Lost Malaysian Hopes and the Pakatan Catch 22

April 10, 2019

by Murray Hunter

http://www.asisentinel.com

It took the Malaysian opposition more than a generation to topple the Barisan Nasional government, led by the now-discredited United Malays National Organization. Throughout mosques, coffee shops and markets in Malaysia, there has been an atmosphere of hope and anticipation by many for change that goes all the way back to when Mahathir Mohamed dismissed Anwar Ibrahim as deputy prime minister back in 1998 and jailed him in a trial regarded universally as trumped up.

From that day on Anwar Ibrahim became synonymous for reform in Malaysia. The charismatic opposition leader, from jail and out, managed to unite a wide diversity of NGOs and most of the opposition parties against the Barisan. But it took 20 years and reports by the Sarawak Report, the Wall Street Journal, Asia Sentinel and others to expose what is now known as the 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal which tainted Prime Minister Najib Razak as a complete crook and his wife as a grasping harridan. Najib shut down critical parts of the local media and sacked the Attorney General before charges could be laid against him.

Mahathir, in quasi-private life through two administrations, once again mobilized forces to remove Najib, creating Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (PPBM) with the help of defectors from UMNO and joining the Pakatan Harapan coalition led from prison by his nemesis Anwar.

The 2018 election became a Mahathir-vs-Najib contest, where Najib was almost universally expected to hold onto power. There seemed to be an air of disillusionment with the electoral process and apathy during the campaign. However, voter turnout was more than 82 percent. The Pakatan Harapan coalition defeated Najib, who was prevented from fleeing the country in a private aircraft for Indonesia. The surprised public instantaneously became euphoric, celebrating in the streets. Many Malaysians believed they would now get the reform and change they had long hoped for.

The Pakatan Catch 22

However, the defeat of the Barisan exposed a very complex electorate. Different groups of voters made their decisions for different reasons. Non-Malays saw the removal of the Barisan as the end of a dark apartheid era in which every citizen would be regarded as equal, as was promised by sections of the Harapan manifesto. In contrast, many urban, professional and middle-class Malays hoped that Mahathir would clean up the mess the country was in. Voters in rural Malaysia, particularly in Kelantan and Terengganu, didn’t switch at all. They went to the rural Islamist Parti Islam se-Malaysia, or PAS. The small northern state of Perlis remained staunchly Barisan.

There is now a deep polarization in the Malaysian electorate between those who want a Malaysian Malaysia and those who want a Malay Malaysia. This is a massive dilemma for the reform government.

A major part of the electorate sees reform as a threat to special privileges that they have received since the advent of the New Economic Policy, an affirmative action policy for the Malay majority, in 1971. Three generations of education and political narrative have created this sense of privilege, which is deeply engrained in rural Malays. These sentiments are being played upon politically to the point where the government has had to stall decisions about child marriage and reverse its decision to ratify the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD).

In addition, the Pakatan government is being subjected to pressure from sections of the Malaysian royalty, which led to the reversal in ratifying the Rome Statute, a prelude to joining the International Criminal Court, and the resignation of Johor Chief Minister Osman Sapian.

The government now faces a situation in which any future policy decisions and reforms must be framed from a Bumiputera perspective and agreed in royal circles. This is particularly the case as the government is extremely slow with any electoral reform, which would effectively weaken opposition to policy reform, through adopting the principle of “one vote, one value.”  Without electoral reform, any policy reversals will favor the newly formed UNMO-PAS alliance with its narrative pandering to the rural Malay electorate.

The Pakatan government needs to very quickly undertake electoral reform to counter the strength of the conservative electorate. Currently, a rural vote can be worth anything up to four times an urban one. It is this imbalance that is providing UMNO-PAS with a powerful base from which to prevent the government from pushing through any reform agenda.

However, the latest news on electoral reform is that the Election Commission and UNDP will only make a joint study about the electoral system in the coming months, far too long for something that is threatening the very long-term livelihood of the government.

