Why has the government not abolished the Sedition Act?

A common grouse against the Madani reformist Government of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim is its failure to-date to fulfil many campaign promises, amongst of which the most notable being its pledge to repeal the Sedition Act 1948. This Act was originally enacted by the colonial authorities of British Malaya in 1948 to contain the local communist insurgence. Now that the communists are no longer a threat (real or imagined), what use then is the Sedition Act in today's context? Well, basically anyone who plots to overthrow the government can be charged under the Act and, if found guilty, can be imprisoned for up to 3 years or fined RM5,000, or both. Let's examine the Act.

Under Section 3(1), those acts defined as having a "seditious tendency" are acts with a tendency:

(a) to bring into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against any Ruler or against any Government;

(b) to excite the subjects of the Ruler or the inhabitants of any territory governed by any government to attempt to procure in the territory of the Ruler or governed by the Government, the alteration, otherwise than by lawful means, of any matter as by law established;

(c) to bring into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against the administration of justice in Malaysia or in any State;

(d) to raise discontent or disaffection amongst the subjects of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong or of the Ruler of any State or amongst the inhabitants of Malaysia or of any State;

(e) to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Malaysia; or

(f) to question any matter, right, status, position, privilege, sovereignty or prerogative established or protected by the provisions of part III of the Federal constitution or Article 152, 153 or 181 of the Federal Constitution.

For an Act that has been challenged as being unconstitutional, these are very wide sweeping powers indeed to fortify the almost unassailable position of the incumbent powers-that-be and silence dissent. 

However, Section 3(2) provides certain exceptions, providing examples of speech which cannot be deemed seditious. It is not seditious to "show that any Ruler has been misled or mistaken in any of his measures", nor is it seditious "to point out errors or defects in the Government or Constitution as by law established". It is also not seditious "to attempt to procure by lawful means the alteration of any matter in the territory of such Government as by law established" or "to point out, with a view to their removal, any matters producing or having a tendency to produce feelings of ill-will and enmity between different races or classes of the population of the Federation". However, the act explicitly states that any matter covered by subsection (1)(f), namely those matters pertaining to the Malaysian social contract, cannot have these exceptions applied to it.

 It is small wonder that the government of the day is slow to repeal an Act which obviously protects incumbency. It is to be seen whether this dragging of feet on reforms will adversely affect the Madani Government come the 12 Aug 2023 state elections which will be held in 6 peninsular states, namely Kedah, Terengganu, Kelantan, Penang, Negeri Sembilan and Selangor. It will not affect hardcore supporters of the Madani Government, but the fence-sitters who are being hotly-courted by both sides of the political divide may be swayed or they may spoil their votes in protest. We shall see.  

 

The Failure of Modern Malay Secular Politicians in Malaysia

The last Malaysian general elections held in 19 November 2022 was a watershed moment for local Malay politicians. Amidst the "Green Wave" from newly-registered Undi-18 voters, the old Malay political establishment came crumbling down and were largely washed aside. UMNO which thought itself a clear winner ended up as the biggest loser in GE 15 with PAS emerging as the dominant Malay party in Parliament.

Old fogeys like Tun Dr Mahathir, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and the elite secular Malay politicians fell like dominoes. 

There is a very clear message being sent by young Malay voters. The Malay elite political establishment has failed them and they want an alternative representation. The old order is seen as corrupt, crony-benefitting and self-serving compared with the likes of PAS, inflammatory incendiary and all-provoking as they may seem to us non-Malays. But the fact remains that PAS is perceived as cleaner and mostly untouched by the horrid corruption and other scandals befalling the Malay elites. It is closer to the roots of the Malay psyche, the kampung pondok agama, and the common Malay peasant. It is remarkable how from being a marginalised, fringe looney religio-party that PAS has emerged as the main voice of the discontented and restless segment of the Malay voters.

In less than 30 years, PAS has grown from strength to strength, benefitting always from the many follies and scandals befalling its arch-rival UMNO. The final straw that literally broke the UMNO camel's back was 1MDB involving disgraced former UMNO President and ex-PM Najib Tun Abdul Razak. In their final hours of desperation, najib and his deputy zahid both sought the support of PAS to stave off their court cases and when that and the Perikatan Nasional tie-ups didn't work, they sought an alternate refuge: Pakatan Harapan.

