We are a nation of particularly thin-skinned individuals. We refuse to laugh at ourselves. And we abhor criticism. We worship our heroes to a ridiculous extent. And are a bit too hyper-touchy if an 'outsider' utters a single negative word about our sacred cows (too many of those, to begin with). Several biographies have been 'banned' by mysterious sources for mysterious reasons, because they do not adhere to the cheesy hagiography format we prefer. Any number of well-researched' credible biographies remain in warehouses because of arbitrary injunctions filed by interested parties.
I refer to the newly published book 'Kesilapan-kesilapan Najib' ( 'The mistakes of Najib' ) by a former UMNO division leader Shahbudin Husin which lists out Prime Minister Najib's numerous failures and calls for his withdrawal as President of UMNO and Prime Minister before the 13th general election.
It is obvious from the publication of this book that the 'knives are out' for Najib inside UMNO and that the movement to topple Najib from power has gained strength and become bolder. As it becomes increasingly obvious that UMNO/BN is headed for a historic defeat in the coming polls, UMNO leaders and factions are beginning to seek a scapegoat to blame for their failures and to wrest power for themselves.
No doubt Najib bears a large part of the blame for the current dismal state of affairs in UMNO. However, it is UMNO's own long-term collective failures that has brought them to this state.
Collective failures and gravy train
As a collective entity, UMNO did nothing to restrain Mahathir or end his reign of oppression and profiteering. UMNO chieftains and their relatives and cronies profited immensely from projects, contracts and other money-making schemes using state power and assets. Also included in the gravy-train were those from component parties MCA and MIC.
By the end of the Mahathir years, politics had become synonymous with business and the needs and grievances of the ordinary hard-working rakyat had been forgotten. UMNO has lost sight of what should have been its main job, which is the advancement of the happiness and interest of the rakyat, irrespective of political affiliation, race or creed.
Party coup won't save Umno or BN
This collective failure is the real cause of UMNO's troubles. For decades, UMNO has shown no vision or purpose beyond holding on to power and enriching themselves. Guilty as he certainly is, blaming Najib alone and removing him in a 'party coup' is not going to save UMNO or BN. Only thorough reform and a return to the service of the rakyat will save them. And this they are incapable of doing.
The country is facing major socio-economic issues at home and serious challenges from abroad, including the global implications of Europe's worsening economic troubles.
Plagued by in-fighting, morally corrupt and without purpose or vision, UMNO/BN cannot provide the leadership the nation urgently requires.
N Surendran is the vice president of PKR and a prominent human rights lawyer
It takes a liar to know another liar. So good luck to Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, if he has secured the services of Alastair Campbell, to help him plot his next moves, in the 13th general election. Campbell is as slippery as an ikan keli, and teeth as sharp as a barracuda. Anything he says should be taken with a pinch of salt.
After the recent furore about Malaya not being colonised, why is Najib taking orders from a “mat-salleh”?
Najib is deluded to think that a non-Malaysian can resolve Malaysia’s problems. It is only the Malaysians who have the power to find the solution to our many problems and we do not need help from outside.
Campbell’s services are not known to be cheap. How could Najib shamelessly use public money in a vain attempt to win votes and improve his international reputation?
Campbell must realise that Apco, CNBC and FBC all failed. In fact, Najib’s image plummeted when it was revealed that Najib had paid them millions of ringgits on futile PR drives to spruce up his image.
Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim tried to reveal the direct connection between Najib and Apco but Parliament suspended him before he could do so. CNBC and FBC only stopped because their illegal broadcasting was made public and they were under investigation.
Najib’s latest move is borne of desperation. He will cheat at the polls with his rigged postal votes and with non-citizens given voting rights. But he wants no loose ends and that is where Campbell enters the scene.
Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev won a crushing election victory in April, and it was alleged that Campbell had provided “consultancy services”. Kazakhstan is also known for its abuse of human rights.
Exchange of tactics
Perhaps, Najib feels more assured after the exchange of tactics during the marriage of his daughter, Nooryana, to the president’s nephew, Daniyar Nazarbayev.
Nazarbayev has ruled for over 20 years but international election observers said that the elections did not meet international democratic standards.
In addition, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) complained about the lack of transparency, competition and media freedom and said that “reforms necessary for holding genuine democratic elections have yet to materialise”.
