Voting with Dollars: A New Paradigm for Campaign
The questioning will end up with the lady rolling up her sleeves shifting the sarong letting MACC a sleek preview inside: "I have enough files on your bosses. I can send them over but maybe I will put them on the Internet. So I think we just do a ‘sandiwara' (act) for the sake of the public."
Voting with Dollars: A New Paradigm for Campaign
As I've said many times earlier, such business model is doing business without risk and without cost of capital. We have a functioning economy, why must the government be concerned with high-end beef supply and beef prices alone?
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Mustafar Ali reveals the case has been classified under Section 23 of MACC Act for abuse of power, which carries a maximum jail term of 20 years.The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) will soon submit its investigation papers on the National Feedlot Corporation (NFC) fiasco to the Attorney-General’s Chambers for any further action.The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission …Read more RAJA NONG CHIK SAYS DESPERATE MEASURES THE NATIONAL FEEDLOT CENTRE (NFC) SCANDAL. A MAXIMUM JAIL TERM OF 20 YEARS.HANGING OVER DATUK SERI SHAHRIZAT ABDUL JALIL
NAJIB TO SHARIZAT IF I HELP YOU WILL DRAG ME AND DROWN ME
The next General Election, the 13th, is widely expected to be called on paper between May this year and April/May next year when the five-year term of the present Parliament ends. The five-year term of Parliament is calculated from the first day of the first sitting of the first Parliament for the term/tenure.
Once Parliament is dissolved, elections would have to be held within two months.
However, if Parliament is not dissolved within its five-year term, it stands automatically dissolved at the end of that term. In that case, elections would have to be called within six months. This factor might be playing on Malaysian Prime Minister Mohd Najib Abdul Razak’s mind, desperate as he is to stretch out his term in office.
GE-13 can even be in second-half of 2013!
Najib seems to have come to the conclusion, albeit grudgingly, that there are no guarantees that he will be Prime Minister after GE 13. That may be the sole reason why his wife, Rosmah Majid, is forever off somewhere on shopping sprees if not hunting for a spot in exile at the expense of the people.
Whether Najib will be Opposition Leader and/or allowed to do so by his deputy Muhyiddin Yassin – rooting for a Mahathir dynasty -- and Mahathir Mohamad himself is a RM 1.5 billion question.
Najib does not have a mandate of his own.
He continues to shamelessly ride on that obtained by his sacked predecessor, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, in 2008. Mahathir was able to get rid of Badawi because the Umno Supreme Council members, corrupt beyond redemption, are in his pocket.
Najib should have obtained his own mandate by now but he fears, as he has never feared before in his cushy life so far, the prospect of testing the electoral waters on his own.
No Prime Minister has been that fearful in the history of the country. Najib just doesn’t have the guts to ignore Mahathir and his (Mahathir’s) Umno Supreme Council and call for the 13th GE and accept like a man whatever is in store for him. Neither has he the foresight to make a deal with the opposition alliance to accept his faction at least into their government-in-the-making and save the political dynasty built by his late father.
Too risky for BN to call GE-13 now
There are no permanent friends and no permanent enemies in politics, only permanent interests. That doesn’t mean the opposition alliance will accept Mahathir as well unless he agrees to flee the country for good and leave his ill-gotten gains behind.
There’s too much at stake to go for the GE 13 now and even go for it at all, not just for Najib who is not that big a factor, but Umno, the establishment and the entire system which stands at risks of being dismantled and many of its members incarcerated for very long stretches, if not for good.
This is one reason why the Prime Minister declared not so long ago that he can always do what his father, 2nd Prime Minister Abdul Razak, did in the wake of the searing race riots between the non-Malay communities and the Malay-speaking communities in Peninsular Malaysia in 1969. However, Najib was quick to add that he “would not do so”. But why mention it if he has no plans to do so? Was that a veiled threat to vote him back into power or else?
Najib was referring to the declaration of a state of emergency, the shutting down of Parliament, suspension of democracy, the shutting out of the political parties, and the setting up of the National Operations Council under Abdul Razak as Direction of Operations.
Abdul Razak also set up the National Consultative Council, with its members drawn from various walks of life but not the political parties, in lieu of the disbanded Parliament. He chaired the NCC.
Abdul Razak went on to form the Barisan Nasional, a concept which circumscribed the democratic process and denied the majority meaningful participation by endorsing elite power-sharing. The BN which was formed included the opposition parties which had made spectacular gains during the 1969 polls.