Who can save the so-called secular modern Malay politican, if such a man/woman truly exists? If najib tun abdul razak personifies the modern moderate secular malay polituician, then the future looks bleak indeed. Can there be a clean, honest and competent Malay politician free from political Islam and yet far-seeing enough to guide KD Malaysia to safe harbour away from the storms of racial and religious extremism and gutter poltics? Perhaps a taste of Hadi Awang as Prime Minister for one term is all the anbtidote that is really needed to stir the slumbering hordes out of its morbid fantasies.  

 

American exceptionalism explained

 American exceptionalism.

This is not anti-American propaganda. I write based on facts. Fact 1: America is a global trouble-maker who wages wars against regimes it considers to be a threat against its industrial-military complex. Fact 2: America preaches but it does not do or act as it preaches. It wants you to follow its admonitions but it claims "exception" to its own rules. Eg. For centuries, America decimated her native Indian population and marginalised their language and culture into so-called "reservations" where the natives are confined for generations until only recently. But America preaches hatred against China, Russia, Iran, any country that it deems to be a potential threat or rival against its global hegemony. Fact 3: America preaches "freedom" of speech but hunts down its own whistleblowers as in the case of Julian Assange under the pretext of "National Security". How does this make America any different from other despotic regimes who use national security or "national interests" as a shroud to cover its misdeeds?  Fact 4: Ameirca is in decline and it knows it is in decline interminably so it tries to find ways and means to denigrate and destroy its perceived rival, namely China. America doesn't even pretend to care for the welfare of the poor and marginalised worldwide, what it does do is to hand out crumbs to needy nations and attempt regime-change through the CIA and its dirty war operatives. Fact 5: America has LONG AGO LOST its moral authority to lead the world therefore it is not fit to pretend to continue to lead the world. It cannot even manage its own massive homelesness, drugs, gun culture, social decay problems so how can it lead anyone? A former classmate of mine showed me a link to a PBS video denigrating China for its alleged human rights abuses. Fine. But what about America's own human rights abuses? What is good for the goose is clearly not good for the gander. Hypocrites.   

The courage of his convictions

Today marks a milestone in Malaysian politics with the conviction of najib tun razak of all 7 charges in relation to the SRC corruption scandal. He was sentenced to 7 concurrent sentences for each offence, the longest being 12 years’ jailtime and a fine for RM210 million, a record-shattering quantum by Malaysian standards. Najib has of course appealed And his lawyers managed to obtain a stay of execution of his jail sentence pending the outcome of his appeals. 

The conclusion of najib’s case marks a milestone in Malaysian politics. Never before has a former prime minister been convicted of corruption in or out of office, for that matter. The razak family name has taken a terrible fall from grace, the scion of Malaysia’s second Prime Minister known widely as “mr establishment” himself has tested the judicial waters and it totally froze him out.

Najib still has legal avenue to appeal his 7 convictions and the appellate process will be yet another test of the Malaysian bench’s independence and virility as a force for good or well, not so good. In order to overturn his 7 convictions, najib’s lawyers must prove that the trial judge had erred in law or that fresh compelling and material evidence had emerged rendering their client’s convictions unsafe and unsatisfactory. 

One hopes that the days of Eusoff Chin sitting at the head of the bench and passing shocking, unwarranted appellate decisions are well and truly a thing of the past. Indeed, the new appellate bench almost comprising exclusively of female appellate judges could just be the refreshing change that this country needs. But we will see. 

For now, justice has been done and it has been seen to be done. And that is all that one can hope for. 

It is today the 06th Jan 2022 and as i write this, najib's appeal to the Court of Appeal has been dismissed a few months ago with the appellate judge calling him a "National Embarrassment" when najib pleaded "national interests" in his defence. Najib's next and final appeal is to the Federal Court and he has in the meantime obtained  a stay of execution of his conviction pending the hearing of his final appeal. 

Sex lies and videotape

Malaysians, it seems, never tire of the sexual peccadilloes of our politicians. The latest sleaze allegation comes from PKR's (the People's Justice Party's) Haziq Aziz, a hitherto obscure senior private secretary to the deputy Primary Industries Minister Shamsul Iskandar Mohd Akin. Haziq posted on facebook what sounded like a statutory declaration admitting to be the actor in a video of Haziq bedding down with an individual who is widely perceived to be no less than the Economic Affairs Minister himself, Dato' Seri Azmin Ali. The video, it seems, was recorded without Haziq's permission and has since gone viral but now Haziq says that he is willing to brief journalists and he further urged the Malaysian anti-corruption commission to investigate Azmin Ali.

I have a few issues with this.