Meanwhile, the Kazakhstan opposition claimed that they did not have sufficient time to prepare for the election and one human rights leader, who is also a former Senate member, said: “We have not had fair elections in 20 years.”
All of which sounds very familiar and could easily be a description of Malaysia.
With the 13th general election looming, Dr Mahathir Mohamad is plotting behind the scenes and Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin openly maligns Najib’s every move. Najib is a lonely figure and in dire need of someone who can help him secure enough votes for a Barisan Nasional win. But Campbell?
Campbell, who was once former British premier, Tony Blair’s communications chief, has been described as Blair’s right-hand man, the other half of his brain, his trusted friend, ally and protector.
Najib’s obsession with spin and image is his own undoing. He thinks Campbell is the man for the job only because Campbell made sure the message of new Labour was received by the British public.
Dodgy character
Campbell delivered Labour and Blair two landslide victories despite Blair’s administration fabricating so many lies and failing to deliver many of the promised reforms.
But Campbell is as dodgy a character as his “dodgy dossier” in which he was prepared to lie for his master, Blair.
When challenged, he denied that he had sexed up the writing of the September 2002 dossier, to make the case for Britain to go to war with Iraq.
He was also responsible for the February 2003 (“dodgy”) dossier which plagiarised parts of a thesis written by an Iraqi PhD student. He avoided criticism by blaming it on his subordinates.
When the Queen Mother died, there was friction between Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street because Campbell wanted Blair to play a more prominent rolé in her funeral.
Campbell’s critics claim that his methods are questionable, that he is aggressive and uses “strong language”.
His supporters say that Campbell is talented, is loyal and has a slave-like devotion to the Labour cause. They describe his work as being similar to the creative director in advertising, who has been tasked with selling a brand or product.
So will Campbell relish the challenge of selling Najib, whom Malaysians consider a tainted piece of goods, as a marketable brand?
‘Deranged, vindictive’
Naturally, Campbell denied via twitter, that he had anything to do with Najib and that it must have been his double that was spotted in Kuala Lumpur.
But Campbell cannot be trusted and many who exchanged words with him in the past, have alleged that he is both a bully and a liar. Greg Dyke, the sacked BBC director-general, described him as “deranged, vindictive and out-of-control”.
What will the working relationship of Najib and Campbell be like? Campbell did not think twice about contradicting Blair in public and he relished mocking the mannerisms of individual journalists.
More importantly, how will the self-styled “First Lady”, Rosmah Mansor, take to Campbell?
In his book, Adam Boulton described Campbell as the second most powerful man in Britain. Will Campbell be the second most powerful person in Malaysia?
Cherie Blair forsook her friend Carol Caplin who advised her on her hair and clothes. Campbell objected to their friendship and told a tearful Cherie: “Cherie, listen to me, I’m a journalist. I’ve got a nose for these things. That woman is trouble.”
A conman will never allow another person to have any influence over his “mark”.
Would Rosmah take orders from Campbell and be told whom she could befriend?
Perhaps we should look forward to another instalment of Campbell’s diaries, this time detailing the Najib premiership and what happens in Malaysia’s “First household”.
Campbell’s published diaries described the first two years of Blair’s premiership; he wrote about Cherie wearing a pendant to “ward off evil spirits”.
What will Campbell write about Rosmah? Will he mention her alleged visits to bomohs?
Campbell revealed how Blair would consult the Bible before making key decisions and in 1998, prior to ordering the bombing raid on Iraq, read a passage about John the Baptist.
Would Campbell tell us that perhaps, Najib would read chapters from the Quran before ordering the police to attack peaceful demonstrators with water cannons, batons and tear gas?
Malaysians do not need Campbell to tell them what to do. They know what to do if they are displeased with the current administration.
Campbell’s true character and methods of operation have been well documented. Let’s just wait for the exposé of the soiled linen from the Najib household and administration.
As it is unusual under any circumstances for cows, or for that matter pigs, goats or rabbits to buy luxury condominiums, we feel compelled to report on it. We are quite certain that this is a first in the world achieved by a Malaysian cow.
It may very well have done it in tribute to former premier Mahathir Mohammed, a man who was always on the search for the next grandiose achievement, in a perpetual attempt, as any amateur psychologist could tell you, to compensate for his own inadequacies.