Emergency rule and forcing DAP to join BN
It will be a sheer miracle if Najib does not do what his father did in 1969/1970 considering his sudden morbid fear of going to the polls and especially with Mahathir breathing down his neck to achieve the impossible: get back the ruling Barisan Nasional’s (BN) coveted two-thirds majority in Parliament.
There are attempts being made to force the Dap to join the BN.
At the same time, Umno does not seem to reckon with the fact that its legislators will abandon Mahathir for good – notwithstanding his Big Black Book of Everyone’s Sins -- and flee in droves to the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) after the 13th GE “in order to buy political protection and avoid a stint behind bars, if not bankruptcy and/or the prospect of being reduced suddenly to abject poverty”.
When that happens, Taib in Sarawak -- notwithstanding his and his maternal Uncle Abdul Rahman Yakub’s Big Black Book of Everyone’s Sins -- will become an instant turncoat, and will be among the first to fall down on his hands and knees shamelessly in Putrajaya and beg Anwar Ibrahim for forgiveness. Taib will sell anyone, even his recently dead mother whose funeral he didn’t attend, to get what he wants.
The Mahathir factor
Even Mahathir has now concluded that Najib will not be able to win back the two-thirds majority in Parliament, let alone win GE with a simple majority, and is urging that GE be further delayed.
Mahathir’s excuse for the delay is that Najib needs to win back the Chinese. How so? Accept the Dap?
What will Mahathir advise Najib next: declare a state of emergency to force Dap into a corner?
He didn’t mention the Indians who, although not have a single ethnic-majority seat in Malaysia, decide the winners in 67 of the Parliamentary seats in Peninsular Malaysia.
Mahathir also did not mention the need for Taib Mahmud to win back the Chinese in Sarawak. There are seven Chinese parliamentary seats at stake are set to fall to the Pakatan Rakyat (PR), the opposition alliance.
East Malaysia
Sarawak itself would be an unmitigated disaster of sorts considering that the BN is not expected to do any better in Peninsular Malaysia than it did in 2008 and the fact that it cannot repeat its last performance in Sabah.
In the Land Below the Wind, the assessment among the opposition is that it can take 40 seats in the state assembly i.e. 18 non-Muslim Dusun – including Kadazan or urban Dusun and Murut – 16 Muslim seats including Dusun Muslim and eight Chinese seats.
This will translate into at least 20 seats in Parliament and coupled with the seven Chinese Parliamentary seats in neighbouring Sarawak, the opposition alliance will have a rich haul of 27 seats in the next Parliament from Malaysian Borneo. This assumes that the opposition, in a worst case scenario, will not win any Dayak or Malay parliamentary seats in Sarawak.
The spoiler in all this is the Sabah Progressive Party (Sapp) which is determined to go for the 40 state seats – the same seats expected to be won by the opposition -- in Sabah.
In return, they are prepared to allow the opposition to contest the other 20 – and unwinnable – state seats at stake in Sabah and also allow them to contest the majority of the 25 Parliament seats in the state. Labuan provides another seat in Parliament.
It’s difficult to get over the feeling that Sapp is in cahoots with Umno to sink the opposition’s chances in Sabah.
Electoral reforms
Najib has previously cited the need for ensuring that electoral reforms are in place before calling for GE 13. We must wonder what is his interpretation and understanding of electoral reforms if not doing something to favour his electoral chances.
The issue of electoral reforms only arose because the opposition pointed out that the electoral process was not free and fair. After the so-called electoral reforms now supposed to be underway, elections will be even less free and fair to the opposition under some cosmetics changes to give some semblance of being even-handed. It’s a numbers game.
Najib had also mentioned not so long ago that he wants his GTP (Government Transformation Programme), ETP (Economic Transformation Programme), KPI (Key Performance Index) to be all in place before elections can be called.
All these are cosmetics and gimmicks on paper. His latest desperate gamble, instead of introducing real reforms, is to keeping throwing public money, but only on paper, at problems to buy voter support: new salaries for the already bloated and underworked civil service of 1.4 million; RM 100 each for school children; RM 500 each for those households earning less than RM 3,000 per month; some measly funds, again on paper, for Hindu temples even as they are demolished, Tamil schools, mission schools, Chinese interests and the like.
Inevitable Umno will lose power
God alone knows where all this is leading in the weeks and months ahead. We should all get down on our hands and knees and start praying for our country.
It’s pay back time for all the evil that has been perpetrated during the last half a century and more of rule by those who stepped into the power vacuum created in the country when the colonial British authorities departed for good.
However, order can only come from chaos. It was Dr Stephen Hawking, the famed University of Cambridge physicist, who reminded us that the only predictable property of the universe is chaos.
