Sabah PKR's stumbling block - Anwar Ibrahim

Joe Fernandez

Tuesday, 31 August 2010 21:28

COMMENT The flip-flops in the continuing saga of Sabah Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), a troubled chapter, should come as no surprise to anyone who knows party advisor Anwar Ibrahim.

Anwar has a long history of unfulfilled pledges in Sabah. This is a history which began with his entry into Umno in 1984. He stepped up his reputation further when the Barisan Nasional (BN) overthrew the Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) government a month after state elections in 1994 with the elaborate promise of “Sabah Baru” (new Sabah) in 100 days.

The sole exception, pledge-wise, is the appointment of Kota Kinabalu division chief Christina Liew Chin Jin Hadhikusumo as the Sabah state deputy chief late last year as part of a peace plan. For this, credit must go to party president Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, who is close to Liew. The rest of the plan is in ruins, thanks to Anwar, the only stumbling block.

Anwar is a political animal who does not say what he means and does not mean what he says. It’s for no reason that Umno, his old party, has labeled him a political chameleon. What benefit he gets by adopting this mindset is beyond anyone’s comprehension. Anyone would like to know where he or she stands vis-à-vis another. Those who don’t subscribe to this ethic would soon be history as any good businessman would swear.

This is something to be said in favour of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad who is no doubt a hardcore racist. He leaves no one in any doubt what he stands for and never hesitates to let the other person know where he stands with him (Mahathir).

Anwar, however, is no Mahathir despite the fact that the latter is an original political animal. He lacks the flexibility and resilience of the older man.

So, it’s highly unlikely that 12 senior party activists – 11 Dusuns, 1 Barunai – currently facing a one-year suspension will have their punishment reduced upon appeal. The sentence for their involvement in the aborted formation of Parti Cinta Sabah (PCS) will stand undiminished and perhaps even enhanced to push Sabah strongman Jeffrey Gapari Kitingan to his limits. This will take his 12 disciples out of the running for the divisional elections slated for Sept 18 and 19, if not the party altogether.

The likely result, even in the event their sentences are not enhanced, will be the inevitable departure of the 12 from the party.

Any discussion on a new deal struck between Anwar and Kitingan on the fate of the 12 would be an exercise in utter futility even if it doesn’t fuel polemics. If the recent history of the written peace plan is any indication, the new verbal deal is as good as dead.

The PKR advisor virtually called Kitingan a liar yesterday. This was after the latter apparently pre-empted the reneging on their secret deal on the 12. He prematurely disclosed the 12-9 = 3 formula for the resolution of the crisis i.e. nine of his 12 men to have their sentence substituted by warning letters. The remaining three would have their suspension reduced by half and backdated to Jan 4, the date when the PCS application was officially withdrawn, according to what the Registrar of Societies reportedly told PKR.

Anwar has capitalized on Kitingan’s pre-emptive strike to entertain his inner circle with his own take on the 12-9 = 3 formula i.e. all 12 to be suspended but can appeal. The sentence on the three principal office-bearers of PCS would stand and take them out of the running for the Sept 18 and 19 polls. The other nine would be eligible. Their sentence would be back-dated to Jan 4 and reduced sufficiently to enable them to stand for the polls next month. This can be seen as another of Anwar’s fairy tales if his rubbishing of Kitingan’s take on the formula is any indication.

Kitingan and Anwar, it is clear, have been talking past each other for a very long time. This is very likely to continue and end in even more broken pledges to test Kitingan’s patience to the limits of human endurance. Sabah rights, the Malaysia Agreement, the Tambunan Declaration, the 20 Points and autonomy are yet to enter the PKR Constitution despite many promises.

The Sabahan, as a member of the majority local community, sees himself as the rightful ruler of his state, an idea which is anathema to Anwar who is Umno unreformed, unrepentant. Mahathir may have taken Anwar out of Umno but no one can take the Umno out of him. He stands for Malay Muslim political supremacy in Sabah as well and justifies this on the grounds that “the Muslims are now in a majority in the state”.

This may be true if one includes the illegal immigrants with MyKads who have entered the electoral rolls as Malay Muslims. Besides, Sabahans now number only 1.5 million while the foreigners including illegal immigrants have eclipsed them at 1.7 million.

So, Anwar’s idea for the immediate future seems to be to make full use of Kitingan for his hidden agenda in the state while stringing him along until he has no further use for him. The PKR supremo figures that ten parliamentary seats from Sabah and an equal number from neighbouring Sarawak, both through Kitingan if he remains politically naïve and trusting long enough, will help put him firmly in the saddle in Putrajaya in 2013.

How going from the frying pan (BN) into the fire (PKR) benefits Sabah and Sarawak is anyone’s guess on the other side of the South China Sea.

PKR, and by extension Pakatan Rakyat – despite DAP and Pas having some saving graces – will be another, certainly more degenerate, version of Umno and BN. There’s still the possibility of making BN and Umno see reason especially in Sabah and Sarawak. The same cannot be said for Anwar given his dubious track record.