DAP’s Lim Kit Siang asked today if anyone will be jailed over the alleged financial abuse in a publicly-funded cattle farm owned and run by a federal minister’s family.
The opposition leader’s comments come in the wake of last week’s public debate on the National Feedlot Centre (NFC), operated by Women, Family and Community Minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Jalil’s husband and children.
Allegations of financial impropriety have dogged the project after the Auditor-General revealed last month that the NFC had failed to meet production targets for 2010, despite benefiting from a RM134.72 million soft loan from the government.
“The prime minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak or his deputy, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who was agriculture minister when the NFC project was first mooted and approved, should answer this question in the minds of most Malaysians: ‘Shouldn’t someone go to jail?’” Lim said in a statement today.
He said the question was uppermost in the minds of Malaysians after Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin defended the NFC’s purchase of a RM10 million upscale Bangsar condominium as a “strategic” investment.
Lim (picture) also questioned the inaction of the national anti-graft agency in probing claims that millions in federal funds meant for the cattle farm had been used for other purposes, in violation of strict loan conditions.
“If the cast of personalities involved in the NFC scandal had all involved Pakatan Rakyat leaders and their family members... there is no doubt that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) would have swooped in on the case from day one,” he said.
Shahrizat’s husband and children should come forward to clear the air given the numerous contradicting statements issued in defence of the NFC by Umno leaders like Khairy, Lim added.
“It is time that her husband Mohamad Salleh Ismail, her children Wan Shahimur Izran, Wan Shahimur Izmir and Wan Izzana Fatimah, break their silence,” he said.
“They should appear in the public to explain the numerous queries, contradictions and inconsistencies... especially as the explanations and justifications made on their behalf such as by [Khairy] have only dragged the Shahrizat family and the NFC scandal deeper into the mud.”
The Auditor-General’s Report released last month criticised the NFC for not meeting production targets, adding that the project was now “in a mess”.
The report said production last year was only 3,289 head of cattle or 41.1 per cent of the target set for 2010.
PKR has alleged that the RM250 million soft loan was used to fund operations of associated companies also owned by Shahrizat’s family, in violation of strict loan conditions.
But this article is not about an obstinate donkey, it is about a greedy cow.
Another failed project
To keep up appearances, they will be quite happy to throw good money after bad.
In any case, it has worked out for the cow, which is now the owner of a RM10 Million luxury condominium in One Menerung in Bangsar!
This is in stark contrast to the average Malaysian who struggles to pay for his non-luxury dwelling from his flat income which is already under siege by rampant inflation.
Grossly inflated prices
Inflation caused by an incompetent BN administration which is currently printing money to pay debts incurred by too many government purchases whose prices are grossly inflated by corruption.Like, for example, the entire NFC project, which seems crafted to enrich just a few individuals, including of course, one happy well-connected family.
Like the purchase of the Scorpene submarines, floating languidly and uselessly, no doubt, somewhere in the South China Sea. And soon we will have blatantly overpriced Patrol Boats, whose engines, perhaps, will promptly fall off as soon as they’re started.
Meanwhile, those who would like to see the most expensive barn in the world, may drive past One Menerung in Bangsar. You will, of course, not be allowed in. You are not a cow, after all.
Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak’s flurry of reforms in the last couple of months, raises disturbing questions about his desire to make Malaysia the “best democracy in the world”.
Who stands to benefit most from his idea of the “best democracy” in the world? The rakyat or the Barisan Nasional (BN) political elite?
The naïve rakyat, who are lulled into a sense of security by Najib’s rash of reforms, may think it will be the main beneficiaries. On the other hand, BN’s political elite and their cronies hope to woo the electorate by appearing to accede to calls for political reforms and then undo the reforms, after they have secured a win.
Judging by the number of times BN has reneged on election promises in the last 54 years, it will be the latter group who will benefit.
Any reforms, which BN announces now, are purely cosmetic. They give the appearance that Najib is listening. It is like a roué wooing a schoolgirl with sweet talk, before he has his way with her. He walks away smiling, because she was fool enough to believe him. He outsmarted her.