Malaysia will not be under Umno and BN forever. The country cannot be an oasis of peace, progress and stability forever given the gross injustices being perpetrated in the country by the powers-that-be.
All things, whether good or bad, - ugly, beautiful or evil – must come to an end one way or other. There’s no escaping karma – the scientific law of cause and effect – which is neutral but is perceived in the human mind as good, bad, ugly, beautiful or evil.
It’s only those who can accept his or her karma that can neutralise it. The same goes for nations and political parties, especially Umno, who has had far too good for the past 55 years.
If ever the government wants to do something to help, it should be in the form of facilitation, not direct involvement.
If the National Feedlot Corporation (NFC) was given soft loans and other direct assistance, how would other beef suppliers compete in the country? Wouldn't this project alone have created economic distortion which may cause other beef suppliers to cut down beef supply?
The government can't break up the monopolies by going into the business. The government can however help to break up monopolies by ensuring the market place is more competitive.
But in Malaysia today, it is always the other way round - helping crony companies to become monopolies and then pretend to help the rakyat by dishing out subsidies and resorting to ineffective price control.
Look, I have studied long enough to know that these are all baloney aiming at enriching the ruling elites. It was never about helping the people or to make the economy more efficient.
Wybie: People such as PKR strategy director Rafizi Ramli deserve our salute. These are the bumiputeras that the nation should be grooming. They are capable of taking on the best of Chinese and Indians. They don't need New Economic Policy (NEP) crutches.
Negaraku: I saw the debate in London between Rafizi and Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin. I am most impressed with Rafizi. He gives an image of sincerity, professionalism and leadership. It's not a surprise that he will be a great leader in the near future.
Good men: Watch the Rafizi interview with Malaysiakini. It's very heartening to see young, professional and articulate leaders coming through. If this is the future Pakatan has to offer, then there is hope indeed for Malaysia.
Urkidding: It is simple. Ask any banker - RM250 million soft loan for someone who knows nothing about cows? The bank's risk officer will tell you, ‘no, no, no.'
More so, such a loan was released not progressively, which is again beyond the norm. The best part is the loan is given without any guarantee, mortgage and any other form of security.
Try going to the bank and borrow RM5,000 and see what they tell you. I salute you, the whistleblower, whoever he is.
Blind Freddo: Of course, the project was doomed from the beginning. Feedlotting of cattle is a highly sophisticated and technical enterprise with tight financial margins.
It is an enterprise not to be taken on by rank amateurs. In fact, the whole idea as proposed by the Agriculture Ministry is a farce, promoted through ignorance and a total lack of understanding of cattle, feed supplies, the economics of feedlotting and the beef demands of Malaysians.
Good men - there is Rafizi and there is PJ Utara MP Tony Pua ... then there is a huge gap empty of any intelligence or the ability to think. The rest is just a congealed mass of greed, repression and hunger for power with no tangible goal apart from their own self enhancement.
Sentinel: I've always loathed the double standard of white collar crime being considered less malevolent or immoral than a common street crime.
If an unscrupulous welfare administrator embezzles RM300,000 from starving schoolchildren, it is considered a lesser crime than a bank robbery at gunpoint.
What's the difference? The real difference is that the bank robbers have the guts to risk their own lives to get what they want; the spineless namby-pamby cream puff embezzler does not.
Changeagent: Be careful, little 'jambu'. You don't want Shahrizat Abdul Jalil to say that you're interested in her Wanita Umno chief's position or call you 'cun' again.
Try going to the bank and borrow RM5,000 and see what they tell you. I salute you, the whistleblower, whoever he is.
Blind Freddo: Of course, the project was doomed from the beginning. Feedlotting of cattle is a highly sophisticated and technical enterprise with tight financial margins.
It is an enterprise not to be taken on by rank amateurs. In fact, the whole idea as proposed by the Agriculture Ministry is a farce, promoted through ignorance and a total lack of understanding of cattle, feed supplies, the economics of feedlotting and the beef demands of Malaysians.
Good men - there is Rafizi and there is PJ Utara MP Tony Pua ... then there is a huge gap empty of any intelligence or the ability to think. The rest is just a congealed mass of greed, repression and hunger for power with no tangible goal apart from their own self enhancement.
Sentinel: I've always loathed the double standard of white collar crime being considered less malevolent or immoral than a common street crime.
If an unscrupulous welfare administrator embezzles RM300,000 from starving schoolchildren, it is considered a lesser crime than a bank robbery at gunpoint.
