyers, and important documents are taken away.
March 11: The Balkis committee holds a special meeting to dissolve the organisation. Bank accounts with deposits amounting to RM9.9 million (S$4.3 million) are closed, and the funds transferred to Bakti.
March 13: Balkis applies to dissolve the organisation with the Registrar of Societies.
April 23: The new Selangor menteri besar, Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim of the PKR, writes to the Registrar of Societies demanding that the application to dissolve Balkis be rejected and all funds transferred back.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Evolve or perish
Evolve or perish
Monday, 28 April 2008
The mainstream media editors and journalists are once again demanding that the oppressive Printing Presses and Publications Act be reviewed, if not repealed.
By ZAINAH ANWAR, THE STAR
This is the last chance for this government to get it right or else the usual 10-year electoral cycle of ‘rise and fall’ in the performance of the ruling party will be broken. It will be the fall and fall.
JUST Do It. This should have been the motto in 2004 when the Prime Minister received an overwhelming mandate for his change agenda.
But it took the verdict of March 8 to finally move Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to take substantive steps to deal with the long-standing demands from civil society and the opposition parties to redress past wrongs and strengthen Malaysia’s democratic structures and values.
First, his announcement to set up a Judicial Appointments Commission on April 17.
Then on April 21, the announcement to revamp the Anti Corruption Agency into an independent commission with accompanying new laws, enforcement powers and public procurement procedure. Over the past weeks, several ministers, new, and old ones with new portfolios, have talked about the urgent need for reform.
Information Minister Datuk Ahmad Shabery Chik and Home Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar have both promised more press freedom, with the latter undertaking a “re-look” at the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 to move with the times.
Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin has promised to table amendments by the end of the year to the unpopular Universities and University Colleges Act1971.
The Minister in charge of Law, Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, has brought within one month more substantive change in the administration of justice in this country than what any other law minister has done in years.
He successfully pushed for the setting up of the Judicial Commission, first proposed by the Bar Council in 2003 and by Suhakam in 2005.
He remains committed to restoring Article 121(1) to its original wording as the 1988 amendment had diluted the doctrine of separation of powers between the Executive and the Judiciary.
And he has promised to review all the ouster clauses introduced in several laws in the mid to late 1980s which made the decision of the minister final and not subject to any judicial review.
The mainstream media editors and journalists are once again demanding that the oppressive Printing Presses and Publications Act be reviewed, if not repealed.
Stung and rejected by the public, the mainstream newspapers are now making up with a daily dose of often incisive and critical writing on Malaysian politics.
Reading the morning papers over breakfast could become a habit again. It takes March 8 for those in authority to realise that it is better to unleash mainstream journalism – once built on a tradition of fair, balanced, accurate, fact-checked reporting – to rebuild its reputation as a credible source of information or face the onslaught of unsubstantiated, unverified gossip and rumours turned into facts that pervade the new media.
The rakyat has spoken. They want change. The Prime Minister is beginning to institute change. The mainstream media is fast changing to rebuild its influence. And yet, many voices within Umno are pushing for the party’s self-destruction. I am amazed. For they seem to think that March 8 was just a blip in Umno’s inherent hegemonic powers. The only change they can think of is the need to replace the President and, hey presto, everything will be back to normal.
They think the only reason they lost those seats was because the Umno President and his family and coterie of advisers chose the wrong candidates and therefore the Umno machinery failed to deliver the votes.
If only the right candidates were chosen, they would not have lost the four additional states, the Federal Territory, and their two-thirds majority in Parliament. Yes, the party President must take the biggest responsibility for the damning results.
But the massive public repudiation of Barisan Nasional was not just a repudiation of the Prime Minister’s rule, but of all the corrupt, immoral, authoritarianism in BN politics and governance in its 50 years of domination.
The public has had enough. But these Umno politicians do not have it in them to see the writing on the wall.
Nor do they have the confidence, and certainly not the conviction, to deliver on the palpable demand for change – change in how they understood, used and abused power.
