life in truth of UMNO Gangsters, Intellectual and Politics failed Human rights Moment

But eventually the ANWAR lost  patience with  UMNO.

Najib was speaking about the Umno’s crony agenda. Not the Malay agenda. For those reasons we must do the exact opposite. Deny these so-called Malay leaders a chance to concentrate power. It’s power which they shall apply to the misfortune of the majority of Malays and to the misfortune of this country. Give us power, … Read more

Does an intellectual - by virtue of his efforts to get beneath the surface of things, to grasp relations, causes and effects, to recognise individual items as part of larger entities, and thus to derive a deeper awareness of and responsibility for the world - belong in politics?

Put that way, an impression is created that I consider it every intellectual's duty to engage in politics. But that is nonsense. Politics also involves a number of special requirements that are relevant only to it. Some people meet these requirements; others don't, regardless of whether they are intellectuals.

It looks like the 13th General election will not be held early next year after all – most likely towards the middle of 2012 instead.

UMNO watchers say after the recent annual assembly, it has become clear the party and the BN coalition it leads will be headed for steep losses if Prime Minister Najib Razak tried to stage GE-13 in January or February, as he had been expected to.

Uninspiring leadership and a lack of vision

Top on the list of impediments was Najib’s failure to inspire his party and the nation at the assembly. Instead of charting a course for the Malays and Malaysians, he could only whip out tired old messages that only UMNO could protect the Malays, while bashing the opposition Pakatan Rakyat coalition.

The RM250mil NFC financial debacle involving  Wanita UMNO’s Chief Shahrizat Abdul Jalil and her family was also another destabilizing factor. The Shahrizats have been accused of misusing as much as RM181million of a government soft loan of RM250mil to give themselves huge salaries, buy condos and cars, pay for holiday trips, and acquire residential land and so forth.

Najib and his Deputy have fiercely defended her, rather than seek accountability at arm’s length. This was possibly the worst thing they could have done as it gave UMNO delegates at the General Assembly and Malaysians across the country the impression that the party’s ruling elite condoned graft, and would do everything to cover up for each other.

“We are now looking at May or June. The hints are already there, Khairy (Jamaluddin the UMNO Youth Chief) has said he can only give the list of candidates for his wing in another 2 months’ time and Ali Rustam (the Malacca Chief Minister) has also been quick to admit that the state’s list of candidates is not ready,” an UMNO veteran told Malaysia Chronicle.

“Of course, those who smiled and rushed to say they are only too happy to let Najib decide will be the ones to watch. These are the usual two-headed snakes and you can be sure they will stir up the biggest problems and infighting.”

It was clear he was referring to leaders including ex-Terengganu Menteri Besar Idris Jusoh, who has a long running feud with his successor Ahmad Said. Rivalry among party chieftains also exist in Negri Sembilan, Perlis, Selangor and Johor.

The Mother of all Infighting set to erupt

But perhaps, the greatest ‘show’ put on was when Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin declared he was “the most loyal deputy”, in a bid to douse talk that he was gunning for Najib’s position in party polls slated for the second half of 2012.

It is significant that while the UMNO Deputy President pledged loyalty, he did not promise not to challenge Najib for the presidency.

“That’s right, the biggest rivalry will be between the two of them and neither can afford to let go or to give way, because after GE-13 will be the UMNO party polls. Whether UMNO wins or loses the federal government, there will still be a fight to be the UMNO President. Mind you, there are a lot of assets in UMNO and it can always make a comeback in GE-14. Whoever has more MPs on his side will have the stronger chance of winning the Presidency, which will still be a much coveted post,” the UMNO veteran said.

“If Najib loses the federal government, of course, he can kiss the presidency goodbye but there are others like Abdullah Badawi and Mahathir Mohamad. They are all waiting at the wings and will also want to have their men in place, so that they too have better bargaining power and get a stab at the top seat later on.”

How many seats each for Pakatan and BN

However, there are some who believe that GE-13 was more likely to be in March or at latest April as UMNO had to hold its polls by October and needed 6 months for the entire process, which also involves a lengthy nominations process at the divisions throughout the peninsula and Sabah.

Counteracting these factors is Selangor Pakatan Rakyat’s announcement that they would not hold simultaneous elections unless GE-13 was held after June 2012. Pundits also point out that Najib was now trying to delay GE-13 as much as he can because he needs time to try and win the hearts and minds of the people.

However, instead of shifting to the centre, Najib is expected to move further to the right and the Pakatan Rakyat led by Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim can expect a very rocky six months ahead.

Non-Malay Malaysians, especially the Chinese, and those of Christian faith are also expected to be mercilessly attacked as UMNO and Najib pushed ahead with their ill-advised strategy to ‘corner’ the Malay electorate.

“They have already given up on the non-Malay vote. This is why some of the delegates at the assembly called for BN to field only UMNO candidates at GE-13. Why give MCA or Gerakan or MIC any chance when  they will surely lose.

