May 28, 2010
PKR must plumb for Quality
by Terence Netto (May 27, 2010)
PKR deputy president Senator Dr Syed Husin Ali today opened the Wanita and Youth divisions of the party with a call to create a leadership corps drawn from within a pool of cadres imbued with the highest ideals.
Speaking to a joint assembly of both wings of the party at the Kelantan Trade Centre in Kota Bharu tonight, the veteran politician said the process of creation of this leadership corps must be refined and closely monitored.
“This process must entail immersion in leadership training and party organisation courses and also require work among the masses such that the latter are geared towards organising and fighting for their rights,” said Syed Husin.
He said PKR did not require strength in numbers so much as quality of membership. “We need members who are of high quality from the standpoint of discipline, political awareness and involvement.
“We need members who understand, uphold and adhere to the basis of the party’s struggle to the point where they do not lose their compass even when they find themselves alone,” he said.
Giving no hint that this would be his last speech to a party assembly as deputy president, the former academician offered to help out in the process of leadership training, thus hedging the question of his intended retirement this year.
Syed Husin had earlier this year hinted that he would not defend his post at party elections scheduled to be held at a special assembly towards year’s end.
The hint raised fears of a potentially divisive contest for the deputy presidency that he has held since the party he led, Parti Rakyat Malaysia, merged with Parti Keadilan Nasional to form Parti Keadilan Rakyat in 2002.
Alluding to the issue of defections from PKR, a phenomenon that has marred the party’s image over the past year, Syed Husin told the assembly that he viewed the entire situation as a “cleansing process”.
He noted that every major political party in Malaysia had experienced the phenomenon of defections at various points in their history, observing that several had gone on to higher levels of strength and accomplishment.
Syed Husin said a sure way of preventing defections from the party was to marinate members in the party’s ideology.
Building blocks of party’s ideology
He acknowledged that PKR had yet to fully formulate an ideology because of what he described as its “rainbow” beginnings.
Syed Husin said the party was formed out of an assembly of members who originated from different political backgrounds, including some who had no previous experience of politics. He said this meant that many members with a political past found it difficult to trim their sails to fit PKR’s but that those without such a past were open to molding. Thus this made courses and training for members a matter of necessity.
Syed Husin said the party’s ideology should be formulated from the building blocks of its struggle for justice for all Malaysians.
He cited the building blocks as justice for all, concern for people’s welfare, forging a united nation, and promotion of moral and ethical values for national well-being. He said PKR could not go wrong if it held unswervingly firm to this basis of its struggle.
Din Merican: the Malaysian DJ Blogger 
Dr. Syed Husin,
Your party is made up of anarchists and failed socialists like you. They are good at being protestors, not at governing. Why you don’t deal firmly with the non-performing MB of Selangor before you start getting more ambitious? Stop dreaming, Senator, PKR will lose Selangor in 2013. Tan Sri Khalid cannot do his job.
The transformation process you want will be hampered by the lack of intellectual power, organisation, and finance. PKR is financially weak and it is the weakest link in Pakatan Rakyat. It is now common knowledge that it lacks an effective grassroots and HQ organisation, and there is nothing you can do to change that.
You also have to contend with Anwar, a man who cannot manage PKR. His big problem is his inability to organise himself. Furthermore, he is not able to focus on issues that resonate with the ordinary people. He is just a good fairy story teller (Pak Tembak).
Dear all,
Just to test your memory on Malaysian politicians? …. and what happened to them ? ……….NOTHING!!!! Thats Malaysian politics. But if the same issues were
to happen to someone from the opposition, gosh ………………..
General Knowledge Quiz
a.. The Chief Editor of a mainstream Malay newspaper who had an affair with a young girl while his wife lay paralysed in bed?
b.. The Chief Minister who eloped to Thailand to secretly marry his second wife?
c.. The Federal Minister who was caught with a female artiste in a Port Dickson hotel room?
d.. The Federal Minister whose brother was arrested for drug trafficking?
e.. The Federal Minister who had an affair with someone else’s wife that eventually resulted in a broken marriage?
f.. The Chief Minister who had an affair with someone else’s wife that eventually resulted in a broken marriage?
g.. The Chief Minister who had an affair with an under-aged girl which resulted in an illegitimate child?
h.. The Chief Minister who had an affair with a girl who eventually gave birth to an illegitimate child?
i.. The Chief Minister who kept an under-aged mistress at a condominium in Kuala Lumpur ?
j.. The religious leader who had an illicit affair and who is now holding a prominent position in a very important government religious body like the National Fatwa Council?
k.. The Chief Minister who had an affair with his sister-in-law who gave birth to an illegitimate child?
