SABAH AND SARAWAK SAVED PAK LAH

Hantu Laut

First of all I would like to apologise for not being able to update the election results last night as my internet connection was down.

The results has been one beyond expectations. A resounding victory for the oppositions and a new era for Malaysia.The people have spoken, the need for change by denying the BN two-thirds majority, which I have always espouse would be the best mechanism for check and balance of a corrupt regime.

The fall of the state government in Penang was expected but Selangor, Perak and Kedah was a shocker, an outcome that even the oppositions didn't expect.

This is a wake-up call for UMNO to stop taking the people for granted and stop marginalisation of ethnic minority races in the country.The poor showing is also a message that the people have had enough of corruptions and abuses of power. Losing five states in the Peninsula to the oppositions has made Pak Lah the only prime minister that have brought UMNO to its lowest level of support since its inception. He has also helped to kill MCA, MIC and Gerakan, the biggest trashing they ever had.



UMNO would have lost the federal government if not for Sabah and Sarawak. The excellent performance of the Sabah BN was another surprise. The politics of Anwar Ibrahim has not caught up with the people in Sabah and Sarawak. His party, PKR didn't win a single seat in Sabah and Sarawak.

The outstanding performance of Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman who was rumored to be replaced many times before is par excellence, delivered almost 100 percent of the state and parliamentary seats, he lost only 1 state and 1 parliamentary seats. Almost all candidates won with strong majority.

In the Peninsula the only strong showing was in two states, Johor and Pahang. The DPM Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak won overwhelmingly with a massive of 24,464 majority.

The state that sprung a surprise for the BN was Trengganu capturing 8 parliamentary and 23 state seats. Many have predicted a strong comeback from PAS.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi won his Kepala Batas parliamentary seat with reduced majority.He collected only 11,246 majority compared to 18,122 in 2004. It is unthinkable that a prime minister can lose his own state. What can of grassroots has he got if he can't even get his own state to back him. Former prime minister Tun Mahathir will have a field day tomorrow.

In view of the poor showing and by convention Badawi should step aside and hand over the prime ministership to Najib. Ministers like Rafidah Aziz and Hishamuddin Tun Hussein should also be dropped from the cabinet. The APs and keris issues had done untold damage to UMNO's support from the big minority groups, namely the Chinese and Indians in the country. It has also eroded the Malays support for the party.

It would be perilous for UMNO if Badawi continued as prime minister.

YES PRIME MINISTER ! I AM RIGHT.

Hantu Laut

You don't have to be an economist to get correct economic figures that have been published in economic journals.

Our PM had three attempts and came out with completely different and outrageously wrong figures. In my post 'Of Chillipadi And Buah Keras' I highlighted the mistakes. His latest figure is nearer the truth but is still wrong.

The following are excrepts from his speeches:

1.PUTRAJAYA 28 Jan. – Kecekapan kerajaan Malaysia semakin meningkat dan kini diletakkan sebagai yang keenam terbaik di dunia, kata Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.(Utusan Online)

2.“We are a population of over 20 million and we rank eighth in the world in terms of our competitiveness.(The Star)

3. He said recognition of Malaysia in the global competitiveness index also improved from 25th position to 21st place.(Bernama)

The last one is an improvement but is still wrong. The true figure is 23rd down from 22nd in 2006.

I believe he was misquoted. Otherwise, what explanation can he gives for the inconsistency.

WHAT HAPPENNED TO THE PRIME MINISTER ?

Hantu Laut

This is not amusing at all.Yesterday he said Parliament wouldn't be dissolved today.He did exactly the opposite of what he said. Today he dissolved it and called for fresh election. Has he forgotten he is the Prime Minister and not a student prankster.

Can anyone get more notoriously fickle than him, it's almost like the weather, uncomfortably unpredictable.

You got me completely confused.

I hope you were misquoted, Mr Prime Minister !

BUZZ OFF ! MAHATHIR.

