Cows And Condos As Election Symbols

Hantu Laut

The clarion calls for Shahrizat to exit from her ministerial post and her position in the party have intensified.

Former Prime Minister Tun Mahathir Mohammad has joined the fray and sounded the alarm bell here asking Shahrizat to go before she gets the boot.Will she gets the boot? UMNO's political culture does not command cleaning its house of political garbage. That's why they are in the shithouse.

UMNO has a long history of defending the indefensible.Innocent or guilty, many have gotten away scot free.With the exception of former PM Mahathir Mohammad none have put party before self.

Mahathir, the devil he may be, can read the atmospheric pressure rising against his long tenancy, decided to step down and hand over the helm to his deputy. There was widespread euphoria and the man, his anointed successor, pulled off the biggest elections windfall in Malaysia's political history. The PM that Malaysia should never had, had in less than one term saw a reversal of fortune, when people saw the true Pak Lah. The biggest winner turned out to be the biggest loser, the BN was severely punished due to acute deficiencies of his administration.

With all the skeletons coming out of UMNO's closet it is not difficult to predict an uphill battle to commandeer a bigger victory. Unless, something astonishing happened between now and the elections UMNO's fate would hang in the balance.

Shahrizat cannot play dumb on the scandal involving her family. It is absurd that she does not to know the going-ons in her family's business. Her recalcitrant would be costly to UMNO. The opposition will certainly play up the issue in the general elections.

DAP has fired the first salvo.

Labuan: Independent candidate in the last general election here, Lau Seng Kiat, suggested that the Election Commission (EC) allow cow and condominium to be used as symbols by Independent candidates in the coming general election.

"These two things are now very popular. The cow reflects hard work while condominium reflects prosperity of the nationÉthey are meaningful symbols and appropriate," said Lau, in response to EC's plans to withdraw some of the election symbols.

After the last general election, the EC said some of the symbols used by Independent candidates, such as umbrella, tiger head, scissors and smoking pipe, would be withdrawn.

The symbols considered for replacement were bulb, brief case, television and hibiscus along with the older symbols like fish, rooster, coconut tree and tractor.

In the last election here, Lau, who is now DAP Chairman, used the umbrella as his symbol and collected 2,014 votes, and managed to retain his deposit in the Barisan Nasional's (BN) stronghold.

The cow and condominium have become popular nationwide following the cattle scandal involving the family of Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, who is Women, Family and Community Development Minister and national Umno Wanita Chief.

The issues were connected to the National Feedlot Centre (NFC) run by the Minister's husband and siblings.

Many called it a "cow and condominium" scandal due to the purchase of expensive property by NFL though this was not seen as relevant to NFC's core business.

Commenting on the NFC scandal, Lau said he was delighted that Kinabatangan Member of Parliament Datuk Bung Moktar Radin had boldly criticised the alleged dealings of NFC and repeated his accusation though a few other Umno leaders had defended the Minister.

Lau said it was the Auditor-General's Report that exposed the NFC was in "a mess."

For anyone to challenge this would be tantamount to saying the Report was flawed, said Lau.

Daily Express