It would be fantastic if he can speak in the Parliment.

It would mean an injection of new Good Force in the Parliment.

Is it 100% sure that DSAI is not allowed to contest in this coming GE before April?

Can he contest in an by-election soon after this GE in case of a vacancy becoming available?

Lacking death among winning MP’s, is there any opposition MP that is willing to vacate his/her post for DSAI to contest soon after April?

Just an unkind thought.

nat: yes, yes, yes :) it’s not an unkind thought at all :)

First video: Abdullah was evasive and successfully so. That at least you can give him credit for. (The unkind way to read this is that he is ’slow’, though one must allow for the fact that this was intended.) CNN made him look stupid by (a) showing Hindraf footage while he was talking about how everyone is generally happy and doing well and (b) juxtaposing questions about the poor in his country and the poor in the Muslim world.

Second video: As a well-meaning bystander, I have this piece of advice for Anwar Ibrahim: he should be careful about participating in ‘academic’ discussions such as this — they do not put him in a good light. In this clip, note that Anwar does not answer any question posed to him. He also parrots Kishore Mahbubani half the time without seeming to understand what he is saying. And he makes wild leaps…lots of statements side by side that have nothing to with each other (or the question), giving the impression that the evasiveness may be a general lack of strategy rather than deviousness which might at least be admired if nothing else.

In short, Anwar is about rhetoric over substance. I would not say there is no substance — there is not just not enough for a discussion like this, which for a politician is COMPLETELY FINE. I merely beg to suggest that he consider carefully not engaging further in such forums. This is not the first time he has…how to put it gently…revealed the lack of substance in a more ‘academic’ forum and this has not gone unnoticed. Anwar does well with kampung ceramahs and even slightly higher-brow talks. He should stick to those.

Final snide remark, perhaps: the Al-Jazeera ‘moderator’ did not do a good job. This was more a firing of random questions in unpredictable directions rather than moderation of a discussion where one would expect some pitting of interlocuters against each other, some provocative questions, actually listening to what the panellists are saying… etc. :-P

What kind of leader does Malaysia have?
He couldn’t lead the way out of a open cage!