Archive for category Political
What really goes on in Perak? Continues!
Posted by Jackson Lim in Political on May 13, 2009
* To get the full understanding on the Perak situation, please read the first part.
The high court in Kuala Lumpur rules that the opposition party should call the shots in Perak, ok now that is final. But BN are still not happy with that result, they appeal. BN wants the enforcement to be postponed until further notice, the funny part is the court agrees with BN’s appeal and now BN will rule Perak until further notice. As a commoner, I really do not understand why the court allow the postponement to commence.
While the big shots upthere fighting for seats, how about the people’s wellfare? The political situation in Perak has been unstable for nearly 4 months now and the battle still goes on. Roads can be built in 4 months, old folks home can be repaired in 4 months, the public transportation system can be improved in 4 months, but instead the big shots up there using all the resources they have to hold on to their seats. Who is more important? The big shots or the people? The people does not vote the politician to create a soup drama up there, they want to see real change down here.
Now lets step back and recompute the situation, 3 fella from the opposition jump ship to BN, the seats are not balanced, so what should they do in the first place? What is the most logical thing that the government or the big shots should do? Even I, a no body knows that they should held a by-election to choose new candidates to replace the seat warmer. Now I am not taking side here, but to me that is the fairest way of solving this situation. Let the people choose who they want, no politician have the right to argue about the logic, because it is plain common sense.
I think if they follow their brain, and continue on with the by-election, my good friend in Perak wouldn’t have to get stuck in a traffic jam to go to work. Do you think he cares who is the big shots? All he want is to be able to go to work smoothly every morning, but who are we to complain anyway. We can’t change channel.
What really goes on in Perak? (For dummies)
Posted by Jackson Lim in Political on May 8, 2009
One of my buddies in Perak text me today because he is stuck in a terrible traffic jam for more then 3 hours in the morning, while he is on his way to work. He says 16 major road in Perak are closed off to the public because there is state legislative assembly, now what does state assembly have to do with the road being closed off? It is a quite a long story, let me try to oversimplify the story to a point where even a 3 year old kid can understand. I knew about this from the news I saw on TV, so please let me know if I get the fact wrong alright? Everybody knows some of the mainstream media in Malaysia are very one sided, it is like Fox news in US.
In the previous election the opposition won the majority parliament seat in Perak, so naturally they are the ones who call the shots after the election. Couple of months later 3 opposition party members quit from their pose, and they are all state assembly man. So now the Malaysian Government (A.K.A Barisan National A.K.A BN) have more seat in Perak that the opposition. They, I mean BN, went and told the Sultan about it, and base on Sultan’s will the opposition should step down and let the BN people take over, since they have the majority.
Now this is when things start to get interesting, some people, mostly from the opposition party thinks that there should be a by-election to let the common people decide who should fill up the 3 spots. Naturally BN is not happy about their ideas, so they accused the opposition party for disobeying the Sultan’s view. After about 2 month of apologizing, explaining, and finger pointing, the opposition finally shake the accusation off. So now instead of having a by-election (favorable to opposition), and following the Sultan’s will (favorable to BN), both of them let the court decide who should call the shots in Perak.
Some don’t like the idea either, so they call the commoners to wear black and gather outside the state assembly hall to protest against it. Police knew about the illegal gathering before the event take place and that’s why all the major road are seal off to everybody, even to those like my friend, who don’t really care about politics at all and just want to go to work. From what I read in the Newspaper, one Mamak stall in Perak is seal off by the police too, because they believe that it is the gathering place for the protesters.
So far there is no official results from the state legislative assembly, but rumor has it that BN will win.
Anwar vs Shabery – Today we form the government, tomorrow the oil price will drop
Posted by Jackson Lim in Political on July 15, 2008
After watching the live debate on TV between the opposition party’s leader Anwar Ibrahim and Information Minister Shabery Cheek, I felt somewhat relieve because most of my frustration and questions about how the current government control the oil prices has been presented eloquently by Mr Anwar Ibrahim. It has come to no surprise that Mr Anwar dominated the whole debate, but how the current government representative answer several valid questions from him really baffles me.
For instance, why the government choose to increase the oil price dramatically within a month? Why the government can’t even churn out RM 5 Billion Ringgit to reduce the current oil price by 50 cent? Now that is a valid question, Mr Anwar himself even gave several suggestion to his opposition such as reducing the outflow of diesel oil illegally to other countries, reduce wastage by the government and stop corruption. But the Information Minister failed to answer his question, and choose to lecture about Malaysian history. How the government form Petronas, why it is formed, and he even add in personal attacks to spice things up.
But that doesn’t solve people’s problem, although I have to admit that it made good television. Please bare in mind that I stand objectively between both parties, both politician have their own political agenda and the oil price issue can easily replaced with other local issues. But what I am concerned about is the quality of the debate, and what the outcome is after the debate. And from my impression, the government is still naive about the current economy state of the country. Mr Shabery Cheek touched about how low our inflation is compared to other countries even though our oil prices are high, we as Malaysian are lucky that he is not our finance minister.
Come on, I am not an economist but even I have the common sense that if oil price increased, food and other products will also increased because goods are delivered by trucks and planes, and trucks and planes need oil to run their engine, that’s it, simple as that. It really doesn’t make any sense to me when oil prices increased, food and product prices will remain the same. After Anwar state the bare facts, Shabery defend himself by talking about the history again, what is the situation of the country when Anwar is the no 2 man in the country, how his previous action has caused several companies to shut down in 1997.
Again our information minister steer away from the context and choose to attack Anwar personally, how does that solve people’s problem? In the debate Anwar remind him again and again that he will not entertain such personal attack, and ask him to stay in context, but does he listen? No. Again that clearly shows the childishness of the government representative, and how unprepared he is for such an important debate that is shown to millions of people. The government doesn’t have anybody else who is more eligible then Shabery? Why the prime minister himself doesn’t participate in the debate? Oh that’s right, spreading information by common sense is the Ministry of Information’s job. Silly me.
Base on what is mentioned on the debate, the government reduce the subsidy of oil since 2005 and base on the government plans, the money saved is used to increase transportation infrastructure of the country. But what do we, as the citizen saw in those 3 years? What are the plans that the government have for us people? All I heard is the “Curved” bridge from Johor Bharu to Singapore is canceled, the new bridge from Seberang Perai to Pulau Pinang is canceled, the Pulau Pinang monorail got no new update at all, the new railway system from north to south of Malaysia is delayed and now it will cost double to built. This is what I read from the local news since 2005, and I doesn’t see any increased of transportation infrastructure in the country.
The opposition mentioned about the transportation infrastructure, and Shabery response was, giving a 2 minute lecture on history, 1 minute of personal attacks and another 1 minute of stumbling around. The opposition tried to get an answer out of him, but he was politely stopped by the chairperson. Finally the debate ended with more question being thrown in the air, and non got answered within context. I really wonder why such debate are allowed by the government anyway, doesn’t that make them look worst then they already are. I think the government need a better PR, because the current one obviously suck at it.
At the end of the day, does the debate help solve people’s problem? I think the answer is obvious.