That is the danger the rakyat faces now – to be lulled into thinking Najib will enact the reforms that he has promised. After the 13th general election (GE), he will sing a different tune, if BN wins.
BN’s promise of reforms is pointless when all other aspects of BN rule ignore human rights, the rule of law, endemic corruption and economic enhancement. The “best democracy in the world” is not one which elevates one race but ignores the others.
A government which allows family members and close associates to benefit in multimillion ringgit projects is not fit for purpose.
Launching personal attacks on members of the opposition and smearing their children’s reputations are morally wrong, distasteful and will backfire.
The prime minister’s reputation was trashed after his disastrous handling of the July 9 Bersih 2.0 “pro-democracy march”. This was a terrible blow for someone who values spin and image above all else.
So, Najib felt compelled to pull out all the stops to try to rebuild his image both within his own party and with the rakyat.
He started with the repeal of the Internal Security Act (ISA). Just like the magician doing his illusory show, who made the rabbit disappear, he then produced two more from a hat. Yes, Najib promised that there would be two new laws to replace the ISA.
Why did a sea change envelope Najib and make him repeal the ISA? For several decades, various groups which wanted the ISA abolished were ignored, but with the 13th general election around the corner, Najib acquiesced.
Paramount importance
Najib’s deputy, Muhyiddin Yassin, who is also the education minister, was adamant that science and mathematics should be taught in Malay.
Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad joined in the chorus to maintain the teaching of these subjects in English. Parents vowed to vote for the opposition. The day after announcing his final decision, Muhyiddin was forced into an embarrassing U-turn.
In Najib’s “best democracy in the world”, a Muslim girl can get married and start a family as soon as she reaches puberty, without her parents’ consent. Some girls reach puberty at nine years old.
At 18 years old, teenagers can drive a car and buy cigarettes, but they can’t vote until they are 21.
Furthermore, the Universities and University Colleges Act (UUCA) prohibits students from engaging in any political activity.
It isn’t just the students who are restricted. Any academic who does not toe the political line may find himself suspended and his academic career in jeopardy. Compare the two university lecturers, Professor Abdul Aziz Bari and Ridhuan Tee. Mind control is what Umno-BN is after and not freeing the mind for intellectual expression and advancement.
As we have only one chance to reform our government and vote for a party that will govern properly, the run-up to the 13th general election is of paramount importance. It matters to all of us.
Najib and BN are doing a magic trick. What has BN done to improve the lot of the rural population in the more economically deprived areas? Some kampungs and longhouses still lack water, electricity and proper roads. Schools and clinics are poorly funded.
And yet, the prime minister, his self-styled “First Lady”, their family and his political party have spent billions of ringgit on personal travel, luxury goods and bribes, all funded by the taxpayers.
One way is to deprive these people of their luxuries, so they can focus their efforts on solving the nation’s problems. For example, we should make them commute to work using public transport.
That means taking away their chauffeur-driven cars, their outriders and the police who restrict traffic on the roads when these VIPs travel. Once they suffer the traumas we go through, our public transport system might not be in such a deplorable condition.
When Najib made his maiden speech at the UN general assembly, he talked about rejecting extremism and being a moderate. So why does he don the cloak of racism at home? Does he have a split personality or is he just a scheming con-man who knows which side his electoral bread is buttered?
Electoral fraud
Former Umno minister Abdul Kadir Sheikh Fadzir admitted that BN had bought votes in many elections, but the typical Umno reaction is shown by Umno Youth leader Khairy Jamaluddin who demanded proof of these accusations.
In the past months, electoral fraud on a grand scale has been uncovered and Umno-BN and the Election Commission have not provided plausible answers.
Instead of acting on these serious allegations, and in an attempt to divert the rakyat’s attention, Umno attacked the opposition with charges of supporting the communists and released more sex videos of the Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim.
The rakyat should support calls for the coming general election to be postponed until after ALL the recommendations (on electoral reforms) have been implemented. Promises of reforms are not good enough.
However, the other course of action is to register to vote.
Do not boycott 13th general election. All votes are critical because the amount of cheating is going to be massive. This will be the dirtiest election in the history of Malaysia.
As Americans take to the streets against the exploits of Wall Street and outsized corporate influence, untried legislators halfway across the world will decide whether to legalize freedoms of assembly and expression for their long repressed people.