More of the same

With this inaction on electoral reform, it could be argued that the May 9 general election was not about vital reform needed in the country, but rather replacing one leadership group with another. In many respects, the Pakatan government is acting just like its predecessor. The reform report handed down by the Council of Eminent Persons (CEP) has been suppressed by the Official Secrets Act, indicating the new government doesn’t place a high priority on transparency.

The Sedition Act has not been repealed and is in fact being used to prosecute political opponents. The Anti-Corruption Agency (MACC) still cannot decide who to prosecute independently. Cabinet ministers have had corruption charges quickly dismissed against them. Political appointees are still being appointed to government-linked companies and statutory bodies.

Mahathir’s Parti Bersatu and Parti Keadilan Rakyat, the two Malay parties in the Pakatan Harapan coalition, both strongly resemble UMNO right down to the internal politics and squabbles. With defectors from UMNO freely running across to Parti Bersatu, the parties are looking more like a new UMNO.

In defense of the Pakatan Government, Mahathir has worked hard to form an operational government from a broad group of parties. However many within the cabinet are very inexperienced, and there is a strong sense of inertia and apathy coming from the largely ethnic Malay civil service, with stories of sabotage against the new government.

Even with Mahathir back in power, changing institutions that have been inefficiently built and harboring wasteful cronies of the previous government is very difficult. However, what is sad to see is that many of these cronies are still being reappointed to positions of power.

The old guard still is very clearly in charge of the new government, which has a “back to the future” quality about it. Old rivalries continue. The Anwar-Mahathir power struggle continues from the 1990s. Gamesmanship seems to be a trademark of the new government. There are many disappointed with not being given plumb jobs and important positions within the new administration.

Consequently, the Pakatan ministry is more of a transition than reform one. The country must mark time until Anwar takes over from Mahathir to become prime minister.  The country is waiting for someone who currently has no position in government. The country is waiting for someone they don’t really know very well.

Anwar Ibrahim was the education minister who introduced Malay medium at schools, which many claimed was a major setback to the country’s education system. Anwar advocated IMF intervention in the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Anwar is well known for saying different things to different audiences.

From Anwar’s actions and stands taken over the years, he seems to be more a pragmatist rather than a visionary leader. Most of the policies he has advocated are populist, even though they may not be in Malaysia’s best interests such as the abolition of the goods and services tax that Najib put in place, denying the government a critical source of revenue, and maintenance of fuel subsidies. Anwar’s politics have been high in gamesmanship at a time the country really needs to get down and focus on the social, economic, financial, and institutional problems facing it.

As a sideshow, Najib, still active despite charges against him for looting 1MDB, is looking for a political solution to his problems rather than a legal one. Current electoral demographics favor him. The UMNO-Pas alliance will enable Najib to skillfully exploit the insular side of the electorate. The Pakatan government’s mistakes have shown up electorally in the last two by-election results.

Najib also knows, if he can say out of jail, that he will not be facing Mahathir in the next election. Most probably he will be facing Anwar, who has made many strategic blunders over the years in election campaigns.

Malaysians are very quickly losing hope in their new government, especially with the Malay-Malaysian narratives that are creeping into the arena. With the Pakatan government waiting for its new leader and its current leader going back to his old policies of the 1980s and 90s with flying cars, the Singapore aggravation, looking East, privatization and a secretive executive government, real economic and market reforms are not on the agenda, even though some of these reforms are very doable.

Institutionalized discrimination appears to be strengthening rather than being eliminated. The new narratives Pakatan members talked about during the election have all disappeared. The national mindset is going back to an insular view of the world.

Murray Hunter (murrayhunter58@gmail.com) is a development specialist and longtime contributor to Asia Sentinel

 

Why Najib keeps delaying his trials

March 21, 2019

www. malaysiakini.com

Opinion  |  James Chai

Published: 20 Mar 2019, 10:26 am  |  Modified: 20 Mar 2019, 10:26 am

 

COMMENT | It’s obvious what Najib (above) is trying to accomplish: do whatever it takes to avoid prison.

Delaying tactics is one of the ways to do that. No matter what we say about them, Shafee Abdullah and his legal team are experienced lawyers who have the law and procedure in the palms of their hands. They know enough of the flaws within the legal system and its weakness in dispensing justice.