What's the difference? The real difference is that the bank robbers have the guts to risk their own lives to get what they want; the spineless namby-pamby cream puff embezzler does not.
Changeagent: Be careful, little 'jambu'. You don't want Shahrizat Abdul Jalil to say that you're interested in her Wanita Umno chief's position or call you 'cun' again.
Adnan Abdullah: does the right thing - they do contract farming for the supply of chickens to KFC and Ayamas. This benefits farmers all over the country. The excess they export.
NFC was intended to be just that, but unfortunately got hijacked by politicians before they could take the first step.
Malaysia ABU: This Malaysiakini interview gives a very good insight of the NFC scandal. Good work, PKR, Rafizi and team.
The government said they are trying hard to attract foreign direct investments (FDIs), but giving a soft loan for a family to invest in Singapore...? Satu lagi projek BN.
Anonymous_5fb: It is obvious this is how Umno is siphoning rakyat's hard-earned money to their cronies. It is not only obvious, but 'dubious'.
NFC is just one of the veils behind this siphoning scam like what we see in Perwaja, Indah Water, PKFZ (Port Klang Free Zone), highway projects, IPPs (independent power producers) and so on in the name of 'privatisation'.
On hindsight, 'piratisation' is the more apt term to use. Now, they are finding a scapegoat for this NFC, and close the case after that. Poor things, even cows are being used as their sacrificial lambs.
Instead, it has to be somebody from PKR. Party strategy chief Rafizi Ramli has done a better job of sleuthing than the whole MACC apparatus - it's a total waste of taxpayers' money to support this useless and murderous extension of Umno.
Lim Chong Leong: How can we trust those investigating when they were the very ones who insisted there was nothing to investigate in the first place?
James1067: It sounds like an invitation for questioning, but we all know tea and curry puffs were ready for the chit-chat.
The questioning will end up with the lady rolling up her sleeves and telling MACC: "I have enough files on your bosses. I can send them over but maybe I will put them on the Internet. So I think we just do a ‘sandiwara' (act) for the sake of the public."
Akucina: A prediction - lack of evidence, no further action, case closed.
Mirror on the Wall: A picture paints a thousand words, they say. The photos of the minister being greeted in such a cordial manner say volumes about Malaysians not being treated equally in the eyes of the law.
But we must also remember that she is not the accused in this matter. So, I wonder why how this so-called summons by the MACC is supposed to help put out the NFC fuse? Perhaps 20 years ago it might. Not today!
Democrat 53: Look at the reception she received? As many have commented, it was similar to how they received ex-Selangor MB Dr Mohd Khir Toyo but only here, there would be a clean up of all the evidence.
The only problem MACC and NFC are facing is Rafizi Ramli's ‘slow release' of the transactions and he is doing a great job at it. They do not know what is going to come out next.
As for Shahrizat, she will be let off and dropped from the GE13 list of candidates. Anyway, she has RM250 million and properties all over the region.
Changeagent: "Excuse me? Excuse me? How dare you ask such a redundant question? Of course, I'm here as a suspect lah.
"My husband and children are all involved in this scam, so whether I am directly involved in the running of the NFC or not is immaterial.
"The fact is that this kind of arrangement leaves a lot of room for breaches in conflict of interest by a federal minister, manipulation and abuse of public funds.
"Trust me, I do understand how the public are perceiving my role in this whole fiasco. After all, I used to be a lawyer and magistrate so I'm not really that dumb. But you have to understand my predicament too.
"I must say and act irrational now because it is the only defence that I have against the serious but factual allegations leveled against me and my family."
Armageddon: Two hours of questioning for a RM250 million scandal. Compared that with Teoh Beng Hock's.
TaipingPandian: I hope that this will be another one of a million ‘wake-up calls' for Malaysians that Umno and its crony component parties (MIC and MCA included) are not working for the people but only for themselves.
The Malay community can see that nepotism, corruption and the lack of transparency have become a culture in Malaysian politics. Gone are the days that Umno can say that they represent the Malay community and Islam.
Queenie: Shahrizat has already said she has nothing to do with the project. The project was given to her family to run and the RM250 million soft loan as well.
DPM Muhyiddin Yassin should know more as he was the agriculture minister at the time. Remember, he was tasked to investigate to see if a solution can be found to resolve the NFC fiasco, whatever that means.
There appears that an abuse of the loan had been committed by her husband and children. Let's see what the MACC can come up with. Any which way, she is one big liability to Umno.
Anomnim: I am sure she will be okay and return home for dinner unlike some other people from opposition who never did.
