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Nervous, Defensive, Pre-Election BN Promises

BN is a monster with a lot of resources. I imagine even bad guys understand the importance of intelligence.

Thus, when you scrutinise the statements BN leaders are making these days, you can bet that they say what they say based on good research regarding what Malaysians are feeling.

Najib has been hitting out time and again on the petrol prices issue. He knows that people are feeling the pinch, and he knows that people are increasingly aware that petrol prices are skyrocketing, because the less petrol subsidies the government has to pay, the more Petronas money there is for BN leaders to rob.

Defence Minister Najib’s own doling out of RM 530 Million in commissions to Abdul Razak Baginda and the fact that ALL the money the government ’saved’ in petrol hikes - some RM 4.4 Billion was lost in one swift stroke in the RM 4.6 Billion ’soft-loan’ to corruption-ridden PKFZ project has not gone unnoticed by the people.

For the kind of explanations that have Najib’s knickers in a bunch, see the video below.

Abdullah is still saying the most stupid, inane things. Can you imagine newspaper headlines that read “I am in full control of the government.” Any dolt who has to publicly declare that to the world is obviously barely in full control of his faculties, much less of political power.

A reputation is something that cannot be covered in words. Wednesday’s Star showcased this quote from Abdullah too: “We are not making empty promises.”

When you have to start saying things like that, you’re clearly grasping at straws. The PM’s intelligence is telling him that people don’t trust him, but it appears that hollow statements are all he can think of to battle this crisis of confidence.

No wonder Mahathir has his face in his hands, thinking about his successor.

Frequent reminders that Malaysia is fast falling in the competitive ladder also prompted Abdullah’s spin doctors to try and concoct some spin about world rankings.

Luckily, Malaysians aren’t stupid, and research revealed the manner in which data was twisted to make Malaysia look better than it actually did.

A joke has been going around: Malaysia is ranked the most competitive country in the world!….. for countries with a population of 27,484,000lah!

Today, no less than three newspapers frontpaged new crime-fighting measures, just days after bettermalaysia.com launched a hard hitting crime leaflet.

The measures proposed by the authorities have merit, but why only now, when we are on the brink of an election?

Are these ideas so ground breakingly new? Or are they simple ideas that could have been implemented any time? Ideas that may have saved Nurin or at least Sharlinie?

Actually, we don’t even have to go so far. Notice how all your potholes are being patched up lately?

This last minute scrambling and desperate attempts are designed to fool us. Untuk tipu rakyat lagi.

Will you fall for it? More importantly, will you let others fall for it?

Video on Petrol Prices;

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Opposition Unity

Is hard to come by, I know. And I also know it’s really distressing when it seems like the three main parties can’t get their act together.

KeADILan in particular seems to be getting hit from all sides - supremos of both other parties have had very critical things to say about us lately. I’m glad our equivalents of LKS and TGNA have not resorted to such attacks.

Nonetheless, I think it is also unwise to be taken in by sensationalist media reports. Instead, I counsel patience.

If all the Opposition parties agreed on everything, they’d be one party, not three. I for one personally wish this was often the case, but wishing is.. unproductive at this juncture.

So as long as the parties remain separate, this bickering is always possible. I don’t like it any more than you do, and if ever I’m up there, I will do my best to structure things such that there are much less conflicting interests than there are now.

In the meantime, as I said, patience.

To provide some context, one of the thorny issues are the non-Malay majority seats. Obviously all hot stuff right now, these are not easy to let go. I think some quarters would still prefer that KeADILan only contest in heavily mixed, but still Malay-majority seats.

We’re happy to contest those, but I think it goes against the multi-ethnic spirit of the party to just let Pas and DAP contest the Malay and Chinese majority seats while we take what’s left.

I would personally be eminently disappointed if we take over government only to be the new racially divided Umno/MCA/Gerakan or what not - that’s just silly, and goes against everything I believe in.

We’re the only party in Malaysia whose ethnic make-up even remotely mirrors that of Malaysia, and we should act like it.

So yes, I do believe that for ideology, and in recognition of our hard-working non-Malay members, KeADILan should include every type of seat along the ethnic spectrum in its to-contest list.

All that said, I do value unity. I am also extremely optimistic that after these somewhat venomous volleys, reason will prevail, and just like in Penang, an accomodation will be reached that will benefit all of Malaysia.

Let’s be patient in the meantime, be not hasty to judge, and let’s see what comes out. Those of us on the inside are doing our very best to reach a fair, equitable solution.

ps- more on this in the upcoming second part of my Why Opposition essay.

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The Flaws of the Opposition

Finally completed my ‘magnum opus’ on the state of the Opposition over at bolehland :P

I’ve actually written even more, but will need to edit the rest, somewhat less readable stuff. I’ll print both pieces here later.

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BetterMalaysia.com

A new website was launched today, designed to enable every single Malaysian to do their part to make a better Malaysia.

Do read about the site’s goals, how you can be a part of the movement, and most importantly, how to spread the word.

This is the first BetterMalaysia.com project, spreading awareness about the rise in crime. Distribute widely!

BM version available, other languages coming soon.

I’m going to leave this up here for a while, as I attend to some obligations, including answering yet unanswered questions on this blog! :)

 

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Malaysia 8th most competitive? Research reveals deceptive spin

It’s all over the papers - NST, The Star, Utusan.

We’re 8th most competitive in the world?

At least NST had the decency to include the caveat:

The Institute of Management Development, in its 2007 World Competitiveness Year Book, placed Malaysia in eighth place in terms of competitiveness for countries with populations of more than 20 million.

The bolded part of course, is the giveaway.

So we went to do some research, and found the actual scoreboard for this 2007 World Competitiveness Year Book.

Here’s what it really says:

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As you can see, on a global playing field, we’re a distant 23rd. The magic number 8 only comes out when you eliminate 15 countries above us that have less than 20 million people.

For reference, we were ranked 22nd in 2006, and 17th in 1997.

I don’t know about you, but that sounds to me like a pretty lame attempt to hide the shameful failure of the Abdullah administration to truly invigorate the economy.

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Lingam Video pt. III Released

Transcript available at suarakeadilan.com and other KeADILan websites.

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Dollah fumbles on CNN: This is Malaysia’s ‘great leader?’

I tell you, today’s protest put me in a foul and unhappy mood. More on that later (see suarakeadilan.com and Malaysiakini if you’d like some news).

But this, oh this lightened things up.

Can you imagine what the world thinks of us? That we are a nation led by….. this?

Plane flying overhead? More likely he dozed off for a minute there :P

Perhaps a blow by blow when a transcript comes out.

Two posts on this in a row is purely coincidental, but just for contrast, here’s a little of what the alternative Malaysian PM sounds like on international media (there are probably even better ones, may change these later).

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