Thus far, the four appeals relating to the withdrawal of the prosecution’s certificate of transfer; gag order to prohibit media from discussing the merits of the case; recovery of documents; and the appointment of Sulaiman Abdullah as lead prosecutor all could amount to delaying tactics.

Although these appeals are permitted by the law, they sit uncomfortably in the grey area of whether they are truly important and necessary to protect the accused’s right or they are simply delaying tactics.

My opinion is these are delaying tactics because delaying the trial is profitable for Najib.

In fact, delaying is the only viable option.

Delay trial, delay prison

Firstly, the straightforward conclusion is that delaying trial would delay the eventual conviction. Delaying a day is allowing another day for Najib to negotiate his political survival with the public.

To this end, Najib has been successful in orchestrating a comedic troll machine online that is targeted at making fun of the government. His social media team is creating content that would incite disapproval of the existing government. However fleeting and half-hearted this support is, at least it provides Najib with a lifeline to his political career.

Delay makes prosecution weaker

Secondly, delaying makes sense in a criminal trial because it almost inevitably makes the defence’s case stronger and the prosecution’s case weaker.

In all criminal trials, the courts will try to expedite the trial because the consequences of a criminal trial (fine and/or prison) are much greater than in a civil (non-criminal) case. If a criminal trial could run as soon as possible, then the evidence is more likely to be intact and the witnesses’ memories are likely to still be fresh.

However, there is a bind. It is also precisely because the consequences of a criminal trial to an accused are significantly more drastic than a civil trial, that the court would be more open to the accused’s request for time and appeal applications. This is especially so in a high-profile case that carries significant punishment like Najib’s, where the court would want to avoid accusations of bias against the accused.

That is why the defence would attempt to make every excuse to either extract more information from the prosecution to build their own case, or to drag out the legal process. None of these methods is illegal or impermissible, but they are irksome and maddening to people.

Escaping prison

Thirdly, the most positive outcome for Najib is that delaying may mean escaping prison altogether—his best-case scenario.

We are approaching the end of March 2019 and the trial is not even close to starting. It is not surprising if Shafee (above) and his legal team successfully delay the trial for a few more weeks, even months, so that the earliest start date ends up around May 2019.

That will be one year since the PH coalition came into power.

What this means is that if Najib could drag it out long enough that the trial only starts then, he has a very good chance of not having a court decision until the end of the PH term as government. This is especially when each criminal trial contains voluminous charges and documents that require in-depth exploration of the evidence and submissions that will inevitably use up a lot of time.

It is likely that Najib’s tradition of using a full 5-year term before calling a general election would not be continued by the PH government. This means the next general election is likely to be around 2022.

If Najib could drag it out long enough for each trial, and the subsequent appeal processes in the Court of Appeal and Federal Court, there may be a chance there is no decision before the 2022 general election.

And if the PH coalition had not performed well and gets punished in the 2022 general election with Najib’s Barisan Nasional coalition returning to power, Najib may escape prison.

Although theoretically, the judiciary is independent of the executive, the constitutional subordination of the judiciary since 1988, and the repeated history of controlling and fixing judicial decisions make a “Najib escape” not unlikely.

Even if Najib does end up in prison before the next general election, he may go in as a martyr if the delaying tactic works. The delay would have bought the opposition enough time to build themselves as a credible alternative, and for the PH government to under-perform enough that Najib’s social media hype might translate into real support. That makes a prison term less painful for Najib.

Of course, this is just my hypothesis. But a hypothesis may come true.

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JAMES CHAI works at a law firm. E-mail him at jameschai.mpuk@gmail.com.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

 

 

 

Who delayed the trial? Not my dog

March 15,2019

by Muhammad Shafee Abdullah

https://www.malaysiakini.com/news/467815

COMMENT | On March 10, I was at my home in Bukit Tunku where I have one matured guard dog of mixed breed. Six months ago, I acquired another mixed breed, this time a puppy (now about 10-months-old) intending that it would be a fully-trained guard dog, as having one guard dog without a second one for any eventuality would be unwise.