The writing is on the wall. Long before push comes to shove, Kitingan will leave PKR for his own political vehicle as his people have already been long demanding. In that case, BN will win once again in Sabah and Sarawak but by default if Anwar doesn’t give way to him in the seats that he wants. The question of BN giving way to Kitingan’s new political vehicle does not arise.

Joe Fernandez

Tuesday, 31 August 2010 21:28

He could also return to PBS, which he co-founded in 1984 with his elder brother, especially if the latter becomes Chief Minister once again to complete Musa Aman’s – another Dusun -- term. This is the hottest topic in Sabah today. If Joseph Pairin Kitingan becomes Chief Minister of Sabah once more, even if just for the run-up to 2013, the BN will win the state with a landslide. Not a single KadazanDusunMurut vote will go to the opposition.

The return of the KDM to the BN will make it extremely difficult for the Dayaks in neighbouring Sarawak to abandon the ruling coalition at this juncture. The Dayaks are looking to the Kitingans for their political lead as they lack leaders of similar calibre, the continuing polemics on them notwithstanding.

Malaysian Mirrior

Thinking About Singapore

Written by Our Correspondent

Tuesday, 31 August 2010

An associate who recently was required to spend a day in Singapore on a business trip became so irritated by the smug attitude of the island republic's officials, taxi drivers and others that it gave rise to this rumination. In 1985, the satirical novelist Kurt Vonnegut published an odd novel, Galápagos, the story of band of humans on a nature cruise who are shipwrecked on a remote fictional island in the Galápagos chain after a financial crisis has wrecked the global economy. They arrive on the island of Santa Rosalia just in time to become the last remnants of mankind when a virus attacks the ovaries of all the world's women, making them infertile. The Santa Rosalia band, isolated from civilization by 1,000 kilometers of open South Pacific water and still able to breed, become the last people on earth. It was on the 19-island Galápagos chain, of course, where the naturalist Charles Darwin formulated his 1859 theory, On the Origin of Species by watching and recording the way finches' bills changed shape as the weather in lean or fat years made food more or less abundant. Some Galápagos birds even cease flying but become superb swimmers because fish forms their diet. In Vonnegut's fable, over the next million years Darwin's theory of natural selection favors those who can swim the fastest. The descendants of the Santa Rosalians thus devolve gradually into a species resembling seals, with flippers and rudimentary fingers. Their snouts evolve into beaks with teeth adapted to catching fish. Since a streamlined head means they can swim faster, their brains eventually shrink as their heads change shape. Hisako Hiroguchi, an ikebana teacher, ultimately gives birth to Akiko Hiroguchi, a child born with fur covering her entire body. Evolution is on the way. The species has evolved – devolved in fact – into one that has little need for thought as long as its constituent members can swim fast and catch fish. Throughout the novel, Vonnegut blames the human brain for the existence of the crisis that has wrecked the global financial system. According to an analysis of the book, Vonnegut, who died in 2007 just before the current financial crisis began to take on an uncanny resemblance to his book, believes that "only a complex brain such as ours can change its opinion of the value of a currency so rapidly and let these opinions control our actions, which have real-life consequences." Vonnegut, an astonishingly inventive but famously slapdash novelist, produced a considerable flock of books as strange as Galápagos, but many of his fabulist concoctions came dangerously close to a later reality. What if today there existed a hermetically sealed tropical island whose citizens, fed only what their leaders, a dynasty of Chinese mandarins, want them to hear? The English language, taught only by natives who learn it from others on the island, starts to evolve into a strange crackle. As their leaders become more distrustful of the outside world – surrounded by a Muslim sea – they evolve newer and better ways of keeping outsiders out and controlling the way the insiders think. They lose their ability to cope not only with Asia but anywhere else in the world. In places where people chew gum, argue with the government, take risks, misbehave and occasionally display rule-breaking creativity, the aversion to the unruly would be a major disadvantage. No taxi driver lets his passengers out in defiance of the double yellow line, nor, when the howls of drivers behind him grow to a deafening roar, does he step out of the car and scream, "Aw, go **** yourself!" The island's leader first tries to control population through mass sterilization programs, causing the birth rate to fall precipitously as 30 percent of child-bearing women are sterilized in an attempt to "raise the quality of the population." His efforts go too far, with the result that the island's birthrate refuses to rise back to replacement levels. The leadership brings in hundreds of thousands of mainland Chinese – fortunately already trained in obedience by the Communist Party. Then scientists at the island's Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology help to collect tissue and DNA samples from 10,000 species of animals. They begin to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the human and other vertebrate genomes and soon discover that they can change the direction of human development. Because smaller humans take up less space, birth rates no longer need be cut drastically. But nonetheless, the island can grow geographically – by a third, through dramatic environmental intervention. An increasingly uneasy society begins to worry more and more about outsiders, frisking and X-raying passengers on the way into the island, becoming the first society in Asia to do so. Erroneously given to believing their leader's eugenics theories have made them smarter than any other society, they approach education as a technological tool rather than as a means of enlightenment. Subsequent attempts to legislate innovation into the society go nowhere. The population go about their lives seeking merely to get as comfortable as possible. Countless attempts to foster creativity meet with frustration. Paralleling Vonnegut, there is a global financial crisis. The rest, as they say, is history. It doesn't take a million years. They may even be able to catch fish in Orchard Road.

