KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 4 — Barisan Nasional (BN) has wrested the Galas state seat in Kelantan from PAS and retained the Batu Sapi parliamentary seat in Sabah, in a significant victory for the ruling coalition.
The wins will give a major fillip to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and BN amid widespread speculation that he will call snap polls by the first quarter of next year.
In Galas, BN’s Abdul Aziz Yusoff obtained 5,324 votes while PAS’s Dr Zulkefli Mohamed received 4,134 votes.
The margin of victory was 1,190 votes
And in Batu Sapi, the official Election Commission results show that BN’s Datin Linda Tsen Thau Lin obtained 9,773 votes to win the seat by a majority of 6,359 votes. Her PKR opponent Ansari Abdullah obtained 3,414 while SAPP’s Datuk Yong Teck Lee received only 2,031 votes.
Live In At Your Own Risk!
In electoral science, statistics are illustrative, interpretation is critical and everything is fluid. Politics is evolutionary, and evolution - even Darwin’s - is a theory, not a fact. No election is an echo of the past, let alone a mirror of the future. It is a striking feature of the emerging world that democracy becomes a major determinant of how thing shape up. Non-state actors like the third force terror groups are not under the complete control of states, but cannot survive if democracy were to take root in the landscape that provides them with recruits, justification and motivation.
Governments don't like uneasy questions. Criticism or suggestion is like water off a duck's back to them. What's more exasperating is how bullheaded politicians can get when there's an outcry against what they do. Nothing can pierce their rhino-hide unresponsive or manipulative politicians, and ineffectual media has come a new philosophy of the press. This theory, called civic or public journalism, holds that delivering the news to the doorstep may not be enough, that journalism organizations need to develop innovative ways of drawing a reluctant citizenry into their public affairs.Some are politely stubborn, some brazenly rude and a couple of others frazzle us with their stony silence.
Most people pay close attention to politics and government only during times of crisis or when government actions directly and personally affect them. For example, only a slight majority in one survey (average 56 percent) can identify any congressional candidate in their districts during campaigns, according to communications researcher W. Russell Neuman. [3] The ordinary American is not actively monitoring and analyzing issues, attending meetings, helping candidates or otherwise participating in public affairs.
"A more realistic model of the typical citizen acknowledges that most political learning is fragmentary, haphazard and incidental. The citizen does not 'study' the candidates but rather picks up bits and pieces of information over time, gradually accumulating a composite picture of the prominent issues and candidates. This is a process of low-salience learning. The key distinction is between information seeking and information acceptance,"
For their part, the news media do not seem to be engaging their audiences in public affairs. Many academic studies find that the news media do not have significant impact on their audience. And those studies that do find impact, find only subtle effects. the power of the media has been "exaggerated," not only because of the uninterested public but also because of competition from entertainment media and inherent constraints and limitations of the media to inform and persuade. He particularly points to the shallowness of much journalism, for example, the focus on horse-race campaign coverage.This ideology, in turn, is fed by a diverse mix of oppressive experiences that Muslims have been undergoing in different parts of the world. Absence of democracy is a huge factor in the causes of such oppression of Muslims. Muslims are oppressed, for the most part, by Muslims themselves, but since it is not very difficult to argue that the framework of oppression is supported by the global arbiters of power,
There couldn't have been a better time for satirists and lampoonists and many have, indeed, blunted their pencils on the job. But you pine to look for sharper, more pungent comments on this theatre of the absurd, something that's appropriately wacky, and like the course of events, stops tantalizingly short of the climax. Just like our mantris skip, skirt or stonewall issues and show an unwillingness to carry forward an argument.
It is a striking feature of the emerging world that democracy becomes a major determinant of how thing shape up. Non-state actors like the third force terror groups are not under the complete control of states, but cannot survive if democracy were to take root in the landscape that provides them with recruits, justification and motivation.
Democracy’s effect on states is far from straightforward, admittedly, but ultimately redemptive. Democracy within did not prevent the US from testing nuclear bombs on Japan but ultimately prevented it from using terminal violence against Vietnam.
Clockwork
A thirsty man sat down for a drink at a pub in Bangalore and looked at the clock. When he was served his second drink, the clock struck 11. Another man came in, ordered his drink and sat watching the clock. When the second man was served his second drink the clock struck 11.30. A third man came in just then, ordered his drink and hid his wrist-watch in his pocket. A fourth man came in seconds later and banged his fist on the clock.
That's it. Now let's go out and watch that family sipping nimbu pani in their car parked by the roadside and talk of ticking bombs and moral hours.
The Warrior
Once upon a time there was a knight who fought all the looters of the royal treasury. He fought them all one by one and recovered all the gold, diamonds and pearls. He threw them out one by one, through the palace gates. And when he turned, the dogs barked. One by one, they clambered up the wall behind him and took their gilded thrones again. The knight mounted his horse…
Within seconds, the gates opened and a carriage laden with groceries entered. Somebody spoke of preparation for a grand feast to celebrate the kingdom's anniversary and somebody else replied in hushed tones that a courtier was charged of sexual misconduct.
Always Ahead
K was driving back into town with his family after a weekend outing. Just around the bend he saw a speeding white car behind them and jammed the brakes.
"Why on earth did you stop to give way?" his wife asked.
"That's the government and it should always be ahead," said K with sly grin.
Even before they crossed the next milestone, the big white car blocked K's way. Two burly men pulled him out from the car, kicked and abused him. "No smirks, the government is always right," they thundered.
The lights went out and the story had to be abandoned midway. The telephone rang and the government declared: "There is sufficient light at the end of the tunnel."
A major factor hindering peace in the Middle East is the absence of democracy in the Arab regimes that nominally back an independent Palestine. With internal elections already an established tradition, Palestine can be created as a state only as a democracy and this would be destabilising for the autocracies that surround it. Israeli democracy, too, stands drained of meaning by the way it treats Palestinians. Advance of democracy in the region is the way to peace and modernity in the region.
to crude attempts to export democracy. However, the idea must sink in that democracy is a potent force for modernity and peace in the emerging world and that India and the US can make significant contributions for the advancement of democracy, jointly and severally, in forums such as the UN, in groupings such as the G20, in their own polities, in the way in which they treat people and their opinions, particularly those who dissent, and in their response to the throttling of democracy abroad.
Democracy is politics and extension of politics by other means in the interconnected world.
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