I trust guard dogs more than human guards. Even my security guards think the same way, as they rely on my guard dogs to secure the compound while manning the guard houses and the gates. I have a professional dog trainer, a former police K-9 unit personnel trained by the FBI.

Although still a puppy, my dog is bigger than most adult dogs of his breed and extremely strong, fast and cunning. He is very playful as one would expect of a dog that age. When I come up to my house, he stands erect on his hind legs unsupported, even for as long as a minute, without moving.

On that day, the dog was let loose in the outer compound. When he saw me, he became excited and rushed towards me playfully, but I was not expecting this. I was careless and lost my balance and fell squarely on my left arm. I felt no pain even several hours later.

However, that night, I felt my left hand stiffening. At first, I thought nothing of it, believing it must be due to working hard in preparing for the appeals at the Court of Appeal on Monday and Tuesday.

I requested my Indonesian employee to massage my hand. He did so as I conducted discussions regarding the appeals in my library in the presence of at least five of my lawyers until about 1am on March 11. I went back home at about 4.30am, and there was no significant change in the feeling of stiffness.

Perhaps, the massage could have exacerbated the latent injury and the next morning, I felt pain when doing routine things.

I began to have more pain at the COA hearing on the first day (March 11), but it was not something that I could not bear. In any case, I alerted the COA of my possible delay the next morning, as I had to attend to a significant mention of Samirah Chandra Muzaffar’s case at the Shah Alam High Court due to some troubling developments.

At that time, my left hand was not an issue. But that night, I felt a throbbing pain and my wife noticed a significant swelling on the upper side of the left hand.

I could not sleep that night so I attempted to read my preparations for the second day at the COA, but the pain became worse and the swelling grew to half the size of a tennis ball. The pain was so severe I concluded that I must have fractured my hand from the fall.

I went to the court in Shah Alam early in the morning on March 12 and on the way, arranged for an orthopedic specialist at the Columbia Hospital in Shah Alam to have a look at my hand. But the timing was not conducive, so I had to rush to the Shah Alam Court, where the matter ended at 10.15am.

When I arrived in Putrajaya at the COA, my associate lawyer, Harvinderjit Singh, was shocked to see the swelling on my hand and told me to immediately go to the hospital.

Initially, my plan was to complete parts of the appeal in the morning and then head to the hospital either during lunch break or in the late afternoon after the case. I have a high threshold for pain, and I thought I could complete the submission before seeking treatment. But my team were concerned and advised me to seek an adjournment of the fourth appeal to the next day.

Consulted orthopedic specialist

When the court started, we applied for the fourth appeal, which was mostly my submission, not to be undertaken on that day as I needed immediate medical treatment. The attorney-general did not object to us doing the submission within the same week, but not Thursday (March 14) as he would be engaged with the Johor sultan.

Friday, on the other hand, was too short (considering Friday prayers) so we settled for Wednesday. Everything was agreed to when I left the COA leaving Harvinderjit to tend the fort. But what I did not know was that after I had left, all parties, including the court, decided that Friday would be a better option for the hearing of the appeal.

As I had a little more time, I went to consult my regular orthopaedic specialist at the Tung Shin Hospital in Pudu.

The specialist was kind enough to wait for me. Immediately upon examination, he was of the opinion that there could be a fracture. But thank God, the X-ray revealed otherwise.

It was massive soft tissue and blood capillaries injury causing significant internal bleeding that accounted for the tennis ball-like swelling and pain. I was given medication and medical leave up to Friday. But I would be attending court as I did this morning, tomorrow and Friday at the COA.

As you can see, we are not delaying the trial notwithstanding exigent circumstances.

Who delayed this trial? Consider the below honestly, and tell me who is the culprit.

The SRC International trial was fixed commencing from February 12, 2019 to March 29, 2019. But the AG decided at the eleventh hour to add three new additional charges under the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001 (Amla) at the trial court on Jan 28, 2019.

This was hardly two weeks from the trial without giving us the benefit of an earlier notice, especially as this would significantly change the trial dynamics, components and programmes.

