Is PAS Running Out Of Political Capital?

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Small minds are much distressed by little things. Great minds see them all but are not upset by them. Francois de La Rochefoucauld
(French author & moralist)




By Rahmah Ghazali

FMT ALERT KUALA LUMPUR: PAS' protest against Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak's wife Rosmah Mansor took place in several states, except Kuala Lumpur, where it was called off at the eleventh hour.

This morning, a statement by Federal Territory PAS Youth information chief Fadhil Osman had given the impression that the nationwide protest was scrapped.

However, the protest took place after Friday prayers in Seremban, Malacca and Terengganu. The protest here was supposed to be held outside the Kampung Baru mosque.

Fadhil had said that PAS would use "another approach" to express its dissatisfaction against the premier's wife.

According to him, a meeting would be arranged with the Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) and a memorandum would be submitted to the King soon.

The self-proclaimed First Lady of Malaysia had come under fire for promoting the recently held Islamic Fashion Festival (IFF), which Muslim groups said was an insult to Islam and the Prophet Muhammad.

The event also drew flak from social-networking site Facebook users, where the photo of one of the models wearing a revealing outfit which depicted a reverse image of the Prophet's name in Arabic across the chest was widely circulated.

Also read:

PAS chides Rosmah over Islamic fashion fest

How Ministers Should Behave

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Every time a blogger wrote something that made someone in authority unhappy the police or other enforcement agency are called upon to investigate.

Investigation would come with harassment and confiscation of the blogger's computer and in some cases charges brought against the blogger concerned.

The recent case of Datuk Ahiruddin Atan or popularly known as Rocky Bru, who fell foul of Minister of Information,Communication and Culture Datuk Seri Rais Yatim where the minister lodged reports to the MCMC and the Police over an article that insinuated nepotism in his Ministry in the giving away of contracts reeks of nothing less than abuse of power to intimidate bloggers.

There are other channels to deal with such matters as far as defamation or libel is concerned.Our constitutional rights should not be trampled upon merely because a minister has the power to do so.

Such action of the minister makes Malaysia look like a police state where one can't speak out against wrongdoings in government.The minister made no distinction between the law and the use of political power where our state of freedom came under siege because he is allowed to use arbitrary power to cow his victim.Such use of absolutist power by ministers should not be allowed unless it is of national security.

There are proper procedures to deal with cases of libel.

The minister should have first warned Rocky Bru by giving him notice to retract his article and apologise failing which he would institute legal action against him.If Rocky refused and the minister is certain he has done no wrong he can than proceed with legal action.

Ministers should not be afraid, unless they have guilty conscience, to go to court to clear their names.They should take a leaf from the book of former Sabah Chief Minister Harris Salleh.

Rocky being a seasoned journalist and blogger would know what in store for him if the story he published is not true.The danger of using third party source is always there.Responsibility is on the blogger to check his facts before exposing himself to the dangers of stories of libelous intent.

The Prime Minister should take note of this and that he would lose more of the pro-government bloggers to the other side as what had happened to former Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi when he took the blogosphere lightly, dismissing them as nuisance and bunch of crackpots.

It is true there are bloggers who write nonsense and could not care less about facts,fictions and factoids, simply writing to attract attention and traffic to their blogs.Such bloggers should be ignored and they would eventually self destruct. There are also many bloggers who write responsibly and contribute good ideas for the government to consider.

With the high penetration of Internet in this country do not underestimate the power and influence of the blogging fraternity.............as the proverbial 'pen mightier than the sword'...... they can sway opinion.

Who In Batu Sapi ?

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What's in store for the Batu Sapi by-election?

In all likelihood, it would be a three-cornered fight as SAPP and Pakatan Rakyat would want to prove their political prowess to gauge their popularity for the next general elections. Both are unlikely to give way to each other.

This dichotomy would continue until the 13th General Elections which is expected to be called before the term expired.

It would give the BN the edge if a right candidate is chosen.

SAPP's Yong Teck Lee suspension has ended and he is now eligible to stand in an election.Yong is unlikely to stand in this by-election but would field a candidate from his party. Karamunting central liaision committee member Poon Kee Yang sits top of the list.

Yong would not stand as the support for the opposition in this area is still unclear and if he stood as candidate and lost than his party would suffer the consequence in the next general elections.Batu Sapi has 60 % bumiputera voters.

As usual, PKR is troubled by infighting among who should be selected as candidate.The contenders are, its Batu Sapi division chief Hasnar Ibrahim,Tuaran PKR division chief Ansari Abdullah and Sabah PKR chief Thamrin Jaini.

