Khalid to seek audience with Sultan on forming govt

 

Last night, PKR de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said there will be no new cars or office renovations for the Opposition’s new state executives. 

He reminded opposition state executives that they were voted in to fight corruption and mismanagement and they have to set higher standards. 

“They must subscribe to the code of ethics such as transparency, good governance and accountability,” he said. 

Since they will be using current amenities and facilities, they will not surrender the old cars to outgoing office bearers. 

“Some mentris besar in the past spent half a million ringgit to renovate their offices. Such things cannot be an example in this new administration,” said Anwar. 

Khalid to seek audience with Sultan on forming govt

read:

Excesses under Khir Toyo

Wither Malaysia under BN ?

Khalid to seek audience with Sultan on forming govt

 

Last night, PKR de facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said there will be no new cars or office renovations for the Opposition’s new state executives. 

He reminded opposition state executives that they were voted in to fight corruption and mismanagement and they have to set higher standards. 

“They must subscribe to the code of ethics such as transparency, good governance and accountability,” he said. 

Since they will be using current amenities and facilities, they will not surrender the old cars to outgoing office bearers. 

“Some mentris besar in the past spent half a million ringgit to renovate their offices. Such things cannot be an example in this new administration,” said Anwar. 

Khalid to seek audience with Sultan on forming govt

read:

Malaysian opposition scores upset – CNN.com

 

“Today, at the ballot box, you listened to your heart with a firm conviction that the time for change has arrived,” Anwar said. “The people of Malaysia have spoken. This is a defining moment, unprecedented in our nation’s history.”

Malaysian opposition scores upset – CNN.com

Malaysia’s Political Earthquake

 

… If Abdullah Badawi is indeed ousted as prime minister and head of the United Malays National Organisation, his replacement is likely to be Najib Tun Razak, the scandal-scarred deputy prime minister, who has been UMNO’s most energetic powerbroker in recent years.  And, as some critics have pointed out, it would be delivering UMNO back to the people who got the party into trouble in the first place through scandal, Malay chauvinism and corruption.

…

…Khairy Jamaluddin, Abdullah Badawi’s son-in-law and a figure who has polarized voters against the prime minister, won in his first run for parliamaent as well.

… there has been widespread disgust over surging crime rates, increasingly tense race relations, spiralling inflation and a perception of corruption, particularly at the top of UMNO, due to a long series of highly public scandals.

…

Although Najib Tun Razak, 54 and the son of one former prime minister and the nephew of another, is considered the man most likely to push Abdullah Badawi from power, he has been enmeshed in some of the country’s biggest scandals. He has never been asked to explain his role, if any, in the brutal murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu, a beautiful Mongolian translator who was executed by two of his bodyguards and whose body was then blown up with explosives available only to the military in September 2006.

…

However, Altantuya herself may have been peripherally involved in at least one questionable episode involving Najib himself. In court testimony, it was said that she was in Paris with Najib and Abdul Razak, with whom she was having an affair, when the purchase of three French submarines was being negotiated through a Kuala Lumpur-based company called Perimekar Sdn Bhd, which at the time was owned by yet another company called Ombak Laut, which was wholly owned by Abdul Razak Baginda.

The Malaysian Ministry of Defence, which Najib headed as defense minister, paid 1 billion euros (RM4.5 billion at that time) for the purchase of the submarines, for which Perimekar received a commission of 114 million euros, a whopping 11 percent of the ales price of the submarines.

Together with the submarine purchases, two other contracts – one for Russian Sukhoi jet fighters and a third for Malaysian navy patrol boats – appear to have produced at least US$300 million for UMNO cronies and others.  All three of the contracts were approved under Najib and have been widely cited by the opposition as examples of UMNO – and Najib’s – corruption.

Asia Sentinel – Malaysia’s Political Earthquake

Read:

Graft in Malaysia’s Defense Ministry ?

Najib-Altantuya photograph, court did not ask witness to produce photograph

Altantuya case raises some troubling questions in Malaysia

Najib denies links to Mongolian model

Najib in trouble?

The Standard – Hong Kong’s First FREE English Newspaper

 

Opposition icon Anwar Ibrahim hailed “a new dawn for Malaysia” yesterday after stunning election results that cemented his political comeback after being sacked and jailed a decade ago.

The performance has even revived talk of the charismatic 60-year-old as a future prime minister, after the lost decade that followed his 1998 fall from grace when he was convicted on sex and corruption charges.