A decent AG would give us an early notice so that we could offer an opinion if the three new charges could be jointly tried with the seven existing SRC charges on January 28 itself. If he had given us notice, we would not have to ask for time to consider this suggestion by the public prosecutor on January 28.

We also realised that there could be a serious problem in the mode of charging the three additional charges as they sneakily preferred the charges at the High Court itself calling them “charge 4, 5 and 6” without going through the lower court, as these new charges are trilable by the Sessions Court and need a special legal transfer mechanism for the charges to be transferred to the existing SRC High Court. Any chambering student in a criminal based practice would know this.

Anyway, Justice Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali, realising we were unnecessarily taken by surprise, adjourned the matter for further consideration on February  7, just after Chinese New Year. Ask yourself who caused this delay?

As usual, we prepared tirelessly for the submission on Feb 7 in spite of the Chinese New Year and the need to prepare for the main trial starting imminently on Feb 12.

But, lo and behold, the AG personally turned up this time on Februry 7 to give us further shocking news for further concern.

An attempt to sabotage?

First, he said, to avoid troubling the court deciding on the joinder of charges, he was withdrawing the three new charges. What? Is this really happening? Why didn’t he have the decorum to tell us earlier so that we did not have to waste countless red-eyed days and nights preparing the arguments on the joinder?

We complained. Was this an attempt to sabotage by taking us away from preparing the main case? In any case, the statement by the AG that the new charges were withdrawn to save the court time in deciding about the joinder was not frank, as the real reason for the withdrawal was the AG had realised the blunder his office had made in the way he proferred the three additional charges directly at the High Court. This is having blunder and arrogance all together.

Now tell me honestly who caused this unnecessary waste of time and delay?

But that is not all. The AG, out of the blue, suddenly realised and told the court that as a result of two Federal Court decisions, two years and one year earlier respectively, he had second thoughts about the constitutionality of his transfer certificates under Section 418(A) of the Criminal Procedure Code and Section 60 of Amla and the transfer of all the seven charges of SRC cases to the High Court. But hang on, didn’t the AG say constitutional law is his forte?

The AG withdrew all the transfer certificates and literally told the judge that the SRC cases be reverted to the Sessions Court. This is now the subject of appeal on Friday.

Friday is also the subject of whether the judge can flip the AG’s transfer into his own initiated transfer without moving the cases physically to the Sessions Court first (as suggested by the AG himself) and bring them back to the same court.

To let a decision such as this stand would have serious consequences. This decision not only applies to Najib Abdul Razak, but literally everyone who is facing the criminal justice system in Malaysia. These are serious issues that would be dealt with at the COA.

This has never happened before in our country nor in the Commonwealth. A huge issue for determination by the COA is whether a trial if proceeded upon could be declared a nullity and my client could be the victim of a retrial.

Now would it not delay things further for everyone concerned if a retrial is ordered down the line? That is the reason the other coram of the COA granted a stay of the SRC trial until final determination of the appeal. The merit of the appeals is to be determined soon.

Now tell me who caused the delay?

Further among the four appeals is also our claim that we and the court must be given a copy of the fiat to prosecute of Sulaiman Abdullah (and by same arguments in another case involving Gopal Sri Ram).

We need this innocuous document which nevertheless provides the basis for the “fit and proper person” test for us to challenge the appointment if it is called for. Since 1938, our system and all the Commonwealth have provided for inspection fiats of this sort including when I became the prosecutor in Anwar Ibrahim’s Sodomy 2 appeals.

Ironically, the AG initially classified the fiat as an official secret (OSA) which was the excuse provided by Sulaiman in the High Court when he refused to provide the written fiat of his appointment. The AG dropped another bombshell by saying he was not relying on the official secret, and that it was just a “red herring,” and there was never an issue of OSA to begin with.

A red herring? From the mouth of the AG in court? Whose red herring? The AG’s red herring? Why did he mislead us yet again? We prepared a monumental amount of work on the OSA.

Now tell us honestly, after reading this and the facts available, who is causing the delay of the SRC trial.

One has to be as blind as a bat or as deaf as a doornail not to see or hear clearly that it is the Attorney-General’s Chambers which is delaying the trial by raising new things almost on the eve of the SRC trial.