They seem to think that a return to sledgehammer rule under a strong leader, an appeal to Malay racialist sentiment, and spreading the patronage goodies from bigtime cronies to the divisional level cronies, would just do the trick to win them support again.
Basically, they want it to be business as usual.
That Pakatan Rakyat won votes on a platform of change from “ketuanan Melayu” to “ketuanan rakyat” and a smorgasbord of promises to make democracy and good governance work for all citizens seems to have escaped these Umno recalcitrants.
While this new alliance is fast capturing the shifting mood of Malaysian voters to a new political centre of equitable and fairer terms of engagement among the citizens, and between the citizen and the state, and generating excitement among young voters and community groups that their voices can indeed bring change, Umno members are more preoccupied with power grabbing in the run-up to party elections in December.
They forget the goodies the winners want to lay their grubby hands on might just be in someone else’s clutches by the next general election.
But what makes Umno politics even more wretched for us looking on from the outside is the fact that so many calling for leadership change in Umno are themselves so tainted and discredited.
They might win party elections whooping their “ketuanan Melayu” battle cry, but they will cause the party to lose the next general election. The ground has shifted and they still think the old tricks will deliver them victory.
What is there then for its key Barisan partners to remain in the coalition? They are already blaming Umno and its arrogant, intemperate and relentless stomping and condoning of ethno-religious supremacy for driving away Chinese and Indian voters into the waiting arms of PKR, DAP and PAS.
To now claim that Malay political power is under threat is hubris. It is Umno that has lost its dominance. As Karim Raslan in his column on April 22 said, what the Umno leaders don’t want to acknowledge is that their monopoly over the Malay vote is gone forever.
No, the Malays are not disunited. The Malay community has evolved into a more complex, sophisticated, diverse community with diverse interests.
There are those who want a democratic and secular Malaysia with justice and equality as core values; those who want an end to affirmative action that damaged Malay competitiveness; those who want an Islamic state and syariah rule; those who want Islam as a source of social values, but not an instrument of state power; those who want good governance and forget ideology; those who want an end to racebased politics and political parties; those who want to restore our rich tradition of embracing and celebrating our cultural and religious diversity ...
Malaysian politics is taking off into an epochal transformation from race-based to issue-based.
Increasingly, Malaysians are building new solidarities based on issues, not race or religion.
Be it human rights, women’s rights, democracy, good governance, freedom of the press, detention without trial, local government, environment, land rights, anti-corruption, reviving Malay culture killed by Islamisation … it is the issue that will bring Malaysians of all ethnic backgrounds together.
The modernity that development brings can only mean more and more diverse and differentiated interests. Umno and its Barisan Nasional partners have two choices before them: evolve or perish.
For the Prime Minister, the priority now is to fulfil the Barisan Nasional promises of 2004 to bring about a more transparent and accountable government.
He needs to steam ahead to transform Malaysia’s democratic institutions and structures and begin to undo the damage of Umno and Barisan’s hegemonic rule over the past decades.
This is the last chance for this government to get it right or else the usual 10-year electoral cycle of “rise and fall” in the performance of the ruling party will be broken. It will be the fall and fall.
Monday, 28 April 2008
The mainstream media editors and journalists are once again demanding that the oppressive Printing Presses and Publications Act be reviewed, if not repealed.
By ZAINAH ANWAR, THE STAR
This is the last chance for this government to get it right or else the usual 10-year electoral cycle of ‘rise and fall’ in the performance of the ruling party will be broken. It will be the fall and fall.
JUST Do It. This should have been the motto in 2004 when the Prime Minister received an overwhelming mandate for his change agenda.
But it took the verdict of March 8 to finally move Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to take substantive steps to deal with the long-standing demands from civil society and the opposition parties to redress past wrongs and strengthen Malaysia’s democratic structures and values.
First, his announcement to set up a Judicial Appointments Commission on April 17.
