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Not very nice of Tun Dr Mahathir to continue to criticise his successor. Especially since PM Abdullah Badawi will be gone by tomorrow.
It’s like flogging a dead horse. And to do it in the foreign media somewhat tarnishes his elder-statesman stature even more.
When Tun criticised Abdullah throughout his administration, many things he said made a lot of sense. Yes, Abdullah was not the leader he was, Abdullah was weaker, and there were lots of unexplained hanky panky going on.
There was Khairy, ECM Libra, Scomi, Kamaluddin, the Hindu God and Muslim Priest, the fourth floor boys; etc. Lots of hateful inferences.
That, and the massive loss of votes for BN last year, led to the coup in UMNO that results in Abdullah stepping aside for his deputy, Najib Razak. But was Najib really the right guy to lead Malaysia.
Any Malaysian who comes online is aware of the various allegations against him, his wife, his links to Razak Baginda, UTK and such other sundry items as the erasing of entry records of certain Mongolian tourists,
In the absence of an impartial body to investigate these allegations, Najib’s protestations of innocence ring hollow. It is then to be assumed that those who support him to be the president of Umno and Prime Minister, do so for the reason of mutual survival and political expediency.
But wasn’t Najib himself a Tun Dr Mahathir-endorsed candidate? Wasn’t Abdullah himself his appointed successor? And if Abdullah was a strong, capable guy, would he have survived under Mahathir administration?
The two times Tun had deputies who were not lembik (Musa Hitam and Anwar Ibrahim, they clashed with him, crashed and burned. Musa went into political wilderness, Anwar ended up in jail with a black eye. I still remember today that the whole sodomy shit is still circumstantial.
I’m just another member of the Malaysian public who’s lived most of my formative years under the Mahathir administration. There were times I was proud of having such a leader. Especially when he said “balls” to the likes of IMF.
It is unfair, Tun, to say everything went wrong the moment Abdullah took over. The conditions for the decline was created before that, by YOU.
Well, it is not as if Pak Lah is a saint, we all very well know that ain’t the case. But then which one among you politicians can declare yourself to be above reproach?
The culture of rape and pillage, intimidation and patronage in Umno became very very entrenched in the past 25 years. Hear me? It’s a culture! Your Umno grassroots WANT the money and openly admit it.
What did Musa Sheikh Fadzir say? That is Mr Bow Tie Kadir Sheikh Fadzir’s brother, mind you. Here it is, and I quote,
“Those days, an application for a taxi permit would require the endorsement of an Umno branch or division chief. If the branches and divisions are strong, then Umno will be strong again,” said Bukit Mertajam party chief Datuk Musa Sheikh Fadzir.
He also said the party made a mistake in trying to curtail money politics as it showed that Umno leaders are not grateful to the members who have sacrificed for the party.
“Without money, how can the delegates come to Kuala Lumpur to attend the assembly? Please look at the place they are staying, some of them are sharing a room with seven or eight people,” said Musa. – Malaysian Insider
Maybe Tun, you did not need money politics to get you and your likes into power. Your sheer force of personality is not something most people want to rise against.
But how could Mat Tyson, Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, Zahid Hamidi, Ali Rustam, Khir Toyo and their ilk, survive in Umno if you didn’t close one eye. How come the likes of Shahrir Samad and Rais Yatim can’t even make it to the Supreme Council.
Do you blame Abdullah for that?
I have nothing against Mukhriz, and I thought he was the cleanest of the three running for Pemuda Umno captaincy, but I think he paid the price of this culture.
Khir Toyo and his Balkis excesses, was apparently backed by Najib, who was five years ago, endorsed by you as a DPM. Ultimately the very guy you hated, made it.
Sad isn’t it Tun?
If we were to expect BN to continue ruling the country, then that also means we are opening ourselves to escalating corruption.
Not that it doesn’t happen in Pakatan Rakyat government. But the relative age of these jokers in power makes the magnitude of their crimes smaller than the mega-money politics (and Umno euphemism for blatant corruption).
So, Fairus of Penang, the Katak twins of PKR who jumped ship to save their asses and anybody from the other side are still bearable. Their growth can be pruned. Prosecute them, I say.
Damn, if Anwar has done the same, he too must be prosecuted.