Hantu Laut

The ex-Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir Mohammad appears to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. He is now a fifth columnist within is own party.He behaves more like the opposition but insisted his heart is still in UMNO.He accuses his successor of economic mismanagement, nepotism, cronyism and corruption. His determination to force out his embattled successor, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi whose popularity has nosedived due to failure to keep his pre-2004 election promises to eradicate corruptions and bring about some semblance of decency to the administration, may help the opposition deny the BN a two-third majority at the forthcoming polls.

The insidious roots of corruption took form and grew to detestable height during Mahathir's tenure as prime minister. Although Mahathir himself may not be directly involved in corruption, little was done during his time to control it and stop the abuses by ministers, senior civil servants and party officials. Due to highly stimulated economy with credits due to his efforts that speadheaded the nation into becoming one of the largest trading nations and help elevated the per capita income of the people and taking the nation nearer to its goal of a developed nation. With massive public sector spending on development projects , corruption and political patronage became the order of the day.

Mahathir, revered by some and feared by some, must have synthesized Niccoloi Machiavelli's principle of 'it is more secured to be feared than to be loved' into his management philosophy.A Machiavellian philosophical view that any evil action can be justified if it is done for a good purpose.

During his time, ministers, top civil servants and those within his political circle feared him.The more sins they have, the more fearful they were of him.He kept his eyes closed but kept his nose and ears closer to the ground on their corrupt practices and would use it as a weapon as and when needed. Anwar Ibrahim was a casualty of the wrath of Mahathir's resentful dislike for disloyalty.

Mahathir is down but he is not out yet.He has one last mission. To get rid of Badawi as Prime Minister, even at the expense of UMNO losing more seats to the opposition. He really doesn't care as long as Badawi is out of the picture.His disdain for Abdullah has made him acrimonious, irrational and full of contradictions.He probably forgot that he ran this country for 22 years with nothing less than an iron-fist.

He said it was wrong for Abdullah to put the Hindraf's activists under ISA. Didn't he throw more people in prison under ISA during his time? His Operation Lalang in October 1987 arrested 106 opposition leaders and social activists and revoked the publishing licenses of two dailies, the Star and Sin Chew Jit Poh.He had thrown more political opponents in prison using the ISA than all previous prime ministers.Although two wrongs don't make a right, Mahathir should be the last person to make such condemnation against his successor.It's a case of the pot calling the kettle black. He also made it clear that he only intended for Abdullah to stay one term and suggested he should stand down.He contended that the ever popular Najib was to take over from Abdullah. Najib denied of having any knowledge of such arrangement and Abdullah has come out and said there was no such gentlemen agreement.

The ex-PM seemed to have a short memory and forgot that Najib almost lost his seat in the 1999 general election. He won by a slim majority of 240 votes against PAS candidate Ramli Mohamed.The poor showing by BN in that election was due much to Mahathir's unpopularity at that time.There was high probability that Najib could lose his seat if Mahathir have stayed on for the 2004 general election. PAS would have re-captured Trengganu and made inroads into Pahang, Kedah and Perlis.

His falling out with Abdullah was not so much due to Abdullah's incompetence but was more due to the dumping of his pet projects by Abdullah. He was sore and angry as Abdullah had probably promised to continue the projects but reneged on the promises.

The straw that broke the camel's back was the stoppage of the crooked bridge and Abdullah's friendly relations with Singapore, which had testy relations with him during his time.

Following his recent heart operation, Mahathir is again rejuvenated and back on his feet and continue with his demolition expedition against Abdullah.

Abdullah may not be the best man for the job, seemingly weak, indecisive and out of touch with the masses. What Malaysians inherited in the form of Abdullah's poor leadership was due to bad judgement on the part of Mahathir. He overrestimated the capability and loyalty of Abdullah. If Abdullah had carried out all those he promised him, Mahathir will have no problem with him.

It's time for Mahathir to leave the political stage and leave Abdullah to his own devices.Let the people decide whether they want him or not.

You have had your time, Tun. Please,buzz off !