Anwar delivered a crushing blow to the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition by rallying the opposition parties to their best performance in Malaysian history, seizing four states and more than a third of parliamentary seats.

He weathered personal attacks during the campaign from Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi’s ruling party.

A jubilant Anwar said the opposition now had to prove it was a credible alternative to the coalition which has dominated politics for half a century. “It is a new dawn for Malaysia,” he said. “People want to see justice.”

Anwar’s Keadilan party won 31 seats for the biggest opposition presence in the new 222-seat parliament, from just one in the outgoing parliament.

The Chinese-based Democratic Action Party won 28 and the Islamic party PAS won 23.

Anwar said the results exploded Malaysia’s race-based political structure, under which parties have traditionally represented individual ethnic groups.

“The opposition that has been voted in is a truly multiracial party. It is a fantastic setup,” he said.

“I will help the Malays, but it will be done justly, and in the same breath I will help the Indians and the Chinese.”

Political observers said Anwar may rule the country if he manages to consolidate the parties’ successes.

In further victories for Anwar’s family, his wife Wan Azizah Wan Ismail extended her majority in her constituency in the island state of Penang, while his daughter Nurul Izzah Anwar won her first election fight.

Mohamad Agus from the National University of Malaysia said the coalition’s rhetoric that Anwar was no longer relevant had sowed the seeds for its defeat. “They adopted a denial syndrome. They failed to realise that Anwar represented the symbol of justice and had the capacity to woo voters across any age-group,” he said.

…

The Standard – Hong Kong’s First FREE English Newspaper

Read:

Malaysia under BN

Malaysia PM Blunder May Be Costly to Him

 

Ordinary Malays also are unhappy, many charging that the benefits of the New Economic Policy are being reaped only by rich and well-connected Malays.

…

Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim campaigned on a platform that urged people to look outside race-based politics. Although the opposition parties are also identified by race, they have agreed to build a multiracial alliance where all races will be treated equally.

“What is crucial now is how the opposition works as a coalition,” Welsh said. “The mandate given to them has created a national opposition for the first time.”

Malaysia PM Blunder May Be Costly to Him

Read:

wither Malaysia under BN ?

Malaysia’s ruling party suffers worst upset in national polls – International Herald Tribune

 

“This is a defining moment, unprecedented in our nation’s history,” said opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim. “The people have voted decisively for a new era where the government must be truly inclusive and recognize that all Malaysians, regardless of race and color, culture and religion, are a nation of one,” he said.

Malaysia’s ruling party suffers worst upset in national polls – International Herald Tribune

Read:

The excesses under BN government

BN – indecisive, intolerant of excesses

 

Hurt by a combination of bread-and-butter issues and a poor choice of candidates, Mr Abdullah has come to represent everything negative about the ruling coalition — indecisive and tolerant of excesses.

TODAYonline

Read:

Malaysians fed up with BN’s excesses

The excesses under Khir Toyo

Gulfnews: Malaysians have spoken

 

Some analysts choose to see it as a maturing of voters, able to go beyond racial politics that have been the blueprint for electoral victory in Malaysia. But, more significantly, others see it as the people’s way of showing they had had enough of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi’s weak leadership, which they blame for rising inflation, crime and racial discrimination.

The results were a far cry from the 2004 elections, which saw the National Front win 91 per cent of the seats. Badawi, their saviour in the 2004 election, has turned into an albatross. “He let us down,” said Noor, a Malaysian in Dubai, adding Badawi had been sleeping on the job.

Race issue

Going into the elections, Badawi already had a few strikes against him. There was the race issue, stoked by decades of affirmative action policies that favour the Muslim-Malay majority, from education to government contracts over other ethnic minorities, including the Chinese and Indians.

Always simmering underneath the crust of Malaysian politics and society, the issue finally came to a head in November last year with a mass demonstration by ethnic Indians, who say the policies have left them in poverty. Concerned urban Malays also defected, choosing multi-racial PKR instead.

…

Too many people have been disillusioned by Badawi, who had four years to make good on his reformist, anti-graft agenda. Many of the policies he instituted became just symbolic gestures, such as a movement to incorporate Islamic principles to further progress, and an accountability programme requiring the public to assess public officials, including ministers.

“Abdullah [became] the epitome of bad things that leaders can do. People feel they had enough of all the rhetoric and lies,” Tian Chu told Gulf News.

Gulfnews: Malaysians have spoken

read:

Malaysians have enough of BN government ?