I feel sorry for all the Umno leaders who cried in the last AGM; Mahathir, Daim and company are making big time idiots out of you.
The Baker Institute suggested that Malaysia’s anti-corruption agenda may be better served if BN could focus on reaping the results of a successful economy
Change or be changed, US think-tank advises BN
“Change is not easy in old hierarchical institutions like BN, and it has relied on corruption to raise funds and satisfy supporters for several generations.The ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) must change the way it does business or risk attack from a stronger opposition with the backing of fed-up Malaysians who have become more politically aware and adept at using social media, a US policy think-tank has said in an opinion piece published in the Houston Chronicle, the superpower’s sixth-largest newspaper.
In an analysis of the May 5 polls on Southeast Asia’s third-largest economy, the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in its Baker Institute Blog column said that the direction of Malaysia’s anti-graft agenda will be determined by how the ruling coalition responds to its newly felt electoral vulnerability. Another crony appointment to a GLC! No wonder Sime Darby is not a very healthy coporation as compared to past years, when it was the public’s favourite! The rot started with MM when established cronyism in an expansive way!
“Will it understand that pandering to special interests, money politics and crony capitalism are no longer a viable strategy? “Change is not easy in old hierarchical institutions like BN, and it has relied on corruption to raise funds and satisfy supporters for several generations.
“But if BN returns to business as usual, it will risk attack from an opposition that appears resurgent, backed by a more mobilized and fed up public,” said the institute, which ranks 13th among university-affiliated think-tanks worldwide, according to a 2012 study by the University of Pennsylvania’s Think Tanks and Civil Societies Programme.
Is this the beginning of the end for Najib? Former PM Dr Mahathir Mohamad already started the ball rolling when he said Najib will probably stay on as there are no suitable candidates who can replace him.
Knowing how cunning Dr M is, I am sure he did not mean what he said. Now Zam and former finance minister Daim Zainuddin, both close associates of Dr M, are criticising Najib, calling him a clown. Where is the respect for our PM?
If I can remember correctly, a young student was threatened with the Sedition Act for stepping on the PM’s poster. It looks like there is a big battle ahead for Najib.
The think-tank noted that Malaysia has so far managed to dodge the harmful effects of corruption on the investment climate to remain one of Asia’s most vibrant economies.
But it said that Malaysians had shown they were more politically aware, judging from the increased social media coverage of the polls, and were no longer willing to tolerate corruption.
The results of the recently-concluded general election saw the BN retain power by a simple majority although it lost the popular vote to a resurgent opposition.
BN won 133 seats in the 222-member Parliament against the opposition Pakatan Rakyat’s 89 seats, drawing a weaker score than in Election 2008 and which the think-tank noted has put the 13-party ruling coalition in a precarious position unless it moves to reform the way it has conducted business by tackling corruption seriously.
The Baker Institute suggested that Malaysia’s anti-corruption agenda may be better served if BN could focus on reaping the results of a successful economy.
“To motivate itself to implement a major change towards clean behaviour, BN should focus on reaping the rewards of a successful economy.
“In order to facilitate long-term inclusive growth, the government should promote policies that will be applied fairly and transparently to all,” it said in its analysis headlined “Malaysia: Looking forward” carried yesterday.
The think-tank noted that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has made the first step by pulling back some affirmative action policies favouring Bumiputeras who form over half the population and which other analysts believe to be at the root of Malaysian corruption.
“Removing race-based policies is the first step in bringing the country together. However, it is unlikely that Najib will completely abolish these policies, as he still needs to appeal to his Malay supporters, which make up the base of BN,” the Rice University said.
It added that the PM needs to follow through on his electoral promises by detailing the steps for his administration to move forward and to enforce them, suggesting the government install “a more transparent, meritocratic system for selecting project managers… to avoid appointment based on family or political ties.”
It also suggested that the government consider dismantle the current practice of political party ownership of selective media enterprises as a move in the direction of greater transparency, noting the imbalance in news coverage as parties attempt to exert their influence.