Then on April 21, the announcement to revamp the Anti Corruption Agency into an independent commission with accompanying new laws, enforcement powers and public procurement procedure. Over the past weeks, several ministers, new, and old ones with new portfolios, have talked about the urgent need for reform.
Information Minister Datuk Ahmad Shabery Chik and Home Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar have both promised more press freedom, with the latter undertaking a “re-look” at the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 to move with the times.
Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin has promised to table amendments by the end of the year to the unpopular Universities and University Colleges Act1971.
The Minister in charge of Law, Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, has brought within one month more substantive change in the administration of justice in this country than what any other law minister has done in years.
He successfully pushed for the setting up of the Judicial Commission, first proposed by the Bar Council in 2003 and by Suhakam in 2005.
He remains committed to restoring Article 121(1) to its original wording as the 1988 amendment had diluted the doctrine of separation of powers between the Executive and the Judiciary.
And he has promised to review all the ouster clauses introduced in several laws in the mid to late 1980s which made the decision of the minister final and not subject to any judicial review.
The mainstream media editors and journalists are once again demanding that the oppressive Printing Presses and Publications Act be reviewed, if not repealed.
Stung and rejected by the public, the mainstream newspapers are now making up with a daily dose of often incisive and critical writing on Malaysian politics.
Reading the morning papers over breakfast could become a habit again. It takes March 8 for those in authority to realise that it is better to unleash mainstream journalism – once built on a tradition of fair, balanced, accurate, fact-checked reporting – to rebuild its reputation as a credible source of information or face the onslaught of unsubstantiated, unverified gossip and rumours turned into facts that pervade the new media.
The rakyat has spoken. They want change. The Prime Minister is beginning to institute change. The mainstream media is fast changing to rebuild its influence. And yet, many voices within Umno are pushing for the party’s self-destruction. I am amazed. For they seem to think that March 8 was just a blip in Umno’s inherent hegemonic powers. The only change they can think of is the need to replace the President and, hey presto, everything will be back to normal.
They think the only reason they lost those seats was because the Umno President and his family and coterie of advisers chose the wrong candidates and therefore the Umno machinery failed to deliver the votes.
If only the right candidates were chosen, they would not have lost the four additional states, the Federal Territory, and their two-thirds majority in Parliament. Yes, the party President must take the biggest responsibility for the damning results.
But the massive public repudiation of Barisan Nasional was not just a repudiation of the Prime Minister’s rule, but of all the corrupt, immoral, authoritarianism in BN politics and governance in its 50 years of domination.
The public has had enough. But these Umno politicians do not have it in them to see the writing on the wall.
Nor do they have the confidence, and certainly not the conviction, to deliver on the palpable demand for change – change in how they understood, used and abused power.
They seem to think that a return to sledgehammer rule under a strong leader, an appeal to Malay racialist sentiment, and spreading the patronage goodies from bigtime cronies to the divisional level cronies, would just do the trick to win them support again.
Basically, they want it to be business as usual.
That Pakatan Rakyat won votes on a platform of change from “ketuanan Melayu” to “ketuanan rakyat” and a smorgasbord of promises to make democracy and good governance work for all citizens seems to have escaped these Umno recalcitrants.
While this new alliance is fast capturing the shifting mood of Malaysian voters to a new political centre of equitable and fairer terms of engagement among the citizens, and between the citizen and the state, and generating excitement among young voters and community groups that their voices can indeed bring change, Umno members are more preoccupied with power grabbing in the run-up to party elections in December.
They forget the goodies the winners want to lay their grubby hands on might just be in someone else’s clutches by the next general election.
But what makes Umno politics even more wretched for us looking on from the outside is the fact that so many calling for leadership change in Umno are themselves so tainted and discredited.
They might win party elections whooping their “ketuanan Melayu” battle cry, but they will cause the party to lose the next general election. The ground has shifted and they still think the old tricks will deliver them victory.
What is there then for its key Barisan partners to remain in the coalition? They are already blaming Umno and its arrogant, intemperate and relentless stomping and condoning of ethno-religious supremacy for driving away Chinese and Indian voters into the waiting arms of PKR, DAP and PAS.