But then who is gonna do the prosecuting? The Patail Brothers? Who’s gonna keep law and order? Our esteemed UTK, or Puchong’s finest? Who’s gonna preside on the cases? Our Kangaroo judiciary?
Who gets to pay for crimes in this country depends on who is on the political throne.
And tell me, who helped to make sure of that, since Operasi Lalang, and the emasculation of the Malaysian judiciary 20 years ago?
Umno and BN has been steadily digging its own grave at the expense of the taxpayers, for many years. Last year, Malaysians woke up last year and said enough is enough!
Now can you just blame Abdullah for it? I don’t think so.
Yeah, must be the spice collossus that rules the Malaysian Indians’ diet.
So there are a significant number of Indians at Bukit Selambau, so they have to turn up in droves, not to vote, not yet. But to turn up as candidates.
The number of candidates contesting at Bukit Selambau is at an unprecedented 15. By any standards extraordinary. In the run up to the polls on April 7, we Malaysians can expect all kinds of drama on the campaign trail.
I don’t see what is wrong with both K.Manikumar (PKR’s choice) and S.Ganesan from MIC. Both seem to be ok candidates.
Can’t say much about the other 13 candidates. I know so little about them. But yeah, they will be the little spoilers. Never mind. It’s an exercise of democracy.
I’m just disappointed with PKR Indian elements who leave saying that they have been let down by Anwar, or PKR, without specifics.
I heard that some Hindraf folks were pissed off with PKR for not naming one of the Hindraf boys who are behind bars. Get real folks. Don’t you think that a guy outside can serve you better than a guy who’s incarcerated?
And what’s with this communal way of looking at things? I’m Indian, I’m Indian I’m Indian. Fine, choose an upstanding guy among you to stand.
Wait a minute. PKR did just that. But no, the grasses and the roots were not happy.Cos they claimed they were not taken care of.
Some even left PKR. Ok. I admit that PKR is the weakest link among the three Pakatan Rakyat parties. PKR must really clean up its act and Anwar, firstly, must live up to his title as the ostensible “head” of Pakatan Rakyat
Pakatan Rakyat is a fledgling coalition. Can it just cater to one community’s wishes? Sounds like communal politics again. You’re playing that Umno/MCA/MIC gambit all over.
Just proves that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
And that the Indians in this country have only themselves to blame if they continue to be reactionary in manner and jump this way and that.
Because whatever the BN government says, it has done nothing to address the problem of police brutality, and in the light of the events of the past 5 years, lots of Indian blood has been shed.
Lots of NGO and political activists as well as man in the street of all colours have been intimidated and brutalised for the “sin” of making themselves.
For this reason alone, you should not vote BN.
Because the more reps the Pakatan Rakyat in Parliament and State Assemblies, the less inclined would the BN-backed goons be to commit crimes against the people with impunity.
And if Pakatan Rakyat reps are rotten as we have been seeing these days, hey, plenty of wolves from the other side will be baying for their blood.
We, the electorate will then have succeeded in putting this fear in the hearts of the politicians.
That, my readers, is what is called KETUANAN RAKYAT.
Hishamuddin, Hishamuddin ….tsk tsk, banyak banyak laa bersabar. Ok, I’m sorry they didn’t let you play with the Keris this time. Don’t sulk la. Dah tua tua macam ni pun nak mengada ngada.
Don’t laa simply go around calling your fellow Malays in Pakatan Rakyat traitors and all.
Why, I thought you had such privileged upbringing, being born to a former Prime Minister who is known for his reticence.
Just what did you learn at Aberystwyth man? Those beer-swilling days are a far cry from the conveniently nationalistic firebrand ways of you and your big mouth.
Yeah yeah, I know you are saying all this shit because even your own chances at becoming an Umno Vice President is dim, in the light of recent events.
I know you are nervous about your own political survival in an environment marred by low morale, scandals and perception of being a rotten, corrupt party.
Here’s the definition of traitor for the Minister of Education
According to Dictionary.com, a traitor is,
| 1. | a person who betrays another, a cause, or any trust. |
| 2. | a person who commits treason by betraying his or her country. |
Doesn’t that sound like the folks who enriched themselves and their family and cronies at the expense of thousands (if not millions) of Makcik Senah and Pak Mats out there?