The Baker Institute also suggested that public institutions, namely the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission and Public Complaints Bureau, also need to buck up reform, highlighting that “proper treatment of high profile cases could maximize the impact anti-corruption organizations have on the government.”
“While it remains to be seen whether the government will respond as hoped, its people are pushing for radical change.
“Malaysia needs leaders who are willing to take drastic measures to tackle corruption,” it said.
“Will it understand that pandering to special interests, money politics and crony capitalism are no longer a viable strategy? why are bribes bad? If bribes are bad, why is it perfectly legit to have brokers and middlemen? If you hire a broker to find a flat, why is it wrong to hire a broker There’s something seriously wrong with such an order itself. You cannot impose patriotism on people. It must come from within. There was a time when our hearts swelled with pride every time we saw the wave of our flagor heard the national anthem play. That pride has gone out of our lives today. What remains is but a gaping void and a shining rage. We are angry with everything around us. But, above all, we are angry with ourselves. How could we have allowed the rot to set in so deep? Why were we blind for so long? Why did we not protest before protest itself became an ineffective tool?
We have suddenly woken up to the nightmare of an incessantly we grew up in an era of certainties. We knew what was right, what was wrong. So even when we did wrong, often in defiance of authority, we believed we were in the right. There was no ambivalence, no doubt in our mind as to good and bad, moral and immoral. There was clarity about most things that mattered. This defined us as a generation. We knew what we stood for.
That certainty has chipped away over the years. We live today in an Age of Moral Ambivalence. There is a charming ambiguity over most things, and it’s this ambiguity that best reflects our moral dilemma. We are all civil society activists standing in the battlefield, a bit unsure, a bit confused, desperately seeking that certitude which eludes us. Faith cannot provide it as easily as it once did. Tradition lies tattered before the onslaught of modernity. The moral compass that once showed us the way is now defunct. Before us, lies the wilderness. Where our heroes are no longer heroes and villainy is infinitely more seductive. In such times, how easy can it be to know what’s right, what’s wrong?
This ambiguity has seeped into our public life. Do we hang a man when he is sentenced to death? We are at odds with the world if we do. State killing is abolished almost everywhere. If we choose instead to accept the Najib-Rosmah’s way that an eye for an eye make we Malaysian blind,
Yes, something has gone wrong with Malaysia and the rot begins with you and me.
If we are to fight the rot, we must stand up, each one of us, and try to reclaim our Malaysia. We must reclaim our Malaysian from the politicians. We must reclaim our Malaysia from those Najib’s crony businessmen who have brought it shame and disrepute. And yes, we must also reclaim our Malaysia from the media. We must reclaim it from the prophets of doom who constantly declaim that our dreams are dead. We must rediscover hope. We must find our dreams again. We must look in every nook and cranny where beauty, talent, faith and hope lie. We must reclaim our imagination. We must challenge ourselves to rise above the faithlessness around us and seek that courage which we have ignored while drooling over instant success.
Life is not Maggie noodles. There are no quick fixes to the problems around us. But there are ways to rise above them and, hopefully, beat them. Those ways do not lie in blind outrage. They lie in our capacity to rise above our disappointments, our rage and seek real solutions. How do we do it? It’s easy. The first step is: Do not keep quiet. Do not tolerate injustice. Do not look away when you see people doing wrong. Seek the courage within yourself to stand up to it. That’s the first step towards feeling proud as Malaysian. Be unafraid.
The next important step derives from this. Reclaim your freedoms. Over recent years, we have steadily lost them. To a Government trying to nervously cover its tracks after every scam. To the new home minister terrorising us. To crackpots and vandals. To moral brigades who want to dictate to us what we can say, read, watch, listen to, wear, eat and drink. To has lost its moral compass. To pressure groups that want to keep us in the 18th century by proudly endorsing caste crimes and honour killings. To a media that often loses its courage and caves in. It’s time we stood up and reclaimed our freedoms. For only a free nation is a strong one.Remember, every time someone is arrested for a cartoon or a tweet or a Facebook post, a book or a song or a blog or a painting, every time a scene is cut out from a film because it can hurt someone’s feelings, a part of us dies. For India is the sum total of all that we believe in, however conflicting our views may be.