In Sarawak, they are banking on Taib Mahmud’s PBS and have written off the other parties which are likely to lose to DAP and PKR. In Sabah, they stand to lose many seats and basically can depend only on Sabah UMNO and even that is shaky because Musa Aman (the Chief Minister) is so unpopular,” the pundit said.

Latest odds racked up by election watchers now put Pakatan ahead of UMNO, winning between 120 to 122 seats overall and UMNO 102 to 100 seats. Gerakan and MIC are expected to be wiped out, while MCA may retain at most 3 of their 15 seats.

REFORM ROTTEN POLITICS UMNO’S LATEST PATRONAGE SCANDALS Any democracy is hobbled without an Opposition. Are we condemned to replicate PAKATAN at the national level — where a government wheezes, gasps and limps triumphantly to the finish line because there is no other horse in the race? This is the fundamental reform India needs, to lead on … Read more MAHATHIR EGO IS UNFLATTERING MAHATIR’S MARTYRDOM WASHED AWAY BY HIS MISTAKES FROM PUBLIC MEMORY

Never before has politics been so dependent on the moment, on the fleeting moods of the public or the media. Never before have politicians been so impelled to pursue the short-lived and short-sighted. It often seems to me that the life of many politicians proceeds from the evening news on television one night, to the public-opinion poll the next morning, to their image on television the following evening. I am not sure whether the current era of mass media encourages the emergence and growth of politicians of the stature of, say, a Winston Churchill; I rather doubt it, though there can always be exceptions.It is my profound conviction that the world requires - today more than ever - enlightened, thoughtful politicians who are bold and broad-minded enough to consider things that lie beyond the scope of their immediate influence in both space and time. We need politicians willing and able to rise above their own power interests, or the particular interests of their parties or states, and act in accordance with the fundamental interests of humanity today - that is, to behave the way everyone should behave, even though most may fail to do so.

To sum up: The less our time favours politicians who engage in long-term thinking, the more such politicians are needed, and thus the more intellectuals - at least those meeting my definition - should be welcomed in politics. Such support could come from, among others, those who - for whatever reason - never enter politics themselves, but who agree with such politicians or at least share the ethos underlying their actions.

I hear objections: Politicians must be elected; people vote for those who think the way they do. If someone wants to make progress in politics, he must pay attention to the general condition of the human mind; he must respect the so-called "ordinary" voter's point of view. A politician must, like it or not, be a mirror. He dare not be a herald of unpopular truths, acknowledgement of which, though perhaps in humanity's interest, is not regarded by most of the electorate as being in its immediate interest, or may even be regarded as antagonistic to those interests.

I am convinced that the purpose of politics does not consist in fulfilling short-term wishes. A politician should also seek to win people over to his own ideas, even when unpopular. Politics must entail convincing voters that the politician recognises or comprehends some things better than they do, and that it is for this reason that they should vote for him. People can thus delegate to a politician certain issues that - for a variety of reasons - they do not sense themselves, or do not want to worry about, but which someone has to address on their behalf.

Of course, all seducers of the masses, potential tyrants or fanatics, have used this argument to make their case; the communists did the same when they declared themselves the most enlightened segment of the population, and, by virtue of this alleged enlightenment, arrogated to themselves the right to rule arbitrarily.

The true art of politics is the art of winning people's support for a good cause, even when the pursuit of that cause may interfere with their particular momentary interests. This should happen without impeding any of the many ways in which we can check that the objective is a good cause, thereby ensuring that trusting citizens are not led to serve a lie and suffer disaster as a consequence, in an illusory search for future prosperity.

It must be said that there are intellectuals who possess a very special ability for committing this evil. They elevate their intellect above everyone else's, and themselves above all human beings. They tell their fellow citizens that if they do not understand the brilliance of the intellectual project offered to them, it is because they are of dull mind, and have not yet risen to the heights inhabited by the project's proponents. After all that we have gone through in the twentieth century, it is not very difficult to recognise how dangerous this intellectual - or, rather, quasi-intellectual - attitude can be. Let us remember how many intellectuals helped to create the various modern dictatorships!

A good politician should be able to explain without seeking to seduce; he should humbly look for the truth of this world without claiming to be its professional owner; and he should alert people to the good qualities in themselves, including a sense of the values and interests that transcend the personal, without taking on an air of superiority and imposing anything on his fellow humans. He should not yield to the dictate of public moods or of the mass media, while never hindering constant scrutiny of his actions.

In the realm of such politics, intellectuals should make their presence felt in one of two possible ways. They could - without finding it shameful or demeaning - accept a political office and use that position to do what they deem right, not just to hold on to power. Or they could be the ones who hold up a mirror to those in authority, making sure that the latter serve a good cause, and that they do not begin to use fine words as a cloak for evil deeds, as happened to so many intellectuals in politics in past centuries.