To now claim that Malay political power is under threat is hubris. It is Umno that has lost its dominance. As Karim Raslan in his column on April 22 said, what the Umno leaders don’t want to acknowledge is that their monopoly over the Malay vote is gone forever.
No, the Malays are not disunited. The Malay community has evolved into a more complex, sophisticated, diverse community with diverse interests.
There are those who want a democratic and secular Malaysia with justice and equality as core values; those who want an end to affirmative action that damaged Malay competitiveness; those who want an Islamic state and syariah rule; those who want Islam as a source of social values, but not an instrument of state power; those who want good governance and forget ideology; those who want an end to racebased politics and political parties; those who want to restore our rich tradition of embracing and celebrating our cultural and religious diversity ...
Malaysian politics is taking off into an epochal transformation from race-based to issue-based.
Increasingly, Malaysians are building new solidarities based on issues, not race or religion.
Be it human rights, women’s rights, democracy, good governance, freedom of the press, detention without trial, local government, environment, land rights, anti-corruption, reviving Malay culture killed by Islamisation … it is the issue that will bring Malaysians of all ethnic backgrounds together.
The modernity that development brings can only mean more and more diverse and differentiated interests. Umno and its Barisan Nasional partners have two choices before them: evolve or perish.
For the Prime Minister, the priority now is to fulfil the Barisan Nasional promises of 2004 to bring about a more transparent and accountable government.
He needs to steam ahead to transform Malaysia’s democratic institutions and structures and begin to undo the damage of Umno and Barisan’s hegemonic rule over the past decades.
This is the last chance for this government to get it right or else the usual 10-year electoral cycle of “rise and fall” in the performance of the ruling party will be broken. It will be the fall and fall.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Pakatan MPs want review of OSA
Pakatan MPs want review of OSA
KUALA LUMPUR, Apr 24 (ES) - Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi who had indicated initiatives for reforms following the severe loss suffered by the coalition he headed now has one more longstanding issue that needs review namely the Official Secrets Act (OSA).
A People's Alliance front (PAKATAN) parliamentary member Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim said the OSA is a hindrance to the concept of transparency and accountability, - two concepts propounded by the front.
"(Without the OSA) we could have a concept of transparency (in place) and the society could evaluate how we (the government) are implementing efforts to reduce mismanagement," he said.
Abdul Khalid who is also Selangor Menteri Besar told this to journalists when asked to comment on the "integrity programme" by Abdullah for the ruling coalition parliamentary members April 23.
The ruling coalition has 140 seats in the 222 parliamentary house after the general election last month. The house is expected to convene next week.
Rustam: Voice of the downtrodden
Earlier, Abdul Khalid took part in the prayer for the late author, blogger and social activist Rustam A. Sani who passed away early this yesterday. Abdul Khalid said he met Rustam last after the recent general election.
"We were colleagues at the Institute of Strategic Studies and he always gave his views on how the downtrodden should be helped," Abdul Khalid said of Rustam.
Others present at residence of the late Rustam included Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS) secretary general Datuk Kamarudin Jaffar, women's chief Nuridah Salleh and Youth chief Salahudin Ayub.
The son of celebrated Malay nationalist leader Ahmad Boestamam, the Tanjung Malim-born Rustam was formerly the deputy president of Parti Rakyat Malaysia, which have since merged with the Parti Keadilan Nasional to form the KeADILan. – Saadon Aksah/ES
KUALA LUMPUR, Apr 24 (ES) - Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi who had indicated initiatives for reforms following the severe loss suffered by the coalition he headed now has one more longstanding issue that needs review namely the Official Secrets Act (OSA).
A People's Alliance front (PAKATAN) parliamentary member Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim said the OSA is a hindrance to the concept of transparency and accountability, - two concepts propounded by the front.
"(Without the OSA) we could have a concept of transparency (in place) and the society could evaluate how we (the government) are implementing efforts to reduce mismanagement," he said.