A tense climate
The central message of this article is that despite whether we believe in what Adli and others preach, any government would behave similarly.
Although I do not follow the Pakatan gospel, I believe that space should be allotted for dissent, but not abused when it is allotted rather generously in contrast to other countries, or used to spread unverified claims and unsubstantiated allegations.
While these arrests may do well to conjure nostalgia of days past when Malaysian leaders used the ISA to roundup and stifle dissidents, the current scenario is far less authoritarian by contrast.
Adli was released on bail in less than a week, while Tian Chua, Tamrin Ghafar and Haris Ibrahim were released in less than 48 hours. These arrests, intended to squash the momentum to rally on Putrajaya, probably did the opposite – they turned Adam Adli into a household name for many.
If members of the Opposition want to help dismantle draconian legislation, they should cease from endlessly provoking the state into acting with a heavy-hand.
The general election results prove that the two-coalition system is firmly entrenched, and the hostility between political actors that by necessity must work together is deeply troubling.
Members of Pakatan who endorsed the usurpation of Putrajaya only advertise their contentious motives and political immaturity. For those who choose not parrot the Pakatan mantras, it is because the Opposition relies on inflated claims of the Barisan Nasional engineering ‘massive fraud’, and it has not produced definitive evidence that has convinced the greater population.
The hostility between the two coalitions is not conducive to stability, or the more just democratic order that both parties aspire to. This tense climate has divided the country, and created a situation where supporters of either side dismiss the claims of the other instinctively.
Such a climate stifles the ability of individuals to objectively form their own conclusions.
It is important that PM Najib Tun Razak repeals and replaces the Sedition Act with the National Harmony Act as he promised to do. In doing that, the opposition must close the book on its ‘massive fraud’ road show and begin co-operating with the federal government on issues of concern.
For now, members of the Opposition are more focused on coaxing the government into abandoning its ‘soft’ approach rather than focusing on issues of governance.it is about time that somebody wrote a treatise on ‘The Paranoid Style in Malay Ethnosurvivalist Politics’.
After years of squandering public money on trying to buy popularity for himself, and paying allegedly adoring crowds to wave ‘I love PM’ placards at his every orchestrated appearance, Najib Abdul Razak finds himself not so much a prime minister, as a fit subject for a political post-mortem.
He’s clearly mentally, morally and reputationally dead, but still kept – at least apparently – alive by the BN support system of electoral manipulators, professional liars and scurrilous spin doctors.
Najib’s losing of the popular vote despite ‘owning’ the overwhelming support 
of the police, judiciary, civil services, the Election Commission (EC) and the nation’s entire array of print and air media, was an absolute death-blow to him and his entire illegitimate, corrupt and criminal regime.
And about time too, as BN has for decades clung to power by killing democracy, justice, civil liberties and human rights, and thus metaphorically ruling over Malaysians’ dead bodies.
Literally, too, over the dead bodies of the hundreds who have died at the hands and in the custody of BN’s perennial partners-in-crime, the Police and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC).
The latest of these custodial killings, that of N Dharmendran a ‘suspect’ who was clearly the victim of beatings and other tortures – including, bizarrely, the stapling of his ears – came less than a fortnight after BN’s near-fatal performance in the general election.
Yet Najib and his regime have been so busy scrambling to reincarnate themselves that they have treated this crime with their customary deathly silence.
Voting in cold blood?
A response that always leaves me wondering what motivates millions of Malaysians – albeit a minority as of this recent and comprehensively rigged election – to actually go out and vote in cold blood for murderers and accessories to murder.
Surely every Malaysian citizen knows by now that there have been countless killings by BN’s forces of so-called ‘law and order’ and that most have gone outrageously uninvestigated or utterly unreported.