Hasnar Ibrahim is most likely to rock the boat if not selected and PKR leaderships are in a quandary as to him or Thamrin Jaini. Hasnar is a local and has affinity with the bumiputra community.He is an ex ISA detainee and has track record of dirty underhand tactics.The leadership may decide on Thamrin which will send Hasnar and his followers to rebel against the party.

The BN may field the spouse of the late Edmund Chong to attract sympathy votes.

The fight really would be between BN and SAPP.

Budget 2011, Will Crony Capitalism Be Alive And Kicking ?

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While I yearn for a better Malaysia where the gap between the rich and poor would narrow down to a civilised level I just could not comprehend the logic of a 100-storey tower that could help us jump start an economic miracle to becoming a high income nation.

We need to grow an average 8-10 percent annually for the next 10 years to ever come near that dream.

Can we?

Which economic formula is the Prime Minister using? Adam Smith's "invisible hand", John Keynes principal of government intervention or Milton Friedman's free market economy and government non-intervention,, or all pleated into one.

All three are acceptable economic principles that have been used over the century in varying degree.

However, the global financial crisis in 2007 has brought the resurgence of Keynesian economics.

Though, government intervention advocated mostly legislative in nature, fiscal and monetary measures are needed to mitigate adverse effect of economic recessions.In severe cases where the private sector had become incapacitated such scenario occasioned the use of government funds to save the economy.The Western economies are still reeling from the effect of the private sector's bad financial governance.

The 2007 global financial crisis that led the US and other Western economies to bail out failed financial institutions by taking up equity and management of these companies was one such occasion.It helped to decelerate economic meltdown and brought speedy recovery to the economy.

The building of mega structures for prestige rather than economic considerations will not excite the economy as much as if the money is spent on increasing industrial outputs.

Putrajaya is the ultimate white elephant and we don't need anymore of such monument to strain our financial resources.Too often, we have mega-failure projects like the PKFZ and Bakun Dam which punch big holes in government finances and disgrace to the nation.

Ours is a nation that survived on our trading capabilities and have to reckon with countries like Thailand,Vietnam,Indonesia and big player China in the world markets.These are sectors that needed to be boosted. China would eventually become a big economic threat to smaller nations in this region.

Letting the private sector to take the lead is well and good as long as the government stop crony capitalism which has been the practice all these times.It leads to inefficiency and cost ineffectiveness to the system.

Letting those who knows the business best do the job is the only way to bring competitiveness to the industry.In the past almost all government projects,special licences,approved permits had to go through UMNO linked middlemen who sat on their arses and do only Ali Baba business to collect huge windfall from the project.

The government should wake up to reality and be bold enough to correct mistakes of the past.

Malaysia has probably one of the worse practices of trade monopoly in a free market economy. These are given to either GLCs or cronies.The breaking up of these monopolies should be given priority to liberalise the market so prices can find its own level.

Bigger chunk of our annual budget goes to recurring expenditure, literally, to take care of the grossly over-staffed and inefficient civil service.We have over 1 million civil servants to take care of 26 million Malaysians while the UK had only around 500,000 against a population of 61 million.

It's a reflection of bad policy of the government of creating jobs just to give employment to the majority bumiputras. When the oil wells run dry this country will be bankrupted by none other than the civil service.It's about time the government starts trimming the civil service down to less shameful level.

In Budget 2011, Sabah and Sarawak would probably be the biggest losers getting only a meagre RM10 billion in projects or just 8 percent of total value of projects mentioned in the budget.Despite Sabah and Sarawak contributions to the total government revenue the two states stayed neglected and may lose its premium as fixed deposit states.

Why is it that most development should be in Kuala Lumpur, which is already a burgeoning city with highly developed infrastructures and a dysfunctional traffic system that clog the city roads and streets despite billion of ringgits spent? More mega buildings and construction of the mass transit would be a major nightmare for the city dwellers.

More money should be channelled to Sabah and Sarawak for infrastructure development.The two states with land masses over three times more than that of Peninsula Malaysia still remained backward because of neglect and inequitable distribution of development expenditure.

Obviously, the government is only interested in monumental and cosmetic economic reforms which is not going to help up the value chain and make Malaysia high income nation in the near future.

I don't see it as an exciting budget but more likely acts in furtherance of existing crony capitalism.

Najib needs to do more.He took over a weak administration and party members who are used to the spoils system.