Shahrizat takes dig at opposition 'stalker'
Anonymous_3e4b: All Umno leaders are useless. When under attack, all they know is to swear on the Quran, attack a person's character and talk stupid.
They can't produce evidence to counter the attack - the reason being because they have none. And what has being ‘girlish looking' got to do with what has been wrongly spent by NFC?
Wira: Yes, Umno leaders also smeared Penang CM Lim Guan Eng's family but he was able to prove that it was all a sinister lie by being open. Be open, Shahrizat. Prove the ‘stalker' wrong with facts and data.
Lim Chong Leong: Shahrizat, if you have a good explanation on the NFC, please say it out. Don't just poke fun at your accuser. Answer the charges made against you.
Changeagent: Haha, Shahrizat is such a funny woman. Maybe she should seriously consider a career in stand-up comedy when her political career comes crashing down like a deck of cards as a result of the NFC scandal.
A comedy career in the prison circuit, perhaps.
Refusing to give his Republican opponents an edge, President Obama has just blessed a Super PAC to rally his own billionaires for election year combat. While it's only natural for him to maintain parity, the president should also call upon Congress to pass a statute that forces the Supreme Court to reconsider its extreme position in Citizens United.
It's a mistake to treat Justice Kennedy's opinion for the Court as written in stone. To the contrary, Kennedy explicitly says that it "surely" would be a "cause for concern" if "elected officials succumb to improper influences from independent expenditures." He simply found that Congress hadn't established that improper influence was a real problem, and even suggested that he would give "due deference" to such a finding. The president should call on the House and Senate to take up Kennedy's invitation. Congress no longer needs to speculate on how "independent" Super PACs, controlled by each candidate's loyalists, might degrade our politics. The latest figures already show Super PACs allied with Republican presidential candidates have collected $70 million -- almost half the $155 million the candidates have collected on their own. In the cases of Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, the "independent" Super-PAC is the dominant financial player. If Mitt Romney fails to win a clear majority by the time he gets to Tampa, the financial backers of these minority candidates will have real weight in defining the deal that puts Romney over the top. With Obama joining the fray, Super PACs will be playing a very large role in the general election as well.
While this is inevitable, the president should call for a statute that urges the Supreme Court to make this the last election that lurches toward plutocracy. Congress should pass a law that puts the Court on notice of emerging realities. After formally finding the facts, the statute should grant the Attorney General standing to urge the judiciary to issue a declaratory judgment repudiating Citizens United in the light of changed conditions.
Congress has used this strategy before. Section Ten of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 took aim at the Breedlove case, in which the Supreme Court had squarely upheld the poll tax in federal elections. Section Ten responded by finding, after lengthy hearings, that the tax "imposes unreasonable financial hardship" and "precludes persons of limited means from voting." It then directed the Attorney General to urge the Justices to overrule Breedlove in the light of its factual findings. On signing the act, President Johnson followed through, announcing that "tomorrow at 1 p.m., the Attorney General has been directed to file a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the poll tax."
The strategy proved remarkably successful. While lower courts generally treat Supreme Court precedent as binding, the Justice Department used the Congressional findings to convince the courts of appeal to ignore Breedlove and declare the poll tax unconstitutional. The Supreme Court then dealt the final blow by declaring all poll-taxes unconstitutional in its landmark decision of Harper v. Board of Elections. The Court announced its decision just as the Section ten cases were reaching its docket. But its great turnaround cannot be understood without recognizing the role of Congress and the president in shifting the terms of the constitutional debate. (See the detailed study by Bruce Ackerman and Jennifer Nou, Canonizing the Civil Rights Revolution: The People and the Poll Tax, 103 Nw. U. L. Rev 63 (2009).)
Congress should take the same path today. Perhaps the five judge majority in Citizens United will be unimpressed by Congress' statement of real-world facts, and its assessment of the dangers of pervasive corruption that lie ahead.
But perhaps not. It is very likely that Justice Kennedy simply didn't predict the revolutionary implications of his decision. While constitutional revolutionaries like Clarence Thomas or Antonin Scalia might dismiss Congressional findings, Justice Kennedy is of a Burkean disposition -- attentive to the facts, and reluctant to endorse radical change. If given the opportunity, he may well lead the Court to rethink Citizen's United basic premises.
It is in nobody's interest to see the Court's legitimacy damaged as Super PACs increasingly erode Americans' fundamental commitment to democracy. The Court should be given a second-chance to engage in a collaborative effort with the president and Congress to define the meaning of free speech after confronting the hard truths of American politics.
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