Abdul Khalid who is also Selangor Menteri Besar told this to journalists when asked to comment on the "integrity programme" by Abdullah for the ruling coalition parliamentary members April 23.
The ruling coalition has 140 seats in the 222 parliamentary house after the general election last month. The house is expected to convene next week.
Rustam: Voice of the downtrodden
Earlier, Abdul Khalid took part in the prayer for the late author, blogger and social activist Rustam A. Sani who passed away early this yesterday. Abdul Khalid said he met Rustam last after the recent general election.
"We were colleagues at the Institute of Strategic Studies and he always gave his views on how the downtrodden should be helped," Abdul Khalid said of Rustam.
Others present at residence of the late Rustam included Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS) secretary general Datuk Kamarudin Jaffar, women's chief Nuridah Salleh and Youth chief Salahudin Ayub.
The son of celebrated Malay nationalist leader Ahmad Boestamam, the Tanjung Malim-born Rustam was formerly the deputy president of Parti Rakyat Malaysia, which have since merged with the Parti Keadilan Nasional to form the KeADILan. – Saadon Aksah/ES
Kenyataan media Dewan Muslimat PAS mengenai kes Altantuya
Kenyataan media Dewan Muslimat PAS mengenai kes Altantuya
Aiman Athirah Al Jundi
Sat Apr 26, 08 2:23:27 pm MYT
DMPP mengutuk sekeras-kerasnya pembunuhan kejam ke atas seorang pelancong asing yang juga boleh disifatkan sebagai "tetamu negara" dari Mongolia, Altantuya Shaariibuu. DMPP berpendapat bahawa perbicaraan bagi kes ini sewajarnya disegerakan, berbanding sekarang yang ditangguh-tangguh oleh pihak mahkamah atas alasan terlalu banyak kes lain, seperti yang didakwa oleh bapa mangsa, Dr Shaariibuu Setev baru-baru ini.
DMPP memandang serius dan sangat tersentuh dengan kenyataan daripada bapa Altantuya yang telah datang ke Malaysia baru-baru ini bahawa beliau datang demi kemanusiaan dan bukannya kerana wang atau menuntut sebarang ganti rugi.
DMPP juga menginsafi bahawa ia jelas menampakkan kehampaan dan hilangnya kepercayaan seorang ayah yang selama ini telah berusaha untuk mendapatkan keadilan terhadap satu-satunya zuriat keturunan beliau yang dibunuh secara kejam dalam Negara Malaysia yang dilabel sebagai Selamat, Aman & Makmur oleh PM dalam PRU-12 yang lepas.
Kes ini boleh disifatkan sebagai berprofail tinggi, punya kepentingan ramai serta kes pembunuhan paling berat kerana menguji bahkan mencabar integriti Malaysia di mata dunia khususnya terhadap sistem dan proses perjalanan keadilan dalam negara yang kita semua cintai ini.
Seluruh rakyat dari dua negara yang terlibat sedang memberi tumpuan terhadap perjalanan dan kesudahannya. Kes ini bukanlah kes biasa. Ketua Hakim Negara, Peguam Negara dan Ketua Polis Negara wajar memberikan prioriti tertinggi bagi menyelesaikan polemik ini secara telus, amanah, beretika, bijaksana dan professional.
DMPP menggesa agar ketiga-tiga entiti keadilan yang penting ini tidak membiarkan apa jua unsur mahupun ruang yang akan menghalang mereka daripada menjalankan tugas sejujur yang boleh kerana natijah bagi kejujuran dan kebijaksanaan merekalah yang akan membawa kesudahan paling memuaskan hati semua pihak khususnya yang menjadi mangsa tindakan kejam "pembunuh berkuasa" dalam negara ini. Iaitu bila semua yang terlibat dalam konspirasi pembunuhan ini dijatuhi hukuman paling berat dan pihak yang menjadi mangsa diberikan keadilan paling wajar.