Doesn’t it sound like Ministers and top government officials with money, whose kids go to foreign universities on Petronas, Bank Negara and JPA scholarships at the expense of the very children of Makcik Senah and Pak Mat.
Doesn’t it sound like the guy who built a mansion in the middle of a TOL land?
On whose scholarships and your own kids studying, Hishamuddin?
Why is Ketuanan Rakyat so scary to you, you insecure Umno folks? Is it because it takes power away from the elite few? What has your elite few done for your fellow Malays anyway?
Let’s ask the likes of Halim Saad, Rashid Hussain, Tajuddin Ramli. Wonder where these blokes are right now?
So, I think Hishamuddin’s rantings at the Umno General Assembly can be summed up as the panicked ravings of a bloke afraid of being seen as an irrelevance. Even if he already is one.
Poor guy.
For those of you who are unaware of what Kristalnacht stands for, here’s a Wikipedia crash course.
A pogrom has begun on our own shores and it started late last year. But the more visible parts of it, you can see.
The putsch is against any member of the Opposition and the tide against them, and any vocal member of the society brave enough to state their stand. Hell, even the Umno ranks is not spared.
The Perak state government fell because of this.
Gobind Singh Deo and his father Karpal experienced it.
Ali Rustam and hey, even Khairy Jamaluddin faced it.
It is all unfolding now. Can’t you see? Call me a two-bit conspiracy theorist if you may, but can’t you see where all this is leading.
Today, I read of Suara Keadilan and Harakah having their publication licences suspended for three months. Come on guys, are they worse than the likes of Utusan Meloya and Berita Hairan?
The screws are tightening on the countdown to April when the regime change formally happens.
But this is nothing compared to what comes after.
There will be no justice for Altantuya. There will be no justice for Kugan or the Kulim Six. Justice will just be a word in a country where everyone has let us down, from rulers to leaders to the police, media and the judiciary.
Maybe I’m being too dramatic here, but I feel that dark times are here for Malaysia.
The Nazguls, heralds of doom are already here.
Good Night, and Good Luck.
Here’s Ali Rustam, the swaggering UMNO powerbroker, chopped at the knees, done in by another more ambitious, powerful than him. That’s the prevailing thought anyway.
No sympathies here. This is one of the uglier faces of UMNO. I don’t think many people forgot how he rudely told off the PPP folks at a dinner where he was the guest of honour in Malacca, in 2007. He told them to get out of BN. “We don’t need you”, or something to that effect.
In fact this money politics thing ain’t new. Back two years ago when Isa Samad won his VP race with the highest votes, only to be suspended from UMNO in an ignominous manner after the Disciplinary Board found him guilty of vote-buying, there were rumblings that Isa was made scapegoat.
Even then Ali Rustam’s name resurfaced. But he escaped it somehow. Now’s his time. Still, I don’t think this guy will take it lying down. And I’m not alone.
This might lead to a serious rift in UMNO, hell, the party might just implode.
Which might not be a bad thing for the country after all.
I’ll tell you why I’m this cynical.
You see, word has it that there are many people (read Ali Rustam supporters as well as the Umno grassroots) who are pissed off at the way Ali Rustam was singled out for punishment at this particular time.
The inference is, “Everybody’s doing it, so why pick on him?”
So, they are basically admitting that rampant corruption, vote buying, graft, bribing in cash and kind, are all a normal thing in UMNO.
This is the kind of leaders who are going to safeguard “kedaulatan raja-raja” and “ketuanan melayu”.
A guy with all kinds of baggage on his head (allegations of graft, cover up, murderby proxy) is poised to become the Prime Minister.
The three VP contenders come with their own issues. Muhyiddin aligned himself firmly with the DPM by calling for Pak Lah to get out.
Now the fallout from Ali Rustam saga may result in the Umno delegates deciding to vote Mat Tyson in protest. (You all know how he got that moniker, right?)
Imagine Mat Tyson gets voted in as deputy president of Umno.He will automatically be DPM of Malaysia, by next month.
So, we would have a hen-pecked PM with allegations of murder and shady defence deals hanging over his head.