Badawi's State Of Euphoria

Hantu Laut

30 January 2008

It’s whistling past the graveyard to think that Malaysia is going to escape a US downturn unscathed Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is probably wrong if he is as confident as he says he is that that Malaysia is positioned to avert any negative fallout from a threatened US recession by virtue of trade with the rest of Asean, which on its surface outweighs that of the US. Following the Davos conference in Switzerland, the prime minister pointed out that 86 percent of Malaysia's GDP is domestically generated and added: "This has become one of our economic strengths (as we are no longer acutely dependent on external trade), and these strengths have come from the policies that we have drawn up and implemented, which are far-sighted.” The speech and figures, probably prepared for him by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, are hardly realistic. While the Malaysian economy has been robust over recent years, his boast that the country is immune from a US recession is incorrect. There are direct and indirect elements that can make a US recession contagious, not only to Malaysia and other countries in Asia. Using data from Malaysia’s state-owned External Trade Development Corporation (MATRADE), the US is still Malaysia’s biggest trading partner, with total trade of MR170.80 billion in fiscal year 2006. In 2006 Malaysia exported RM589 billion to all markets. Almost 77 percent came from manufactured products, 62 percent of that from electronic items. The small domestic market would not be able to consume excesses from a contracting export market. The major manufactured products for export, especially electronic and electrical products, are not suitable for domestic use. What are Malaysians going to do with a few billion dollars worth of unsold semiconductors, computer chips and other high-technology products? In the same year, export trade with Asean countries was RM154 billion. It is safe to assume that more than 60 percent of exports to Asean countries went to Singapore. Malaysia’s trade with Singapore was MR146.9 billion, making it the second largest trading partner after the U.S. With the exception of Thailand, trade with other Asean countries was insignificant. Lumping Singapore together with other Asean countries to show market diversification is self-deceiving and unjustified. Being the second largest trading partner and for the sake of clarity, Singapore should be classified individually. There also seems to be a great discrepancy between MATRADE figures and those given by an independent body SUITE101.com, which quoted Bridgesingapore.com, usembassy.com and the CIA World Factbook as its sources. The data shows Singapore's total trade with Malaysia in 2006 was US$77 billion. Taking an exchange rate at a constant US$1.00 - RM3.40, trade with Singapore was a whopping RM262 billion, not the RM146.9 billion MATRADE uses, making it the biggest trading partner, bigger than the US. Was the huge difference a result of under- and over-invoicing? It's difficult to say which figures were correct. This can only be established if the external trade corporation were to openly dispute the figures from the other sources. The majority of exports to Singapore are re-exported, with a big portion going to the US. In 2006, Singapore re-exported S$204 billion out of total exports of S$432 billion. Singapore exports have weakened over the past few months, signalling slower growth in 2008. Abdullah Badawi's assurance that trade with other Asean countries outweighs that with the US thus doesn't hold water. The biggest single entity in the Asean region is still Singapore, as has always been the case. It will continue to be Malaysia's biggest trade partner for a long time to come. A recession in the U.S would bring reduced volumes of purchases and falling prices which will subsequently affect Singapore's imports from Malaysia. Another motivating factor for Malaysian exporters to use Singapore is the practice of under-invoicing, in which certain amounts of export proceeds are retained in Singapore. (Many Malaysian exporters use this facility to keep some funds outside the country. Similar practices have been carried out by log exporters from Sabah and Sarawak, using Hong Kong as their base. With millions stashed overseas, some Malaysian companies from Sarawak have become the biggest loggers in the world, partly financed by the Malaysian Inland Revenue Department, in the form of tax evasion.) As a financial center, Singapore provides a wide range of financial products and services. An established importer/exporter in Singapore need not deposit any form of security or cash to the bank to open letters of credit if he has an acceptable L/C from his overseas buyer. The bank will usually back out another L/C to the supplier based on the original L/C. Lots of business is transacted this way with exporters in Malaysia and Indonesia. Singapore will thus continue to play a major role in Malaysia's export trade due to two factors. Its efficient ports, higher frequency of ships visiting and its status as a financial center make it cheaper and faster to transact business and ship cargoes to practically any destination. Singapore’s status as an entrepot, with Malaysia as its industrial and resource hinterland, distorts the trade figures that give Asean its trade pre-eminence over the consuming west. Not recognizing that, and not acting on it, spells trouble for Malaysia and its economy.