Firstly, if the video footage was indeed taken without his (Haziq's) permission, shouldn't he (Haziq) be outraged and immediately lodge a police report against the perpetrators of this heinous invasion of his privacy under the Personal Data Protection Act?

Second, wouldn't the police be more interested to apprehend the culprits behind the viral video for propagating obscenity/pornography under the Film Censorship Act rather than pry into the private lives of individuals?

Third, why would Haziq jump to the conclusion that elements of corruption are actually at play here? If there are 2 consenting adults, a formal charge for "having carnal intercourse against the order of nature" under the Penal Code comes into mind, but what is there that reeks of corruption or the abuse of official position unless Haziq comes forth to say that he was sodomised against his free will?
But if not, wouldn't Haziq be an accomplice himself and hence be liable to be charged for the archaic offence of sodomy?

A Very Malaysian Spring

"In the spring a young man's fancy lighly turns to love" - Lord Alfred Tennyson, Locksley Hall. 

Locksley hall is a poem written by Lord Alfred Tennyson in 1835 and published in 1842 centering on a young man's unrequited love.  It narrates in monologue the emotions of a rejected suitor who comes to his childhood home, the fictional Locksley Hall.

Like the protagonist's unrequited love, the demise of Barisan Nasional had been many years in the making, only its leaders failed to read the writing on the wall. They succumbed to the trap of ego/personality-worship at their own peril for far too long and for all the wrong, farcical reasons. 

To be true, UMNO the mainstay of Barisan still retains 54 seats in Parliament and will likely reform itself - as an Oppostion party - to stay relevant to the Malays who are still loyal to the party. The UMNO which was founded by Onn Ja'afar who ironically left the party he founded in disgust over its communalistic leanings, is now drifting into uncharted waters. Bereft of its source of government largess and now cast out into the political wilderness, UMNO is struggling to stay afloat.

 MCA and MIC will ponder their future in barisan with the same gloom as do all its other minor component parties, loyal to the wrong cause to the last. How long more will this misconceived loyalty subsist remains to be seen. Already some have abandoned ship.

But after the dust has settled, BN leaders will have conducted a post-mortem into what went so wrong with PRU-14. The answer has always been obvious. For UMNO, its leaders became so manifestly corrupt and inwards-looking that party elections were postponed well beyond the norm to prop up the corrupt. It became manifestly UNREPRESENTATIVE of the people that it professed to protect. Most of its candidates were above the age of 60, save for a token few paraded around proudly as the model of najib's "transformasi" which never was. MCA lacked an agenda for the Chinese community. MIC the same, its squabbles with the PPP over who held the leadership mantle for the Malaysian Indian community was the butt of jokes everywhere. 

Irrelevance equals to loss of support from their respective communities. Barisan ceramahs were empty, hollow reminders of the arrogance of its leaders, echoing the microphone of speakers who shouted to invisible audiences their messages of denial and defiance in the face of mounting evidence of wrongdoings and falling mostly on deaf ears. They were roundly rejected by the people but the resulting rout was not felt by its leaders until too late into the night of 9th May 2018.

Is this the end of communal politics in Malaysia?

Not quite but it seems that all roads lead to Bangsa Malaysia from hereon. The new government is still forming as i write this but all hopes are for a better tomorrow. That most of its leaders were ex-UMNO stalwarts anyway is an irony not lost on us. It will become apparent that unity over division, national interest over parochialism, love over hate, hope over fear will now finally be allowed to flourish,  perhaps even to prevail at long last.  The strong undercurrents of Malaysiana will make its presence felt more and more in our national life. It is now up to the new government to navigate the waters and bring the ship Malaysia to port safely. Our common destiny beckons.   

We have witnessed a most equatorial blossoming of our young democracy from the tyrannical rule of the corrupt into a multi-racial, multi-religious people's power which toppled najib's regime and ushered in hitherto undreamed of freedoms our forefathers wrote about when they crafted our Constitution. Long live freedom and long live Malaysia. Let us hope that, unlike Tennyson's young man, may our love be requitted and may we always be loved by our country.

No Glue for Unity and yet...

I went for Tun Dr M's speech during the recent world international peace day open forum organized by the Malacca Bar. He said something interesting. Speaking on the topic of unity, Tun said that there is no "glue" holding Malaysians of different races and religion together and yet somehow we have managed to get along peacefully without any major incidents for the past 58 years except for the May 13 tragedy which happened 46 years ago. How was this possible? That we are thrown into this land whether or not we like each other but for the sake of making a good life we sacrifice certain wishes so that we can get along with each other? Tun remarked that in Malaysia, perhaps it was not such a bad thing that everyone is dissatisfied for not being able to get their way 100% of the time but if this was the price to pay for peace and relative harmony, then it is a sacrifice well worth the price. Let's hope that the next 58 years will draw us closer and not further apart. 