Jika sebelum ini atau sekarang ini kerajaan Malaysia di bawah kepimpinan Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi berani untuk membuat permohonan maaf secara terbuka kepada keluarga Altantuya dan Kerajaan Mongolia di atas apa yang berlaku yakni pembunuhan dan segala bentuk tuduhan memalukan ke atas Altantuya dan keluarganya, dan Jika sekiranya kerajaan Malaysia dapat berjanji untuk memberi tumpuan utama terhadap penyelesaian kes ini; saya yakin dan percaya bahawa ia suatu yang sangat positif dan dapat mengurangkan beban perasaan yang ditanggung oleh keluarga mangsa, rakyat dan kerajaan Mongolia selama ini. Malangnya, tindakan diplomatik sebegitu dilihat gagal dibuat secara bijaksana oleh pihak kerajaan khususnya Perdana Menteri sendiri.
DMPP menginsafi bahawa tindakan diplomatik itu wajar disegerakan. Pendekatan negara yang melayan mangsa dan keluarga mangsa sebagai pihak yang seolah-olah tidak bermaruah, rendah moral, dan bersalah dengan membiarkan beberapa pihak seperti media massa yang mengaitkan Altantuya sebagai Pelacur dan seumpamanya harus dihentikan dan diambil tindakan.
Sudah sampai masanya keluarga mangsa diberikan sambutan dan layanan sebagai "tetamu negara" dan bukannya sebagai musuh kepada mana-mana pihak atau individu yang berkuasa dalam negara ini. Kerajaan Malaysia wajib menerima mereka dengan akhlaq dan adab Islam.
Jelas, terdapat banyak keraguan bagi kes ini kerana seperti yang umum telah tahu bahawa kaedah pembunuhan mangsa adalah melibatkan penggunaan senjata api yang terkawal di bawah Kementerian Pertahanan Malaysia. Hatta, kehilangan rekod kemasukan yakni maklumat imegresen mangsa ke dalam Negara ini meskipun saudara beliau mengesahkan bahawa mereka telah memasuki Malaysia dengan cara yang sah, jelas menimbulkan keraguan bersebab munasabah yang sangat kuat bahawa di sana terdapatnya unsur-unsur konspirasi dan komplot terancang.
DMPP juga mencabar Menteri Pembangunan Wanita, Keluarga dan Masyarakat yang baru iaitu YB Dato' Ng Yen Yen agar menyatakan pendirian kemanusiaan terhadap kes ini kerana ia melibatkan seorang wanita yang menjadi mangsa pembunuhan paling zalim. Bukan setakat itu, maruah mangsa dan keluarga mangsa juga telah dikoyak-rabakkan dengan melabelkan mangsa sebagai pelacur, agen CIA dan seumpamanya. Bahkan, dalam kes ini Menteri Wanita mesti memberikan penegasan bahawa: Adakah jika kerana seorang wanita itu pelacur maka apa jua bentuk tindakan ke atas mereka wajar termasuklah jika mereka dibunuh dengan senjata api terkawal di bawah Kementerian Pertahanan?
DMPP sangat berdukacita kerana sehingga kini kementerian yang menjaga hal ehwal wanita, keluarga dan masyarakat terus sahaja membisu daripada membuat pendirian rasmi terhadap kes yang membabitkan maruah dan keadilan serta kemanusiaan seorang wanita yang bernama Altantuya Shaariibuu.
Akhirnya, DMPP berharap agar rakyat negara ini dan rakyat negara Mongolia tetap tidak jemu untuk terus mengikuti perbicaraan bagi kes ini secara kritis untuk kita sama-sama memastikan keadilan dapat ditegakkan. Sebelum ini, tidak pernah terlintas di benak kita betapa jenayah yang begitu kejam ini akan berlaku di dalam negara Malaysia. Lebih memalukan bila senjata pembunuhan yang digunakan pula merupakan senjata api TERKAWAL di bawah Kementerian Pertahanan Malaysia. Atas realiti fakta senjata pembunuhan itu, DMPP mendesak agar Menteri yang bertanggungjawab terhadap Kementerian ini SEGERA MELETAKKAN JAWATAN! Demikian juga desakan yang sama ditujukan kepada pihak/individu yang sewajarnya berperanan dalam memastikan pengawalan senjata tersebut tetapi telah GAGAL dalam menjalankan tanggung jawabnya.