READ THIS: https://www.malaysiakini.com/columns/467873 by Mariam Mokhtar

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MUHAMMAD SHAFEE ABDULLAH is the lawyer for former premier Najib Abdul Razak.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

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cakap ( Talk), cakap( Talk) : As a blogger, I have failed.

January 26, 2019

By Hussein Abdul Hamid|Saturday, January 26th, 2019|Categories: FEATURED, IN MIND, NATION|Tags: cakap caqkap, the state of our nation

• View Larger Image

If you do not trust nor believe the words of Tun Mahathir, Azizah, Anwar Ibrahim, Lim Kit Siang and LGE, who then can you believe? Who then can you trust?

If you just had a King abdicate after he had married a Russian beauty queen and abdicate for reasons that ran the gauntlet of being a drug and sex addict, to a King beholden (or more appropriately, held to ransom) by the previous BN government who had plied him with much cash and closed one eye to all of his human failings….how else, you may ask yourself, can you expect the other Royals to misbehave?

If you had already endured a BN government that had taken you for fools and idiots in the manner they do government and you are now facing the real prospect of this Pakatan Harapan government also taking you down the same garden path as BN did…surely, you should by now, start to ask yourself, what else is there to come.

And just as you think there may be some hope in the integrity and independence of the Judiciary and all those whom have been appointed and anointed to do just that….we are confronted by the images of these same individuals thumbing their noses at the very adage that they must be familiar with “That justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done,” as we are confronted with images of these very same individuals from the highest judicial office in Malaysia  doing what is not very “judicious”….letting their hair down in public. For sure you can argued that it was a closed gathering but surely these August Judicial Officers must be aware that Chua Soi Lek thought that what he was doing in the confines of a hotel room would remain in the confines of that Hotel room…alas he was wrong. These judicial officials must not forget that at all times, they must carry themselves with decorum and with grace less they become suspect in the eyes of the rakyat as being complicit with the powers that be in taking the judiciary down to their level.

 

Increasingly we are being confronted by disturbing images and the juvenile deeds of high public officials. Everyday we hear of, and read about little Napoleons in position of little or no authority pushing their weight around by being arrogant, overbearing, uncaring and unable to emphatize and sympathize with the plight of the rakyat trying to eke out a decent living in very trying circumstances.

All these and more, day by day, is becoming a crushing burden on the rakyat as this Pakatan Harapan government asks, nay demands, that you and I must pikul this crushing burden for God knows how long more. There is no end in sight! A burden the Rakyat seems unwilling and unable to shoulder even for another single day…what more for another week, a month or even years.

Something has to give!

The distinguishing feature that has defined the Barisan Nasional government and now, this Pakatan Harapan government is DIVISIVENESS.

Both BN and PH leadership are guilty of not attempting to bring the nation together in their decision making process. BN and PH found it politically expedient to divide the nation at the expense of social cohesion to achieve the own vested political ends. This pattern of divisiveness is a recurring factor that has distinguish each and every prime minister after Tunku. It is the preferred MO of politicians in and out of government that they exploit to win elections. What we now have is a damaged nation, a divided nation as reflected in the truths of religious and racial divide that we now have in Malaysia today.

The proliferation and exponential growth of social media means that Malaysians no longer remain ignorant of this truth. Politicians can no longer hope that Malaysians hear no evil, see no evil and think therefore that there is no evil…..and yet sadly, they still do! We all know the truth about the recent abdication of the Agong. We all know he married a Russian beauty before this Pakatan Harapan told us. We know that a South American guy by the name of Marco walks in and out of the palace as the supplier of the coke that this Agong partakes in. When will this Pakatan Harapan government tells us of this?

This PH government cannot have its cake and eat it. Tun Mahathir or no Tun Mahathir, we have yet to see PH show any intent to break the mould of toxic leadership that has defined the sad state of politics in Malaysia ever since UMNO reign supreme.  

What is about to give is my patience, my once stoic acceptance that our political leaders knows what is best for us and certainly my unquestioning loyalty to race and religion. I now understand that things are not just black and white….that there are shades of grey. And for me, that is how I write. I cannot be honest with myself if I do not offer some honest reflections on the things that I care about.

