Archive for January, 2009

TIGA lagi ADUN Barisan Nasional dari Umno bakal mengikuti jejak langkah ADUN Bota, Nasarudin Hashim yang menyertai KeADILan Ahad lepas.

Perkara ini disahkan oleh Menteri Besar, Mohamad Nizar Jamaluddin ketika dihubungi Suara Keadilan.

Beliau berkata ketiga-tiga ADUN tersebut telah menemui beliau baru-baru untuk berbincang mengenai masalah yang dihadapi mereka selaku wakil rakyat di kawasan masing-masing termasuk kemungkinan keluar Umno.

“Mereka ada berjumpa saya dan kami mengamalkan sikap terbuka. Kami berbincang bagaimana pihak kerajaan negeri boleh membantu meringankan beban mereka selaku wakil rakyat. Mereka gembira dengan dasar yang dilaksanakan oleh kerajaan negeri Pakatan Rakyat terutamanya berhubung usaha meningkatkan hasil pendapatan dan “Mereka juga mengadu kekecewaan mereka kepada saya kerana kebanyakan wakil rakyat Umno di Perak dilarang oleh parti mereka sendiri untuk bertanding Ketua Bahagian.

“Ada diantara mereka yang tidak mahu akur kepada arahan parti lalu bertanding dan kalah.

“Keadaan ini amat mengecewakan mereka kerana selaku wakil rakyat mereka pemimpin di peringkat kawasan tetapi tidak di peringkat Umno bahagian,” terang Nizar.

Beliau turut mengalu-alukan keputusan Nasarudin untuk bersama-sama KeADILan di Perak dan menganggap tindakan beliau mampu mengukuh serta memantapkan Pakatan Rakyat Perak serta mengongcang BN di negeri itu pada masa yang sama.

Nizar juga menyanggah kenyataan beberapa pemimpin Umno yang melabelkan tindakan Nasarudin sebagai mengkhianati pengundi.

“Saya kagum dengan keberanian Nasarudin dan menganggap beliau seorang yang luhur budi bahasa dan pekertinya. Di dalam Dewan Undangan Negeri pun beliau sentiasa bertanya soalan dengan lemah lembut dan berlandaskan fakta bukannya merapu.

“Sudah tentu orang seperti beliau tidak boleh kekal lama dengan budaya dan naluri Umno yang menekan dan mengekang kebebasan bersuara ahli-ahli mereka.

Ditanya mengenai pelbagai tekanan yang bakal dihadapi ADUN yang berhasrat menyertai Pakatan Rakyat, Nizar menegaskan BN sepatutnya memberi kebebasan kepada wakil rakyatnya samada mahu terus kekal bersama BN atau menyertai parti pilihan mereka.

“Kalau wakil rakyat ini ditekan rakyat akan melihat Umno dan BN sebenarnya tidak mengamalkan demokrasi seperti mana yang mereka laungkan.

“Jangan tekan, ugut atau apa-apakan mereka, berikan mereka kebebasan dan hormati proses demokrasi yang sihat,” Nizar memberi amaran.

Don’t keep bashing your head against the wall. Perhaps, it makes more sense for Umno-BN to maintain the status quo. The latest rhetoric from DPM Najib Razak is likely to remain as more of the same old ‘lip service’ …

From Suara KeADILan Online

By Wong Choon Mei

Barack Obama made history by becoming America’s first black president, swept to power by a huge call for change. Here in Malaysia, incoming premier Najib Abdul Razak too says he can hear the sirens for long overdue reform.

But there the similarity ends.

In his inauguration, Obama called for hope over fear, unity over discord and “that all are equal, all are free and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.”

In a post-mortem of the Kuala Terengganu by-election defeat, Najib however retreated into rhetoric heard hundreds of times before by Malaysians, especially since the March 2008 national polls.

“Umno must repent. We must change our culture and our attitude. We have to change at all levels so that we can win over the hearts of the people,” said Najib, who is also the incoming Umno president.

“Malaysians are mature enough to gauge their leaders. They are no longer impressed with the rhetoric of changes, which are nothing but plain rhetoric. They want results. They want to see actual changes taking place.”