Seasons

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose..."

I'm not a theist so i have left out the last part "...under heaven" because i don't believe in a theist heaven anymore. But what i do believe is there is a time and a place for everything. A time to live, a time to rejoice, a time to love, a time to weep, and a time even for death. The time for our incumbent Prime Minister now isn't death literally, but time overdue for him to resign. Please please please, letak jawatan before the office of prime minister becomes a hollow shell echoing only the eerie sounds of your hired sycophants. You do not want to be remembered as a tyrant, you do not want to besmirch the memory of your father our second prime minister. If you truly love Malaysia, quit now.   

Oh Najib, remorse repent resign retire reflect

Events of the last year or so have culminated in the suspension of TheEdge Daily and The Edge weekly papers today, arguably the last bastion of what's left of Malaysia's formerly free press. There are of course opposition-based publications and perhaps The Sun newspaper, but the night is now darkest before the breaking dawn, as the saying goes. 

I'll not mince words. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has lost the confidence of the majority of Malaysians and he must resign immediately. 

He is unable to answer the various allegations leveled against him, he is evasive, he has kept silent in the face of serious questions posed on the moral and legal legitimacy of his premiership and he has shown time and time again that he is morally intellectually politically and legally unfit to be our prime minister. 

Whatever coercive actions being taken by his morally-challenged administration to perpetuate its grip on power cannot whitewash his shortcomings, indeed they amplify it all the more. If Parliament is unable to move a motion of no confidence because of the party whip that is in force, then it is incumbent on us the rakyat to keep pushing until he does sign his letter of resignation. The judiciary, the press, the legislative branch, the police, the PAC, the MACC, all the organs of government are under the powerful sway of the executive office and they are unable to discharge their duties effectively nor do as  they are mandated to do by law. Rule of law has degenerated into rule by law. All our institutions have become emasculated and they are scarce able to safeguard the constitution, let alone the rights of the rakyat. Whistle blowers are being persecuted while the well-connected elites continue with their abusive rule unscathed, unafraid, disrespectful of the true objects of the law.  

But i am optimistic even in these dark times. I believe in the light at the end of the tunnel. And i believe with a passion that we are witnessing the dying throes of a hopelessly corrupt regime ensnared in its own trap. We will prevail and we will have a brighter future.

Long Live Malaysia. Long Live Freedom. Power to the People. Hidup Rakyat Malaysia!

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad on "The Malaysian Dilemma"

The following are a very rough transcript of the Center for a Better Tomorrow's talk by Tun Dr Mahathir entitled, "The Malaysian Dilemma" held on 12 Feb 2015 from 10.10am till 12.30pm at the Connexion@ Nexus, Bangsar South City, Jalan Kerinchi, Kuala Lumpur. I could not transcript the entire 2 hour talk so i can only publish the more notable bits which i found relevant and amusing in Tun's own light-hearted manner.

(Tun flanked by Lim Chee Wee standing to the left and Gan Ping Sieu seated to the right)

I was the first to get at the venue this morning after an hour and a half of driving during the early pre-dawn hours up to KL to meet The Man. And boy, Tun didn't disappoint me in the least. Let's just say that this was a most memorable and fruitful trip in recent memory for Yours Truly.

Tun: "Dilemma means if you do you are damned, if you don't you will also be damned. So, if you are going to be damned anyway, let's do something about it (referring to the government's efforts to decrease the disparity between the rich and the poor in Malaysia and the disparity between the races which was why the New Economic Policy was introduced). "It resolved the disparity during that time and the country grew by 12% almost every year but now we grow by about 5% annually so it is still OK. When you are poorer the rate of growth is much higher. If you look at the Developed countries, if they achieve 1-2% growth that is fantastic because they already have a high base but for us we still need about 5% growth which is still good."