And so I give notice to those who read what I write…come with me on this journey that we must all embark.

Thinking of what is to come and what we, collectively and individually have to do on this journey is daunting but if we do not do our duty for Malaysia, who else will? If the longevity of any blogger is a measure of their success then having blogged for over a decade, I am a success…but  if I look around me today at the state of our nation, then any success I may claim falls away significantly. I have blogged for social cohesion amongst all Malaysians. I have blogged for good, open and responsible government. I have blogged for racial and religious tolerance….and none of these things that I have blogged can, in all seriousness, been said to have been achieved nor possible in the Malaysia that we now know. So as a blogger I have failed. You must now ask yourself, if, as a Malaysian, you too have failed to achieve those things that matters to you. If your aspiration as the same as mine, then we both have failed.

What do we now do next?

……to be continued. 

 

 

Najib, still the man?

January 25, 2019

//www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opinion/2019/01/25/najib-still-the-man/

 

Najib Razak is certainly a man on a mission (decommission). He seems intent on trying to revive his standing by convincing his base that he was unfairly demonised by Pakatan Harapan (PH) and unjustly tarnished by the 1MDB scandal. His efforts appear to be showing some results; he was mobbed by villagers in Sg. Koyan and elsewhere in Cameron Highlands recently when he campaigned there on behalf of Barisan Nasional (BN).

And it was not just Cameron Highlands. In the last few months, despite multiple corruption charges hanging over his balding head, he has been more visible and more vocal than many PH leaders, dishing out advice, skilfully exploiting local grievances and hammering away at PH’s perceived failures. He even managed to steal the show at the Thaipusam celebrations at Batu Caves.

He’s also proving adept at taking credit for everything good and blaming PH for everything bad, never mind that PH is struggling to clean up the colossal mess he himself left behind. But memories are short and the more gullible are already pining for “the good old days” under Najib.

In Cameron Highlands, he even had the audacity to tell voters, “Don’t allow them [PH] to cheat us… don’t trust them… how long do we want them to continue cheating us?” And this from the man who stands accused of cheating the people of Malaysia of billions of ringgits!

Down but not out

Clearly, Najib may be down but he is not yet.

If he succeeds in convincing the Malay-Muslim electorate, in particular, that he is but a victim of a political vendetta or worse still, a non-Malay conspiracy (something that unfortunately all too many will be quick to believe), his influence will only grow.

After all, nothing can be ruled out in politics; if Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Anwar Ibrahim can rise again from the ashes, so can he.

Unlike other UMNO leaders who remain largely clueless, Najib understands that the UMNO brand and its formula of racial and religious exclusiveness still retains its appeal among many Malay-Muslim voters and can be weaponised against PH. He knows too that his only chance of avoiding serious jail time lies in UMNO regaining power.

The feudal mindset of many voters also works in Najib’s favour. They are often willing to overlook serious, even criminal shortcomings in a leader so long as he is perceived to have defended Malay rights. They remain eternally grateful to a leader for building a mosque here or a road there, or for giving them a pittance in handouts while he helps himself to millions from the public purse.

Court of public opinion

PH has focused on bringing Najib to justice via the courts for his alleged criminal misconduct. To that end, the government has painstakingly built what looks to be a strong legal case against him with multiple charges now pending in court.

Of course, it is absolutely necessary to bring Najib to justice for whatever crimes he may have committed. However, the legal process is often a slow and cumbersome one and the outcome is by no means a foregone conclusion.

Nevertheless, the case against Najib is more than a legal one; it is a political one and must be fought and won in the court of public opinion as well.

PH must rise to the challenge

If PH ever hopes to win the support of Malay-Muslims, it must persuade them that they will be better off in every respect under a clean and responsible government led by PH than a corrupt one led by UMNO.

The full extent of the corruption and the abuse of power of the Najib administration and how it has hurt the Malays themselves must be emphasised. Just look at the substandard housing of FELDA settlers in the Cameron Highlands constituency and the hardship they still face; if corruption hadn’t robbed the nation of billions, their lives would undoubtedly be far different today.