The 55-year deputy prime minister and finance minister was referring to Saturday’s parliamentary by-election, where the Umno-led Barisan Nasional coalition lost to Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim’s Pakatan Rakyat.

The result will not change the balance of power in the country, but with 10 weeks to go before Najib formally steps into the top job in the country and in his party, the vote is seen as a test of his ability to unite and reinvigorate the Malay community and also the rest of the nation.

“Those voters (at KT) viewed the upcoming transfer of power from Abdullah Badawi to Najib less a promise of better things and more a threat of the same tired corrupt and corrosive ways of the past. The political status quo would only further divide instead of bringing us together. Malaysians were rightly fed up with this,” said veteran political watcher M Bakri Musa.

“Getting rid of its leader Abdullah Badawi will not alter Umno’s fate. A future with Najib Razak will be no solution either,”

Decades of lip service

If you are not Malaysian, you may wonder if Bakri was being a bit harsh. But if you are, then probably you would understand how it is like to be subjected to decades of double-speak and near-zero action. Chances are, you would have reacted with a few well-aimed missiles of your own.

‘Change’ was the platform that elevated outgoing Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s campaign in the 2004 general election, helping him score a record win that all but snuffed out the opposition.

Bu Abdullah did not deliver on his electoral promises of weeding out corruption and extending Malaysians greater democratic space. So it was that in the March 8, 2008, general election that Malaysians voted in the country’s first-ever significant opposition.

They gave Anwar and his Pakatan coalition control of five of the country’s 13 states, as well as 48 percent of the popular vote.

A few days after the watershed poll, Najib had promised:

“Although the BN is disappointed over its failure to retain power in five states as well as its failure to obtain a two-thirds majority in Parliament, we accept the people’s decision with an open heart. We will continue to strive to regain the confidence of the people.”

Five months later, after leading Umno-BN to another flop at the Permatang Pauh by-election where Anwar won by a landslide 15,671-vote majority, Najib again said:

“We are prepared to make the necessary changes to regain public confidence in the BN. Although we lost, the BN will fulfill its pledges to the people of Permatang Pauh,

It is not in their interest to change

Unsurprisingly, feedback from the public since the KT by-election, has been one of cynicism laced with distrust.

Snide comments too have appeared in letters to the media – some constructive, some rude and many outrightly condemning. But all with the same underlying question: how many more wake-up calls do Najib and his Umno-BN need?

“The results at KT also point to endemic problems in BN, which are only likely to continue as the blame game has begun,” said political analyst Bridget Welsh.

“Najib’s presence only served to make the campaign a national contest. Malays outstation came home to send a message to Umno, and to Najib, of dissatisfaction.

Apart from frustration at his perceived slowness and inaction, Najib also comes laden with heavy ‘political baggage’. Having entered politics at age 22, Najib has 33 years of experience in top-level administration of the country. Yet few Malaysians can point out his achievements, even when prodded to.

Many however have heard of his indiscretions over alleged graft in multi-billion ringgit arms deals, transacted during his time as defence minister. Most Malaysians too follow the ongoing murder trial of Altantuya Shaariibuu, the Mongolian woman alleged to be his mistress, who was murdered here in 2006.

“The peppering of posters with the picture of murdered Mongolian woman Altantuya Shaariibuu illustrated the persistence of unanswered questions and, more broadly, Najib’s credibility gap involving the case,” Welsh added, as another possible point that led to the BN’s defeat at KT.

Other analysts point to the fact that perhaps Najib’s ‘lip service’ is deliberate.

Rather than risk a new environment with changes, Najib is more likely to revert to the past for direction – in particular his mentor, ex-premier Mahathir Mohamad, who ruled the nation with a fist of iron for 22 years.

Under Mahathir, the nation developed in terms of infrastructure, but lost irreparably in terms of increased racial polarisation, greater wealth disparity between high and low income groups, declining investor confidence and the flight of local talent.

“Why would Najib and Umno-BN rock their own boat. They are already in power. Chances are, they will take a gamble and try to ride it out. If the people want change, let them try to effect it. Not necessarily, the people will always win at the ballot box,” said a political analyst.

“Remember, the federal machinery has been under their control for 51 years, the civil service, the police, the armed forces, the election system – these are practically theirs to command.”