Hormat Daripada,
DEWAN MUSLIMAT PAS PUSAT
AIMAN ATHIRAH AL JUNDI
Setiausaha
Aiman Athirah Al Jundi
Sat Apr 26, 08 2:23:27 pm MYT
DMPP mengutuk sekeras-kerasnya pembunuhan kejam ke atas seorang pelancong asing yang juga boleh disifatkan sebagai "tetamu negara" dari Mongolia, Altantuya Shaariibuu. DMPP berpendapat bahawa perbicaraan bagi kes ini sewajarnya disegerakan, berbanding sekarang yang ditangguh-tangguh oleh pihak mahkamah atas alasan terlalu banyak kes lain, seperti yang didakwa oleh bapa mangsa, Dr Shaariibuu Setev baru-baru ini.
DMPP memandang serius dan sangat tersentuh dengan kenyataan daripada bapa Altantuya yang telah datang ke Malaysia baru-baru ini bahawa beliau datang demi kemanusiaan dan bukannya kerana wang atau menuntut sebarang ganti rugi.
DMPP juga menginsafi bahawa ia jelas menampakkan kehampaan dan hilangnya kepercayaan seorang ayah yang selama ini telah berusaha untuk mendapatkan keadilan terhadap satu-satunya zuriat keturunan beliau yang dibunuh secara kejam dalam Negara Malaysia yang dilabel sebagai Selamat, Aman & Makmur oleh PM dalam PRU-12 yang lepas.
Kes ini boleh disifatkan sebagai berprofail tinggi, punya kepentingan ramai serta kes pembunuhan paling berat kerana menguji bahkan mencabar integriti Malaysia di mata dunia khususnya terhadap sistem dan proses perjalanan keadilan dalam negara yang kita semua cintai ini.
Seluruh rakyat dari dua negara yang terlibat sedang memberi tumpuan terhadap perjalanan dan kesudahannya. Kes ini bukanlah kes biasa. Ketua Hakim Negara, Peguam Negara dan Ketua Polis Negara wajar memberikan prioriti tertinggi bagi menyelesaikan polemik ini secara telus, amanah, beretika, bijaksana dan professional.
DMPP menggesa agar ketiga-tiga entiti keadilan yang penting ini tidak membiarkan apa jua unsur mahupun ruang yang akan menghalang mereka daripada menjalankan tugas sejujur yang boleh kerana natijah bagi kejujuran dan kebijaksanaan merekalah yang akan membawa kesudahan paling memuaskan hati semua pihak khususnya yang menjadi mangsa tindakan kejam "pembunuh berkuasa" dalam negara ini. Iaitu bila semua yang terlibat dalam konspirasi pembunuhan ini dijatuhi hukuman paling berat dan pihak yang menjadi mangsa diberikan keadilan paling wajar.
Jika sebelum ini atau sekarang ini kerajaan Malaysia di bawah kepimpinan Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi berani untuk membuat permohonan maaf secara terbuka kepada keluarga Altantuya dan Kerajaan Mongolia di atas apa yang berlaku yakni pembunuhan dan segala bentuk tuduhan memalukan ke atas Altantuya dan keluarganya, dan Jika sekiranya kerajaan Malaysia dapat berjanji untuk memberi tumpuan utama terhadap penyelesaian kes ini; saya yakin dan percaya bahawa ia suatu yang sangat positif dan dapat mengurangkan beban perasaan yang ditanggung oleh keluarga mangsa, rakyat dan kerajaan Mongolia selama ini. Malangnya, tindakan diplomatik sebegitu dilihat gagal dibuat secara bijaksana oleh pihak kerajaan khususnya Perdana Menteri sendiri.