Of necessity, this is a political campaign that can only be fought and won by PH’s Malay leadership. They must be more proactive in carrying the fight to the Malay heartland where support for UMNO and Najib remain strong. And not just during by-elections. Until PH has firmly established itself in the Malay heartland, it needs to be in continuous election mode.

PH’s Malay leadership must also take on Najib more directly. Najib is, after all, challenging their legitimacy to represent the Malays and they must confront him. It wouldn’t have escaped notice that it is Messrs Lim Kit Siang and Lim Guan Eng who are constantly attacking or refuting Najib while PH’s Malay leadership remains largely silent, even deferential at times. This has allowed Najib to argue that only DAP seems “obsessed” with attacking him, that this is somehow racially motivated.

The battle against Najib (and UMNO) for the allegiance of Malay-Muslim voters is PH’s biggest and most important challenge; if they don’t rise to it sooner than later, they might well be forfeiting the future of Malaysia Baru.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.

How can Malaysia become a developed nation? –Practise meritocracy

January 15, 2019

How can Malaysia become a developed nation?

–-Practise Meritocracy.

by Koon Yew Yin

January 15, 2019 12:29 PM

 

https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opinion/2019/01/15/how-can-malaysia-become-a-developed-nation/

2020

 

 

2020 will soon pass us by. 2050? Maybe. If we Practise Meritocracy

On June 12 last year, while delivering his keynote address at the 24th Nikkei Conference on the Future of Asia, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad said Malaysia could achieve developed nation status provided that the right policies were in place, and that Malaysians worked very hard.

When he stepped down as Prime Minister back in 2003, he believed that Malaysia could attain developed nation status by 2020. But the policies put in place were changed by the succeeding Prime Ministers. Even if we work extremely hard, we cannot achieve this by 2020. Maybe by 2025.

In 1970, when the New Economic Policy (NEP) was introduced, our GRP per capita was the same as Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea. After 49 years, the GDP per capita of these countries respectively is four, three and 2.5 times bigger than ours. These countries do not even have timber to build houses. They import almost everything.

At one time, we were the world’s biggest producer of tin, rubber and palm oil. We also had petroleum. Yet we could not become a developed nation. Why?

The biggest albatross was the implementation of the NEP. The policy of helping the Malays become competitive was very good, but it was poorly implemented.

Of late, many government officers including former Prime Minister Najib Razak have been charged with corruption over huge sums of money. Najib, as 1MDB chairman, had RM2.6 billion supposedly channeled into his personal account. He said it was a generous donation from the Saudi Royal Family.

Corruption is ruining Malaysia, which is now branded as one of the most corrupt countries in the world, worse than many countries in Africa.

My proposal: Practise Meritocracy.

Managing the country is like managing thousands of companies and conglomerates. Mahathir must appoint the best people as Ministers and Deputy Ministers, irrespective of race. If these leaders are really good, they would know how to make rules and regulations to help the people do better than before.

The government must always appoint the best people in its civil service. It must also practise meritocracy in promotions at all levels of management so that the whole machinery can operate efficiently.

This reminds me of an experience I had when I was on the Board of Directors of IJM Corporation Bhd. All the Directors were engineers, and our Chief Financial Officer was WHO practiseD meritocracy ( pic above Krishnan Tan). When we wanted to borrow huge sums of money from the bank for some projects and expansion, Krishnan suggested that a more effective and less costly way would be to issue irredeemable convertible unsecured loan stocks or ICULS.

As engineers, we did not know anything about ICULS. We all agreed that Krishnan was the best man to manage the company. So we appointed him as CEO in 1984. His management was so efficient that the company continued to make more and more profit every year. As a result, the company’s share price continued to climb. The current market capitalisation of IJM Corp is about RM12 billion.

The private sector knows how to practise meritocracy to make a profit. If the government also practises meritocracy, Malaysia will become a developed nation.

The key to success is to practise meritocracy.

Koon Yew Yin is a retired chartered civil engineer and one of the founders of IJM Corporation Bhd and Gamuda Bhd.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.