Tun: "So we have a dilemma. Do we continue with the formula which has served us well or do we discard it now that we have done well? That is the Dilemma. It is a Tongkat. Some people think that it is a Status Symbol but we have to disabuse them of this thinking. The process is one of changing their culture, their values system. I find that whether they (the Malays) succeed or not is a function of their culture/values system. The hardworking men, the hardworking nation will succeed. A nation that is postponing everything till tomorrow will not succeed. That is why we promoted the "Look East" Policy. You know, today Europe is in Big Trouble. Japan is also in trouble. But China and Korea (South) are doing well. Samsung is doing well, they manufacture all sorts of gadgets tvs handphones and consumer items, etc So we have to look east because we see people who have succeeded there while in the west people have failed. It is the culture needed by the Malay community. They HAVE to CHANGE if they want to succeed. They do not have to go to Japan, they have a role model from the Chinese in this country."

 During the Q & A session which lasted for about an hour after the hour-long talk by Tun (remarkably, this almost 90-year old man stood for over 2 hours speaking on the rostrum!), a teenage student posed a question about the difficulties faced by students under the new education system.

Tun replied that he personally never liked the Malaysian education system even when he was still the Prime Minister and that he wished to emphasize the importance of mastering the English language so as students can better grasp maths and science subjects where daily advancements and tremendous changes are all written in the English medium. That is why he insisted on having maths and science to be taught in English. He added that it was impossible to translate all technical advancements from English to the Malay language and the quickest way to acquire such knowledge and know-how was to be competent in English.

Tun's personal advice to Students in particular and Malaysians in general?
"Read as widely as you can, acquire knowledge and skills through reading as many books as you can. Nowadays people do not do much reading, kids play with their hand-held gadgets or computers etc, adults do the same. But reading books is so very important."

Asked about his comments on the perception that Malaysian society had become more polarised and divided in recent times, Tun remarked that there will always be extremists from all sides of the political divide and of all races and one had to have the courage as a moderate to speak up and not remain quiet although the tendency of a moderate is usually to be quiet and maintain a low profile. Tun said: "They (the extremists) will always be a minority but sometimes when we speak up we are accused ourselves of being an extremist (to much laughter from the floor). But if you do not speak up as a moderate, then you will be deemed to have accepted the extremists' views and so their views will set the agenda." He added that the perception of increased polarisation and division in Malaysian society was also a minority view as whenever he personally went out shopping to places like Pavillion in Kuala Lumpur as he liked to do, ordinary malaysians from all walks of life and ethnicity would come up to him and tell their children to shake his hands and greet him which would not happen if there truly was such polarisation and division in Malaysian society.

On communal politiics and whether the Barisan Nasional ethnic-based parties were themselves a cause of the perceived polarisation, Tun continued: "By and large we have gotten well together through the years after independence, despite the occasional bickering and quarrels. We have not become like Iraq, Syria or Libya for example. What is so important is the concept of "KONGSI" or Sharing in Malaysia. The Malays being the majority with the political power shared their political power while the Chinese with their dominant economic clout in Malaysia shared their economic power. We are not depriving anyone of their slice of the cake but we seek to enlarge the cake so that everyone can have a bigger slice of it respectively."
Tun stressed that only by continuing and being willing to Share can the  peace and stability enjoyed by all Malaysians and the nation's continued prosperity be assured and Wawasan 2020 or Vision 2020 (the year when the Malaysia government has set its target to become  a developed nation) is achieveable.

He said that someday a time may come when there was no need to have communal-based parties but for now as people still generally identified themselves by race first rather than as Malaysians, they were a part of life in Malaysia. He described how once during an overseas trip to Japan he overheard some young people walking behind him speaking in perfect Malay amongst themselves. "When i turned around i found that they were Indonesian ethnic Chinese", he said. So it is this issue of race and language which must first be overcome before a Bangsa Malaysia can be achieved.

To a question from the audience about 1MDB, Tun said that he would never have such a body in his time as it was not necessary. "They have only loans and you must pay back loans", he added, saying that loans were not assets as such. He likened 1MDB's loans to the Malays in the kampungs owing monies and loans to their local chettiars and once when his own father had passed away, his late father's chettiar appeared at his doorstep to ask for repayment of his late father's loan. When told that Tun's father had died, the chettiar simply replied that although tun's father had died, the loan had not died (to much roars of laughter from the floor).

Tun said that at the end of the day, a leader was only a leader when he had followers. "A leader does what he does to serve the interests of his followers. If he is there just to enjoy himself, then well..." (again to much applause and laughter).

 (Tun accepts a token of appreciation from Cenbet moderator Gan Ping Sieu)

While the above transcript is faithfully reproduced from memory and personal handwritten notes and Yours Truly was seated about 5 rows away from Tun, apologies are in order for any unintended mistakes errors omissions or misheard/misreported comments. No malice is intended and this transcript is intended to be for public consumption in honour of our former Prime Minster. Tun was also good enough to autograph my copy of his memoirs (see below, but alas to rotate anti-clockwise once).

