A MAN FOR EVERY FAT,OLD AND UGLY LADY

Hantu Laut

Is Malaysia short of writers who can present uncomplicated and condensed manifestos that the man in the street can enjoy reading and understand.

Have any of you read the BN Manifesto? If you have, and you have read the full text to the minute details, than you are a rare specie and ought to have your head examined. A voracious reader would have eaten the whole piece of paper it was written on and try to digest it through the stomach rather than the brain. All I can say it was most uninspiring and makes dismal reading.

If it comes from the 4th floor, the den of the Oxbridge nerds, than I would rather send my children to Nanyang in Singapore or Beijing University in China where academic excellence not only prevailed on the scroll but are translated into reality.

Somebody should come up with an abridged version for less intellectually challenged mortals.

To be honest, I have no desire to read the 'Excellence, glory, distinction' and the 'not so honest to God' manifesto. Aren't excellence and distinction the same (in the form it is used in the manifesto) and carry the same meaning. A 'work of distinction' could also be called 'an excellent work'. Maybe, the 4th floor geeks should have consulted the Oxford lexicon before they decide to use it as the buzz words.

Almost all the major political parties have come up with strange sounding manifesto.

PKR, in sheer desperation for supports has promised a minimum wage of RM1500 per month. The ex-Minister of Finance (de facto leader of PKR), Anwar Ibrahim has lost touch with the economic viability of such promises. Many SMIs and small businesses with high labour content would be in serious trouble if such high minimum wage were to be imposed. A figure of RM800/Rm1000 would make the proposal more feasible, economically viable and without having to kill the goose that lay the golden eggs.

Anwar may have forgotten that the biggest chunk of employees in that income bracket would be immigrant workers and most of the money would be repatriated to the home countries, unless he has no intention to include them in the scheme.

Anyway, since PKR is not going to form the next government why bother making true promises.

The strangest of the strange is PAS manifesto. Completely out of this world and very very Islamic.

PAS promised to deliver a man to every fat, ugly and old women. Women who are afflicted with a combination of all those handicaps or any one of those handicaps and those who found it hard to find a mate would get matchmaking assistance.

Unless she is Han Andersen's ugly duckling, I wonder what kind of a man would want a fat, old and ugly woman.

The following report by AFP appeared on Tuesday, 26th Feb:

Match-making manifesto woos Malaysian voters

AFP - Tuesday, February 26

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 26, 2008 (AFP) - Malaysia's conservative Islamic party pledged Tuesday to provide match-making services for older women and cut the cost of dowries in an election manifesto for its stronghold of Kelantan state.

The fundamentalist Pan Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), which is hoping to retain control of Kelantan in March 8 polls against fierce competition from the government, also promised to boost development in the impoverished state.

"We are providing benefits like match-making and reduced dowry for women, but we have also come up with a plan to address the needs of all people in Kelantan," PAS deputy president Nasharuddin Mat Isa told AFP.

"It's about reassuring voters in Kelantan that we are the best choice for the people," he said.

A party leader caused controversy in the past by saying that ugly women should be given priority in public service jobs because pretty women can find rich husbands to provide for them.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's coalition government is trying to regain Kelantan -- the only state it does not rule -- with plans for a slew of new projects and investment funds if it wins.

At its peak, PAS controlled Kelantan and neighbouring Terengganu state which it won in 1999 elections.

However its fundamentalist line, including a campaign to turn Malaysia into a religious state, and prohibitions on nightclubs, skimpy clothes and alcohol, saw it lose Terengganu in 2004.

It now holds a wafer thin majority in Kelantan, a state considered a key battleground in the polls.

Well, many old ladies in this country will soon be happy to find their mating mates courtesy of PAS.