Answers: –
1. A Chief Editor of a mainstream newspaper who had an affair with a young girl while his wife lay paralysed in bed – Zam himself.
2. A Chief Minister who eloped to Thailand to secretly marry his second wife – Muhammad Mohd Taib (then Chief Minister of Selangor).
3. A Federal Minister who was caught with a female artiste in a Port Dickson hotel room – Najib Tun Razak (Defence Minister) and Ziana Zain.
4. A Federal Minister whose brother was arrested for drug trafficking – Muhyiddin Yassin.
5. A Federal Minister who had an affair with someone else’s wife that eventually resulted in a broken marriage – Ruhaini Ahmad.
6. A Chief Minister who had an affair with someone else’s wife that eventually resulted in a broken marriage – Muhammad Mohd Taib.
7. A Chief Minister who had an affair with an under-aged girl – Rahim Tambi Chik (then Melaka Chief Minister).
8. A Chief Minister who had an affair with a girl who eventually gave birth to an illegitimate child – Shahidan Kassim (Perlis Chief Minister).
9. A Chief Minister who kept an under-aged mistress at a condominium in Kuala Lumpur – Shahidan Kassim.
10. A religious leader who had an illicit affair and who is now holding a prominent position in a very important government religious body – Ismail Ibrahim of the National Fatwah Council.
11. A Chief Minister who had an affair with his sister-in-law who gave birth to an illegitimate child – Abu Hassan Omar (then Selangor Chief Minister).
From one of my Emails
Here’s the list of Aduns representing Umno and PAS respectively in the Kedah State Assembly. Check their academic credentials and ponder why Umno is able to make their political reps sign and dance to its tune.
UMNO Reps:
1. Rawi Abdul Hamid (SPM)
2. Ir. Nawawi Ahmad (Ijazah Kejuteraan)
3. Abu Hassan Sarif (SRP)
4. Ahmad Zaini Japar (SPM)
5. Saad Man (SPM)
6. Syed Sobri Syed Hashim (SPM)
7. Mahdzir Khalid (M.A. Pendidikan)
8. Ahmad Bashah Md Hanipah (SRP)
9. Suraya Yaacob (Ijazah Undang-undang)
10.Ku Rahman Ku Ismail (MBA)
11.Tajuddin Abdullah (SRP)
12.Azmi Che Hussein (Sijil Pendidikan)
PAS Reps:
Speaker: Dr Abd Isa Ismail (PhD Pengajian Islam)
1 MB Azizan Abdul Razak (Master in Law)
2. Abdul Ghani Ahmad (Master Pengajian Islam)
3. Ahmad Izzat Shauki (Master Pengajian Usuludin)
4. Md Roshidi Osman (Master Pengajian Islam)
5. Dr Ismail Salleh (Ijazah Perubatan)
6. Ir Amiruddin Hamzah (Ijazah Kejuteraan)
7. Mohd Nasir Mustafa (Sijil Tinggi Agama)
8. Ir Pahrolrazi Mohd Nawai (Ijazah Kejuteraan)
9. Mohamed Taulan Mat Rasul (Ijazah Undang-undang)
10.Yahaya Abdullah (Ijazah Pengajian Islam)
11. Dr Hamdan Mohamed Khalib (Ijazah Perubatan)
No wonder Umno can’t buy PAS politicians.
The difference between PAS and UMNO??
PAS writes their own song and tries to dance to it whereas UMNO is like that street peddler along a street in Queens, NYC trying to make a fast buck selling contraband in breach of intellectual property rights committed by others.
tan sri khalid managing selangor is how malaysia would be if dsai is prime minister?
air free?pasir curi?kompaun parking 500 juta tak payah collect? pkps tak ada duit lagi?kdeb habis 222 juta bayar kat syabas?
giler ke?
Tourman53,
In your description of the 11 Malaysians making it to the football team for the FIFA World Cup (No Tangkap) one of them is unfairly understated. That number 7 – had an affair??? It was a damn bloody RAPE. And someone else got the red card.
Who sodomized the ”flying coffee boy”?? Could that be the “flying monkey”.
Tourman53,
Bung ‘hole’ Mukthar will make them all appear like Mother Terresa
I think it’s high time for me to share some of Bung hole’s darkest secrets with Zaid Ibrahim since he is in the midst of compiling a list that’ll denote a series of scandals that of certain umno personalities , in his ‘hulu selangor’ retaliation bid!!
tourman53 – TELL US ALL, WHO IS THE EX-DPM WHO SODOMISE HIS PERSONAL DRIVER AND “THE FLYING COFFE BOY.” ?