DMPP menginsafi bahawa tindakan diplomatik itu wajar disegerakan. Pendekatan negara yang melayan mangsa dan keluarga mangsa sebagai pihak yang seolah-olah tidak bermaruah, rendah moral, dan bersalah dengan membiarkan beberapa pihak seperti media massa yang mengaitkan Altantuya sebagai Pelacur dan seumpamanya harus dihentikan dan diambil tindakan.
Sudah sampai masanya keluarga mangsa diberikan sambutan dan layanan sebagai "tetamu negara" dan bukannya sebagai musuh kepada mana-mana pihak atau individu yang berkuasa dalam negara ini. Kerajaan Malaysia wajib menerima mereka dengan akhlaq dan adab Islam.
Jelas, terdapat banyak keraguan bagi kes ini kerana seperti yang umum telah tahu bahawa kaedah pembunuhan mangsa adalah melibatkan penggunaan senjata api yang terkawal di bawah Kementerian Pertahanan Malaysia. Hatta, kehilangan rekod kemasukan yakni maklumat imegresen mangsa ke dalam Negara ini meskipun saudara beliau mengesahkan bahawa mereka telah memasuki Malaysia dengan cara yang sah, jelas menimbulkan keraguan bersebab munasabah yang sangat kuat bahawa di sana terdapatnya unsur-unsur konspirasi dan komplot terancang.
DMPP juga mencabar Menteri Pembangunan Wanita, Keluarga dan Masyarakat yang baru iaitu YB Dato' Ng Yen Yen agar menyatakan pendirian kemanusiaan terhadap kes ini kerana ia melibatkan seorang wanita yang menjadi mangsa pembunuhan paling zalim. Bukan setakat itu, maruah mangsa dan keluarga mangsa juga telah dikoyak-rabakkan dengan melabelkan mangsa sebagai pelacur, agen CIA dan seumpamanya. Bahkan, dalam kes ini Menteri Wanita mesti memberikan penegasan bahawa: Adakah jika kerana seorang wanita itu pelacur maka apa jua bentuk tindakan ke atas mereka wajar termasuklah jika mereka dibunuh dengan senjata api terkawal di bawah Kementerian Pertahanan?
DMPP sangat berdukacita kerana sehingga kini kementerian yang menjaga hal ehwal wanita, keluarga dan masyarakat terus sahaja membisu daripada membuat pendirian rasmi terhadap kes yang membabitkan maruah dan keadilan serta kemanusiaan seorang wanita yang bernama Altantuya Shaariibuu.
Akhirnya, DMPP berharap agar rakyat negara ini dan rakyat negara Mongolia tetap tidak jemu untuk terus mengikuti perbicaraan bagi kes ini secara kritis untuk kita sama-sama memastikan keadilan dapat ditegakkan. Sebelum ini, tidak pernah terlintas di benak kita betapa jenayah yang begitu kejam ini akan berlaku di dalam negara Malaysia. Lebih memalukan bila senjata pembunuhan yang digunakan pula merupakan senjata api TERKAWAL di bawah Kementerian Pertahanan Malaysia. Atas realiti fakta senjata pembunuhan itu, DMPP mendesak agar Menteri yang bertanggungjawab terhadap Kementerian ini SEGERA MELETAKKAN JAWATAN! Demikian juga desakan yang sama ditujukan kepada pihak/individu yang sewajarnya berperanan dalam memastikan pengawalan senjata tersebut tetapi telah GAGAL dalam menjalankan tanggung jawabnya.
Hormat Daripada,
DEWAN MUSLIMAT PAS PUSAT
AIMAN ATHIRAH AL JUNDI
Setiausaha
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Media Alternatif Malaysia
Media perdana Malaysia, samaada media cetak atau media letronik adalah media UMNO. Oleh yang demikian adalah membuang wang membelinya atau membuang masa menontonnya kerana seperti UMNO, media-media ini dikendalikan oleh pembohong yang cekap menipu rakyat.
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