MPHB throws down the gauntlet to Johor

MPHB throws down the gauntlet to Johor

By Kamarul Azhar

Is it right for the Johor government to forcibly acquire private land and then resell it for a hefty profit?

That is the crux of the suit MPHB Capital Bhd has brought against the state government as the first defendent and national oil company Petronas as the second defendent.

MPHB's subsidiary Kelana Megah Development Sdn Bhd (KMD) filed the suit as the landowner on May 9.

In essence, the Johor government and Petronas are being accused of conspiring to unfairly and forcibly acquire seven parcels totalling 1,150 ha (2,841 acres), which is an abuse of the Land Acquisition Act.

Here are the salient points of the suit according to affidavits filed in court by Kelana Megah:

- The Johor government used the Land Acquisition Act to buy the land at 93 sen psf without granting KMD sufficient time to appoint an independent valuer to value the land. KMD was notified on Aug 9, 2012, and at a land enquiry conducted by the state land administrator on Sept 3, 2012, that the administrator had fixed the acquisition price at 93 sen after refusing a KMD request to delay a decision pending submission of an independent valuation.

- The state government proceeded with the acquisition at 93 sen on Oct 8, 2012, while it already had an agreement to sell the same land to Petronas at RM8 psf, which the national oil company needed for its Refinery and Petrochemical Integrated Development (RAPID) project.

- KMD alleges that the RM8 psf price was agreed upon by the state government and Petronas in May 2012 - four months before the Sept 3 enquiry that decided that KMD was only to get 93 sen psf from the state.

- KMD further alleges that three of the seven parcels acquired were not on the original list of land that Petronas had asked for and needed for RAPID and so should not have been acquired by the state.

The  land administrator set the price at 93 sen psf despite KMD producing a receipt for the payment of stamp duty on one of the parcels, which had been valued at RM5.75 psf just a year before.

At RM5.75 psf, all seven parcels would have been valued at RM711.55 million, based on a back-of-the-envelope calculation by The Edge.

The price differential between the RM8 psf paid by Petronas to the state government and the 93 sen psf awarded by the land administrator to KMD means that the state government made a whopping profit of RM800 million.

"Why should the state get the difference between the RM8 and 93 sen?" sks a corporate executive. "If the acquisition was made in the name of national interest, surely, the state should not have made money at the expense of the private landowner?"

Landowners are watching the outcome of the court case with great interest, although this is not the first time one of them has taken both the federal and state governments to court (see accompanying story).

The RAPID project, announced by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak in May 2011, is positioned to turn southern Johor into Southeast Asia's oil and gas and petrochemical hub.

Petronas plans to have the RAPID project commissioned by 2016. However, opposition to the project from the local residents and the complexity of acquiring individual parcels and relocating the affected people raised concerns that the project may not see the light of day.

Petronas then turned to the state government for assistance in acquiring 8,200 acres in Pengerang, including the seven parcels belonging to KMD.

According to KMD, it should have been given sufficient time to determine the valuation of its land since Petronas had said it would only make a decision on RAPID in 2013. In fact, it was only in April this year that a final investment decision was made by the national oil company on the project.

In its suit, KMD is seeking a declaration by the court that the acquisition of the land was illegal and of no effect and to order the state authority to take all necessary steps to revoke the acquisition.

It is also seeking an order that Petronas deliver vacant possession of the land within seven days, pay damages for trespassing on the land, general damages for cutting down trees and destroying its oil palm estate as well as interest at the rate of 5% per annum from the date of the acquisition.

(Re-produced without permission from the Edge Malaysia magazine, the week of May 26 to June 1, 2014. All rights belong to the author of this article and the Edge Malaysia magazine, i own no proprietary rights and am only re-producing it for the sole purpose of academic discussion)   