Asia Sentinel

Accident Can Happen In The Best Regulated Family

Hantu Laut

None other than his own people dismantling his 1 Malaysia piece by piece.

Whether it is politically correct or not, sometimes, in our moment of anger, we have to restrain ourselves from making impolite remarks against our enemies or political opponents.

Obviously, Minister Hishamuddin Onn is missing on correct social etiquette when he shouldn't have been.He came from a family of good standing and background.

From Perkasa and other Malay NGOs to his own people in UMNO, Prime Minister Najib is having problems in keeping them in a straight line. Most of the times it is not ignorant or lack of education but sheer arrogance by those in power of not choosing appropriate and equally effective words to deliver their displeasure.

If the Malay language is short of euphemism, the English language is not and most of our ministers are well educated in English.

Why resort to dysphemism, if you can choose better substitutes.

The next time you lose your temper and are tempted to use the word 'fuck' think of 'effing' or if, as a Muslim you think pork is 'dirty' think of it as being 'unclean'.

To the non-Muslims pork is not dirty nor unclean.To us Muslims it is.

What about those tourists visiting our mosques? Are they dirty too?

I might not agree with Hishmuddin on his choice of word but I don't agree with Teo Nie Ching either.

She should just have walked away after giving the donation instead of politicising and publicising her presence for political mileage.

Was I Wrong About This Man?

Hantu Laut

"Dompok is drumming up supports for himself and his party and may leave the BN just before the next GE because he thinks the BN will lose the next general elections.He is keeping his option open.On the same wagon is LDP, walking the political tightrope." Read in full what I wrote here.

Read this than read the one below.

Kota Kinabalu: Upko President Tan Sri Bernard Dompok preferred not to be drawn into the controversy surrounding the remarks by Liberal Democratic Party Deputy President Datuk Chin Su Phin that LDP could no longer work with Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman.

"I wouldn't want to assess that (statement) É (it is) not proper for a (BN) component party to pass judgement on the action of another component party.

"That will not help the Barisan Nasional," the Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister told reporters after presenting 2,000 Bible Knowledge textbooks to 31 schools at a hotel, here, Saturday.

However, he noted there has to be space for some criticism.

"There has to be a leeway and there are times that we have to agree to disagree on some issues É this is our position," Dompok said.

Chin said in a statement following the second Sabah BN meeting that the LDP would, nevertheless, remain loyal to the BN national leadership and continue to work with Umno.

On the Sabah BN meeting, he said many issues from illegal immigrants to land and even the way relationships between BN component parties in the State and divisions should go about were discussed.

"I suggested that if you wanted to be better able to go further into these issues, the (Sabah) BN should set up committees to look into all the individual issues É it would be more meaningful.

"This is what the BN is going to do and I think that saved the BN a longer meeting," Dompok said.

Through these committees, the ruling coalition could examine the issues in-depth and come up with better solutions, he said, adding it would start at the State level before being extended to the respective divisions.

"The committees can go further into the issues and (then) present it in the BN meeting É I think that's the way it should be."

Meanwhile, the Bible Knowledge textbooks are part of efforts to encourage students to take up the subject in their Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examination.

Dompok, who handed over the books to representatives from the schools, said the party hoped to help and spur students to take up the subject through such programmes.

"This is a continuation of what we had done. We want to see the problems of how teaching Bible Knowledge and enrolling for this subject can be minimised," he said, after the ceremony which was followed by a training programme for Bible Knowledge teachers.

Dompok said the number of students taking up Bible Knowledge as an elective subject in schools throughout Sabah, let alone nationwide, were too few and that Upko hoped to change this.

"A lot of Mission schools are offering this subject (but only) small numbers of students (are taking it). We're helping those in Sabah who are taking up the subject to be prepared," Dompok said.

He said among the reasons why the subject was unpopular was because the schools might have thought it could bring down the overall passing grades in the respective institutions.

"I don't think this should be a worry. The study of Bible Knowledge, it's actually killing two birds with one stone É you master Bible Knowledge and also master English," he said, pointing out the subject was taught in the language.

"My party is interested in hearing about education in Malaysia É we shouldn't shy from this subject."

Dompok understood there was a big challenge for schools to hire the right type of educators for this subject since it is not part of the daily lessons.

But this should not be a stumbling block with the Government's decision to allow 12 SPM subjects, including two elective subjects, as opposed to 10 previously.

According to him, Bible Knowledge promoted universal values and was also an ingredient for success.

He was happy to note that interest in the subject was growing, as evidenced by the attendance during the Bible Knowledge training programme at the hotel, and hoped future programmes would encourage the schools, students and parents to embrace the subject.

The 2,000 textbooks comprised 1,000 "The Gospel according to Luke" books with the rest being the "Acts of the Apostles".

There are about 200 Mission schools nationwide while there are 250 examination centres where students could sit for Bible Knowledge papers.

Out of the 250, 28 centres are located throughout Sabah.