And a DPM who,
1) Ran away with 2 million ringgit (or Aussie dollars, not sure) to Australia and got caught for it. When questioned he said he speaka no English.
2) Spirited a sultan’s daughter to Thailand to get married, while he’s stilll married.
3) Backhanded the same daughter a few years later at an airport, in public.
Nice.
Let us Malaysians just dig our own graves and jump in it.
Cos the one party that still runs the country, is populated by vultures.
Fellow Malaysians, have you ever heard of the sinister euphemism, “Encounter”?
Ask any Indian citizen, and at the very least, his face will turn sober and serious.
Encounter is a term the Indians use to describe the fatal shooting of an apprehended crime suspect. These are ostensibly, criminals who are fleeing from the police. Hey, you can read the Wiki on this too.
However, everyone over there knows that it is the cops’ solution to make a problem go away. You see, this is what the human rights group would call extra-judicial killing.
Those crime reporters in this country who reported on “cop and robber” shootings should and probably do know that there is far more to the story than the police version of…”they shot at police first…”
I wonder where Zaman Khan is these days.
Excuse that stray thought. Maybe I really should not talk about staged shootings and trigger happy-cops in Malaysia. Our cops are honest men who don’t do that. Our cops don’t kill.
If you think I’m saying that our cops have among them criminals in uniform, then I’ll categorcally deny it.
You know guys, maybe that “criminal” Kugan really branded himself before beating himself till his kidneys failed.Maybe Kodomo Lion Albar was right. We should not glorify criminals.
Maybe the wounds on his body miraculously appeared after he died. Maybe the second pathologist from UMMC operated on the wrong body.
Maybe the Kulim six shot dead, were all hardcore criminals who boldly shot first at the cops, even if one of the dead “robbers” was a head case and the other was almost blind.
Maybe the police is really concerned about law and order in Malaysia. Maybe Altantuya really shot herself twice and blew herself up with c4.
Maybe HINDRAF guys are just those who saw too many Tamil movies.
Maybe Malaysia will win World Cup South Africa 2010.
To say that Malaysian politics has become very interesting will be the lamest of intros for this post.
Events that have been unfolding on a weekly basis here deserves a mention in Drew Curtis’ Fark.com.
Headline would read something like:
Democratically-elected assembly meets in under a tree, with a Fark style rejoinder, Prime Minister doesn’t understand why.
So this tug of war continues. I’m sure all of you know this by now, but if you don’t, here’s the juice.
But here’s the latest in the drama that’s The Fight for Perak.
The High Court has declared the Assembly as illegal!
So much for Pokok Demokrasi. Back to square one.
But wait, other issues are at hand. The judge also says that the Speaker cannot be represented by private lawyers, even if the guy who’s supposed to (state legal adviser), is representing present MB Zambryin a matter that’s in confict of interest.
Ex-MB Nizar Jamaludin is seeking the Sultan’s intervention yet again, to dissolve the assembly. But hey, fat chance of that happening, after Sultan Azlan Shah’s decision the last time.
So what now?
If Zambry thought the Sultan’s “endorsement” was enough, he’s obviously mistaken. Pakatan Rakyat is not going to go down without a fight.
Now, all this can be solved with the dissolution of the state assembly and calling for a fresh mandate through elections.
Now let’s ask the Barisan Nasional folks a question everyone else knows the answer to.
Why so scared of another state elections? Unless the results are a foregone conclusion.
Umty Dumpty raped the people
Umty Dumpty paid at the polls
And all the gerrymandering and postal votes in the land
Cannot make Umty Dumpty accepted again
The IGP with an overhauled heart and Kodomo Lion both said that police need authorisation to enter parliament compound.
Cool! So they are ostensibly not screwing around with the Speaker of the Parliament’s authority.
However, the Parliament security folks say they only guard the inside of the building.
So, anywhere on the grounds between the door and the front gate is ideal for a free for all?
How is Karpal Singh-is-Kinng wrong when he calls the UMNO Youth celaka?
These are thugs who have no respect for anyone. These are Rottweilers who only recognise their boorish masters.
And Khairy Jamaludin says those things should not have happened. Kalau berani tu, try taking your boys to task laa.
Not gonna happen, izzit?