release the hounds

And so it has begun, the backlash against voters who voted for the opposition. The government has received a bloody nose from GE 13 and is sore about it. We are now witnessing a rising crescendo of verbal attacks against non-Malays from establishment figures such as a certain ex-Court of Appeal Judge, a Perak Mufti, an assortment of second-rate Malay NGOs and who-else-have-you-wannabe-race champions whose utterings range from the inane to the slightly insane. I predicted that there would be calls to abolish the vernacular schools for non-Malays and that has happened, notwithstanding what happened to the late MP Mark Koding in 1978 who lost his Parliamentary seat for sedition when he suggested the same thing but then again, that was under the saintly Tun Hussein Onn's administration, wasn't it? (Mark Koding subsequently rose to become the Sabah Deputy Chief Minister after PBS defeated Party Berjaya in the 1985 state elections). All of these calls would ordinarily have been deemed seditious if not downright incitement to violence against minorities but as it is now open season on the non-Malays and najib needs to appease the hawks in his party, expect that no one will be prosecuted. After all, it's not seditious if it's not against the government, right? Apparently now it's the non-Malays that are "bigots" and "racist" whereas a "Malay" (and that definition of who is a "Malay" is broadly understood in its widest possible sense) is free to voice his/her opinions on matters of race and religion without being tarred with the same brush. How lovely indeed. So apparently, in Malaysia if one votes against the government, that would be tantamount to usurpation of the political power of the "Malays" and treason. My question then is, why vote? I doubt very much that najib is intent on raising a race riot, but what we are now witnessing is a natural progression of what najib is all about all along. a race-baiter. no soul, no content, no substance, nothing more than a race-baiter. Not even a demagogue because najib is incapable of demagoguery which requires mass appeal. Just a common race-baiter. Which in Malaysian politics, is quite perfectly acceptable. Or is it now?   

the stick or the carrot?

the results of the 13th general elections disappointed not a few and yet was quite typically Malaysian. People voted along racial lines, with the Malays mostly rooting for the government while the Chinese solidly behind the Opposition. A few thoughts on the aftermath of this elections. One, retaliation and punishment against the ungrateful Chinese by excluding yet more ministries from the new government line-up from ethnic Malaysian Chinese participation and the beginning of a more hardline policy against Chinese independent schools and other issues affecting the community. Or, on a more optimistic note, the government does a post-mortem of its failure to retain Chinese support and it reaches out even more to the Chinese community by accommodating Chinese concerns. I would be foolish to believe the latter. So, let's brace ourselves for the worst scenario. Hard ball time. I hope that this doesn't mean yet more ethnic Chinese migrating overseas.  

General elections blues

Top dog has finally dissolved parliament and the 13th general elections is due anytime by the end of this month or thereabouts. This time, campaigning is the in-your-face variety. I have so far received several sms-es from Najib's Barisan Nasional urging me to vote for Malaysia and hence, vote for Barisan Nasional. Fascist sms-es only annoy me. If i were a fence-sitter, this will cause me to swing AGAINST the government rather than to vote for them. First of all, they have gotten my handphone number from God knows where and then they messaged me several times equating the government to the country. Wrong in principal and oh, have we forgotten the Personal Data Protection Act 2010? Or is that just a nice piece of gloss to brag about. And all these promises of goodies from both sides of the political divide is disgusting. We want clean, transparent, efficient government, not goddamned hand-outs. It's our tax payers' money and the government has no right to use it to buy votes. Hopefully, people have grown smart enough not to fall for this Santa Claus bull shit. Last but not least, I'm sick and tired of reading the mainstream newspapers like the paid prostitutes that they so are.

I am weary. Let's vote and be done with the damned politics.

call it now you gutless swine

So it's elections season again, huh? That is, when najib finally grows a pair of balls and calls it without bankrupting the country first. If there's one thing that makes us better than the sultan-worshipping morons the papers portray us to be, it's that we're straight, down-to-earth people. So i'm calling it like it is. The past few months have been like living in a dream-like trance. I can't wait for them to dissolve parliament and go cast my vote. So the prime minister has the prerogative to call the general elections when he feels like it? And meanwhile time stops for the rest of the world? Call it now, call it now, call it now, you putrefying pile of cat shit.