The media reported his name as ILL HARM.
He wishes you ill but no harm done.
“PKR – to go for quality”
Isn’t it too late now?. The horses have already fled the barn or the froggies have already jump into a bigger pond or the big PKR fishes have now been hooked by UMNO.
PKR should consider adopting an ISO standards for political parties.
In order to have quality and accountability in PKR, cleansing and consolidation proses must be seen to be done at all level, from the highest to the lowest echelons in the leaderships hierarchy of the party, including those in the rank and file.
In addition to the leadership and organisational level training courses, providing a proper guideline together with a standard performance guidance should be part and parcel of the leadership resposibilities towards the next lower and upper echelons at all divisional and branches level. They must first be made to understand the leadership’s as well as their party aspirations and struggles before they could be asked to give their full commitments and loyalty to the party. Attending Annual conventions isn’t enough to bring about quality change in PKR.
By definition anarchists can’t fail, because they are beyond norms. There is nothing wrong being a socialist in religious or secular sense, but subscribing to rabid capitalism should be anathemized.
Progressive and holistic nation building requires a proper balance or tension between the two. PKR has not found the proper balance or formula. They have yet to come up with a strong sense of ‘what’ they really are; nor do they have a central doctrine by which they act or practice.
As for ISO standardization, semper fi – they can’t even get the Halal certification from Jakim. Won’t even mention ‘kosher’..
___________
Menyalak-er,
Balance is difficult to achieve. Many have tried and many have failed. Will PKR or BN succeed in the balancing exercise? One is either leaning towards capitalism (more capitalistic) or tending towards socialism (more socialistic). Pure capitalism and socialism are ideal states, reality is something else. Bulbir just commented on the same subject.—Din Merican
Dr. Syed Husin,
Why do I call you a failed socialist? Because you are propagating a system which is unworkable. Socialism is dead. 1989 was the year when the Berlin Wall came down, followed by the unification of Germany, the ensuing collapse of Eastern Europe and the dismantling of the USSR. Communists and socialists were discredited and even you were unelectable in Malaysia.
Now you are Senator which means you are a member of the equivalent of the British House of Lords, not a proletariat because Selangor under PKR nominated you.
Your ideas about social equality and justice, which were adopted in PKR 2008 Election Manifesto much to the chagrin of free market ideologues (Hayekians and Friedmanites) in PKR, are impractical and dated.The way PKR is governing Selangor does not give us ordinary citizens much comfort. Socialism will fail there too because the Menteri Besar himself is a die hard capitalist and a free market economist.
Good take, Bulbir. The vision is still clouded by incomprehensible do’s and dont’s. They would do well to learn from Angela Merkel’s way of doing things.
Yes. Balance is indeed difficult to achieve, Din.
The problem is that there is too little give and take amongst these flurs. A rational and inclusive set of values are needed in order to proceed. I alluded to this when I mentioned Merkel’s panache. Economic theories are fine, but they actually don’t work very well in terms of ‘distributism’.
DAP’s mantra is secularly socialist, while that of PAS is religiously so. Both have inbuilt mechanisms for free market forces. So what is PKR’s stand on this? They are sort of in Limbo, when it comes down to the nitty gritty. In fact, i see the similar/typical anachrostic knee-jerk reactions that the establishment excels in. Mana ada ‘thinking out of the box’?
It’s really a pity, because good, practical economists like you and Bulbir aren’t heard. It requires more common sense than they are able to dredge up.
“Socialism is dead” Bulbir.
Yes, the brand practised in the former Soviet Union may be discredited but socialism is very much on course to take centre stage especially after what we have seen happening to the “other” great system viz. free-market capitalism.
Far too early to write off socialism just yet… At the end of the day, the quest is for a just economic system.
The “command economy” has failed in the former USSR
and its former East European satellites.
So has “free market fundamentalism” in the USA.
Home foreclosures continue and there are plenty of unemployed people around. Right-wing populist groups like the Tea Party are making their appearance as a result.
It’s simplistic to say that “socialism” has failed and that
“capitalism” has succeeded. What variety of socialism and what variety of capitalism? There are all sorts of permutations and combinations e.g. capitalism in Singapore, in Japan, in Sweden. China’s economy combined with one party dictatorship (“socialism with Chinese characteristics”).
Are there alternatives? e.g. GDH Cole’s guild socialism, Tito’s market socialism, Mondragon co-operatives in Spain, economic systems like that of the Amish in Pensylvania and Indiana (largely self-sufficient, but producing small amounts for sale on the market outside their communities).
Not to mention the grave environmental crises our Earth is facing.