The upper house of Burma's nascent parliament is debating the "Peaceful Gathering and Procession" bill, one of many tests to determine if the eight-month-old semi-civilian government will recognize basic human rights in its domestic law.
The fact that freedoms of assembly and expression are being debated at all represents a welcomed sea change in Burmese politics, but the extent to which the legislation would ultimately protect the right to peaceful assembly or curtail it remains unclear. The draft text has been kept from public scrutiny -- strike one -- and proposed authoritarian-leaning restrictions in the bill are starting to surface -- strike two.
One reported amendment would require protest leaders to submit full bios to the state. This provision would not only deter applications, but it could also help hardliners be that much more efficient in locking up dissidents, an all too common occurrence: There are still an estimated 1,700 political prisoners in Burma, including U Gambira, an organizer of the 2007 pro-democracy protests who is currently in need of urgent medical care. Just last week, 15 political prisoners went on a hunger strike in Insein prison, protesting their incarceration. "They have been denied drinking water," according to Amnesty International, "and eight of the prisoners have been held in cells designed to hold dogs."
This doesn't bode well for a bill that would require protesters to put themselves on the radar of the authorities, formally registering their dissent.
Another amendment in the bill would require protesters to seek pre-approval from the state for any slogans uttered on the picket line, abridging the right to free speech. Should this bit pass, free speaking demonstrators might find themselves behind bars, or even in dog cells, all by force of law.
Of course, the bill might not pass in any form. The Democratic Voice of Burma reports that MPs aligned with the dominant military establishment are arguing the country is not ready for any freedoms of assembly or expression, while others claim Burma needs to first deal with the many ongoing armed conflicts in the ethnic territories (a revealing non sequitur) -- those conflicts are exceedingly brutal and worsening, according to Human Rights Watch, the Kachin Women's Association Thailand, and many others.
Few are acknowledging that Burma is already legally bound to respect the right to freedom of peaceful assembly through its own treaty obligations under international law, including the core conventions of the International Labour Organization, and through customary international law that guarantees fundamental freedoms. This gets to the heart of an important question about the interpretation of rights, and a central challenge to the international human rights movement: If you don't have the domestic right, do you still have the human right?
Legal positivists are quick to point out distinctions between moral rights and legal rights, arguing that human rights advocates often mistake what ought to be a right with what is a right. In 1792, the trailblazing positivist and utilitarian Jeremy Bentham famously referred to what we would today call human rights as "nonsense on stilts," going against the now ripened grain of international law, which has since made quite a bit of room for what the old school would have called natural rights. Bentham was decidedly unimaginative. "From real laws come real rights," he wrote in Anarchical Fallacies, "but from imaginary laws, from laws of nature... come imaginary rights."
Most contemporary positivists of international law remain focused on determining whether so-called human rights meet the requisite elements to graduate a moral value to a legal right. If the right or value is found in a human rights treaty, in international custom, or in general principles of international law, you've most likely got yourself a legally recognized human right, or so the recipe goes; notwithstanding, of course, formidable problems of enforcement.
But the human rights movement is more than a legal movement. It's also a moral movement. Many human rights, such as freedom of assembly, need not require positive legal force before they can be coherently asserted as a human right. History is replete with examples of civilians exercising rights to defiant states that didn't recognize their rights. These cases usually do not bend our legal sensibilities, and they usually make moral sense.
Consider Burma again, where throngs of peaceful protestors took to the streets in 1988 and 2007 demanding a combination of democracy, freedom for political prisoners, and national reconciliation with the country's embattled ethnic nationalities. When the armyopened fire on them, killing over 3,000 in 1988 and over a hundred in 2007, the international reaction was one of shock. There was no defensible argument the people shouldn't have been on the streets in the first place. They had the right to be there - the human right.
Still, legislating human rights into national law continues to be the bread and butter of international and domestic human rights movements, and therein is Burma's present opportunity. A failure by its parliament to establish basic human rights in domestic law, generously and with minimum restrictions, will send the wrong message to the world. It will serve to prolong economic sanctions imposed by the West and could provide the country's nefarious elements with more legal arguments to lock up dissidents.
Let's hope the peaceful assembly bill doesn't become a law worth peacefully protesting.
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