Or that in other cases have involved clear perversions of justice, as in such high-profile homicides as that of Mongolian translator Altantuya Shaariibuu, who was involved in the Scorpene submarines deal while Najib was defence minister, and of Teoh Beng Hock who notoriously ‘fell’ from a high window at MACC headquarters.
And who can forget the atrocious case of A Kugananthan, pictures of whose mutilated corpse on the Internet shocked the nation if not the world, but resulted in the charging of just one police suspect – and an Indian at that – with “causing hurt”?
Certainly, the MIC and other misleaders of the Indian Malaysian community don’t appear to care too much about what a toll the BN regime has been taking of their fellows.
So it was heartening to see recently that DAP’s Ipoh Barat MP M Kulasegaran has condemned Hindraf chairperson and now Deputy Minister in the new BN cabinet, P Waythamoorthy, for his “deafening silence” over this latest death in police custody.
Calling Waythamoorthy (right) “bad-intentioned” for dropping demands for 
cessation of custodial deaths from its demands in making his pre-election pact with BN, Kulasegaran flayed him for selling out the interests of the Indian community “in return for the material rewards of ministerial office”.
But of course this criticism applies to BN ministers and members of all races – they’re in it for the power to steal from Malaysians of any or all races, and those who don’t like it can go drop dead.
Or, as newly-minted Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi alternatively put it in an article he wrote for the gutter BN daily Utusan Malaysia in criticism of the public rallies protesting fraudulent conduct of the recent general election: If they don’t like it, they can “migrate elsewhere”.
This, quickly seconded by Selangor BN Deputy Chief Noh Omar’s message to malcontents that they should “go live in the forest”, was the first shot in a campaign – the duo have since been joined by UMNO Information chief Ahmad Maslan, UMNO Youth chief and new Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, along with PM Najib himself – to deny any impropriety in the conduct of the general election.
The ‘con’ in ‘constitution’
The agreed story goes, apparently, that the polls was conducted according to the provisions of the constitution. Najib – who has proven himself such a persistent, indeed pathological liar that he might as well have put the “con” in “constitution” – declared that “the claim that we stole victory from the Opposition is a falsehood because we did not cheat in the recent GE13″.
According to Bernama, the news agency that plays the dummy to him and other BN ventriloquists, Najib said that “the supremacy and loftiness of the constitution is the main pillar of the nation, but the people have avenues to voice their opinions in line with parliamentary democracy”.
What Najib and his collaborators in this evidently well-rehearsed fairytale ‘forgot’ to mention, of course, was that during all the years in which BN enjoyed the two-thirds parliamentary majority required for any amendment of the constitution, the regime then turned its dead hand to robbing this formerly supreme and lofty document of most of its democratic provisions.
For example, there is their move to pass the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984 for the specific purpose of denying the people their constitutional right to free news media. In addition, BN’s retaining of the Internal Security Act (ISA) – and more recently replaced with the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012 (PAA) – to override the constitutional right of peaceful assembly.
As for constitutional provisions designed to ensure free and fair elections – like the specification that no electorate should contain 20 percent more or less voters than any other, or that the EC be independent – they seem to have been simply ignored by BN in its obscene enthusiasm for gerrymandering, roll-stacking and other such undemocratic stunts.
Stunts like the latest one of declaring peaceful public rallies and candlelight vigils illegal, and charging speakers at these events such as student activist Adam Adli Abdul Halim, Anything But UMNO (ABU) chief Haris Ibrahim (left) and other opposition figures with sedition while giving free rein to purveyors of poisonous BN propaganda.
In short, far from convincing anybody but themselves and their craven cronies that democracy is alive and well in Malaysia, and that the 13th general was a model example of the Westminster system in action, all Najib and his accomplices have achieved thus far is to demonstrate that their credibility, like their reputation, is dead.
And that for the next five years, or however long it takes for the people to wrest power back from this gang of cheating crooks, the premiership of Najib – or any other stooge that the lying, dying BN manages to find to replace him – will be nothing but one endless post-mortem.