Hypocrisy Ad Nauseam



Unelected Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has been reported in the Guardian newspaper, UK as having thrown his endorsement behind silat groups to fight against Bersih while the police rehearsed using banners that threaten to shoot at demonstrators unless they disperse. For an UNELECTED PM, this shows great gall and monumental hypocrisy. This is especially so in the light of the Najib administration's parading before the world that Malaysia is a model of "moderation" and self-hailing our country as an example worthy of emulation by developing democratic nations. But nothing could be further from the truth. Behind his facade of pretended moderation, Najib's administration has quietly presided over the inexplicable deaths of 2 men whilst in MACC custody, the yet-to-be-resolved Altantuya Shariibu murder case which has implicated Najib personally despite the administration's vigorous and bare denials, the sordid sex video drama alleging the Opposition Leader's involvement which brought local politics literally to an even more below-the-belt level and the recent arrest since June 22nd of over 230 people including women and minors amidst threats to use the archaic colonial era's Internal Security Act against Bersih 2.0 supporters under ridiculous charges of "communism" and waging war against the Constitutional Monarchy. All of which smacks of blatant wrongs un-righted and gross abuses of power hiding beneath a tissue-thin veneer of "moderation" and "reform". Najib's administration is slowly but surely losing its tenuous claim to legitimacy and choses NOT moderation and reform, as it publicly proclaims, but feudal repression and a myopic style of administration. It can at least spare us and other nations its wholly unmerited claim to the former.

poor sleepy hollow

i promised myself sometime late last year that i'd refrain from commenting on local politics for health reasons - namely, my own! But events of the past week have proved too mind-bogglingly crazy to remain silent. And hence, it is with deep regret that i, dukuhead, blog as thus:

Rahim Tamby Chik, ex-chief minister of Malacca, was credited (still is credited) by most people as a chief minister of true ability who brought substantive progress and development to malacca state. Yes, he was a bright and able administrator, not without the usual flaws in malaysian politicians that we have grown so accustomed to now (especially so in recent years). His fall from grace and the subsequent events that followed need no repeating here. He was quoted to have said that after he was no longer chief minister, the traffic of people coming to see him dwindled, nay the flow disappeared even and he knew then who were his true friends and who were mere fair-weathered friends. It is remarkable and sad that in local culture and politics, a disgraced former VVIP becomes less than a commoner - he becomes invisible. You heard rare utterances from Rahim Tamby Chik in the occasional comments he makes during UMNO general assemblies and such but they were reported more as a matter of old curiosity than that any prominence is given to him. So it is rather sad that Rahim now has apparently been reduced yet even further from a political has-been to a messenger boy and the bearer of dirty laundry. This has nothing whatsoever to bear on the truth or the consequences of the sex video case. I am merely commenting on how terrible the descent has been on a man of talent who is still remembered by many Malaccans as the developer of the state during the 80s, on whom in his hey-day, lavish praises were heaped and the local press fawned upon appropriately. And now that his name is going to be dragged through the mud, along with the stereotypes people often associate Malaccans with (it's going to get even worse for us now I expect), we can but sit and weep silently.

Winds of Change

 

What a tumultuous first 2 months of 2011 it has been! First, on Jan 14th in Tunisia, strongman Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia with family in tow, but not before spiriting out 1.5 tonnes of gold. The Interpol is out looking for Ben Ali and family as we write this. Then, on Feb 11th was Egypt's Hosni Mubarak's turn to abdicate. Shortly after state media played out his pre-taped speech vowing that he, Mubarak, would NEVER step down, Mubarak deftly abandoned the seat of power in Cairo for a Red Sea resort, His ex-Pharaonic Majesty's current whereabouts unknown. Meanwhile, demonstrations across Jordan, Syria, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and a string of other Arab countries are almost a daily occurance.
Closer to home in Malaysia, a PAS-fronted opposition crowd bravely chanted solidarity with the Egyptians bringing a swift response from no less than the 1Prime Minister himself that demonstrations ala Egypt/Tunisia will not, I repeat, sternly, NOT be allowed here. haha, what genius. Of course they won't allow demos that lead to revolution now, would they? But anyway I don't see much danger of that happening in staid old Malaysia. People here are simply too well-fed, too contented, too afraid, too complacent and generally too lazy to risk having their skulls cracked instigating for regime change. And judging from the performance of the hapless opposition in the last couple of by-elections, evolutionary change will probably be slow to come too.

But of more pressing concern now is whether food prices are going to sky-rocket this year. Petrol is going up for sure (well, at least the price of Ron 97 petrol will be reviewed at the end of every month), as are property prices. How anyone earning RM3,000-00 a month in the Klang valley is going to make ends meet especially if he has a family, a house loan and a car loan to service, is beyond me. And a government minister had sanguinely observed that RM3,000-00 would henceforth be recognised as the new threshold for the high income group. Hahaha, Really Datuk. I had no idea.

North Korea

Rogue states like North Korea should be taken out forcibly by an international expeditionary force sanctioned by the United Nations. They are a threat to world peace and are not only illegitimate, but hopelessly corrupt and criminal. There is no basis whatsoever for such a regime to continue to exist on paper or in fact.